Cats move with infinite grace, breathtaking
beauty, and at times, with deadly speed. They do not move faster than news
through a Gotham nightclub. Catwoman had finally come to Vault, and the
whispers of excitement swirled in miniature, independent cyclones around the
main floor. Occasionally one would crescendo into a chorus of expectant
titters, so a God’s eye viewer could have followed the spread of news around the
room and up the stairs to the VIP level. When it reached Raven’s
podium, Wren was dispatched with an invitation.
She had only been waitressing at the Iceberg for a few
weeks before the fire, not as long as most employees who had made the transition
to Vault, but long enough to take a normal amount of craziness in stride. When
a leopard passed her on the stairs like it knew where it was going, she knew not
to react like it was anything strange. She didn’t even react when it said
“excuse me” in an ordinary human voice. Wren also knew to postpone her mission
and wait at the bar when she saw the leopard was heading for the same table that
she was. The leopard had to be Clayface, and he was going to talk to Catwoman.
Anyone working in a rogue bar for even a few nights knew to stay out of the way
when A-listers put their heads together. So Wren drifted to the bar and Sly
promptly met her eye, assuming she had an order or a message. She waved him off
and pointed to Catwoman’s table. Some newbie with a matchstick in his mouth
(who clearly wasn’t as smart as Wren when it came to meddling with A-listers)
was practically sprinting to reach Catwoman before the leopard did.
Sly just nodded and turned his attention back to the
patrons at the bar. Wren watched and waited, and after a minute, she guessed
that her mission was null and void. Clayface himself must be inviting Catwoman
upstairs, for all three of them—Catwoman, the matchstick guy, and the leopard—were now heading up the stairs.
Wren sighed. There would be no tip from a grateful A-lister
admitted to the VIP floor. She could only hope that Catwoman would have her own
table and not join Clayface at his booth in Feather’s station. Feather had
seniority, and Raven seemed to give her all the big tippers.
It was a setback. Not a disaster, but undeniably a
setback.
Between the barbecue and the home theatre, Oswald had
managed to conduct his affairs in Arkham without laying out much actual cash.
Saul Vics was greedy and stupid. Greedy and stupid was easy to deal with.
Most of Oswald’s lieutenants were stupid, but they were
ambitious and stupid. That could be dealt with too, but it required a
sharper eye. An ambitious bird would not be content feathering his own nest if
he thought he could take over yours. But a man who was merely greedy, that was
infinitely more manageable. There was a docility in Saul Vics’s greed, a happy
acceptance of what he was offered. Quite refreshing really, if rather sad.
Oswald was beginning to feel he’d underestimated the profit potential in these
respectable people with jobs… at least, he thought that until Talon and Crow got
their beaks into his Arkham pigeon.
When Oswald’s men delivered his barbecue, Vics had tipped
them as instructed. It was extra money, and Oswald would have guessed that
Talon would go straight to the OTB and blow it on some nag paying
three-to-one at Belmont while Crow spent it on liquor and whores.
Unfortunately, both men were already flush from a phonecard scam that just paid
off. They were planning a trip to Atlantic City and mentioned it to Vics. Said
they’d pull a slot for him in payment for the generous tip. Vics, still greedy
and stupid, started getting ideas. Now he wanted to cash out the $2300 he had
accrued for the home theatre to go “try his luck at blackjack” in Atlantic
City. Kwakwakwak.
$2300 Oswald had to pay out. $2300.
How was he ever supposed to get his club rebuilt if he had
to actually PAY OUT the bribe money collected from his fellow inmates for
various services?
Yes, kwak, it was a setback.
Cats move with grace, beauty, and deadly speed, but not as
fast as news through a nightclub. By the time Catwoman reached the VIP level,
there was practically a line waiting. Five sets of eyes watched Raven lead her
to a table, and four sets of legs were in motion to triangulate on the spot as
soon as her party was seated.
