When you begin training, you are formless. You
have expectations and no knowledge. ~Maki Sensei
Given the parting barb, Bruce wasn’t surprised that
Selina-Colette was at the rendezvous ahead of him. She’d presumably
taken the FDR and bypassed the midtown congestion. Now she stood
primping her disguised reflection in the glass and mirror of a York Street
facade.
“I have purchased two ties,” he announced dryly,
standing behind her and holding up a pair of slim bags as he met her
reflected eye in the glass.
“Good,” she said over her shoulder—and
Psychobat awoke. It was the tone of her early meows. So much
understated satisfaction packed into a short, soft sound, because
some little detail had just fallen into place.
Something he’d said or done that meant everything was going according to
plan… The muscles of his neck tightened as he realized the corner they were
standing on, and Psychobat fumed at the
great detective not putting together it the moment
Selina named the cross street.
“Crispin’s,” he said as they began the short walk to
the second oldest auction house in the city. “Why not Struann’s?
That’s where you brought Doris.”
“I’ve taken her to both, but… this is us.” She
pressed against him subtly as they pretended to look in the window.
“I see. Other couples have a special song, we
have—”
“Goddamn right we do. There’s no avoiding the
associations; we may as well embrace them.”
She grinned and they went inside. The doorman
said Tommy should check his bags and pointed him to the coat check.
When he returned, Selina was smiling expectantly and asked what he noticed.
“Nothing in particular,” he said, hoping he hadn’t
missed a cue. Having a bag to check was clearly the aim of buying the
ties, but—
“Aw well. I know it’s weird, but it pays off
more often than you’d think. Beginner’s luck kind of thing.”
“Luck?” he hissed. “Luck?!”
“This is why I didn’t tell you beforehand,” she
laughed. “I knew you’d kick.”
“How much of this training is going to include
criminal superstition and nonsense?”
“It’s hunting, Tommy. Hunting involves luck:
good if you’re the predator, bad for the prey.”
He considered that as a crimefighter. He was
planning to start his early patrol at 14th Street tonight because of their
earlier conversation about Fils Précieux. That could be viewed as luck
for someone planning a drug deal across town at the Hudson air strip, and a
bad break for someone pulling a job at Downtown Mutual.
“There’s a random aspect, I see that,” he
admitted. “But little rituals
that pretend to influence a chance occurrence are irrational. It’s—”
“Fun. It’s pronounced ‘fun.’ That’s why
you buy a tie that you like. It’s silly and playful and probably not
going to produce any leads, but it starts the day off on a light note and
you come away with a nice tie. You’ll be a lot better at this when you
loosen up. C’mon, Exhibition Room 1 has Rare Books and Manuscripts for
tomorrow’s sale. Room 2 is Wine and 20th Century prints. Today’s
auction starts at two. It’s an estate sale, so all kinds of diverse
goodies. Maybe some of your favorites if your luck holds: old silver
or Chinese jade.”
“Luck again,” he grumbled.
“Old Master Drawings are coming up next week.
They’re not out yet but we can get a catalog before we go.”
“You’ll be thinking your costume gives you nine lives
next.”
The grouchy crimefighter may have lingered as
they walked the exhibition rooms, for Selina experienced an intense moment
of déjà vu when she stopped at a 1946 bottle of
Pétrus and
suddenly felt Batman’s presence behind her.
“This is interesting, but not why we’re here,” he
observed without a hint of a gravel, but Selina still gave a little shudder
before turning.
“Whatever you were just thinking about when you came
up to me, don’t,” she advised. “Now let’s get registered for today’s
sale.”
Once they were settled in the main auction room,
Selina gave him a few minutes to peruse the catalog before resuming.
“The exhibition rooms were about the merchandise,
obviously,” she explained in a low whisper. “This room is not.
This room is about the crowd. First impressions?”
Tommy appeared to look down at his catalog while he
surveyed the crowd, then he leaned in and reported his conclusions as if he
was talking about an item he might bid on despite its being a little beyond
his price range:
“The woman in yellow is here to buy. So is the
Asian couple in the first row, the balding older man in the fourth and the
redhead next to him, but they’re not together. Dark glasses with the
gold collar in the back is a broker, if she bids it’s for a client.
And tall, thin, looks a bit like Jonathan Crane in a Helmut Lang, he is here
for one specific thing and he doesn’t intend to leave without it. The
blonde taking her seat now, that’s a trophy. Might or might not buy;
it’s her first time decorating the house and she’s here for ideas. The
older blonde in the pearls: also a trophy, also a ‘might buy,’ but mostly
she’s here to be seen…”
“Okay, okay, you can read a room, no surprise there,”
Selina smiled. “And you picked something worth tracking from the
catalog?”
