“Maybe it was the tie,” Selina murmured teasingly, eyeing the
loud green fabric with its purple and red question marks.
“It IS silk,” he said, a trifle defensive.
“Well, Giovanni can be very particular.”
They looked at each other for a second before a grin broke out on Eddie’s
face. “Heard the latest?”
he asked.
Selina chuckled. “I may
have seen something in the back of the newspaper.”
“Not the Gotham Post,” Eddie replied.
“According to the Gotham Post, Joker is not only NOT dead, but he’s
on tour with Elvis and Mytzlplik on Mars. The
White Martians eat that brand of humor up, I’m told.
You know, the problem with Joker was—”
“The?” Selina asked. “You
make it sound like there was only one.”
“The problem with the WORD
‘Joker’ was that you really can’t make a
good anagram out of it. But JOKER
IS DEAD - aha! SO A JERK DIED! See, that’s what only people like you and I GET about this.
It’s not about the people he’s not going to kill now.
It’s about not having to see him at any more parties!”
Eddie was exaggerating a bit when he said it wasn’t about the lives that
wouldn’t meet a premature end, Selina thought, but she was more than willing to
let it slide. Truth was, one of
Joker’s many flaws was how obnoxious he had been.
Even worse was the fact that you couldn’t TELL him how obnoxious he was
without risking an attempt on your life. Not
having to put up with his laugh at the Iceberg any more was almost too good to
be true.
And best of all, it WAS true. Joker
had cheated death a dozen times before, but this time there was actual video
footage (without sound - pity), not to mention Bruce’s
confirmation. The Joker had been
unceremoniously hacked to bits by twenty of Ra’s al Ghul’s minions.
Selina privately thought that this partially made up for the calcified
"hairdo" having fathered Talia.
So Selina had wanted to celebrate the news, but Bruce simply wasn’t
“in the mood” for celebrating. He
was genuinely upset about Joker’s death.
Nobody was supposed to be murdered in his city, even if they were
murderers themselves, and when it did happen, it certainly wasn’t supposed to
go unpunished. There were too many
unanswered questions for him to rest easy that justice, true justice, had been
done to all those responsible. Selina
respected this, but she hoped he’d realize in time that there wasn’t anything he
could have done, and that this was for the best.
But that was the future. For
now, she wanted to smile, laugh, and sip some bubbly and he didn’t. Since
she didn’t feel like just WAITING around for him to be in a better mood, she’d
sought out someone who could better appreciate the situation.
And since Harvey was still in Arkham, Eddie was the obvious choice.
Plus he had actually BEEN there when it happened.
Selina wasn’t just there for chitchat.
She wanted information. There
was still some confusion as to why Joker had been killed, and Selina
hoped an actual eyewitness could shed more light.
“So,” she asked, "what is everyone saying about it?”
“Well,” Eddie told her, "the henchmen are relieved because
Joker was the undefeated champion in the
‘Most Likely to Kill Your Hired Goons’
competition. And some of the A-listers
are happy because they were convinced Joker would be the one to kill the Batman.
Now they figure it’s wide open.”
Selina wasn’t exactly happy about that.
Joker no longer being a threat to Bruce was a good thing.
Six other Rogues looking to fill the vacuum was not.
“As for the rest,” Eddie continued, "it’s hard to say.
Since the Iceberg became a crime scene and was temporarily shut down,
information has been spreading a lot more slowly. I don’t think people realized how important a part of the
rumor mill the Iceberg was until now.”
“That reminds me,” Selina said.
“Is it true that the Penguin really tried to take his OWN customers
hostage?” Of course she already knew that he had. The night of the murder Bruce had endlessly reviewed the
video feeds from the television show, hoping to understand what had happened,
and she’d joined him for several repetitions.
But Eddie couldn’t know that, and so she had to play dumb.
“Yep,” Eddie said. “One
of my last clear memories was Oswald storming in with one of his umbrella guns. No one’s seen him since that night. I imagine he’s hiding until people stop asking what he was
thinking.”
Selina frowned slightly. Bruce
had warned her of the likelihood that Poison Ivy had liberally doused the Lounge
with her pheromones, and men’s minds tended to get a bit foggy when that
happened, but she’d been hoping that wasn’t the case.
“Your last clear memory?”
It was Eddie’s turn to frown, but his was more pronounced.
“Six months from now,” he said after a moment, "every
groupie in Gotham will say they were there the night the Joker died.
