Batman 1 - Batman (3 page)

Alicia brushed at her straight blond hair as she stared at the television.

“Pretty tough talk about Carl.”

Jack waved away her observation with a flick of his lucky deck.

“Don’t worry about it. If this clown could touch Grissom, I’d have killed him by now.”

Alicia leaned down over Jack, revealing even more of her cleavage. She grabbed his loosely knotted tie and pulled it tightly around his neck.

“If Grissom knew about us,” she mentioned, “he might kill
you.”

Jack glanced from the TV over to a mirror above a nearby vanity. Damn, but that tie looked good on him! At least he had good taste—impeccable taste, really. He smiled at his reflection. He might try to give Alicia lessons, but you were either born with this or you never got it.

“Don’t flatter yourself, angel,” he murmured, glancing at her at last. “He’s a tired old man. He can’t run this city without me.” He looked at himself in the mirror one more time. “And besides, he doesn’t know.”

He flipped the TV off with the remote.

Alicia frowned at him as he stood. “You don’t worry about anything, do you, Jack?”

Jack smiled to prove exactly how worried he was. He glanced at his watch. Time to go. He grabbed his topcoat from the couch and stood in front of the vanity to put it on. He smoothed down the dark cashmere, checked to make sure his hair was in place. Yeah. Nothing but the best for old Jack.

“You look fine,” she reassured him.

Jack smiled at his reflection.

“I didn’t ask.”

The reflection smiled back.

Alexander Knox tried not to even breathe too loudly.

He had been rushing down the alley, anxious to get to the scene of the crime. That was before he heard Lieutenant Eckhardt talking to the police medic around the corner. That’s right, Eckhardt actually talking! The minute Knox showed up, the chubby officer always became dumber than one of the Three Stooges.

Sometimes, Knox considered, you could be the best damn newspaper reporter in all of Gotham City by just taking an extra minute to get there.

“You know what that guy says he saw . . .” the medic began incredulously.

“No, let me guess,” Eckhardt wheezed. “A gigantic, menacing, supernatural form—in the shape of a bat?”

“That’s it!” was the other man’s astonished reply. “What are they seeing up there?”

Eckhardt dismissed it. “They’re all drinkin’ Drano.”

“It’s still weird, Lieutenant,” the medic allowed.

“Oh, Christ,” Eckhardt muttered in a half-whisper. “Knox!”

Whoops. Knox had gotten a little too interested and a little too far out into the alley. Well, now that his cover was blown, he might as well make the best of it. He stepped toward Eckhardt with a big grin.

“Hiya, gents. I hear we got another bat attack.” Eckhardt winced. Knox’s smile got even wider. “That’s eight sightings now in just under a month. I even hear the commissioner’s opened a file.”

“Sorry, Knox,” Eckhardt replied, his face as expressive as your average slab of granite. “Those two slipped on a banana peel.”

Two? So there were two crooks involved? Sometimes Eckhardt gave away tidbits without even knowing it. Knox wondered if there was any way he could sneak in a question or two with the eyewitnesses.

That’s when one of the eyewitnesses got dragged past by a pair of cops. For a minute, Knox thought that Eckhardt might be right. This guy sure looked as though he could have been drinking Drano. What clothes he had left were torn in half a dozen places, the skin beneath crisscrossed with the dull brown of drying blood. His hair was matted with blood, too, but what was really weird was the guy’s face. He was smiling.

“A bat, I tell you, a giant bat!” He giggled and twitched, his head jerking from Eckhardt to Knox to each of his captors. “He wanted me to do him a favor.”

The cops dragged him away before the favor could be performed. Knox grinned at Eckhardt anyway. His most important question had been answered.

Eckhardt actually let his irritation show. “Don’t be writing this crap in the newspaper, Knox. It’ll ruin your already useless reputation.”

But Knox had this fat bastard now. An eyewitness to the bat!

He pressed his advantage. “Lieutenant, lots of punks in town are scared stiff! They say he drinks blood. They say he can’t be killed!”