Rescue came from an unlikely source. The one watcher who
was not maneuvering to approach Catwoman himself was a Ghost Dragon called
Wanchai. Acting as the eyes of Edmund Dorrance, a.k.a. the Ghost Dragons’ blind
but formidable leader King Snake, Wenchai simply bent down and whispered a brief
overview of the situation in his master’s ear. Dorrance clapped his hands like
a monarch demanding attention and waved invitingly in Catwoman’s direction,
pointing to the chair opposite him. She regarded it like a cat considering the
cushion on the sofa vs. the sunny spot under the window, but really she was
looking at Double Dare and Magpie bearing down on her from different directions,
and she wisely opted for escape. She went to Snake’s table, the line of Ghost
Dragons that surrounded it parting before her like a curtain. She sat and
crossed her legs, her whole manner exuding Gatta Corleone, the queen of the
underworld. Her entourage followed, and Matches grunted at the Dragons like a
petty man who wanted to emphasize his rise in status since the last time he
approached Snake’s table. The leopard sat beside Catwoman’s chair, its back
straight, its head held high, like an exceptionally well-behaved pet.
“Ordinarily, I would have sent a bottle of Cristal to your
table by way of breaking the ice,” Edmund Dorrance declared, the epitome of a
civilized man in an uncivilized world. “But I was informed that a gesture of
this kind might be more welcome.”
“Thanks,” Catwoman said dryly.
“Who informed you?” Matches piped up.
Even in the noisy club, Dorrance could pinpoint the exact
location of the speaker and tilted his head up at Matches.
“You allow your creature to speak?” he noted, addressing
Catwoman only.
“Why not? It’s a fair question.”
“Wanchai,” he indicated his man with a vague gesture, “is
always informative. Tonight he has gleaned that Double Dare have a diamond
necklace, a ruby ring and… what was the last?”
“A star ruby ring, sir,” Wanchai said promptly, “a diamond
choker, and a heart-shaped emerald pendant surrounded by black diamonds. They
spoke as if the last was the most valuable. Magpie has two specimens from the
natural history museum, a palm frond fossil and a mummified falcon.”
“Why?” Catwoman asked archly.
“To fence, my dear,” Dorrance said smoothly. “Hard to
believe, I know, but seeing as you have no private office the way Cobblepot did,
they are evidently meaning to plunk the merchandise right down on your table in
full view of everybody.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am merely speculating. One could never tell about the
way Cobblepot conducted his affairs. But I trust you and I will be able to
coexist on far more cordial terms.”
Catwoman raised an eyebrow, the leopard growled, and
Matches deftly redirected the conversation.
“You drank in Penguin’s club often enough,” he said
sharply.
This time, Dorrance did not acknowledge that it was Matches
who had spoken. He simply directed his answer conversationally to Catwoman.
“It’s quite true that I used the Iceberg Lounge as a
convenience, but even at that, I kept my back to the wall at all times. I find
this new arrangement, coupled with Cobblepot’s absence, to be much more
agreeable.”
“Well… great. Ciaomeow,” Selina said brightly, standing to
go.
Wanchai caught Matches’ eye, a signal Matches understood by
instinct. As Catwoman walked back to her own table, he remained behind for a
private word with King Snake’s man, bodyguard to bodyguard.
“There’s been a bit of traffic in and out that
door,” Wanchai confided.
“Opposite side from the johns,” Matches said, showing that
he’d already worked out that much of the layout and could eliminate that
explanation. “You think it’s trouble?”
“No,” Wanchai shook his head. “I was thinking it might be
useful if the catlady wanted some privacy.”
“Thanks, mate.”
Matches gave a curt nod and joined Catwoman at her table.
The leopard had snarled right and left as she walked, keeping Double Dare and
Magpie at bay and ensuring that there would be no unwelcome visitors dropping by
the table, at least for now.
At least, there would be no one unwelcome from Matches
Malone’s point of view. From Bruce’s, the leopard himself was the intruder.
What the hell was Hagen doing attaching himself to Selina like some kind of pet?
