Batman (18 page)

He reflexively started to call Robin back, but stopped. If Tim had broken off the call, it meant he had felt the need to focus. Calling him back wouldn’t help, and it might just get him killed. Batman’s time was better spent figuring out how to find the Mad Hatter.

Four forty-four. A caterpillar. A family portrait. Candlesticks. He shuffled the various items around in his head, hoping they would fall into a discernable pattern of some sort. But if there was one, it continued to elude him.

Hroll Gem.

There was nothing unusual about the gem part—that fit the history of grandfather clocks, some of which had been sold by the likes of Tiffany & Company and Bailey Banks and Biddle. But Hroll…

Wait.
He was looking for the Mad Hatter. Lewis Carroll had created the character from a Victorian stereotype, because so many haberdashers were made ill and even driven insane by the chemicals used in the manufacture of hats. The primary culprit was mercury in the form of mercuric nitrate, which accelerated the felting process. The dangers of mercury had been known as early as the seventeenth century, and the saying “mad as a hatter” appeared not very long after that.

In fact, American hatters had used mercury processes until World War II, when mercury was needed for detonators instead. The actual symptoms included emotional volatility, pathological shyness, and physical tremors. Of those, the Mad Hatter of Gotham City specialized in the volatility.

Batman stopped before he went too far down the tangent. His mind floated like that sometimes when he was getting close to an intuitive jump—and more recently, though he hadn’t told Alfred or Robin, it drifted for no reason he could discern. Mercury… the chemical symbol of mercury on the periodic table was Hg. The same as the initial letters of the clock’s manufacturer. But what happened if the H and the G were removed? What remained?

ROLL EM.

Roll ’Em.
The casino.

That was where Batman would find the Mad Hatter.

* * *

Robin took two steps toward Harley Quinn before she stopped him by holding up a double-bladed axe—a far cry from the customized baseball bat she usually carried.

“Don’t be all in a rush to come in,” she said, wagging a finger on her free hand. “I might get too excited and drop this axe and then”—she giggled loudly—“off with her head!”

Robin stopped.

Vicki Vale was looking at him. “You know,” she said, “I’ve done a lot of things for a scoop, but this is my first time being threatened with decapitation.” Despite the situation, her voice was firm.

“Isn’t she something?” Quinn said. “I’m about to cut off her head, and she’s just as cool as can be.” She leaned her upper body down while still holding the axe out, reminding Robin how physically strong she was. It was easy to forget that, when you were watching her flirty-jester act. “Vicki, you got moxie, you know that! No wonder you couldn’t resist a little tip that brought you into big bad old Arkham City.”

Quinn looked back over at Robin.

“Put down your stick,” she said. “It’s making me kind of nervous. When I’m nervous, my palms get sweaty and I lose my grip on things like axe handles.”

“You’re wearing gloves,” Robin pointed out.

For just a fraction of a second, her mask slipped and he saw cold fury. Then it was back in place as Harley Quinn grinned and giggled again.

“So literal!” she said. “We’re not in a literal room. This is a crazy room!
Anything
can happen here.”

“Let’s start over,” Robin said.

“Okay… hi there!” she said brightly, still keeping the axe in place. Then her expression turned serious. “I know, I know, don’t worry—you think I’m still mad about my puddin’ getting sick… but you didn’t do it. I know you didn’t. Batman did. And that’s why you have to die.”

“I’m not following you,” Robin said, even though he was. He had to buy some time.

“Batman took my Mista J. away from me,” Quinn said. “We were going to have… a f-f-family…” She took a moment to master her emotions. “But that’ll never happen now. Just like you’re never going to get out of here alive, and then, yeah. That’s when Batman will know what it’s like to lose someone he loves.”

“He already has,” Robin said.

She cocked her head and smiled at him. “Tell me more.”

“No.”

She pouted, and then smiled broadly.

“Oh, it’s a secret? I love secrets.”

“So do I,” Vale said. “Harley, you and the Joker were—?”

