Wayne of Gotham (27 page)

Amusement Mile / Gotham / 10:55 p.m. / October 25, 1958

“What do we do NOW, boss?”

“Shut up, Salvatore! I gotta think,” Julius Moxon said through a grimace. The slug in his right shoulder had lodged in the joint and was excruciating. He gripped it with his left hand, trying to stop the blood and keep his arm from moving at the same time. He leaned heavily against the wall in a narrow alley between the milk-bottle throw and the balloon dart game booths. There were fifteen more of his boys jammed in the tight space around him, each packing everything from Thompson SMGs to pump shotguns. The lights of the midway beyond the alley were bright and harsh, swaying overhead in the October wind. They cast heavy, shifting shadows across the faces around Julius, and despite packing serious heat, their faces reflected the fear that was threatening to close around the mobster's heart. “Who we got left?”

“Hard to say, boss,” Salvatore answered, pushing up the brim of his hat with the muzzle of his Thompson as he tried to see down the midway. “Ricky and his boys are all hanging from the Ferris wheel like they was Christmas ornaments or somethin'. Somebody oughta go over there and stop that thing from turning … It ain't decent them swingin' like that.”

“
You
do it, Salvatore,” one of the thin hitmen said through chattering teeth.

“Like hell, Jonesy!” Salvatore barked back. “I ain't walking out for no guys that's already
dead
.”

“I thought that was the whole point of robbing the Gotham National in the first place.” The fat killer called Kelly the Kelvinator was sweating despite the cold. “Lure these Apocalypse jerks here with the bait and then whack 'em with heat from all the mobs at the same time. Bye-bye Apocalypse and back to business as usual.”

The corrugated steel roofing gave a light rattle from above. Everyone in the alley ducked at the sound.

“Yeah,” Salvatore countered, “well, it looks like the Apocalypse isn't following the plan.”

“Quit flapping your gums and reload,” Julius barked. He was beginning to feel a little light-headed. “We gotta find a way outta here.”

“Who done that to you, boss?” Salvatore asked, nodding at the damaged shoulder.

“That Disciple jerk … I think,” Julius moaned, then grinned. “I put a slug in him, though, before he took my Browning and turned it on me. If I hadn't taken a dive off the roof into that dumpster, my number might have been up.”

“It might be yet, boss, if we don't get that taken care of,” Jonesy said. “You're leakin' like a sieve. Still, you're lucky: that Disciple don't ever let anyone walk away in one piece—literally.”

“That one they call Chanteuse,” said Mikey, a weasel-faced thug. “I heard she leaves like a Tarot card on each guy she kills.”

“Nah, that's that Fate chick,” Salvatore snapped. “Chanteuse is the one with the murderous voice. “She's, like, one of them Greek sirens or something.”

“Listen to you guys,” Julius spat, his spittle tinged with a streak of his blood. “A bunch of mama's boys scared of their shadows. There's only
four
of them, you dumb apes. You can't whack four creeps? Two of them are
broads
, for hell's sake!”

“What's the name of that other mug?” Kelly asked.

“Let's see,” the weasel sniffed. “Disciple, Chanteuse, Fate, and … what's his name—”

Suddenly, a long scythe tore through the darkness from above, the blade impaling the fat killer through the chest and against the wooden wall of the milk-bottle booth. Impossibly, the blade dragged the fat Kelly upward over the edge of the roof, where the black robes and dark hood of death incarnate stood.

“REAPER!” The weasel shouted, his shotgun suddenly raised and barking into the darkness above. A ragged chorus of machine-gun fire joined in, but there was nothing there to shoot.

The fat killer was gone.

“Get me outta here!” Julius shouted and then coughed. More blood came into his mouth and he spit it out. He tried to run across the midway, but his legs felt loose and rubbery beneath him. Salvatore grabbed his boss, throwing his shoulder under his arm and dragging him toward the fun house across the way. Julius heard the sounds of the machine guns following behind him. A high-pitched scream tore above the sound of the gunfire as Joey flew past Julius, slamming into the wall next to the entrance.

Salvatore busted down the entrance door with a single kick and dragged Julius inside. The remaining Moxon hitmen pushed their way through the door after them … tumbling into a mirror maze.

