Batman 1 - Batman (10 page)

“I’m sorry, Vicki,” he whispered. He turned and ran into the crowd.

“Bruce!” she called again. But he was gone.

O
n The Spot Action News!

Mayor Borg and that new guy, Harvey Dent, both looked suitably uncomfortable. Oh, they were trying to hide it, but—

The
On The Spot Action News
news-woman shoved a microphone in the mayor’s face.

“Does this gang war dampen the city’s plans for the two hundredth anniversary festival?”

“The festival opens,” the mayor blustered. “The police will stop these gangsters!”

Well. Thank you, Mayor. It was always gratifying to get some recognition.

“Mr. Dent,” the
On The Spot Action News
woman continued, “what do you think of the theory that the mysterious ‘Batman’ is a mob enforcer killing these men?”

What?

The television screen shattered as the Joker screamed with rage.

“Batman?
Batman!
Can somebody please tell me what kind of a world we live in where a man dressed as a bat gets my airtime?” He opened the pincers, pulling the giant, retractable boxing glove out of what had once been a television screen. “This city needs an enema!”

He tossed the boxing-glove apparatus to the floor and jumped from his chair, storming out of his newly refurnished lair. Bob, who had just walked in the door, dutifully followed him out onto the floor of the newly remodeled Axis Chemical.

The Joker stopped by a couple of his highly paid scientists. He had to shout to be heard over the machinery noise.

“Have we shipped a million of these things?”

“Yes, sir!” the scientists chorused.

“Ship it all!” the Joker cheered. “Untangle the knots. Roll the wheels. I’ve got my blood up!”

The scientists put down their clipboards and rushed to obey.

The Joker moved on, with Bob in close pursuit. The Joker banged open the door to his very special room. The room had no windows and very little ventilation. It was in the very bowels of Axis Chemical.

Ah, but what it did have!

The walls were covered with scenes of war, the very best photographs from the very best family magazines. But what was on the table was even better, stacks and stacks of folders, with all those special initials—FBI, KGB, CIA. The Joker especially liked the one on top:

DDID NERVE GAS—
RESULTS OF PRELIMINARY EXPERIMENTATION

Stamped across the folder were the words “Discontinued 1977” and “Highly Confidential.” But inside was the best part of all—all those glossy eight-by-tens, photo after photo of dead soldiers, their putrefying lips drawn back in very special smiles.

“Losing is a bad habit, Bob,” the Joker remarked wistfully. “So much to do and so little time.”

Bob stepped forward quickly. “Here’s the photos.”

The Joker lifted his eyebrows as he flipped through Bob’s offerings. He stopped at this photo of a twerp in a polyester jacket.

“Who’s this dud?”

Bob glanced over his shoulder. “That’s Knox.”

“Bad tie,” was the Joker’s verdict. “No style.” He flipped to the next photo.

His mouth opened.

He gasped for air.

His heart went pitter-pat.

“Stop the press! Who is
that
?”

“That’s Vicki Vale,” Bob answered. “She’s the photographer working with Knox.”

The Joker licked his ample lips. He needed to study this photo in some detail. “That woman has style! Jeezus Marimba! A lovely beast like that could get a man up and running!” He pulled a pair of scissors from one of his many pockets and, humming a happy tune, cut the babe’s likeness out from all that interfering background. He was careful not to cut too close, of course—you had to leave a bit of a border. What now? Oh, of course! He knew the very thing to do with the border. The Joker reached for his crayons and started to color.

“She’s been dating some guy named Wayne,” Bob informed him.

“She’s gonna trade up!” The Joker leered at the photo beneath his crayon. “Damn!” he added as he chewed on his tongue. “It’s so hard to stay inside the lines!”

The border was done at last, a very nice mixture of heliotrope and cobalt blue. The Joker quickly covered the back with rubber cement before giving Vicki a place of honor on his wall.

“I’m gonna get me a new girl, Bobbie!” He took a moment to admire his handiwork, then snapped his fingers.

“Phone book! I’ve got a mind to make some mayhem.”

Vicki Vale, huh? He had trouble taking his eyes off her long enough to find the phone numbers. She looked good in the middle of a war—a war that was going to take all of Gotham City!

The Joker hummed as he dialed. He didn’t know when he’d been this happy!

He had had to go home. There was nothing else he could do.

Alfred looked up from his dusting as Bruce entered the study. The butler walked toward Bruce in that quick and almost effortless way he had. He took Bruce’s coat, and then, from somewhere, handed Bruce a hot towel. Bruce had given up wondering years ago how Alfred produced these things. Instead, he wiped his hands.

“Miss Vale called,” Alfred informed him. “She was quite concerned.” He paused a minute, then added quickly in a confidential tone that Bruce hardly ever heard:

“I’ve noticed that there is a certain weight that lifts when she’s here.”

Bruce glanced at his butler. As well meaning as Alfred was, the situation was impossible.

“Why don’t you many her, Alfred?”

“That’s not exactly what I had in mind, sir,” Alfred replied, still quite stone-faced.

Bruce shrugged helplessly. “I can’t go on with this, Alfred.”

Alfred nodded his understanding. They’d planned for this too long. They both knew what had to be done. There was no time, now, for a woman in Bruce’s life.

“Napier’s alive,” Bruce continued. “He’s running Grissom’s men. I’ve got to find out everything the police have on him.”

“Yes, sir.” Alfred’s tone was businesslike once more. He turned, already headed for the Batcave and the hours of research that had to be done.