The Melting Pot was the kind of neighborhood place Dick
Grayson loved. The margaritas were salty; the cheese fondues, rich and gooey;
and the owner’s daughter was a cop. Dick and Barbara couldn’t go as often as
they’d like, but whenever they did, they were greeted by name and usually given
the same table along the wall, the one with a scooch more room for Barbara’s
wheelchair.
Wally and Linda arrived first, and each had a timid little
glass of white zinfandel in front of them when Dick and Barbara showed up. Dick
kissed Linda’s cheek and then shook his head sadly at Wally. “I can’t believe
we’re friends,” he chided. “What the hell is that you’re drinking, pink
lemonade?” Explanations ensued, and soon four of “the best margaritas in
Gotham” were brought to the table.
A second round was ordered with the fondue, and before
long, the table erupted regularly into spirited laughter.
“I don’t know how the damn story got started that I
think faster than anyone else,” Wally said through his teeth, then continued
in a normal tone of voice, “but I’m just trying to get through the damn book
like everybody was that weekend. It’s actually taking me twice as long, because
I have to stop and answer the phone every five minutes. Everybody that, y’know,
knows me thinks I must have got to the end by now. Kyle’s asking where
the last horcrux is before I even knew what a horcrux was.”
Barbara laughed just a little louder than the rest.
“They should have asked me,” she confided. “I was checking
the printer’s mainframe twice a month since April.”
“And I,” Dick announced proudly, “am happy to say, I don’t
care. I still don’t know what a horcrux is, or a voldemort, or the intricacies
of ‘wand lore’ that frankly sound like a load of BS to cover the fact that wands
are fickle and not to be trusted.”
“His father’s son,” Barbara noted. “Magic bad.”
“It’s not ‘magic bad,’” Dick insisted over the snickers.
“I just have enough to do with my time without trying to work out why somebody’s
wand turns on them if they lose one lousy duel.”
Everyone stared at him. Wally finally spoke the universal
thought.
“Sounds like you know a lot more than you’re letting on,
Dick.”
“I was staking out a Yakuza safehouse,” he said with an air
of long-suffering dignity. “And let me just say that any respect I had for
those guys went out the window after listening to them spend a day and a half
debating ‘phoenix feathers versus unicorn tail,’ and why Voldemort’s old wand
was prone to ‘recent victim leakage.’”
Oswald had to stand on his bed, stand on his toes, and
stretch like mad to reach the ceiling and withdraw his nest egg hidden behind
the acoustic tiling. With the payoffs to Vics, Nurse Chin, that Orson fellow at
the reception desk, and Rudy the temp, he was down $6,100 since forming the
collective bargaining unit.
Long term, it was still sure to be a worthwhile
investment. Arkham had a constant population of inmates who were Iceberg
customers on the outside. He knew how one alibi turned into six more over the
course of a year. How one diversion on the docks “just to keep Huntress away
from the Biskin place until midnight” would turn into a dozen more incidents to
occupy this vigilante or that one. ‘Just this once’ customers became repeat
customers as long as you offered a quality product and gave the people what they
were paying for. Long term, Oswald would have a steady stream of income from
the little extras these corrupt Arkham staffers provided for a price. But
long term wasn’t doing him any good right now.
He had to find a quick influx of cash to cover
his startup costs for this Arkham operation, to rebuild the Iceberg, and to
restore the steady flow of income that supported promising little investments
like this.
So… how to obtain a quick injection of cash in the middle
of an insane asylum?
After the cheese fondue came a boiling pot of coq au vin
to cook up a bewildering selection of shrimp, bite-size sirloin, pork, duck, and
vegetables, each with different cooking times and each with a different
recommended dipping sauce. Although Dick and Barbara had been to the Melting
Pot many times, they confessed that they could never keep it all straight and
said the confusion was “part of the fun.” Only Linda had logged the
complicated instructions in the waiter’s hurried recitation, and she reproduced
it as needed with a reporter’s expert recall.
“Three minutes on that,” she reminded her husband.
“And it’s good in the teriyaki?”
