The Further Adventures of The Joker (40 page)

Max did what he could: a few jabs, a couple of kicks. They might have merely passed through the phantom, or it might have been that he floated just outside their reach.

Suddenly it was over: a dark swirl of movement, and Max was staggering. Batman seized him, took him down, and whatever happened then was blocked off by the cape. When he stood again, Max hung limp over one shoulder. Batman strode to the edge of the roof, paused (and in that moment I had the eerie sensation he was staring directly at me), and started down the ladder.

“It’s over,” I told Harry.

“I see them,” he said. “I wouldn’t have thought anybody could take Max.”

“What’s next?”

“The shootout. It’ll look like drugs.”

“Get it started. He’s almost down.”

By 3:00
A.M.
, Batman must have established an all-time personal best: we gave him a string of seven consecutive muggings along Fourth Avenue, knocked over the Red Spot Liquor Emporium, blew up a church belonging to one of those splinter religious groups that nobody likes, and blasted the door off the vault at the Wheat Exchange. We got away with enough cash to fund the entire operation. But Batman nailed two of the boys.

About the same time that the comptroller’s unit was at the Wheat Exchange, Manny DeSailles was bailing out Juliana. Twenty minutes later, Batman collared him again trying to stick up a cab.

The driver was one of my people, and afterward he called me on the white phone. “You wouldn’t believe it, Boss,” he said. “He lifted Shotgun off his feet and I thought for a minute he was going to throttle him on the spot. He was still waiting when the cops came and he told them to see if they could hold onto him this time. They looked kind of scared of him themselves.”

“Beautiful,” I said, and called DeSailles. “Manny, I got another job for you.”

We kept Batman going. We robbed all-night markets, broke into private homes, knifed winos, blocked off downtown streets and attacked drivers who couldn’t get through. I even took advantage of the situation to bomb the Penguin’s headquarters down on Eighth.

Gradually, we led him across town to Carlay Park, to the old John Elk tractor plant abandoned years ago during the war. As fast as the police carted them away, Manny and his associates bailed them out. We threw as many back at him as we could.

At four-thirty, I called for my car. It rolled up in front of the hotel, and one of my associates opened the door for me. I climbed in. “Hello, Cass,” I said.

He swiveled around and nodded. “Hello, Joker. Where to?”

Not a likable man under the best of circumstances. Thin, with narrow eyes that you could never trust, a permanent scowl. Not young, either. Old enough that I could see there was no hope for improvement. “I’m going over to Carlay Park, Cass. But I suspect you have another destination.”

I watched his hand slide inside his jacket. “What do you mean, Joker?”

I was fingering my boutonniere, casually, like a man without any serious concerns. “It’s all right, Cass. You’ll enjoy the trip.” I pressed the stud imbedded at the top of the stem. It was too dark in the car to see, but I felt the pressure release, heard the faint hiss, and listened to the sudden strangled cry. “Bought and paid for, Cass. Compliments of management.”

Thirty minutes later, Harry parked across the street and just down the block from a three-story tenement that the city had promised to renovate a year earlier. In the end, it would be up to me.

It was mostly vacant, but enough poor families had homesteaded there that it would do. On Harry’s signal, a car raced past Batman (who was wearily putting the wraps on two muggers whom he’d already seen once before that evening), and screeched to a stop in front of the tenement. Three men jumped out and lobbed Molotov cocktails through the windows. Then they roared away while the building burned and the screaming began.

I had taken a rifle onto a rooftop across the street. From there, I watched him pound across the pavement and, wrapped in his cape, charge into the building. The grace and power I’d seen earlier had dissipated. He was tired now, uncertain, almost clumsy.

A crowd gathered quickly. One or two tried to follow him in, but were driven back by the heat. People were pouring out of the building. Batman came out with two children and went back in.

A wall collapsed. People screamed on the upper floors. I watched him bring out several more. A roof collapsed and fire belched out, driving them all back. He turned and looked over at the building where
I
was waiting.

Sirens sounded. Far away.

He bolted across the street and disappeared into the doorway immediately below me. I heard him coming up the stairs.

It was a bad moment.

He would come through the trapdoor. The same one I’d used. And which I’d left open. But there was no time to close it.

And no place to hide.

I got as far from the light cast by the flames as I could, and stretched out on the roof. I sighted the rifle on the trapdoor.

In the third-floor windows of the burning building, people were getting ready to jump.

I thought of Max atop Universal Pump and glanced nervously behind me. When I looked back, he was already out and on the roof. But he wasn’t interested in me, had no idea I was there.

Our building was a few feet higher than the tenement. He secured a line to the trapdoor, heaved it across the street, and stepped off the rooftop. Then he disappeared into the smoke and flame.

I went back out to the edge and tried to spot him. He was anchored to the side of the building, taking people out of burning rooms.

I set the rifle into its black tripod and locked the sight on his back. The weapon was a night-sight, CIA-issue assassin rifle, state-of-the-art.

A woman clung to his neck while he tried to coax an old man out a window. As I watched, the glass exploded, and the man literally
fell
out. Batman caught him, but the force of the blast spun them around. But they all held on.

How easy it would have been then. I zeroed in on the yellow spotlight and the bat symbol, held them, played with the moment. And then, as they dangled, as he began to drop toward the street, the woman swung through the sight.

She was young, black, perhaps a mother. I shrugged, tried to change my angle so the round wouldn’t go through both of them. When I was satisfied, I squeezed off a round.

It was enough. She fell into the street. And I saw the agony and the rage in his face. The mask could not conceal it.

“Boss, somebody else is playing this game.”

“What do you mean?” Batman was almost to the pavement.

“A woman he was bringing down. I think somebody
shot
her. Hard to be sure. There’s a lot of noise here.”