Bruce sighed as the butler walked past, a small, sad sound for things that could never be.

“She’s good—isn’t she?”

Alfred smiled sadly in reply.

Vicki looked at the photos she had taken of Bruce Wayne. When Bruce had disappeared after this, she had stayed behind for a moment to take pictures of the carnage in Gotham City Square. That was her job, after all. But she had developed the roll of film herself, and kept those shots at the beginning that she had taken of Bruce, and the roses, hoping that somewhere in these black-and-white images there might be an answer.

She looked at Bruce, kneeling in the alley. When she had taken this picture, it had almost seemed as if he was performing a sort of ritual. He had been that way in the square, too, in the middle of all that shooting, as if he were no longer himself but were answering to someone, or something, in another time or place.

And she had the feeling that this other guy, the one who called himself the Joker, had something to do with it, too. Bruce had been drawn to that murderous street mime with the green hair, rather like a moth to a flame. She hadn’t even known that the mime had a name, until the bullet-riddled bodies of the rest of Vinnie Ricorso’s gang showed up on the steps of Gotham City Hall, all nicely wrapped in large red ribbons, with an accompanying card: “A present to Gotham City—from the Joker.”

First the Batman, and now this creep. There seemed to be a lot of publicity seekers in Gotham City these days. But how did Bruce Wayne lit into it all?

There had to be something about that alleyway.

She dialed the phone. It rang. Knox picked it up at the other end.

“Allie,” she said rapidly, not allowing Knox his usual wisecracks. “I want you to check something for me. Okay? Find out what’s so special about the alley at Pearl and Phillips streets. Bye.”

She hung up and looked again at the three photos she had taken. Bruce with the flowers, Bruce kneeling in the corner, Bruce kicking the can.

“What’s up with you, Mr. Wayne?” she said aloud.

“A
nd now it’s
On The Spot Action News,
with your coanchors, Becky Narita and Peter McElroy.”

The camera focused on Becky. She smiled.

“Good evening,” she began. “The fashion world was stunned today by the sudden deaths of models Candy Walker and Amanda Keeler. Cause of death has been attributed to a violent allergic reaction, although authorities have not ruled out the possibility of drag use. Peter?”

Cut to a shot of Peter. He smiled.

“—And plans continue for the city’s two hundredth birthday as Mayor Borg announced the unveiling of a statue of John T. Gotham, Gotham’s founder—”

A hand reached in from offscreen, leaving a piece of paper on Peter’s desk. He grabbed the note and read, the smile gone:

“This just in. Three mysterious deaths at a beauty parlor in—”

Becky started to laugh. Peter frowned over at his coanchor. “Becky, this is hardly—
Becky
!”

He jumped up as something crashed offscreen. Somebody switched to a two-shot so everyone could see what was happening to Becky. She was writhing in her seat, her face twisting into all sorts of interesting convulsions. The camera jerked back and forth, as though the cameraman wasn’t sure he should be shooting this. Technicians ran in from either side, trying to do something, anything, for poor Becky. She lurched out of her seat, feet wandering this way and that, hands striking out everywhere, sometimes connecting with technicians who had the misfortune to get too close. It was quite an act, but the finale was even better. She began to whirl in a circle, pirouetting like a ballerina, a surprisingly graceful move for someone as spasmodic as poor, poor Becky.

And all the time, she was laughing.

Becky jerked upright. The force of her stopping caused her to do a quite magnificent double gainer over the news desk. And she had stopped laughing. In fact, she had stopped everything. All her muscles were frozen in a death spasm.

The camera showed her happy face.

“Kill the camera!” Peter yelled hysterically. “Kill the—”

The picture disappeared. There was nothing but static.

That was quite nice. The Joker pressed a button. What came next was even better.

The videotape rolled, the Joker’s TV signal overriding that of the news station and every other television station in Gotham City.

The bright, colorful picture showed two cardboard cutouts of those supermodels Candy and Amanda, some hours before their oh-so-unfortunate deaths, waving at the camera. But their mouths weren’t quite right. Oh—how clever—they were animated, expanding into two impossibly large smiles!

That’s when the cheerful theme rose up in the background:

“Now spread sunshine all over the place,

Just put on a happy face!”

The models spoke with their animated lips in twin Betty Boop voices:

“Love that Joker!”

Wow. The Joker sighed happily. Was this art, or was this art?

Of course, now it got even better.

The scene shifted to a supermarket, and that most eloquent of pitchmen—the Joker. He wheeled a cart down the aisle, merrily waving to the audience in time to the happy-face Muzak in the background. He grabbed a brightly colored package from the shelves and thrust it toward the camera.

“New, improved Joker brand!” he exclaimed in his best announcer voice. “With my secret sauce—SMYLEX!” His hand pointed offscreen. “Let’s go to our blind taste test.”

The picture changed again, to show a tied, gagged, and blindfolded man, struggling—quite uselessly—in his chair. A neat, white title appeared on the lower part of the screen:
NOT AN ACTOR

“Oooh!” the Joker’s voice cooed. “He’s not happy. He’s been using Brand X! But with new, improved Joker brand—”

The camera pulled back to show that our blind taste-tester was not alone. Next to him was a blindfolded corpse with the most magical smile!

“I get a grin,” the Joker continued, “again and again!”

The camera switched once again to our pitchman, now lounging next to a full-sized cardboard cutout of one of our models once she’s had the Joker treatment—that lovely chalk-white flesh, that magnificent green hair!