“I say you’re full of shit, Knox,” Eckhardt barked as he turned away. “And you can quote me on that!”

So, they were going to stonewall him, even now? Knox couldn’t give up that easily.

“Lieutenant. Is there a six-foot bat in Gotham City?”

Eckhardt walked away without looking back.

Knox shouted after him, “If so, is he on the police payroll?”

Eckhardt lumbered around the corner, out of sight.

“If so,” Knox persisted, “what’s he pulling down after taxes?”

There was no answer. Knox hadn’t really expected one. He thought for a second about following the lieutenant, but decided it would be better for his health and career if be didn’t. As much as Knox disliked the guy, it didn’t pay to be too annoying.

Besides, he had gotten what he really wanted. Fried or not, that smiling guy had seen the human bat. And Knox found it even more fascinating that, for some reason, the police didn’t want the story getting out. Eckhardt and the others should know by now that that sort of attitude just made Allie Knox want the truth that much more.

Who was this guy who tried to look like a bat, of all things? A renegade cop? A criminal? Some kind of a vigilante? Or a total nut case? Knox had a feeling he might be every one of the above. And he was going to find out, and report everything he found in the
Gotham Globe.

When he was done, the human bat was going to be better known than Pee Wee Herman. And whatever the police were covering up would be splashed across the front page.

A
h, here was the slob now. He looked nervously up and down the street as he waddled toward them. Gotham City’s finest, unshaven, his flab quivering up and down under his too-tight suit, threatening to burst his buttons with every step he took. Why couldn’t Eckhardt take better care of himself?

Jack Napier leaned back on the hood of the stretch limo. Bob Hawkins, his right-hand man and insurance policy, was doing the usual—straightening the mirror, polishing the door handle—busy, but available, should the situation arise.

Jack pushed himself upright and tossed the lieutenant a sandwich bag.

“I brought you a little snack, Eckhardt.”

The cop opened the bag to look suspiciously at the sandwich. The bread was stuffed with hundred-dollar bills. The cop looked back down the street where he came from as he tucked the sandwich in his coat.

“Why don’t you broadcast it, Napier?” The lieutenant seemed a little irritated. Must have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed. But that was no reason to get uppity with Jack. Napier decided it was time to put Grissom’s toady in his place.

“Shut up and listen,” Jack ordered. “Harvey Dent is sniffing around one of our companies.”

That managed to make the lieutenant even more steamed.

“That’s my territory, Jack,” he snapped as he marched toward the limo. “If there’s a problem—”

Jack had had enough from fat boy. His hands snaked out to grab Eckhardt’s coat.

“Eckhardt,” he said simply, directly. “Your problems are our problems.”

The cop knocked Jack’s hands away. “I answer to Grissom, not to psychos!”

“Why, Eckhardt,” Jack replied with the slightest hint of surprise. “You should be thinking about the future.”

“You mean”—the cop sneered—“when you run the show?” He waved his pudgy hand in dismissal. “You got no future, Jack. You’re an A-one nut boy, and Grissom knows it!”

Jack clapped a hand to Eckhardt’s overfed face. He pivoted around, pushing the cop hard against the brick wall at the alley’s side. Eckhardt blinked, stunned by the suddenness of the move. Jack almost felt sorry for a second. But, after all, fat boy had so much padding, he shouldn’t have felt a thing.

Eckhardt’s face had turned the same color Santa Claus usually wore. He grabbed Jack’s coat collar and whipped out his police special.

Jack took his hand away as Eckhardt brought up his gun. Jack glanced at the gun, then the fat fingers on his collar.

“Watch the suit,” he remarked casually.

Eckhardt was having trouble catching his breath. He frowned at Napier, then let go of the coat and lowered the gun.

Jack smiled. What a good fat boy.

“See?” he added pleasantly. “You can make a good decision when you really, really try.”

Jack started to laugh. All the color drained from Eckhardt’s face. That only made Jack laugh harder. Boy, the fat boy was really boiling now! Jack strolled back to where Bob had just opened the rear door of the limo. Jack couldn’t watch the cop anymore. Tears were streaming down his face. He glanced back a final time as he got in the car.