And even though they’ll be making the story up – that Simon Cowell guy
from American Idol runs in crying ‘Sic Semper Tyrannus’ and stabbed Joker
with an icepick - they’ll still have a better tale than me, because I
don’t remember what happened.”
“Why not?”
“Lemon Pledge.”
“Ah.”
“I didn’t much appreciate it the last time Pammy spritzed me,”
he went on, “and I don’t appreciate it now either.
At least I didn’t wake up with a dandelion in my belt.”
“Come on, you have to have something,” Selina coaxed him.
“Why did Ra’s do it?”
He sighed. “There’s still a serious debate about that.
Some people say Ra’s found out Joker was the first one to call him
‘the
Cadaver.’ Some think he resented
the Joker’s claim that he was the Bat’s most dangerous adversary.
And some people argue that it was Greg Brady who’s responsible.”
Selina almost choked on her drink. “Giggles
Greg Brady?! Mister
with-a-name-like-mine-crime-was-the-only-option? What, it wasn’t enough he survived working for Joker, Brady
had to kill him too?”
Eddie nodded. “The killers worked directly under him, didn’t they?
So maybe they were his bodyguards. Brady was one of the people who
stood up to the Joker when Sly had him thrown out.
Joker comes back, the DEMON boys see him as a threat, and SAD DIRE
JOKE.”
“But if you and every other man in the building was greened,”
Selina said, pointing out what had occurred to her almost immediately,
"then so were Greg and the DEMON flunkies.
So why isn’t anyone stating the obvious?”
“What, that Poison Ivy killed him?” Eddie asked wryly.
“No, that she was the second gunman on the grassy knoll.
Of course that she killed him, Eddie.
Is it really that farfetched?”
“Farfetched? Of course
not, no. But you’ve got to understand, Selina. Nobody is very happy with Pammy right now.
It’s bad enough that she greened a room full of people AGAIN - Blake’s
lucky he didn’t donate the proceeds from his last heist to Greenpeace like he
did the LAST time she dosed him. But
to do it at such a time! She
deprived some of us the pleasure of seeing the Joker meet his maker, and
everyone else the story of how it happened!”
Of course, if she hadn’t used her pheromones, the Joker might not be dead
in the first place. Selina didn’t bother to say this, though.
She certainly didn’t want to sound like she was DEFENDING Ivy.
“So at this point,” Eddie went on, "nobody is inclined to
give her any credit for killing the Joker.
That’s her punishment. Plus
there’s the Roxy situation.”
“What Roxy situation?” Selina asked.
He blinked. “Oh, right,” he said.
“I guess the news got overshadowed REAL fast.
Ivy almost beat Roxy Rocket into a coma that night.”
Selina HADn’t known about this. Bruce
had been so focused on the Joker incident that all other matters had fallen by
the wayside. “Ivy did
that?” she asked dubiously. “She’s
not exactly the physical type, you know.”
“Now THIS I have a clear memory of,” Eddie confirmed.
“Roxy picked a fight with her, got distracted, and Pammy blindsided
her. Roxy never really had a chance
to defend herself. There were a lot
of wagers that night on whether or not Ivy was going to kill her, but Sly
stopped the fight and the bets were called off.
Another reason people aren’t happy with her,” he added.
“She couldn’t kill Roxy fast enough to win them some money.”
Selina chewed her lip. Roxy
wasn’t exactly a friend, but she was nowhere near the pain Ivy was. “Is
Roxy all right?” she asked.
“Sly took her to the hospital,” Eddie said.
“That’s the last I heard.”
“What, no flowers?” she asked dryly.
“Like I said, Joker died and Roxy fell off the radar.
I guess Sly could tell you, but …"
He shrugged. “Again, no
Iceberg.”
Selina tried to hide the disappointment she felt.
She wouldn’t have suggested lunch at D’Annunzio’s if she’d known how
little Eddie really knew about Joker’s death.
Bruce had been obsessing over getting the real story behind the murder,
seeing all those responsible put behind bars, and she just wanted him to get
past this and focus on more positive things.
Like the additional free time he was going to have now that he didn’t
have to worry about that menace any longer.
The recent incident with Harley and Joker’s notebook full of ideas had
just gone to show that the clown was as unpredictable as ever.
And now, just like that, he was gone, and through no fault of Bruce’s
own.
Plus she’d been hoping to solve the case first, and to do so through her
special sources as Catwoman.
