Batman 2 - Batman Returns (16 page)

He looked across the roof. Oh, yes, Batman was still here. Well, that would be taken care of shortly.

Batman headed for him in a way that suggested he intended to do great bodily harm.

Penguin heard the commotion on the stairs. He stepped back so he would be behind the fire door when the police arrived.

They took the elevators to the top floor, then headed up the stairs to the roof. There were a dozen cops in riot gear in front of Gordon, maybe two dozen more behind him. They should be able to handle anything.

The men in front of him burst through the door above and quickly fanned out, guns at the ready. Gordon followed as quickly as his weight and age would allow.

He reached the roof to see all guns pointed at the Batman, outlined by the klieg lights at the edge of the roof.

“Wait!” Batman called.

“Hold your fire!” Gordon began.

But his words were lost under gunfire as a hail of bullets pushed Batman off the edge of the roof.

H
is body armor had saved him. That, and the fact that he had only fallen a short distance, to a penthouse terrace maybe a dozen feet below.

He tried to stand, and found himself pushed back to the ground by a high-heeled boot.

Catwoman stood above him. Boot still on his chest, she smiled down at him.

“You’re catnip to a girl like me,” she purred. “Handsome, dazed, and to die for.”

She stepped back and leaned down, as if she were going to kiss him. She licked him instead, cat style, across the lips. Batman looked up above her head and realized she was holding a sprig of mistletoe.

“A kiss under the mistletoe?” he managed, still trying to regain his breath. “Mistletoe can be deadly, if you eat it—”

Catwoman smiled, her face still only a few inches away. “But a kiss can be even deadlier, if you mean it.”

She reached down to his utility belt, and unfastened it with a single flick of her claws. She pulled it from his waist and tossed it off the side of the roof.

“You’re the second man who killed me this week,” she remarked sadly. “But, hey, no prob. I’ve got seven lives left.”

Killed her? He realized she must mean her own fall from that other roof. Maybe now he could explain.

“I tried to grab you—save you—”

She looked meaningfully toward the edge of the roof. “Seems like every woman you try to save winds up dead”—she turned back to Batman—“or deeply resentful.”

She grabbed his armor with her claws and yanked him to his feet.

“Maybe,” she suggested, “it’s time to retire.” She swiped toward his mask with her claws.

It was time to get out of here. Batman jumped backward, away from her and off the roof. This time, though, he was ready for the fall.

He pressed a small button at his waist, and twin wings sprouted from either side of his armor, turning him into a glider that would gently sail down to the ground.

He swooped down, surrounded by the rising bats from the Christmas tree below. That must be another of The Penguin’s special touches. He’d have to thank the bird man personally, as soon as he’d had a chance to recover.

He banked over the crowd, heading for the alley and the Batmobile. He was coming in very fast. He’d have to skirt over the top of the crowd, then try to hit the pavement running. With luck, he could fold in the wings and somersault to a stop.

The alley wasn’t large enough for the wings. He tried to pull them close as he touched down, but the wings were too awkward to maneuver in this narrow space. He lost his footing, and went from a run to a stumble. The left wing shattered against a brick wall as he collapsed forward, skidding on the pavement.

Batman groaned. He had hit the ground hard. The ground spun around before him. But he had to get up. Safety was only a few feet away.

He had to get to the Batmobile.

The Catwoman and The Penguin sat on the edge of the terrace, watching the Batman’s wings collapse in the alley.

My, she thought, that did look painful. All in all, a very satisfying fall for the Batman.

And The Penguin had brought champagne.

He handed over a glass.

She looked back at The Penguin. How could he be so happy? Well, of course, they had totally framed and humiliated the Batman. But someone had gotten killed in the process.

“You said you were going to
scare
the Ice Princess!” she said with a frown.

“And I kept my word!” The Penguin replied with continued joviality. “The lady looked terrified.”

Catwoman frowned down at the glass of champagne. She was beginning to think The Penguin wasn’t her kind of person.

He reached within one of the many pockets of his soiled coat, and pulled forth what must once have been a box from Tiffany’s. It was now rather the worse for the wear, both worn and stained, as if it had spent a long time with The Penguin down in the sewers.

He opened the box, revealing a golden ring that was so overdone with gaudy, amazingly, even horrifying gems that it was hideous; almost like someone had lost their lunch in a jewelry store. She looked back at The Penguin. What was he trying to prove?

“So what are we waiting for?” he urged. “Let’s consummate our fiendish union!”

Union? She frowned.

“Oh, please,” she said with a shudder. “I wouldn’t touch you to scratch you!”

That apparently was the wrong answer. The Penguin began to quake with rage.

“I oughta have you spayed!” he shouted. “You sent out all the signals!”

Catwoman paused to think about that.

“Did I?” she asked. And silently answered, maybe she did. “Only because my mom trained me to, with a man—” Oh yeah. She remembered her mom’s warnings. Heaven forfend Selina should be an Old Maid! “—any man,” she added, “—all men—”

This Cat outfit had brought it out even more. Why couldn’t she look at what she was doing? “Corn dog!” she muttered, hitting herself on the side of the head for good measure.