“Or the mustard sauce.”
He nodded.
“So, what’s new in Bludhaven?” he asked
suddenly.
Whenever Bruce left town now, Nightwing covered for Batman
in Gotham. He asked Wally to “run through” Bludhaven each night, just to make
sure nothing was brewing in his absence. Wally had developed a fondness for the
city, and now he always asked about it whenever he saw Dick.
“It’s good. They’re building one of those historic
riverfront deals. The local families and the Gotham mobs both tried to muscle
in on the construction. B and I did some coordinated ass kicking to shut it
down, both sides of the river at once. That’s really all the excitement there’s
been.”
“Cool. Think the riverfront thing’ll be any good?”
“I don’t see that there’s much point to it,” Dick
admitted. “Shopping and restaurants. That close to Gotham, who’s going to care
about more shopping and restaurants?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Linda said, poking Wally’s arm. “There
are advantages to a restaurant not being in Gotham.”
“He’s not that bad,” Wally said mildly.
“You’re kidding,” Dick grinned, guessing what the veiled
reference meant.
“You’re kidding,” Barbara echoed, guessing the same.
“He’s not kidding,” Linda said emphatically. “He called it
in right before we left Keystone. Coming into Gotham, proper notification must
be given.”
Everyone but Wally laughed.
“Because Barbara and I asked you to dinner!” Dick
said, unbelievingly.
“Tell you the truth, Dick, I don’t see anything wrong with
it. I used to make all the jokes like everyone else. ‘His city’ and having to
check in and all that. But y’know, the thing is, he was right. Seems like
nobody is willing to admit that. All the paranoia—what we called paranoia—was justified. So, if he wants me to give him a call before I breeze into town,
I really don’t see that there’s anything out of line about that.”
There was an abrupt shift in the air when Matches and
Catwoman left Vault. He never broke character. Selina merely felt the strange
tingle that once warned her when the Dark Knight was near. They were four
blocks from the club when Matches coughed, once, and turned to her.
“I’ll leave you here, boss. Pick you up at the lair, usual
time?”
“Sure,” she said carefully.
Matches glanced upward, which Selina took to mean ‘go back
to the lair by rooftop.’
“Oh, and Matches?” she said lightly, uncoiling
her whip to confirm the instructions.
“Yeah,” with the slightest of nods.
With a savage crack, she snared the nearest
fire escape and prepared to climb.
“Next time you meet someone like King Snake, don’t speak
until spoken to.”
She winked, she left, and Batman intercepted her nine
rooftops from the lair. With the minimalist greeting “roll with it,” he
launched one of the fiercer attacks in the history of their rooftop encounters.
Four minutes and a wrenched shoulder later, she found herself in the Batmobile.
“That hurt,” she said, rubbing her arm and
neck.
“One minute more,” he grunted, checking several scanners
inside the car. “There. We’re definitely alone. I wanted to make sure.”
“Yeah. I had a hunch.”
His lip twitched.
“Sorry,” he mouthed. “The way Hagen was hanging around, I
couldn’t take any chances.”
“He didn’t mean any harm. He was bored. And I’m fun.”
“No doubt. That’s why I couldn’t risk that he might follow
you home. Bad enough he wrecked any chance of serious investigation on that
upper floor.”
“Wasn’t a total bust, was it? We found out Oswald did his
fencing in his office, Double Dare have better taste in jewels than I thought,
and Magpie needs some serious career counseling.”
“None of which is news. I did get a lead on a room that’s
in use up there; nobody seems to know what it’s for. But I didn’t have a chance
to check it out myself. I’m going back to do that once I get you out of the
way.”
“Excuse me?! Get me out of the way?!”
“Selina, you can’t be a part of what happens next. This is
‘crimefighting’ with a capital ‘C.’ Catwoman just left Vault with her trained
brute, she can’t very well go breaking in an hour later with Batman.”
