The Barrens & Others (39 page)

"You know, Dr. Lewis, I was the kind of student who made my teachers stay after school. Get it? I was an honor student – I was saying either 'Yes, your Honor,' or 'No, your Honor.' Get it? When I was a kid I was so tough, I got thrown out of every reform school in the country."

"Can we try to be serious? Just for a moment?"

"Don't worry, doc. I know you're trying. In fact, you're very trying. Get it?"

That did it. I made a final note prior to ending the session. But when I looked up, I saw that his hands were free. He was holding out a deck of playing cards.

"Pick a card," he said. "Any card."

Terror jolted through me. I shouted for the guards. By the time they reached us, The Joker's hands were back in the manacles. The deck of cards remained between us on the table.

"Never mind," I told the guards. "False alarm."

After all, he hadn't tried to harm me. Maybe this was an opportunity to gain his confidence, which might put us on the quickest road to meaningful therapy.

As they returned to their posts outside the door, The Joker looked at me curiously. I picked up the deck and shuffled through it. All Jokers.

"How do you get these things smuggled in?"

"I've told you: I'm the–"

" 'Clown Prince of Crime.' I know. A regular modern day Mabuse."

"Ah. The doctor is a movie buff. Yes, I suppose I could be compared to Dr. Mabuse on a superficial level, but I am his superior in every way. Dr. Mabuse was a piker compared to The Joker."

More grandiosity. It was becoming wearying.

"But you're real," I said. "Mabuse was fiction. He didn't have to worry about running up against Batman."

I knew immediately that I'd struck a nerve. Something changed in The Joker's eyes and demeanor. The airy, bon-vivant pose vanished. I felt a chill worm across my shoulders as cold hatred flashed from his eyes and hung like rank smog in the air between us. And then as suddenly as it had come, it was gone. Blown away by a gust of laughter.

"Batman! Talk about crazies! They put me in here while they let him run around loose in his cape and tights."

"They could have put you in the electric chair for murdering Colin Whittier," I said softly. I'd almost said should instead of could. I'd have to be careful.

"But they can't!" he said with another laugh. "Because I've been classified as insane! I'm not responsible. Isn't that wonderful? Oh, it's so good to be mad in America. I can do unto others but they can't do unto me!"

As he giggled on, I said, "Don't you feel any remorse for the hurt you've caused people? For the artistic riches you've robbed from society by killing Colin Whittier?"

"Society? What has society ever done for me?"

"Well, you might have a point there, but you've caused untold harm in your lifetime – the deaths, the grief, the pain. Don't you feel any impulse to make reparation?"

"Not the slightest. I put The Joker first. If I don't, who will? I. Me. Moi. Society, the public good, the little man, they can take my leavings. And I'd prefer you not mention Batman in my presence again."

Remembering how quickly he'd got in and out of his manacles a moment ago, I nodded.

"And by the way," he said, "how does the lovely Dina like the new car?"

I was suddenly boiling on the inside, but I remained cool without.

"Just as you do not wish Batman mentioned, I do not wish anyone from my personal life mentioned."

"She's very attractive."

"I hope you're not thinking of threatening her."

"Threaten?" He laughed. "That sort of thing is for gunsels and dime-a-dozen desperadoes. Fratelleza swine. I like you, Doctor Lewis. I have no interest in threatening anyone dear to you. Besides, why should I? What can you do for me?

"You might think I can help you escape."

Another laugh. "I can escape any time I wish."

"Really? Then, why are you still imprisoned here?"

"Because for the time being it amuses me," he said without missing a beat. "Just as I can smuggle in anything I wish, I can leave anytime I wish. And when I decide that it's time to take my leave, I shall escape with
elan
, dear doctor. Without your help. No crude, petty jailbreak for The Joker. The Joker will not sneak out, nor will he crawl or tunnel out. He'll either fly or walk – at the time of his own choosing."

"We'll see."

"Yes. We will. And when are you going to ask that woman to marry you?"

"None of your business!"

"Ah! Business! I wish we were in business! Building and loan – I wish you'd get out of the building and leave me alone. Get it?"

"Good day, Joker," I said, rising.

"Good day, Doctor Lewis."

SESSION NINE

I could barely contain my rage. As soon as the guards left, I exploded.

"This time you've gone too far, Joker!"

"Whatever are you talking about, Doctor Lewis?"

"The ring, damn you! The goddamn ring!"

"You mean that little bauble I sent Dina? Think nothing of it."

"It wasn't just a 'bauble,' and you know it!"

When I'd answered my doorbell last night, I'd been shocked to find Dina standing there with tears in her eyes. She threw her arms around me and told me how beautiful it was, and what a romantic way to propose. And then she showed me the ring – a huge solitaire, flawless, at least three carats. It was perfect, she said, the engagement ring she'd always dreamed of, and to think I'd sent it to her nestled in a bouquet of roses with the note: Dina – Make my life complete. Marry me. Hal.

I'd been planning to ask her to marry me as soon as I got on my feet financially, but I'd had nothing to do with this. I knew immediately who was behind it, though. I should have told her right then. But when I saw the look in her eyes, the joy in her face, I couldn't. How could I take that ring off her finger and say it wasn't from me? I wrapped my arms around her and said nothing.

"I won't have you interfering in my life!"

"Who's interfering?" he said through that grin. "I like you. I don't want to see you settle for second best. In a few years you'll be able to afford all these things on your own. But for now, it gives me pleasure to help you out. What's so wrong with that?"

"You're trying to compromise my judgment! And it won't work!"

"Of course it won't. We both know you've got too much integrity for that. By the way, there's an engagement gift waiting for you in your apartment."