Something almost stopped Jack’s mirth.

When he looked back, why was Eckhardt smiling? Jack dismissed it, unable to hear Eckhardt having the last word, muttering “And where have you been spending your nights, handsome.”

The red, yellow, and black banner flapped in the early-autumn wind: “200TH ANNIVERSARY OF GOTHAM CITY FESTIVAL.”

Borg waved impatiently for Dent and Gordon to follow. The mayor could be surprisingly energetic when he was motivated, and he was taking this big anniversary celebration personally. They had already visited one of the float manufacturers and the Gotham Uniform Supply Company, personally making sure everything would be ready for the big day. Now the mayor was dragging them along to personally inspect the final construction of the reviewing stand in Gotham Square.

Gordon felt as though they had been trudging around for hours. Today, he thought, Dent was really going to find out what it was like working for Gotham City.

“I don’t care how much in debt this festival is!” the mayor shouted back at them as he bustled along. “I want a parade, hot dogs, balloons, the whole schmeer. We’re gonna celebrate this two hundredth anniversary proudly. And
publicly
!”

Somehow, Dent was trying to remain the voice of reason in the face of all this.

“We may be celebrating it in bankruptcy court,” he gently reminded the mayor. “The tax base is crumbling, and if this festival crashes you can kiss your bond rating good-bye. This festival is three hundred and fifty thousand in the red, and we haven’t seen one balloon.”

“I’ll take care of the festival budget!” the mayor insisted, his voice rising again. Gordon sometimes thought the mayor was sure, if he was only loud enough, he could outshout whatever logic was thrown against him.

“I’ve got a party of rich old ladies who’ll pay a thousand dollars each to see the the inside of Wayne Manor!” the mayor blustered along. “You fill this square with people, kids, dogs, families, and the businesses will come back here!”

“I think a lot of people might stay away, Mayor,” Gordon said, trying to give Dent a hand. “They’re scared.”

“They won’t be scared when you’ve got Grissom in that courthouse!” Borg insisted. “I promised that, right?”

Gordon sighed and nodded. The mayor certainly had promised that. He glanced at Dent. The new D.A. shrugged helplessly. They both quickened their pace to catch up with their leader as he climbed the steps of the half-finished reviewing stand.

Knox didn’t like the looks of this. The reporters were all gathered around Bob the cartoonist’s desk in the corner of the city room. Worse than that, they all smiled when Knox walked in. Knox knew that hungry kind of smile—wolves always hunted in packs.

“Well, well,” MacPhee shouted jovially. “Count Dracula! You seen Bigfoot lately?”

“They buried your story on the Batman,” Thompson confided with a smirk.

“They bury garbage,” MacPhee agreed.

Well, Knox wasn’t going to let the human litter of the
Gotham Globe
get him down. Grin firmly in place, he shouted back, “This is the Pulitzer Prize zone, boys. You wait!”

“Oh, Knox?” Bob the cartoonist called sweetly. “I’ve got something for you!”

He held up a drawing of a human bat, an awful, fanged rodent face sitting on top of a man’s body in a business suit. The caption below read: “Have You Seen This Man?”

Well, Thompson, MacPhee, and the others thought this was the funniest thing that had ever happened in the news office. Knox kept his grin in place. He did wish they could come up with something a little more original.

“Very nice, boys,” he replied. “A little more gore on the fangs, perhaps?” He turned and walked on to his office.

Knox stopped outside his door. There was somebody already in there. He could see her through the office window—and
what
he could see.

Well, if he could calm his heart and hormones long enough, they really were only a pair of legs. Only! Any self-respecting panty hose would kill to be seen on legs like that! Knox took another step so that he could look at the rest of her. Not bad at all. With those legs resting on the desk, she was leaning back in Knox’s swivel chair, poring over a copy of the
Globe.
Nice figure, nice dress, nice blond hair.