Guns raised, all they could see around them were reflections of themselves seemingly going into forever. The stark light of the overhead bulb was repeating in all directions.

“May … maybe we should go back, boss,” Salvatore stammered.

“Out
there
?” Julius snorted. “It's just a kid's maze, Sal! We'll go out the back and blow this whole scene.”

They plunged into the maze together, threatened on all sides by their own reflections. The shifting images with the raised weapons they saw were themselves, but now and then a face would appear that was not their own, vanishing so quickly it was impossible to tell if the image had been real or an illusion of their own fears.

“Hey, boss?” whispered the weasel.

“What is it, Mikey?” Julius asked.

“You hear that?”

“Hear what?”

He
did
hear something. A high, reedy voice was echoing through the mirrors.

“Michael! Please help me!” the voice pleaded. “I'm so afraid! What do they want, Michael? I don't know what they want!”

“Ma?” Mikey the Weasel asked. “Boss! They got Ma!”

“What are you talkin' about?” Julius stared at the slim thug. “What would your ma be doing in this nuthouse?”

“MA!” Mikey shouted. “It's my ma, boss! They got her. I'm coming, Ma! Don't you worry, Ma, I'm coming!”

Mikey plunged down a side corridor in the maze, his reflection scattering in all directions. In a moment, he vanished.

“You want I should get him, boss?” said the thin man with chattering teeth.

A deathly scream suddenly rattled among the mirrors.

“I don't think so,” Julius answered.

A gunshot rang out, followed by the sound of shattering glass. Then a burst of machine-gun fire rang out.

The man with the chattering teeth lurched forward, bloody patches exploding across his back. He fell into the mirror, smashing it as it scattered at his feet.

Guns suddenly began firing everywhere. Julius dropped painfully to the ground as Salvatore shielded him. Several bodies fell through the collapsing mirrors in front of them.

“Knock it off!” Julius shouted to his own men, but it took them several more rounds before they were able to stop.

“Hey, boss, check this out,” Salvatore said.

Julius stared at the bodies on the floor in front of him. “Who are these guys?”

“They're Falcone's boys,” Salvatore said, biting his lip. “And that one over there is one of Rossetti's. Looks like we got company, boss.”

“We've been set up—all of us,” Julius seethed. “Those Apocalypse creeps have us butchering each other for them! Well, I'm tired of this game and I don't want to play anymore!”

Julius staggered to his feet.

“Everybody out there—down!” he shouted. “Sal, our luck can't get no worse. Break me a few mirrors!”

Salvatore grinned, raising up his drum-fed Thompson. It started to spray bullets and mirror shards began to fall like rain.

S
alvatore eased Julius into the back of the Cadillac Fleetwood Sixty Special. Julius knew the upholstery in the back would be ruined by his blood, but he could afford it.

If I live that long.

He had a terrible headache and was having trouble concentrating. Salvatore was saying something to him, but it was hard for him to hear. He desperately wanted to sleep but knew somehow that if he did, it would be for the last time.

“You want we should take you to Gotham Hospital, boss?” Salvatore repeated in his face as though Julius were deaf.

“No! We might as well walk into the DA's office and start singing!” Julius snapped. The pain was overwhelming. “Who's that doctor Lewis is always going on about? That rich friend of his?”

“Rains … Bains …” Salvatore stammered.

“Wayne!” Julius said. “Dr. Thomas Wayne, old Pat Wayne's kid. He can patch me up and we can keep one step ahead of the bulls.”

“But, where we gonna find him, boss?” Salvatore shrugged.

“That party,” Julius said, grabbing Salvatore by the collar. “Lewis was going to some big-shot fancy party at the Kane Mansion tonight. Wayne will be there—along with every other money-spoiled snob of Gotham. That's where we'll find him. How many boys we got left?”

“Counting us?” Salvatore glanced around outside the car. “Ten … maybe fifteen here now. They're all piled into a couple of cars behind us like clowns in a circus.”

“That's enough to handle the Hoi polloi,” Moxon smiled. “Tell the boys we're going to crash a party over at the Kane Mansion.”