In fact, she’d been hoping to return to the manor and say something like,
“I just had lunch with Eddie. And
before you get that look on your face that says
‘You need better friends,
Kitten,’ he’s the one who told me why the Joker was killed.”
Now, however, it seemed that her sources were turning up just as empty.
Woof.
Then she leaned back, reminded of something by her own thoughts.
“And how is Harley taking it?” she asked.
Eddie didn’t answer at first. Selina
knew that he had a checkered history with Harley, having once been subjected to
endless renditions of "76 Trombones" in his head as payback for a
brief flirtation with her. “Not
well, like you’d imagine,” he finally said.
“Well, duh, Eddie. I
could have guessed that myself.”
“No one’s really sure,” he said.
“When I saw her at the Iceberg that night, she was fine.
Later, after the effects of the pheromones wore off and I noticed what
had happened, she was gone. Next
thing I heard, they were treating her at Arkham.
No one’s been released in the past two days, so—”
“And nobody’s gone to see how she’s doing?
Or even to find out what she knows?” she asked impatiently.
“Selina, she’s probably been blubbering for the past two days, and
she’ll probably STILL be crying about it tomorrow.
Personally, I’m trying to enjoy Joker being gone, not have Harley kill my
buzz. Who’d want to be around Harley at a time like this?”
Jervis drummed his fingers anxiously as he slouched in his chair.
“Jam yesterday, jam tomorrow, but never jam today,” he
muttered. But perhaps this time
there could be jam for him, if only he knew when that day WAS.
Harley Quinn-flavored jam, that was.
Yesterday Scarecrow had observed that one of the benefits of having the
Joker dead was no more violating the spirit of the holiday by showing up at his
Halloween parties dressed as a clown. That
had led to talk of the annual Christmas party, which Joker and Harley had
usually hosted. Jervis had pointed out that Quinn had carried on the
tradition even when the Joker was in Arkham, so there was no reason to think the
future would be any different. Besides,
rigging the Secret Santa had become something of a tradition for him, and he
would hate for that to end.
It was only after that conversation that Jervis had realized there were
more benefits to no more Joker than, well, "no more Joker.” Harley Quinn had finally become a free agent.
While it was common knowledge that Joker and Harley had split up months
ago, nobody had enlisted her services as a "henchwench.”
She’d been Joker’s sidekick for years, and undoubtedly she knew all the
ins and outs of being a proper henchperson - how to arrange an appointment with
Kittlemeier, how to distract the Bat while her employer made his escape, et
cetera. Yet she’d been on her own
all this time, because no one knew just how Joker might react to her working for
someone else. He might take it as a
kind of encroachment on his territory. The
fact that they were no longer an item wouldn’t mean anything to the lunatic.
Now, however, with the Joker quite unable to visit his wrath upon others,
Harley Quinn would be a prized commodity for any A-list Rogue.
It might even be seen as a rise in one’s stature to be chosen by the Joker’s
longtime henchwench.
Admittedly, if he wished to employ her, he couldn’t ask her to be his
“Alice.” Her identity as “Harley Quinn" had become too
well-entrenched. Jervis thought he
could make it work, however. Her
costume was reminiscent of playing cards, and Wonderland was populated with
playing card soldiers, not to mention the Queen and King of Hearts.
Plus, Jervis thought privately, there was an added perk.
Harley had of course been Joker’s lover for years.
Was it not possible that she might do the same for her NEW employer?
For years he’d thought it a great injustice that Joker, the most
undeserving man on the planet, had her undying devotion.
Even told her that to her face once.
It would be quite ironic if Harley became his in the end.
So it was a simple matter, really. Harley
Quinn was a prize. He would not be
the only Rogue to reach this conclusion. And
of course there was Poison Ivy. He
wasn’t quite sure why the two friends hadn’t become that much closer after the
breakup, but surely now there could be no stumbling block between the ladies
becoming a permanent duo. Speed was
of the essence. Memories of other
opportunities lost because of his tardiness still rankled him.
Only a few months before, when it became official that Catwoman was
moving into Wayne Manor, it was quickly realized that her apartment with its
prime location would become available. Jervis
had been far from the first person to look into the matter, and he’d been shut
out.
He sipped his tea. There was
just one problem. Harley was
undoubtedly mired deep in her grief. Whether
they had been together or not, Harley had remained obsessed with the man, and
all reports indicated she had witnessed his death.