Yes: sirens and a raging fire. Who can hear a rifle in all that? “Harry, help him.”

“Help who?”

“Batman. I want you to help him. Play the public-spirited citizen again. Do what you can.”

“Boss, the firemen are forming up. I don’t think they’ll let me through.”

“Do the best you can, Harry. Try to help. We owe it to a suffering humanity.”

“Okay, Boss. Whatever you say.”

Batman was on the street now. But it was still chaotic down there. Harry hurried toward him, holding his arms over his face to shield himself from the blaze. He was the first to reach the woman.

I broke the phone link with him. “This will just kill Batman, Harry. And you—”

And you, Harry. I watched him kneeling beside her. I watched Batman hand the old man off to a rescue worker, and then join Harry, who was feeling for her pulse. They were kneeling beside her, very quiet.

A good moment to die. Not happy, Harry, the way I would have wanted it for you. But fate doesn’t always give us what we want. Life is so arbitrary.

I sighted on Harry, squeezed the trigger, and sent him to a better existence.

The first stars were fading in the east. We were running a little late. I waited in a stolen squad car just off Carlay Park, across the street from the John Elk tractor plant. I checked my makeup in the mirror, straightened my tie, and rubbed my sleeve briskly across my badge. A plume of black smoke from the tenement hung across the far side of the park.

I waited for the blast of a shotgun.

It came, finally, shattering the early morning tranquility. Juliana had arrived.

At that hour, there were few abroad other than derelicts. Easy targets. Both barrels fired again. And again. A wino stumbled out of the bushes that lined the street, fell across a bench, rolled to his feet, and kept going.

Batman, on the edge of the park, but a block away, was dealing with yet another mugger. He turned him loose and disappeared into the shrubbery. I hit the siren.

Juliana caught the cue: there was no fourth round. Moments later he hurried out of the park, still carrying his weapon. It was a sawed-off. He crossed Carlay Street directly in front of me, climbed the wooden security fence around the tractor plant, and ran inside.

I started the car and, siren wailing and lights flashing, pursued. In the highest tradition. As Batman entered the scene, I was scrambling out of the front seat, reaching for my .38. “In there,” I said needlessly. “I’ve called for an ambulance and a backup.” He nodded and kept running, took the fence at a leap. He’d managed to keep a utility shack between himself and the factory. I climbed over at the same point. Truth is, I didn’t entirely trust Juliana. Man with a shotgun has no discretion.

I knelt beside him, enjoying his presence. Enjoying the heft of the police special.

I knew where Juliana would be: the foreman’s office on the second level, at the rear of the assembly area. I had told him the room would be safe. There was a loaded over-and-under waiting for him. And he believed we would trap Batman there.

The side door had been left unlocked. I glanced around as though I were estimating my chances, felt Batman’s hand tighten on my sleeve, restraining me. But I shook it off and bolted for the door. The ground was hard underfoot, frozen, full of half-buried bricks. Hard to see in the half light. Gutsy move. I could sense his admiration.

He was beside me, and we went through the door together. He scrambled for a rusted tractor frame, not moving quickly at all, and I hit the dirt floor. Juliana almost got him. He fired both barrels, and buckshot ripped through his cape.

I ran for a sidewall staircase and put a couple of rounds over his head. Still functioning on the script, Juliana ducked back into the supervisor’s office.

But Batman was ahead of me. There were hoists and guy wires strung throughout the building. He hauled himself aloft. And even though he was visibly straining, fighting exhaustion, he arrived on the landing while I was still running up the stairs. He disappeared into an adjoining office.

Damn. I was moving too slow.

No sound came from either of the offices, which I knew had a connecting door. “Juliana,” I said, to try to head off the possibility of a mistake before stepping through the door. Then Juliana was out on the landing, and he had the over-and-under, and it was pointed at
me.
I signaled, gave him the sign. But he only smiled.

“Batman,” he said. “Show yourself. Or I’ll blow this cop away.” Harsh voice. No polish.

The moment stretched out.

“Batman?”

I said nothing. It was a situation filled with ironic possibility.

And then, behind him, a shadow detached itself from the supervisor’s office. The over-and-under went sailing far out into the dark. And Juliana very nearly with it. He went down and Batman stood over him, glanced at him, lifted his eyes to me, and looked again at Juliana.

“You can put away your gun,” he said to me.

The moment of truth.

I pointed it at Juliana. His eyes widened and locked on the muzzle. “How many times, Batman?”

I could hear everybody breathing.

“How many dead out there?” I asked. “If I take this punk back, they’ll just turn him loose again. How many more will die?”

Batman nodded. The gesture was barely perceptible. But it was there.

“Maybe not tonight. Maybe not for a couple years. But it’ll happen. Won’t it, punk?”

Juliana knew I wouldn’t let him speak. So he only stared. Sometimes at me. Sometimes at the .38.

“Next person you kill,” I said, “would be my responsibility.” I looked steadily at Batman. “And yours.” I motioned him to stand clear.

And then I saw it: the flicker of agreement in his eyes. The subtle shifting of lines around his mouth that said yes. Yes. Do it. The long hesitation that somehow transmitted itself to me.

Maybe I was enjoying the situation too much. Maybe I wanted something more tangible. I don’t know.

But I let the moment pass. And, before I realized what he was going to do, he stepped between us. His hand brushed the weapon away.

I struggled then. Tried to turn the gun on him. Saw his eyes widen as he looked into my face. And when he recognized me, he
still
couldn’t bring himself to smile.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “You wanted Juliana dead.”

He looked from me to Juliana. And the mask came down.

So I won that one. And sometimes at night, when the moon is high, and I know he’s out there, I feel a little better. The distance between us isn’t as great as it used to be.

Masks

Garfield Reeves-Stevens