The Further Adventures of The Joker (2 page)

I was born in a small vat of chemicals. My mother and father was Batman. He’s strict.

I’d like to talk about him. I’ll keep it short and sour. I hope to kill the sonofabitch.

But there are others that come first. I’m starting at the bottom of my hate list and working to the top. If you were a movie, Batman, you’d be five stars. And I’ll save the best fun for last.

And Gordon, I give you four stars—make you fourth on the list. Don’t be disappointed you didn’t get top billing. You’re an ache in my heart, but Batman, he’s a pain in my soul.

Right now I dream of Judge Hadley. You remember Hadley, don’t you? He’s the one said I was mad that last time and that I should never be released from Arkham Asylum, no matter what. He called me homicidal. Wrecked. Ruined. He made fun of my wardrobe. He’s one on a list of five, and I think I’ve made it clear where you two are on that list. But for now, let me say I’m drawing a line through Hadley, and I’ll add this:

Check his house, out by the nice, heated pool. And don’t get him on your shoes.

(maniacal laughter and a series of coughs)

Excuse me. Almost choked.

Now I’ll find a couch and lie down. Relax. Analyze my life. Next time, I’ll shoot the works.

(click)

“The tape came in about three hours ago,” Jim said. “No one knows how it was delivered, or who delivered it, but it was found at the front desk. We’ve theorized someone dressed as a cop brought it in during a shift change. The Joker or one of his thugs, probably.

“When I heard the tape, I got some blue coats and we went out to Hadley’s, and it was quite a mess. It looked like an army had puked out there by the pool. All that was left besides the goop was his robe, swimming trunks, and house shoes. You see, Hadley always took a late-night swim before bed. Told me he started doing it when his wife died, because after that, he couldn’t sleep unless he was worn out. Why, he has a heated pool, so he can do it year round.”

“It’s the sort of thing the Joker would know,” I said. “Leave it to him to have all the right bad connections.”

“Yeah,” Jim said. “He’s probably had a better crime business and information center going from the asylum than some crooks got on the street. He’s got enough money stashed away to pay for the contacts and to get things done. Anyway, one of the boys spotted something in the bottom of the pool, a gold coin about the size of a half dollar. We fished it out with a pole and a scoop. It had the Joker’s face on it. Lab boys say it has pin-size holes in it, and when it hit the water, it released a colorless, odorless chemical that mixed with the water and turned it into an acid. It won’t do a thing to cloth, plastic, metal, any of that. Just works on flesh and bones. It’s major bad business. Stuff in that coin—and it was just a few drops—could have dissolved a killer whale and had enough left over to mush-out an aquarium full of fat guppies. That’s it. You’ve got the low down and you’ve heard the tapes. Any thoughts?”

“Just one,” I said. “Wish that tape had been three minutes of music.”

Fifteen minutes later, I’m in the so-called Batmobile, roaring along past fine downtown skyscrapers with copper-colored glass reflecting sunlight bright as a promise from God; buildings with show windows full of orange and black crepe paper and ceramic pumpkins and holiday floral arrangements and mannequins decked out in masks and costumes that make them witches, Casper the Ghost, the Werewolf, the Frankenstein Monster, Dracula . . . or, Batman; darting through thick traffic, past gooseneck pedestrians trying to catch a view of me. as if they thought by will alone their eyes could cut through the smoke-colored windshield of the Batmobile and the sight of me were truly worth something.

Then I’m roaring out, into the older sections of Gotham where trash blows across the streets like urban tumbleweeds and sad eyes look out of dirt-colored apartment doorways and dust-filmed windows; apartments whose tenants are not only people, but cat-sized rats and thumb-sized roaches and enough despair to put on pants and take a fast walk; sections where in one sense it is Halloween everyday, minus the festive.

I drive down streets I have no need to travel. Drive down them because they put me in touch with what I do and who I am; drive past the wreck of the once majestic Gotham Theater, formerly at the center of downtown, now part of the urban dead, and I turn my head to look . . . and review my past in an instant, as if it is all inside my head on a very short reel of black-and-white film.

My mental projector rolls and the film is fast and silent with dialogue cards. There is a SERIES OF SHOTS where I, Bruce Wayne, am young again, and inside the Gotham Theater with my parents, sitting in a middle row between them, sharing a bag of popcorn, watching the rereleased classic,
The Mark of Zorro.