To come to her NOW with an employment offer would probably be seen as a
rude intrusion, and he would lose out because he acted TOO quickly.
That was the rub. How soon
was too soon? How long was too
long? When would it be jam today?
At least the other Rogues were facing the same dilemma.
Perhaps they themselves would move too fast, and knock themselves from
the chessboard.
It was then that a horrible thought struck him.
There was ONE other person who Harley had worked with since the split.
One person who was currently at Arkham, and therefore had unfettered
access to her. One person - or
rather, two people.
Harvey Two-Face Dent.
The Mad Hatter suddenly set his tea down in a state of agitation.
Dent had been a notorious playboy in his younger days, and currently he
was one of the few Rogues whose status exceeded Jervis’s own.
Harley’s look could easily be made to fit with Dent’s - the two-toned
costume split down the middle, the two tassels, those two nice, perky …
other things.
“That jabberwock!” Jervis hissed, already picturing Two-Face
all over Harley. Offering a shoulder to cry on, talking about the love he’d
lost after he’d been scarred, reading her body language, knowing the exact
moment to pounce!
Well, two could play at that game. And
that was a "two" reference that Dent would rue some day soon!
And so thirty minutes later the Mad Hatter was checking himself into
fast-track rehabilitation at Arkham Asylum.
Ivy pushed the black ledger aside and leaned back thoughtfully in
Oswald’s chair. She’d spent most of
the past two days in this dark, windowless office - normally the only times she
spent that much time out of the sun were in Arkham.
But she’d learned a great deal.
It was common knowledge that the Iceberg Lounge was merely a front for
the Penguin’s activities on the black market.
Ivy, however, had assumed that Oswald was but a minor player in that
scene, just doing a little fencing from his office during business hours,
enjoying his status as a member of the “Old Guard.”
As it turned out, however, Penguin was far from semi-retired. Although his record-keeping had recently grown sloppy,
Penguin appeared to be moving millions in weapons and stolen goods in and out of
Gotham every MONTH. And there were
other activities she’d never even guessed he was engaged in – gambling,
kickbacks, money laundering …
Ivy was irritated, however, by her discovery that Penguin didn’t seem
to know what to do with what he had. Money
should be like the kudzu vine, spreading out always in all directions,
eventually covering seven million acres of the South.
Instead, Oswald seemed content to use the profits from his illegitimate
business to enhance his own personal net worth, and to subsidize the
money-losing operations of the Iceberg. Twenty
years ago Penguin would have been amassing this fortune as a means to an end, a
grand scheme to destroy the Batman or take over the city.
Now wealth appeared to be an end in itself.
How like a man.
If only Ivy had that kind of steady influx of cash, the plans she could
put into effect …
And that was why she’d been sitting in the dark for two days.
Because of her unique body chemistry, Ivy could feel the effects of
alcohol or choose not to, but liquor had nothing to do with the growing
intoxication she felt. Why stop
with napkins? Why not take the
opportunity granted her, and keep the Penguin’s empire all to herself?
Then his ill-gotten gains could be put to better use.
That, however, meant she had to first do something about the Penguin
himself.
Although she couldn’t see him from the office with the door closed, Ivy
nonetheless looked in the direction of the front half of the Iceberg.
Somewhere on the main floor Penguin would be sitting, still enraptured by
her very proximity. She would have
had to make a decision about him anyway, even if his records had only turned up
a mountain of bills. She’d kept him
high on her pheromones for two days now, since his aborted hostage-taking
attempt, spritzing him whenever he approached the time where the effects would
start to wear off. If she simply
stopped, Ivy suspected he would not be very pleased with her.
She rebelled at the notion of killing him, though.
Besides vastly complicating the task of acquiring his assets, Penguin did
have a certain standing among his fellow Rogues.
It was he who thought of the Iceberg Lounge in the first place, which Ivy
grudgingly admitted had been a brilliant idea.
If she murdered him, she would be generating a great deal of ill feelings
among the very people she would be doing business with.
And now that she’d set her mind to taking over his operations, there was
a third reason to keep him alive. Ivy
was the Goddess, Gaia incarnate. Men
served her, not the other way around. With
Oswald around and under her control, he could go on handling the day-to-day
affairs of the Lounge, maintaining the front of legitimacy.
That would leave Ivy to collect the profits without having to do any of
the work herself.
So, the Penguin would go on living as her besotted slave.
