The Further Adventures of The Joker (45 page)

Presently, one of the shadows stumbled. The red flicker whispered angrily. “Yo, take it easy, idiot. You screw this up, I’ll put you in the friggin’ hospital myself.”

“I can’t see, man,” the other said. “An’ I’m tellin’ you, I don’t like this. The ’Man watches that place.”

“The hell with him! And the hell with you if you got a problem! Go on, Gary, go home if you ain’t with me. You, too, Rich. I don’t need this garbage.”

“That ain’t what I meant, man,” Gary whispered. “I just think we oughtta wait ’til the heat’s down. We wait a week or two, we can waste ’em when nobody’s lookin’.”

“No!” the flicker said as they got closer to the light. “Tonight! I don’t give a damn if the heat’s on. We gettin’ those punks tonight. You hearin’ me?”

“
I
hear you, Sammy,” Batman said aloud. “But I’ll be damned if I understand.”

Startled, all three stopped in their tracks. Gary dropped whatever he’d been carrying and it shattered loudly on the ground. There was a smell of gasoline.

Towering over them, the Batman stared at the remains of the Molotov cocktails and seized Sammy roughly by his jacket. “Are you out of your mind?”

“Go to hell, man,” Sammy spat. There was hate in his eyes. Batman could feel it. The red-jeweled earring he wore as his badge of office glittered even more under the lamplight. His friends recovered quickly and had moved behind Batman, drawing out a couple of .38s.

Still holding Sammy, Batman glanced over his shoulder at them, his eyes narrowing dangerously.

“Just try it.”

Rich’s jaw worked nervously. Gary was already sweating. After a moment, they lowered their guns and dropped them on the sidewalk.

Batman turned back to Sammy. “Now what the hell’s your problem?”

“You, man!” he shouted. “You’re my freakin’ problem! You and that kiss-ass treaty you made me agree to! Those lowlifes were just waitin’ ta backstab us. They came into Darkangel territory and cut my people down, man, an’ we hadn’t done nothin’!”

“So now you’re firebombing clinics, is that it? What else, Sammy? You blowing up babies in your spare time, too?”

Sammy laughed. “You crazy, man. You know that?”

Batman leaned into his face. “Yeah, Sammy, I’ll tell you how crazy I am. Somebody’s been killing kids in this city, and if I thought you, the other Darkangels, or any of the Overlords had anything to do with it, I’d make you wish you’d died in the rumble.”

“Man, I had nothin’ to do with that stuff! You got that? Nothin’!”

“Then why the Molotovs?” Batman shouted.

Sammy was seething. “Overlords came outta nowhere and killed three of mine, Bro! Andy and some o’ his back-stabbers got cut before the cops showed, so they took ’em to Old Lady Leslie’s.”

Batman kicked at the remains of the firebombs. “So now it’s revenge? Even if it costs innocent lives? Dammit, Sammy, do you want a war on your hands? Is that what you’re after?”

Sammy said nothing.

“Let’s get something straight,” Batman went on. “You guys aren’t supposed to be part of the problem, anymore. You’re supposed to be working toward the solution. You’re in it together. If you can’t handle that anymore, if you guys really want things to go back to the way they were before the treaty, you’ll be drowning in blood before you realize what’s happening.”

Sammy glanced at his lieutenants, then he looked up at Batman. “So what’re we supposed to do? Let ’em come back so they can do it again?”

“Nobody’s saying that, Sammy. But think for a minute: Andy’s always stuck to the treaty. He was eager to see the Alley change as you were. Why would he stop?”

“What’re you sayin’, that maybe we started it?”

“No, but this whole thing feels wrong. You guys had peace for close to a year and it was working! Whatever you think happened, there must be more to it. Give me a chance to find out before you start another war.”

Sammy stared at him a moment longer, then turned and started to leave, Gary and Rich following close behind.

“One more thing, Sammy,” Batman said, retrieving the fallen guns.

Sammy turned, arching an eyebrow at him. Batman’s look was ice. “Stay away from the clinic. Anyone messes with it, it’s war with me.”

Sammy grinned and threw him a mock salute. “Of course, Bro,” he said, and disappeared with his friends down the street. Batman watched as they turned the corner, and tucked the guns into a belt pouch. Then with silent strides, he turned and walked toward the clinic named for his father.