Scene OVERLAPS AND DISSOLVES to me and my parents taking a shortcut home, foolishly walking down the alley out back of the theater.

There is one streetlight in the alley. Its light is dirty amber and is currently the only true color introduced into this otherwise black-and-white scenario.

OVERHEAD VIEW. The three Waynes look like ants crawling through filthy maple syrup.

CAMERA SWOOPS DOWN, goes CLOSE on a MAN coming out of the shadows. He’s carrying a revolver, wearing a slouch hat, oversized coat, and too-long pants. He walks like a man with a monkey on his back.

He points his revolver at the three of us, opens his mouth, and a DIALOGUE CARD fills the screen. It reads: GIVE ME YOUR GOODS OR I’LL SHOOT.

Card goes away. My dad steps protectively in front of my mom. Man panics, FIRES. (Gun Burst is BRIGHT ORANGE.) Dad goes down.

Man FIRES again. (Another burst of ORANGE.) Mom’s pearls take the shot before her throat does. The necklace snaps. The pearls pop away, hit the alley, and bounce in all directions.

Mom falls.

CAMERA FOLLOWS as Man flees into the darkness and the darkness closes like a mouth and we DISSOLVE TO CLOSE UP of me on my knees between my dead parents, my fists bunched into little white knots, my face lifted to the streetlight as if it is some god I can appeal to.

The COLOR of the streetlight becomes more distinct, more GOLDEN. It highlights the tears on my cheeks, makes them look like cold, wet gems.

Hold a beat.

Streetlight DIMS gradually, and—

—FADE TO BAT-WING BLACK

My mental projector clicks off and the reel automatically resets for another time, and I’m alone in my skull with gray space aplenty. I turn my head back to the street and drive on between worn-out, soulless buildings as if they are ancient mountain ranges and the car is a dark cloud full of thunder, rain, and lightning, going get-up-and-get-it toward the graying horizon of a bad October day. And inside that cloud is me, a single drop of captured rain, on a course I can’t control, ready to spill at nature’s decree.

(Entry, October 29th)

Today, I come to you to write that I’m a failure and a fool.

Here’s the news, straight from the October twenty-seventh edition of the
Gotham Gazette.
I’ll paste it on the page.

FAMED PSYCHIATRIST AND
POODLE DISSOLVED

Marilyn Chute, famed doctor of psychiatry, noted for her work with such infamous psychopaths as the Joker, was victim to a bizarre and unexplained murder yesterday morning. She was found partially dissolved along with her poodle, FiFi.

The body was discovered at approximately ten o’clock by her day maid, Tuppence Calhoun. Mrs. Calhoun said she let herself in with her key, and when she didn’t see Dr. Chute, assumed she had gone shopping or out to answer a call from her office.

In preparing to clean the tub, Mrs. Calhoun discovered the shower was on and that the tub was full of a gelatinous mess containing a rhinestone dog collar, a shower cap, a mass of blond hair, white fur, pink dog toenails, and a purple party hat with a clown’s face on it. Mrs. Calhoun is recorded as saying, “It was a damn silly way to die, wasn’t it? Whatever happened to stabbing and shooting people?”

Police have refused to release details of this peculiar case, but Police Commissioner Gordon is calling Dr. Chute’s death murder, and the Joker, who recently escaped from Arkham Asylum, is suspected. He was under the psychiatric care of Dr. Chute.

Critics of Commissioner Gordon and Batman, claim Dr. Chute was an obvious target, but was overlooked by both the police and Batman, who many criminologists claim, has been much overrated as a detective.

Dr. Chute is survived by a sister, Carolyn Holt of New Jersey, and a brother . . .

The Joker told me what he was going to do, and who he was going to do it to, and I failed to see it. Now Dr. Chute is dead and something of a joke, even to her housekeeper, and, of course, that is the Joker’s way.

He once said he got a belly laugh out of his crimes, and especially out of baffling me, and that’s why he did them, and I’m sure his belly is rolling now.

He said he was going to get even with five people, and though there are literally hundreds of people the Joker might hold responsible for real or imagined ills, I should have considered his psychiatrist to be tops on his list. But I was too close to the matter. I was looking for people who had actually done something to him. Jim and I put him behind bars, Judge Hadley convicted him. Seemed logical that he would next go after the prosecutor. Possibly the cops who took him to the asylum. Attendants at the asylum. And thinking that, Jim and I decided to put twenty-four-hour surveillance on those people, others like them. The obvious choices.