“Look Stud, I appreciate the vigorous separation of Cat
from all things crimefighting, I really do. But I also happen to be the world’s
greatest living expert on breaking in, and I’m telling you right now that if
you’re planning on being seen, you’re not doing it right.”
“I’m not planning on being discovered, but it could
happen. If it does, I don’t want you compromised.”
“And I don’t want to be home waiting in an empty bed. So
how about a different approach entirely? I go back tomorrow in street clothes,
walk in the front door, and say that Harvey asked me to pick up a Collected
Works of Charles Dickens that he left behind.”
Batman’s head slumped forward as if struck from behind.
“There’s a Tale of Two Cities joke coming, isn’t
there?” he said, bracing for it.
“N-no,” Selina replied carefully. “Harvey really has a
very beautifully bound volume of collected Dickens. First American edition, I
believe. Green leather, marbled endpages, top edge gilt. His pride and joy.
Don’t tell me he never showed it off to you.”
Batman massaged his brow, longing for a simpler time when a
rooftop fight with Catwoman was just that and the rest of his enemies were
soulless embodiments of criminality. Now they were all human beings with a
favorite book or they got bored and trotted around a nightclub all evening as a
leopard because Selina was fun to be with…
“Hey,” a soft voice purred as a clawed glove reached across
the car to settle on his shoulder. “This is why I shouldn’t leave for such a
long time. All the psychobattitude builds up in there. Let’s go home. Release
some tension. In the morning, you’ll see I’m right.”
“No.”
“You damn near pulled my arm out of the socket.”
“Don’t do that. If you want to go home,
we’ll go home but… the shoulder, the fight, that was work. This is us. Don’t…
mix them.”
She laughed, musically.
“Why stop now? C’mon, Handsome, that line has always been
awfully fuzzy with us. What’s really bothering you?”
“Nothing. I’m tired,” he said simply.
“Have I ever mentioned what a rotten liar you are when
where the subject of ‘us’ is concerned?”
He glared, waves of denial and dark intensity pouring off
him.
“Bruce. What’s wrong?”
Muscles contracted through his chest, preventing a sigh.
His name on Catwoman’s lips echoed with the same strange power it had on the
floor of her lair.
“The line has always been blurry,” he admitted
finally. “This latest, this ‘queen of the underworld’ business, was a lot
easier to take when you weren’t around. At home, in the cave, even out
patrolling, it was… more like it used to be. Now that you’re back, it’s… harder
to reconcile.” He met her eyes. “And it could get rough.”
“Ah,” Catwoman said with a note of resignation which then
blossomed into a winning smile. “Of course, darling, and you really are quite
terrifying. Now… can we please go home?”
The meal concluded with a chocolate fondue into which bite
sizes squares of cake or marshmallows could be dipped.
Barbara and Linda merely looked at each other while the men
ate the lion’s share of the uberrich dessert.
“I can’t indulge since the twins,” Linda said sadly. “That
last ten pounds just won’t go away. And I have to live with this.” She tilted
her head disgustedly in Wally’s direction.
“What?” he said, a slow droplet of chocolate oozing from
his mouth like blood from a vampire’s.
“See what I mean? Five minutes, if I could just hook up to
his metabolism for five minutes.”
“How are Jai and Iris?” Barbara asked.
“Oh they’re wonderful, of course. But don’t let anyone
tell you babies are a blessing, a joy, a wonder, a delight, or the longed for
fulfillment of any woman’s life. When I was working, I always thought those
women singing the June Cleaver ‘All I want is to be a mother’ song were either
stunted, damaged, or lying. Near as I could tell, that Lynette character
on Desperate Housewives was the only one willing to say it out loud. Well, now
that I’ve been there myself, I congratulate myself on my perspicacity.”
Wally whistled.
“Tell us how you really feel, Linda.”
“I love my children,” she said resolutely. “But they are
an infinite pain, the source of endless stress, and that’s even with you taking
diaper duty.”
“Three seconds,” Wally snapped his fingers. “Old one off,
new one on before any of the inherent hazards that diaper duty comes with can be
initiated.”