“You want me to go out
there
?” Salvatore gaped.

“Am I talkin' to myself?” Moxon barked through the pain. “I'm bleeding here! Just do it!”

Salvatore jerked on the handle, shoving the door open as fast as he could manage. It rebounded, but the big thug was already clear of it, running back toward the next sedan. He shouted at the third car idling behind and was glad to see the windows of both cars roll down slightly to hear him. He did not want to have to stand out in the open and say it twice.

“Moxon says we're going to the party at the Kane Mansion!” he shouted, glancing at the dark midway buildings that seemed too close for comfort.

“Where's this Kane place?” called the driver of the third car. His voice sounded a staccato, like his teeth were chattering.

“It's in Bristol,” Salvatore shouted back. This was taking too long for his liking. “Read the map, knucklehead, and stay on our bumper!”

“But why this Kane place?” the driver persisted.

“There's a doc there by the name of Wayne who's gonna patch up the boss,” Salvatore answered over his shoulder as he rushed back to Moxon's car. “Or else we're gonna make a few new openings available among the kings of High Society.”

From a hidden spot nearly twenty feet away, the entire conversation had been overheard.

Wayne Manor / Bristol / 11:30 p.m. / October 25, 1958

Thomas examined the costume that had been carefully laid out on the divan in the dressing room of his east-wing suite. It had been his parents' inviolate territory when he was growing up, and he still felt like an intruder for moving into the rooms. He had finished showering and had shaved once more for the evening. He wore a towel wrapped around his waist and considered just what one could do to make his attire for the evening less ridiculous.

Thomas was uncomfortable with costumes in the first place and had asked Jarvis to secure one for him to wear to the party. The servant had assured him that the character was extremely popular, but Thomas only knew it as coming from an old 1920 silent movie that his father used to make him watch now and then when Thomas was a boy. It was about the only activity Thomas remembered doing with his father that did not involve an argument or a beating. Unfortunately, this costume had been assembled incorrectly, with tights and trunks rather than the proper leggings and with a cape that looked more like something Dracula might wear than a caballero. Unlike everyone else, Thomas didn't have much time for television but he knew everyone at the hospital liked to talk about Westerns. The mask was a hooded cowl in the style of the old Fairbanks films. To Thomas's dismay, the outfit had no cowboy hat. Worse, whoever had assembled the costume seemed to have done a rushed job of it, tossing in tall black boots and a wide leather belt more suited to a buccaneer. By the time the costume had arrived, it was too late to do anything about changing it. Perhaps, Thomas thought, he could find something more suitable than the tights and the trunks to wear under his costume.

Thomas turned back to the mirror over the sink. There was still Burma-Shave on his face despite the new Gillette safety razor having done a much smoother job on his face. He began to sing to himself as he splashed water from the basin, rubbing off the shaving cream.

“Good evening, Thomas” came the quiet, familiar voice.

Thomas looked up into the mirror with a start.

“It's been a long, long time,” the man said, leaning on the back of the divan.

“Denholm!” Thomas breathed, his eyes wide. He wondered how Denholm Sinclair had managed to get into the mansion … and whether he had managed to do so unnoticed.

“Denholm? Yes, I suppose I will allow that I was Denholm Sinclair,” he said. “It pains me to admit it, though … pains me terribly. It was a pain that
you
gave me, Thomas. Remember? I wasn't the man you thought I should be … and you were going to
fix
me, weren't you? And you
did
fix me, Thomas … you fixed me better than you could have hoped. I couldn't be old Denny Sinclair any longer because Denny was a liar and a cheat, a guy who burned up little orphans in their beds just to cover up his extensive fraud. So I've become what you wanted me to be, Thomas, and I'm bringing justice down on the very vermin and predators among whom I once numbered. Denholm Sinclair is dead—I buried everything he ever was—and now I'm the man Martha Kane asked that I become. And I have you to thank for it, my dear friend. I am … so very grateful.”

“Denholm—”

“That's not who I am!” the man roared, his voice startling Thomas.

“Okay.” Thomas drew in a slow, controlled breath, holding both his palms forward and acutely aware that he was only dressed in a towel. “What should I call you, then?”