“Yes, yes we were.” Quinn sniffled. “It was going to be so beautiful. We were going to be together forever. He was mean sometimes, kinda, but he never really meant it. He loved me. A child, a little bouncing bundle of joy—that would have settled him down. Then we could have been the First Family of Gotham City… except… he got sick.”

“That’s terrible,” Vale said. She cut a glance at Robin as she said it, and he gave her back a tiny nod.

Keep her going
. He leaned his bō against the table and held up his hands, palms out. “See?” he said aloud. “We’re just talking.”

“No, we’re not!” Quinn shrieked. “We’re cutting people’s heads off, starting with hers!”

“We don’t have to do that,” Vale said. Robin was amazed at her calm. He dropped his hands to his sides and saw her eyes track the motion.
Good
, he thought. He wiggled the fingers of his right hand. Her gaze locked there.

“Harley,” he said as evenly as he could. “We’re in a crazy room, right? So we can do crazy things.”

“You got that right,” she answered with a coquettish smile. “It’s going to get super crazy in here.”

Robin extended the last three fingers of his right hand, keeping it low at his side. Vale was still watching. He curled his middle finger into his palm.

“If you cut her head off, that’s pretty crazy, right?” he said.

“Super crazy. Bonkers. Ultra loony,” she agreed. Robin curled his ring finger in. Vale held perfectly still and watched.

“But if you cut her head off first, Harley, like right now, how are you going to get more crazy than that?” he asked.

She paused. Robin curled his pinky into the palm of his hand, completing the countdown.

Vale flung herself to the left off the block of wood. With incredible speed, Quinn brought the axe down, barely missing her head and burying the blade inches deep in the wood. A thick lock of Vale’s blond hair lay sheared off on the block. The motion of her body pulled Quinn’s foot to one side, unbalancing her for a critical second. That was all Robin needed to plant his feet and leap at her.

She was trying to pull the axe out of the wood block, but it was sunk too far into the grain. So instead she lifted the whole block of wood and swung it with a feral screech. He just got his left arm up to parry. It hit him hard enough to knock him sideways into the armchair. His arm went numb from the elbow down.

The axe snapped off just below the head, broken by the incredible torque of Quinn’s swing and the impact on his arm and shoulder. He sprang out of the armchair toward his bō as she came after him wielding the broken axe handle like a spear. Just as he got the bō in his grasp, her thrust punched through his cape and she jerked him off balance. He sprawled on the floor and rolled, pulling the broken handle out of her hands.

In the same motion he swept the bō around to crack into her ankles. She hit the ground and Robin went after her, pinning her down with the staff across her collarbones and scissoring his legs around hers.

Behind him, in the execution chamber, Vale struggled to stand up.

One of Robin’s feet hit the wood block as he struggled to hold Quinn down. She was strong, but so was he, and when he rammed the bō up under her chin and started pressing down on her neck, she choked out a surrender.

“Okay, pretty boy,” she said, her voice strangled. “You got me dead to rights. I give up.” He felt her body relax under his, but he only lightened the pressure on her neck enough for her to breathe and speak clearly. He kept her legs pinned.

“Talk,” he said. “What’s the game with our reporter friend?”

“Oh, her? Mister Question Mark is feeling a little neglected. He’s got this swell plan and nobody knows about it, so he thought maybe somebody should, you know, do a little PR. Get the word out.”

With her hands still tied behind her back, Vale walked over to Robin.

“And how exactly was I supposed to do that without my head?”

“I told you, this is a crazy room!” Quinn giggled. “Besides, then you would have been a real talking head!” At that, she laughed herself into a coughing fit. Under the smeared black-and-white makeup her face turned bright red, and tears caused the makeup around her eyes to smear. She looked grotesque.

Robin didn’t let her up. For all he knew, she was faking it. He did turn his head slightly so she wasn’t coughing right in his face.

That was all she needed.