It didn’t matter how many times she took them in, cleaned them, comforted them, treated their addictions, or stitched them back together, she never got used to feeling their pain. Each new victim claimed a small piece of her, until she felt she had nothing left to give. Yet, somehow, she always found a little more.

She put down the stethoscope and rubbed her eyes. Four major operations in as many hours, patching up kids who seemed intent on maiming or disemboweling each other, stitching up stab wounds that looked more like perforations on flesh that still had baby fat—it exacted its price on her, and Leslie Thompkins, M.D., Director of the Thomas Wayne Memorial Clinic, still couldn’t afford the luxury of tears. She’d merely gotten used to fighting them back.

Ambulances from St. Matthew’s had already carted off the ones needing the most attention. It still left her with twelve patients convalescing in a recovery room designed to hold half that number. She’d sent home her assistant, Peter, after the fourth operation, and spent the last hour making sure her kids were stable. Only then would she let herself go to her office long enough for a cup of coffee.

To her dismay, she found it already poured, steaming from a cup on her desk.

“I thought you could use some,” a voice said from behind her. She immediately whirled around, ready to swing at whoever had broken in. She stopped herself in time.

“Dammit, Bruce, can’t you ever come here without scaring me half to death?”

Even under his cowl he managed to look mildly hurt, but only for a moment. “Sorry, Leslie. Stealth becomes so much a way of life after a while, sometimes it’s difficult to stop.” He smiled at her. “Drink your coffee.”

“Don’t order me around,” she snapped, then returned the smile. “Where’s my hug?”

Batman opened his arms as he moved toward her. They embraced each other warmly for a long moment. “How’ve you been?” he asked.

Clinging to him tightly, she found the strength to laugh. “Awful.”

“Bad night?”

“Oh, God, the worst.”

“I heard about the rumble. I would’ve been here sooner, but I’ve been on a case.”

She let go of him and stepped back, putting her hand on his cheek. “I know. I’ve been following it in the news. It’s terrible, Bruce. All those children. How can something like that happen?”

“If I could answer that I might be able to prevent it. But I can’t.”

“Can you stop it?”

“I’m trying. So far, I’m coming up empty. I can’t even determine who the killer is.”

“Then maybe it’s over. Maybe he’s left the city. It’s been eight days—”

“I know. But I think he’s just laying low, waiting us out, hoping we’ll lower our guard so he can kill safely.”

Leslie shook her head as she reached for her coffee. “I never believed it could get this bad,” she whispered.

Batman collapsed into a nearby chair, his own exhaustion after a frantic night of following empty leads catching up to him. Mirrors indeed. “I used to say the same thing,” he murmured. “But there’s always a new horror. And the old ones never really go away.”

Leslie lowered herself into her own chair, nursing her coffee with both hands. She tried changing the subject. “So what brought you here?”

“The rumble, originally,” he said. “I thought perhaps I could help.” Then he looked up at her, and couldn’t help but smile. Everytime he saw her, Leslie looked a little thinner to him, her hair a little whiter, but the face was still very much as it had been twenty-five years ago when he’d first surrendered to her welcoming embrace. The same compassionate eyes reaching out to him as they did on that corner where his parents were murdered. She even still wore that same gold charm around her neck, designed to look like half a broken heart with the words,
I love you,
inscribed across it. And he realized then he couldn’t remember ever seeing her without the pendant, as if she wore it constantly just for him. But of course that was absurd. She’d been wearing it when they met, and to this day its message went out to all the hurt and troubled kids who washed up on her doorstep.

“But the truth is, I missed you,” he finished.

She reached out and touched his hand. “Thank you, Bruce. That’s very sweet. How’s Alfred?”

“Crusty as ever. He’s been pestering me to get more sleep, as usual, but his latest trick is to bring me warm milk down in the cave.”

Leslie laughed aloud. “He’s a jewel.”

Batman nodded. “That he is. I could never manage without him.” He trailed off, staring vacantly at the viewing window across the room.

Leslie watched him over the brim of her coffee cup. “You’ve got something else on your mind.”

“Hmm. Something.”

“Want to talk about it?”

He looked at her. “What went down tonight?”

Leslie closed her eyes and shook her head. “A nightmare. Everything seemed to come apart at once, Bruce, and it was completely without warning.”