“Yeah, well, for every plus, there’s a minus,” Linda put
in. “Have you ever heard a baby cry at hyperspeed? It sounds like… there’s no
describing what it sounds like. Take the Hamster Dance on 3000 rpm, drop it
into the eye of a hurricane… and maybe slaughter some pigs.”
“My wife has a way with words,” Wally laughed.
“Does it or does it not sound like that?” Linda demanded,
eyebrows arched.
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“A prepayment card?” Ivy scoffed. “Have you completely
cracked?”
This time, Oswald refused to pay for a private meeting with
anybody. He went to the common room for social hour and was making the rounds
on the pretext of getting everyone to sign a birthday card for Mad Hatter. The
lucky stoke there was if some loudmouth like Ivy started spouting off, the word
“card” confirmed his cover story.
“Indeed,” Oswald said smoothly, as he always did before
reviewing the product benefits with a reluctant customer. “For those repetitive
services, it’s always more economical to buy in bulk. Why pay two hundred
dollars for a single dinner in your room with a guest if you can get five
for six hundred. Redeemable at any time within a year of purchase, kwak, I do
call that a bargain. A simple punch on your prepaid card, printed on recycled
stock, Pamela, a touch I’m sure you will appreciate.”
“You’re a loony bird and you should be locked up,” Ivy
growled.
Rather than pointing out that they were both locked up,
Oswald merely glanced across the room where Harley sat with Joker.
“The dinner with Ms. Quinn did not go well, I take it. I
did warn you that, with Joker around, she wasn’t likely to be very receptive.
But look at the proposition long term, my dear Pamela, Joker may be released
before either of you, leaving you an open field.”
“Fat chance. He’s twice as crazy as everybody else here,
and you know it.”
“Or…” Oswald mused, in the sure tone of a man with a trump
left to play.
“Or?”
“For an additional fee, I could be persuaded to refuse any
‘private time’ requests from Joker. It would be quite expensive, you
understand, my colleagues on the staff would be reluctant to turn down their
first customer.”
“How much?”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, shall we Pamela? There
is also a certain amount of hazard pay, since it is Joker you’re expecting them
to say no to.”
“How much?”
Oswald smiled.
“I’m sure we can agree on a price.”
As Catwoman predicted, things did look very different in
the morning. It began as soon as the horizon began to brighten, just as the
Batmobile returned to the cave. Rather than go up to bed without him, Selina
made cocoa on the Bunsen burner while he wrote up the log entry on Vault. When
they reached the bedroom, the cats betrayed the lie that his life had been “more
like it used to be” while she was away. They were waiting on his side of the
bed and, as soon as he walked in, Whiskers jumped down and serpentined through
his legs while Nutmeg rolled onto her belly and purred. Either because she
found this performance adorable, or simply because she was glad to be home and
sleeping in her own bed again, Selina was grinning and purring all around the
room before settling in for the night. When she finally did slide between the
sheets and curled up against him, she murmured “I missed you, Bruce…” as if
the whole episode in her lair never occurred. She was only now “coming
home.” For her, home is Bruce, not Batman, which is why any attempt to
swap the real pearls for the counterfeit will fail.
Bruce saw these words flicker on the
workstation screen as his fingers typed the log entry, the light and shadow of
larger words flashing above him as they were echoed on the oversize screen that
loomed over the cave. A miniature hologram of Catwoman circled just in
front of his keyboard. She appeared just as she had on the stage of the
Hijinx Playhouse. Without realizing he was doing it, he paused his typing
and absently touched a spot on the back of the hologram’s knee. It
responded with a squirming giggle, and typing resumed without Bruce’s fingers
ever having to touch the keys. A telepathic link now existed between his
mind and the Bat emblem on the oversized screen, translating his thoughts into
words: A tactical analysis of ticklish
knees, the pivotal research begun by Professor Wilfreder, Cambridge Criminology
Chair 1956-1979...
“Are you coming up any time soon, Stud?”