That did it. I stormed out of the examining room.

But deep within my gut was a strange new feeling, a growing awareness that it was my duty to render this... this Joker incapable of corrupting or harming anyone again.

CONFERENCE

"A pre-frontal lobotomy?" Dr. Hills said. "You must be joking!"

The irony of his choice of words was lost in the shocked silence around me. I'd gone directly from my session with the Joker to the psychiatric conference where I'd blurted out my recommendation. The rest of the psychiatric staff – Drs. Hills, Miller, and Bolland – were there, and I believe I stunned them all.

The solution had occurred to me as I'd entered the room. A pre-frontal lobotomy – surgical invasion of the frontal lobe of the brain. It had been used briefly with great success in the 1930s. Violent, agitated patients had become pussy cats – gentle, placid, physically and emotionally in low gear. But the procedure had fallen out of favor because it was deemed too extreme. And because it was irreversible.

"Yes, I'm aware that it's a radical suggestion," I said, "but you've got to admit that this particular case warrants a radical solution. Demands it, I should think. Lobotomy is definitive therapy in the case of a patient as incorrigibly violent as The Joker."

Dr. Hills said, "We'll come under heavy fire from the patients' right groups merely for suggesting it. The ACLU, all the–"

"What about the rights of the people he will harm in the future when he escapes again?" I replied. "And we all know he will escape again. Let's be honest, gentlemen: modern psychiatry has failed society in the case of The Joker. I know. I've gone through his past records. The man seems to escape at will. Then he goes on a rampage of murder and robbery, is caught, is returned to us, only to escape again for another rampage. No matter how we chain him, drug him, psychoanalyze him, he escapes. And he never pays a price for the harm he does! Between rampages, he's given a clean, comfortable cell, three meals a day, and free medical care. For life!"

"But a lobotomy–?" Dr. Hills said.

"We've failed to contain him, we've failed to change him with therapy or control him with drugs, and the courts won't send him to the chair. As physicians charged with treating the so-called criminally insane, I think we have a duty to consider the definitive therapy for his sort of behavior disorder."

After a long silence, Dr. Hills said, "I'll take it up with the State Board of Medical Examiners."

I left the conference room in a state of wild exhilaration. I might have been the new man on the staff but I was making my presence felt in no uncertain terms. And beyond that, I knew that my recommendation for lobotomy would prove to The Joker once and for all that Harold Lewis, M.D. was not for sale.

SESSION TEN

Numb, speechless, I stared across the table at The Joker. That smile...if only he'd stop smiling.

"Well?" he said. "Do you like your engagement gift?"

"Where–?" My mouth was dry. "Where did you get it?"

I'd come home last night to find an original Colin Whittier hanging on my wall. An original! An abstract of swirling blues and greens that made me think of the depths of the ocean... the eternal cycle of birth, life, and death... cold, ghastly, unutterably beautiful.

The price of a Whittier had gone through the roof since his death at The Joker's hands. Each was worth millions now. I'd never be able to afford a Whittier. Never. And The Joker had given me one.

I owned a Whittier original... a Whittier...

The monetary value meant nothing to me, for selling it was out of the question. I'd sell my soul to the devil before I'd part with it.

"I have a bunch of the things," The Joker said. "You know, from his show at the Gotham Gallery."

"But the papers said you burned them!"

"Don't be silly. They're far too valuable for that, although for the life of me I can't imagine why. The man shows not the slightest trace of talent. I burned some old canvases of my own that I was unhappy with."

"Then...you still have all those Whittiers?"

"Yes. Stacked up in one of my warehouses. I forget which one, actually. I had one of my men dig out that piece for you."

A stack of them...I felt weak.

"Well? Do you like it? You haven't told me."

"I – I can't accept stolen goods," I said, forcing the words past my lips.

"Too bad. I was going to give the rest of them to you as a wedding present." The Joker shrugged. "Very well. I'll have my men remove it and–"

"No!" I said – almost a shout. "I mean, not yet. Let me live with it a while."

The Joker's smile seemed to broaden. "As you wish, Doctor Lewis."

CONFERENCE

Whittiers...a stack of Whittiers... sitting in a warehouse... collecting dust... rats nibbling at the canvases... clawing at the paint...

The image roamed my mind at will as I sat at the conference table and waited for Dr. Hills to arrive. Finally, he burst in.

"They approved it!" he cried. "The State Board of Medical Examiners approved a pre-frontal lobotomy on The Joker! Any other patient and they would have said no, but the Joker – yes! Within weeks Arkham Asylum is going to be in all the medical journals!"

As excited chatter swept the table, I felt my blood run cold. The paintings. The Whittiers. A lobotomized Joker would be so passive and tractable that he'd tell the police the whereabouts of all his stashes of loot. The Whittiers...my Whittiers... they'd be returned to the gallery... to be sold for millions apiece.

"When is the surgery scheduled?"

"Tomorrow morning. Dr. Robinson is flying in from Toronto tonight."

"Maybe we should give electroshock a try," I said.

"ECT has failed already. What's the matter, Hal? The lobotomy was your idea. Having a change of heart?"

I hesitated. How could I protest the implementation of my own suggestion?

But that had been before I'd known about the Whittiers.

"Maybe. I think ECT deserves another chance. It could be we're rushing this too much."

"We have to move quickly. It was the Board's opinion that delay will only allow opposition to organize and cause legal obstruction. They feel that if we present the world with a lobotomized Joker as a fait accompli, there will be far less protest. And we will have discharged our duty to the public. As you so eloquently stated Hal, we need definitive therapy in The Joker's case. And that's just what we're providing."