The next thing he knew he was flat on his back, seeing stars brought on by an elbow to the chin. By the time he got back to his feet, Quinn had his bō pinned against Vicki Vale’s throat.

“Don’t make any sudden moves, Boy Wonder,” she said. “I can kill this Lois Lane wannabe just as dead with a stick as I can with an axe.”

“Seriously?” Vale said. “I get off the chopping block, you ruin my haircut, and now we’re going to do this all over again?”

Harley pecked her on the cheek.

“As many times as we need to, sweet pea.”

“We don’t need to,” Robin said. “You want to kill me, kill me. All you get from killing her is another notch on your belt, or however you keep track.”

“Sounds like reason enough to me,” Quinn said. “But you’re right, smarty-pants. I don’t need to. Mister Question Mark has something he wants you to do. If you do it, I’ll let her go and you can go on your merry way.”

“What is it?”

“Remember that piece of paper that distracted you from your big important conversation with… that bastard who killed my puddin’?” Harley Quinn scanned the floor. “It’s right there. Pick it up.”

Robin did. It was still just a piece of paper with the words EAT ME printed on it.

“Do what it says,” she ordered.

Robin looked over at the table. He tried to game out what the Riddler was up to. The bread could be poisoned, certainly. That would start another clock, while the toxin ran its course and killed him slowly while Batman was pressed to find an antidote. It would also fit with the
Alice in Wonderland
theme, since Alice was always drinking and eating things that changed her.

At least he didn’t
think
the poison would kill him right away, but that was relying on the Riddler’s self-restraint. Was the third death room the charm—the one where the Riddler proved he really meant business?

Robin didn’t think so. The Riddler would want Batman to be on hand to witness the final act, and even though Vicki Vale would run straight back to her paper with a breathless exclusive, that wouldn’t provide enough satisfaction.

The real finale was still ahead.

“Okay,” he said, and stepped over to the table to pick up a slice of bread, reaching for the butter knife.

“No, dummy!” Quinn said scornfully. “God, how do you idiots ever solve any crime at all? You’re so… argh! Eat the paper! Eat the damned paper!”

“Eat the paper,” Robin repeated.

“Yes! That’s what I said,” she continued. “Can’t you tell? The tea and bread are just there for looking at.

“Eat. The. Paper!”

“Okay,” Robin said. He tore off a piece of the paper, put it in his mouth, and started to chew. It dissolved quickly—much more so than paper should have. It reminded him of the edible rice paper made in Asia from dried starch.

“Okay, I did it,” he said, continuing to chew on his impromptu snack. “So now you can tell me what it really was. Poison? A hallucinogenic drug?”

“You have secrets, I have secrets,” she said. “You know who else has secrets? The Riddler. He lets people in on them little by little, just how he wants… and then right when you think you know everything, you know what you really know? That you’re going to die.

“You know what a jester is?” she said.

“Why don’t you tell me?”

“The old jesters used to ride with the king and whisper into his ear—things like, “You’re just a man, you’re going to die.” They were the only ones who could talk to the king like he was an ordinary man, an ordinary mortal. That’s what I’m saying to you, Mr. Robin, and I know you’ll tell Batman, too. You’re ordinary men, you’re going to die. You’re no different than anyone else. That’s called a memento mori, and that’s what I am. Now that Mista J. is gone, I’m making sure you know that before long, you’ll be gone, too.”

She brightened up, and her voice changed into a chirp.

“Mmmkay? Good! Now chew that up or the Riddler’s going to—”

“Almost done,” Robin said. As he swallowed the last of the paper, or whatever it really was, he mused that if there were any two people in Gotham City who didn’t need a memento mori, those two people were him and Batman.

“Then I guess we’re all set.” She eased her grip on Vale’s neck and let Robin’s bō drop to the floor. “That’s my speech. You like it?”

“I’ve heard better,” Robin said.

She pouted. Then, just as quickly, she brightened again.

“Oh, wait, jiminy! I forgot part of it!” she said.

As she spoke, she drew a gun and fired.