Selina’s voice. Selina in the cave. Selina standing right
behind him, with those words analyzing her strategic weaknesses gleaming down on
them in 400-point type.
“What is all this?” she murmured, looking up at Psychobat’s
exhaustive analysis of Bruce Wayne’s relationship with Selina Kyle, now updating
on the fly to incorporate a thermal x-ray simulacra of the ticklish knee
response, and postulating how this maneuver accomplished what Batman-proper
never could: putting Catwoman out of business.
“I’m doing what I’ve always done, fighting the criminals
who prey on this city,” Bruce explained while mesh representations of Whiskers
and Nutmeg flickered on the sidescreens.
He walked past her without a word and entered
the costume vault, pealed off his face and rested it on the false head built to
hold the cowl in place.
She was standing behind him, he could feel it.
“I told you to go,” he said without turning.
“Yes, I know. You said it’s not safe to be around you.
And when that didn’t work, Psychobat reiterated the point by breaking Eddie’s
legs. I know a tiny fraction of that was for me. I know it would have been
better for whoever Batman ran into tonight if they were someone who’d never sent
me a birthday card.”
“You’re nothing like any of them—and not just because you
look better in purple. You never preyed on people. I never thought of you as
one of ‘them.’ You wouldn’t be here if you were...”
“Then why did you want me to help with Oswald?”
When he whipped around to answer the question, she was
gone. A Bat-vanish.
He was alone in the costume vault, alone in the
cave, alone in the manor.
He saw himself as Batman staring down at Bruce Wayne in the
empty house. He was at the Watchtower. Clark, Arthur, and J’onn stood behind
him, all looking at the main viewer, all looking at Bruce Wayne, alone and
isolated.
“We tried to warn him,” Arthur noted.
“It’s really about trust,” Clark interjected.
“No,” Batman shook his head. “Not anymore. It was once, a
long time ago. Now it… isn’t. Now it’s safe. Now it’s home. It has to go on
being that. I don’t want any more reminders of what it was before.”
Bruce sat up in bed, a salty taste in his mouth. He looked
down at Selina, her eyes opening sleepily at the disturbance.
“Is it 5 o’clock already?” she asked blearily.
“Yes—No,” Bruce lied, then he thought the better of
pretending it was his usual nightmare he was waking from. “No. Selina… In the
morning… the thing you wanted to do with Vault, going back and saying you were
getting a book for Harvey, you should do that. However you want to be involved
in this… If we’re going to work together, you should have some say in how we go
about it.”
“Sure, put it in the vrinkarickormon,” she said, pulling his pillow over her head as she
turned over.
Bruce’s lip twitched as he shook his head.
It was a short walk from the Melting Pot back to the
Graysons’ co-op. As they went, the men drifted to the edge of the sidewalk, the
first chance they’d had to talk privately.
“Hey Dick, I hope I didn’t overstep before, about Bruce.”
“Nah, of course not. I know it’s a different perspective,
working with him in the League and all. Sorry about that thing in the Post, by
the way.”
Wally winced. Dick was referring to a special series the
tabloid had run: A Day Inside the Watchtower, making the most of their
“unprecedented access inside the world’s most famous global security facility.”
“Well that’s just it,” Wally said thoughtfully. “He told
them. He tried to tell them if they let some damn tabloid in to do a story it
would wind up a fiction at best, a trainwreck at worst. You saw
what they came up with. Made it look like an episode of 24. They ripped off 24
and called it the JLA. He was right. Again. They didn’t listen. Again. And
they’re making him our to be the paranoid psycho again.”
“Yeah. It bites. But you know, Wally, he doesn’t care.
Why do you?”
“I dunno. It’s the twins maybe. I’m looking at a lot of
stuff differently since they came along. Having a son, especially, that’s kind
of… new perspective time. If we can’t learn from our mistakes… What kind of
League are my kids going to wind up in if we just keep stepping in the same damn
quagmire?”
“…”
“…”
Dick looked around, feeling a lighten the mood change of
subject was called for. Finding no inspiration in the fire hydrant,
streetlight, or newsstand, he thought back to the dinner.