But the doctor who was trying to cure him? The one person who thought there was a seed of humanity in him somewhere? The one who thought he could be rehabilitated? It isn’t logical he would want to do her harm.

But the logic of a madman is a sane man’s confusion.

I should have suspected. No, I should have known.

He said next time “I’ll shoot the works.” And it was a clue. Shoot for Chute, and by the works, he meant his chemicals. And he said he was going to lie down on a
couch
—as in a psychiatrist’s couch—and he said he was going to
analyze
his life, as in analysis . . . It was all there.

He must have known she showered with her poodle. She probably told him during one of their sessions. Something to humanize herself and make the Joker comfortable, draw out his humanity.

But the Joker has no humanity. He filed it away. Found out where she lived, put the coin in the showerhead when she was out, or had it put there, and when she turned on the water for her morning shower, it activated the chemical, and . . .

The Joker merely had to wait and read about it in the papers.

When he said the tape was a clue, he didn’t mean for Hadley, since he spelled that out. He meant it was a clue who his next victim was going to be, and I missed it. I thought it was merely chatter. A general warning that four others would die.

Now I have to ask myself the question: Who’s next?

(Entry late October 29th)

Earlier tonight the Bat-Signal struck bright against the night sky; a gold and black invitation to go downtown.

Alfred brought in my costume and I dressed and drove over to Jim’s office.

When we were alone, I said, “Putting in a twenty-four-hour day, Jim?”

“Twenty-eight,” he said. “The tape arrived an hour ago. They called me down to hear it. Thought you might like to hear it, too. Besides, if I can’t get any rest, I want someone else to suffer with me.”

“No rest for the wicked, and the good don’t need any,” I said.

(click)

Sung by the Joker:
I’m an ole cowhand, from the Rio Grande . . .

Enough music culture. Let’s talk. Ah, here we are again with yet another clue. I suppose that now, after the fact, of course, you have figured out the clues in the last tape. Shoot, Batman, you should have got that. I really thought this would be tougher.

Now, here’s my report, and I’m your reporter. If you can find where I’m holding court with a handful of stooges, then come and get me. In the meantime, I have to eat my lunch. Quite good actually, legumes and rice.

But, hey, you guys didn’t turn this tape on to hear me discuss my lunch, now did you? You want to know who’s next? Well, I’ve told you. Complicated, I assure you, but seems to me a smart detective like yourself, Batman, and you, Commissioner Gordon, his erstwhile companion, should be able to tap it all out. If you do decipher my little code, it best be before tomorrow, fiveish. If you don’t have it by then. Too late!

Hey, my food’s getting cold. I’m outta here.

(click)

(Entry, October 30th)

I listened to the two tapes repeatedly, came up with nothing. The minutes were ticking away for some poor soul and I had no idea who.

I took out the list Jim and I had made of possible victims. Jim had arranged for everyone on it to be given police protection, but we couldn’t be sure the Joker’s next victim was on the list. And even if we hit on who he planned to kill, it didn’t mean police protection would help. The Joker is wily.

“Your lunch, sir.”

I looked up. It was Alfred carrying a covered silver tray. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“No, sir, you were quite involved . . . Excuse me, perhaps it’s not my place, but don’t you feel just the wee bit silly sitting here wearing your . . . Batsuit?”

“You wear a butler’s uniform.”

“It doesn’t have a cape and ears, sir. This bat stuff, it’s a little ridiculous, don’t you think?”

“Truthfully, yes. But, it’s my job to wear this suit. I’m a crime fighter. I don’t want my identity known.”

“I quite understand that, sir. Criminals are a cowardly lot and all that. A disguise to strike fear into their hearts, etc., etc. But, sir, around the house, here in the cave? It’s like when you were a youngster and wouldn’t take off your Zorro outfit. You slept in it. And then that dog you made wear a mask. I have to say, Master Bruce, this outfit stuff, it makes me nervous. A grown man and all. Wearing it out in the dark while beating up on people, that I can understand, but at home . . . quite disconcerting.”

I pushed back my cowl. “Feel better?”