But why was she blaming herself again? She had promised that once she had donned the Catwoman outfit, she would place the blame where it belonged—on men! She turned to The Penguin with a new resolve.

“Me, domesticated?” she asked angrily. “By you? I doubt it! You repulsive, awful—” She hesitated for an instant, looking for some sufficiently insulting way to end the remark, but there really was only one way to complete the sentence. “—Penguin!”

The Penguin hugged his umbrella close, mortally offended. “The name is Oswald Cobblepot.”

He flung the umbrella at her. She dodged the shaft, but the handle snaked around her neck, forming a noose as the ribs of the umbrella spun above her, creating a rotor that lifted her from the roof. She couldn’t breathe.

The Penguin waved sadly as the umbrella copter lifted her from the ground.

“And the wedding’s been called
off.”

He was going to hang her with his umbrella!

S
he saw The Penguin turn moodily away as the umbrella whirled her away from the rooftop and out over Gotham City.

But she would strangle. There had to be some way to loosen this noose. She reached up with her claws, striking at the rope that stretched across the back of her neck.

She sliced through it. She could breathe.

But she was no longer being held aloft by the umbrella, which went spinning ever higher as she fell.

She saw lights immediately below. A glass enclosure on another roof. A penthouse maybe.

She crashed through the roof.

She opened her eyes. She had landed in dirt, surrounded by flowers. This wasn’t just a penthouse, it was a greenhouse.

So Catwoman survived. But was she happy?

She wailed loud enough to break the rest of the glass.

Another life down the tubes.

There were banners and posters all over the place—windows, telephone poles, even the campaign bus—and all saying, in a dozen different ways, to vote Cobblepot for Mayor.

The Penguin loved those slogans. Max’s boys were so good at those sort of things.

His supporters clustered around him, cheering. So why couldn’t he shake this gloom? Maybe it had something to do with killing not one babe, but two! It seemed like such a waste of good womanflesh—especially before he and those babes could become more personally acquainted. He pulled a handful of campaign buttons out of one of his many pockets, and started to pin them on the chests of his supporters—his female supporters—his well-endowed female supporters. Hey, he started to feel better already. What was a dead babe or two, when there were all these other babes to go around?

Still, he had other fish to fry at the moment. After waving a fond adieu, especially to a couple of blondes, he jumped aboard his bus and hurried back to his specially designed miniature Batmobile, complete with switches, meters, dials, knobs, levers, buttons, and a mini-steering wheel. What made this even more special, of course, was that every single button, lever and knob on this board controlled some function of the real Batmobile.

Hey. The Penguin cackled. This could cheer him up even more.

His body had taken too much abuse; too many punches and kicks and bullets, compounded by his crash into the alley. His body armor had absorbed some of the shock. But his body had received the rest of it.

Somehow, Batman got to his feet. Somehow, he made it to the Batmobile. He pressed a button beneath his glove and switched off the security system.

And not a moment too soon, he thought, as he heard angry voices behind him. He could make out enough of their shouts as he popped open the door to the Batmobile to figure out the source of their anger. They wanted him, and not necessarily alive. They thought he had murdered the Ice Princess. In their minds, he was already tried, convicted, and ready for execution. Now that they’d found him, they weren’t going to let him get away; a whole mob of self-appointed vigilantes.

Vigilantes. It had a familiar ring to it. What made them so different from Batman?

Only perhaps that he had the money for the proper training, and the state-of-the-art equipment. And maybe, just maybe, he had his anger under a little more control.

The voices were getting closer. The leading edge of the crowd was only a few yards away.

Now wasn’t the time to think about this. Now it was time to get out of here.

He jumped into the driver’s seat and slammed the door shut above him. The mob couldn’t reach him now. He exhaled, giving himself a moment’s peace before he took the Batmobile home.

The doors locked. The control panel flashed on. The engine roared to life.

Batman stared at the controls. He hadn’t touched anything.

The small TV monitor by the side of the wheel blipped on. But instead of Alfred’s face, Batman saw the gloating features of The Penguin.

“Don’t adjust your set,” the villain remarked pleasantly. “Welcome to the Oswald Cobblepot School of Driving. Gentlemen, start your screaming—”

The Batmobile slammed forward as if Batman had floored the accelerator. Batman’s pursuers jumped wildly for cover as the car careened forward and turned, tires squealing, onto the street.

The Penguin had it all!

He had two screens in front of him. One showed him Batman’s face. Very tense. Definite Type A personality. If Batman wasn’t careful, he’d get an ulcer. That is, if he lived long enough. Which he wouldn’t.

The second screen showed a driver’s-eye view of where the Batmobile was going. Very important, since The Penguin was doing the steering. And no doubt he would steer the Batmobile straight into an accident. But it had to be a spectacular accident. And the Batmobile should run over as many innocent bystanders as possible before it happened. After all, why only sully a hero’s reputation when, with just a little more effort, you could destroy it completely?

“Maybe this would be a bad time to mention it,” The Penguin said to his own personal video camera, the one whose signal was being piped to the Batmobile, “but my license has expired.”

He turned the Batmobile toward the crowd-filled plaza, and once again pressed his own personal accelerator.

“Of course,” The Penguin added with a cackle, “so have you.”