Constantly having to use her pheromones on him, however, was growing
increasingly tedious. She wouldn’t
be able to leave his side for more than a few hours at a time.
If only she had more power, but even she had her limits.
Ivy paused. There WAS that one time, she remembered.
It wasn’t exactly a day she liked to remember, but at those dreadful
Highland Games, prior to the disastrous finale, she had throttled an innocent
bayleaf …the odd woman who came up to her then …who made her some kind
of magical herbal concoction …Ivy had experienced a phenomenal boost in her
powers that day; that witch’s brew enhanced her abilities enough to order
ancient trees into battle. She
never got the opportunity to test what other enhancements it might have made to
her other powers …it would be worth finding out.
If her more persuasive abilities could be enhanced sufficiently,
then she could keep Cobblepot mesmerized for days at a time!
After several minutes of trying to remember the exact herbs the woman had
sold her, however, Ivy could only come up with chamomile, and she suspected that
had been for its calming properties. It
was maddening to think that this woman knew things about plants and herbs that
she did not! Still, if she was
going to do this, then Ivy needed the herbalist, and that meant a return to
Robinson Park. Perhaps she still
had the bag or the receipt.
That also meant leaving the Iceberg, which Ivy had been wary of doing.
If she left the Penguin alone and someone found him in the state he was
in, her plans would be undone before she’d even begun.
She’d told the Penguin to send his staff away when they came to inquire
about the Iceberg reopening, but someone might come back.
Maybe even Sly, who had disappointed her so when he threatened her with
expulsion, and then ministered to Roxy Rocket tenderly.
She was of half a mind to have Oswald fire him!
But Ivy couldn’t stay there forever, even if Sly had turned back into a
pumpkin the other night. She was
also eager to return to her green, if only for an hour or so.
Getting up from Oswald’s desk, she left his office and checked the dining
area. He was still seated in a
chair next to her special booth. He’d
spent two hours dusting and polishing the wood before fetching a bottle of
champagne. Every few hours she’d heard the sound of the ice in the
bucket being replaced. Certainly
she would never be caught doing THAT kind of work once she was firmly in control
of the Penguin and all his assets, including the Lounge.
“Oh, Ozzy?” she asked. “Care
to do me a favor?”
“Kwakka, I would consider it a privilege, my dear,” he said
suavely.
“That’s just darling, Ozzy.
I need to run out and do a few errands—” She held up a hand, for
he was about to speak again. “I
know what you’re going to offer, but this is something I have to do myself.
But, if it makes you feel better, once I’m finished I may have a way you
can stay with me for a very, very long time.”
He put a hand to his chest. “My
dear, my heart feels like an eagle, or a falcon, or some other soaring bird
quite unlike the flightless one you see before you.”
Ivy covered a frown with her hand. She
was going to have to work on him cutting down on all the bird metaphors.
“Anyway,” she said, "perhaps you could take that bottle up
to your office and wait for me? And
if anybody other than me comes in, just lock the door and don’t make a noise.
After all, I want us to have some alone time when I get back.”
The bottle was in his hand in an instant, dripping cold water onto the
floor. “I shall be waiting for
you with bated breath,” Penguin promised.
“You do that,” she said.
Once Ivy arrived back at Robinson Park, part of her wanted to spend hours
among her beloved trees and bushes, but she forced herself to remember that it
would take just one person to find Penguin, notify the police, and uproot her
scheme before it could bloom. She
took five minutes to reassure her babies that yes, she wasn’t going away
forever. Once the greenery had
settled down, a quick search turned up the plastic bag that had contained the
herbs, and the tiny typed label glued to the back told her she would find the
mysterious woman at The Curiosity Shop, 16th and Lexington.
“Are you sure there isn’t something you’d like to discuss, Mr. Dent?” Dr. Leland Bartholomew asked one last time.
The scarred criminal didn’t even shake his head.
He merely sat in his chair, ramrod straight.
Dr. Bartholomew noted, however, that his lips seemed to be pressed
together quite tightly. Obviously
he DID wish to talk about something, but the coin had come up scarred, and that
meant Two-Face would not speak for the entire hour of their therapy session.
Of course Dr. Bartholomew knew exactly what Dent wished to discuss.
It had come up in virtually every session the doctor had held since the
night the Joker was murdered by a mob of armed men at the Iceberg Lounge.
No one, not even his fellow Rogues, appeared to have the slightest
interest in mourning his passing. Instead
they endlessly talked about the impact his death would have on the underworld,
about the mysterious circumstances surrounding his murder, and most of all about
how much nicer life would be without the psychopathic clown around.
