Reap What You Sow
by Allaine

Chapter 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11 12  13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Chapter 2 


      “You know, ’Lina,” Eddie said as he flattened his napkin in his lap, "for a moment there I actually thought he wasn’t going to seat me.  I got the distinct impression that he didn’t think I was worthy of your company.”

     “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 …

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