“Sammy Levant implied as much.”

“You spoke to him?”

“Yes.” He hesitated. “I . . . bumped into him on my way here. He said the Overlords came out of nowhere.”

Leslie’s eyebrows furrowed. “I don’t understand.”

“The Overlords’ attack. Didn’t you just say it was completely without warning?”

“Yes, but I meant the Darkangels’ attack, not the Overlords’.”

Batman stared at her. “The Darkangels started the rumble?”

“No, no. The Overlords started the rumble, but it was in retaliation for Darkangel attacks on
their
territory.”

He was silent for a moment. “How do you know this?”

“Andy Sabastian.”

“He’s awake?”

“No, he’s under. He had severe lacerations on the face and a couple of pretty deep stab wounds in the lower abdomen. I got to hear his side of it before we operated, though. He felt betrayed.”

“Like Sammy,” Batman said quietly. “It doesn’t make sense. Their gang mentalities aside, these are two basically intelligent, honorable kids. But one of them’s got to be lying.”

“That may be,” Leslie said, “but you can’t take this on, too.”

“I’m going to have to. You said yourself, everything’s coming apart at once. It’s only going to get worse unless I get involved.”

Leslie put down her cup and glared at him. “Bruce, you can’t carry the weight of the world on your shoulders! You’re not the Messiah.”

“Would you have me walk away from it, then? Sammy was on his way to blowing this place up when I stopped him. Should I have turned my back?”

Leslie looked shaken. “I only meant—”

“I know what you meant,” he told her softly. “But there’s no one else to help them. And if no one does, they’ll kill each other, you know that. I’ll do what I have to. I’ll do what I can . . . weren’t those among your first words to me? Isn’t that what you tell these kids?”

Leslie turned toward the window through which she could see into the recovery ward. “I guess you’ll want to talk to Andy.”

“Yes.”

“He’ll be under for quite some time. He needs to heal. Tomorrow night?”

“Fair enough. There’s other work I need to get done, anyway. I’ll have to go.”

“I know.” A tear was sliding down her cheek.

A faint smile creased Batman’s face. He reached out and caught the tear on his gloved finger.

Leslie turned back to him. “What are you staring at?”

Batman’s smile didn’t fade. “Just remembering. You know, I watched you while you were going over your patients, your gentleness with them, the look on your face. You really care for each and every one that comes in here, don’t you? Every one, as if they were your own.”

She hesitated. “I cared about you, too, Bruce. I still do. When you were young I tried so hard to give you peace, to help you channel all that rage inside you. I’d hope to help you heal. But I never could.”

Batman knelt down in front of her and took her hands. “Don’t ever think that, Leslie, please. You saved me. I’m sorry if what I’ve become a frightens you, but if I hadn’t had your love to hold me together when I needed it, who can say what I might have become?”

She looked into his eyes a moment longer and passed two fingers across his cheek.

“Then go. Do what you can.”

He said his good-byes and walked out the front door, past the plaque with his father’s name, and Leslie’s, and went down the steps. He walked slowly across the silent street toward the Batmobile, melting once again into the shadows.

The light reached him first, a sudden flash from behind that annihilated the shadows and for an instant made the Alley bright as day. Then all at once he heard the blast, felt the shockwave and the burning wind and the rain of dust and fragmented brick, and found himself facedown in the street, while behind him the clinic died.

Ignoring the blood he tasted, he lifted his head and saw the flames erupting from the windows, hearing their crackle even over the ringing in his ears. For a moment he crouched frozen in the street. For only a moment.

Images raced through his mind: a medical warehouse exploding in Ethiopia, himself sifting through the wreckage, Jason’s body lying broken and cold . . .

“Leslie . . .”

The front door splintered as he kicked it in, a blast of heat catching him full in the face. He dropped down, keeping beneath the smoke, drawing his cape around him as he tried to see down the main corridor. Part of the roof had caved in, and a fallen beam blocked the recovery room like a huge torch. Impassable. Leslie’s office door was open and unblocked.

He crawled in, only to find it in utter ruin. The viewing window had been blown in, showering the office with glass. The recovery room itself was an inferno. He couldn’t even see into it, nor hear a single scream. This close, the flames had become a deafening roar.