Dr. Bartholomew piously believed that he was the only sane person in
Gotham who could muster one iota of regret over the Joker’s death.
Granted, yes, he had been a homicidal lunatic with multiple murders on
his record. He had never shown the
slightest bit of improvement despite years of therapy and medication, except for
those times he was shamming. And
their one-on-one sessions had always been somewhat - taxing.
Still, the Joker would never be cured now.
As long as he’d been alive and under doctor’s care, there was always the
HOPE, slim as it might be, that he could get better.
To write the Joker off would mean writing off twenty other patients who
seemed equally "untreatable", and then you might as well send them off
to Blackgate.
That being said, Dr. Bartholomew recognized that his daily schedule WAS a
bit easier now that the Joker would no longer be occupying his time.
Since Dent was obviously not going to speak, the doctor used their time
to think over some matters relating to the Joker’s death, specifically what to
do with Harley Quinn. She’d been
kept segregated from the other patients since her arrival.
Even though the Joker had ended their relationship some time ago, Ms. Quinzell’s obsession had not abated, and without heavy sedation she would
probably be crying hysterically even now.
Harley Quinn had always been a cause of some discomfort among the Arkham
staff. By no stretch of the
imagination could she be considered their most violent or dangerous patient, and
yet she was in one very important way the scariest.
Quinn had once been Dr. Harleen Quinzell, a psychologist, one of them.
And now look at her. If it
could happen to her, then couldn’t it happen to any one of them?
Now, however, Dr. Bartholomew would have to be insane himself not to see
the opportunity presented him. Harley’s
treatment had never moved past the obvious first step - break her obsession with
Joker. Part of the problem had always been his constant presence.
It was quite hard when half the time the very object of her affections
was confined to Arkham with her. But
now he was out of her life for good. Eventually
Harley would see that she had to move on, and her treatment could FINALLY start
to go forward.
Of course Harley - Harleen, he corrected himself.
Harley Quinn was an identity she was meant to discard one day.
Her real name was Harleen Quinzell, and he made himself a note never to
refer to her as “Harley Quinn" in their conversations or his reports.
Anyway, Harleen would undoubtedly be a difficult patient at first.
Even after she’d moved past her grief, she would be in serious denial
over the years she’d wasted on the deranged clown.
But Dr. Bartholomew was feeling more confident than ever that Harleen
could be made to remember. For the
moment Harleen might believe that her life was over, but now she had a real
chance to remember that she was once an independent woman, that she had lived
much of her adult life without the Joker, and that she could do so again.
This would dovetail nicely with his current scheduling problem, he
realized. Dr. Bartholomew liked his
first appointment of the morning to go relatively smoothly.
For that reason he’d begun seeing Roxy Rocket first whenever she was a
patient. While she had a serious
problem with her thrill addiction, she was also relatively manageable. She’d been released from Arkham recently, however, and his
mornings had grown more erratic.
And based on reports he’d received from the police department, Miss
Rocket would not be receiving his care for some time yet.
Apparently she had been severely beaten by Poison Ivy in a barroom brawl,
and her injuries were too serious to permit her transfer to Arkham.
Harleen would not normally be a good alternative, and her
current condition would only make things worse.
But he felt positively inspired by the new developments in Harleen’s
treatment. And inspiration could be
hard to come by in this asylum. Surely
he could handle some histrionics in the name of affecting an actual cure of one
of Gotham’s most notorious lunatics?
“Excuse me, Mr. Dent,” Dr. Bartholomew said as he stood up, not
that he was interrupting anything. He
went to the office door and opened it, leaning out.
“Miss Vicens?”
“Yes, doctor?” his secretary asked.
“Pencil in Harleen Quinzell for my first appointment of the day for
the remainder of her stay here,” he told her.
He paused. “And make
sure the staff knows not to refer to her as
‘Harley’ any longer.
From now on I wish for her to be called by her real name.”
“Of course, doctor,” she replied.
“Should I schedule a session for tomorrow morning?”
“Er, no,” Dr. Bartholomew said.
“I’ll monitor her status and let you know, thank you.”
He closed the door and returned to his seat.
Dent remained as silent as ever.
The doctor looked at the clock. There
were still forty minutes left in the session.
Yes, feelings of inspiration could be SO hard to come by.
To be continued …
|