“So, you really can’t, like, super-speedread?”
Wally shook his head.
“Technically, I can tap into the Speed Force and zip
through the five hundred page manual on how to disarm a ten megaton warhead
that’s going to go off in thirty seconds. But the retention is just about that,
thirty seconds. The faster I read, the faster I forget. Not much use on
anything I’m doing for enjoyment.”
“Oh, you better not be talking about what I
think you’re talking about,” Linda said, a suggestive tone warming the words
that might have been hostile in another context.
“Oh no, dear,” Wally said with a roguish smile.
“I’m thinking you guys don’t want to come up for coffee,”
Dick laughed.
Selina shook her head, blinked, and stared across the
street once more. She was fairly sure she wasn’t dreaming, but the sight of
Harvey Dent coming out of her old building walking Binky Sherborn’s two corgis
was just a little too surreal to be absolutely certain. She pinched herself.
And Harvey was still there, waiting to cross the street into the park. She
clicked her heels together and recited “there’s no place like Gotham.” Harvey
was still there, standing on the curb. She called out to him and waved, and
waited at the park entrance until the traffic allowed him to cross.
“Selina! You look wonderful,” he beamed.
“Harvey, you look wonderful right down to mid-calf, where there
seems to be two slobbering wet-nosed creatures that I hoped never to see again
once I moved out of that building.”
“Yes, well, I needed a place to stay and Jason Blood
arranged this housesitting job with your old neighbor. I was smart enough to
make sure there were no plants to water. I didn’t think to ask about dogs.
Watering the flytrap pales in comparison to walking these two little beasties
around the damn park twice a day.”
Selina laughed as they strolled along.
“I’m looking on it as punishment for ‘our’ sins,” Harvey
added as one of the little mutts strained at the leash to reach a bench it
always had to investigate.
“Is that one Balmoral or Sandringham?”
“How the hell should I know?” Harvey asked archly. “I’ve
been calling them ‘Twin’ and ‘Twain.’”
“Those were the two henchman that you…?”
“Yes, may they rest in peace.”
“Okay, not a fan of the welsh corgis then. Not that I
blame you. Other than the four-footed roommates, how’s it going?”
“Not bad. New neighborhood means new restaurants, new
drugstores, new dry cleaners and all the rest. Funny, it’s been so long since I
set up a new hideout or anything. Lost the knack.”
“Seriously? I assumed stuff like that was like riding a
bike.”
“I don’t know, maybe it’s me. I’m not like you, Selina.
I’m not ‘nostalgic’ about it. I want to put Two-Face behind me. Get on with my
life as if it never happened, to the extent that that’s possible. That’s why
I’m steering clear of that damn club, even if it does mean walking these two
twice-damned mutts twice a day right past Petal’s little nest back there.”
Selina felt if there was ever a cue to change the subject,
‘Petal’ was it. She cleared her throat and proceeded with what she came for.
“Well, Bruce and I feel just terrible that we didn’t find
out about your plight until Jason mentioned it. We want to make it up to you.
Lunch cruise on the Gatta?”
“That… would be very nice,” he coughed,
strangely embarrassed by the invitation.
“And be sure to bring swimming trunks. There’s a jacuzzi
on the sundeck, it’s absolute heaven.”
“I, uh, suppose I could stop by the Flick and pick them
up. Not exactly something I brought with me to move into this place. Or just
buy a new pair.”
“Oh,” Selina said, surprised by the dilemma and struck by a
sudden thought. “Well you know, Harvey, I’m running a few errands in that part
of town this afternoon. I could pick them up for you, and any other little
things you didn’t think to bring.”
“Selina, we’ve said it before. You’re too good to be
two.”
The wincing biting back of pained laughter was once a
familiar experience whenever Selina and Harvey met.
“Didn’t Darth take those damn two puns with him?” she
sputtered.
“Most of them, but now and then, I just can’t help myself.”
To be continued…
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