He pointed out a Georgian punch bowl with lion head
handles that fit Tommy’s history with silver, but fearing it wasn’t
sufficiently valuable, he also marked a gold-leafed terra cotta figure
simply because he liked it.
“1905, after a Bertrand in the Louvre,” Selina noted,
as well as something else: the figure’s conspicuously shapely calves and
thighs. “You do like the legs,” she whispered, pressing her own into
his. “I’m going after this,” she said, pointing to a Chinese porcelain
cat. “Unless that kitty ate the Maltese Falcon with a cache of
diamonds inside it, that’s a ludicrous opening bid. The only thing
more ridiculous is the sales estimate. Something’s going on there.”
Over the top of Tommy’s glasses, the unmistakable
eyes of The Batman met hers accusingly.
“You realize this is how it happens, that ‘special
gift’ of yours, going after the one item that’s more than it seems and leads
into a John LeCarre novel?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said
primly.
“‘If there are wheels within wheels, I will somehow
stumble onto that particular artifact, condo, gallery, whatever,’” he
quoted. “It was the first thing you admitted when we started talking
frankly.”
“I go after what’s interesting,” she said, pointing
to the leggy terra cotta in his catalog as she added, “And so do you.”
The sale began. They each bought a small item
from the first inexpensive lots—she: a plated, late-century tea strainer for
Alfred, he: a Meissen salt cellar—and then they sat back and watched.
Tommy’s punch bowl and the terra cotta were both won by the buyer he dubbed
‘Jonathan Crane in Helmut Lang’ while Selina’s cat was bought by Bidder #51,
the woman in yellow.
The routine afternoon sale of an unexceptional
estate had only two cashiers at the long table in the back of the auction
room, and it was a simple matter to stage manage their exits so that each
was in line to check out behind their respective target. Tommy got his
target’s address by playing with his phone as he waited in line, fiddling
with the stylus and sending a simple jamming pulse at the crucial moment to
sabotage the cashier’s attempt to run the credit card. It failed once,
twice… and the third swipe went through, but the Crispin’s SOP forced the
cashier take a phone number and copy his driver’s license.
Crane-in-Lang looked uncomfortable at the delay it was causing in the line,
and Tommy was quick to put him at ease, mentioning that something similar
happened to him once with airline tickets. With the amount being
debited, credited and debited again several times, his card had been
flagged and was
declined that night at dinner, so it would be a good idea for Crane-in-Lang
to give AmEx a call before he tried to use it again just to make sure
everything was okay... It was just enough conversation for Tommy to
glimpse the driver’s license when the cashier handed it back, and to read
that Crane-in-Lang was P. J. DeSilva of 491 Riverside Drive.
Colette’s method was even more low-tech.
She looked into the other woman’s handbag as her wallet came out… and cooed.
Was that one of the Clé de Peau limited
edition compacts? It wasn’t, but
apparently the suggestion that it might be such a coveted item brought the
thing out of the handbag and led to an examination of the compact, the
shades of eyeshadow and miniature brushes it contained, and a spirited
discussion of the color palettes available in the Clé de Peau
originals—during which, Dotty Ambrose absently signed the credit card
receipt for her overpriced porcelain cat and practically handed her purse to
Colette while she juggled credit card and wallet, compact and make-up bag,
receipt and claim slip, putting herself back together. She then stood
there continuing to chat while Colette checked out, discussing, as nearly as
Tommy could determine, a choice of art deco images you could get on the lid
of your compact.
He had no excuse to stick around, so he took his own
claim ticket and collected his bit of Meissen, and was nearly out the door
when he remembered the ties and turned back. As he stepped into the
coat check, a text told him to meet at the 89th Street cat lair.
Sensei shows us the basics, and with practice we begin
to move in the appropriate form. ~Maki Sensei
“Do I even want to know what a Clé de Peau compact
is?” he growled, entering the cat lair to find Selina sprawled across one of
the animal print settees from her Queen of the Underworld reign at Vault.
“Jesus, Bruce, that’s the same tone you asked about
the Rosenthal Rubies. Unclench, it was a good day.”
She’d removed the wig and her shoes and
evidently made a pot of sencha, judging by the pot and cups that sat on the
coffee table. Matches Malone’s thought would have been automatic, but
Tommy’s reactions were not effortless (yet) and Bruce had to nudge his
pride: Catwoman had noted his preference for green tea. That had to
make a man stand a little taller.
Catwoman knew about the Rubens.
Unless she thought it was the Hachinohe job he’d pulled, which was just as
impressive—
Batman’s awareness intruded. There was a soft
hum from a printer in the corner. Every cat lair seemed to have a
small office tucked in somewhere: an ornate antique desk, docking station
for laptop and gadgets, and a standing safe that doubled as a printer stand.
That was the source of the hum, and he walked over to see a photograph of
Richard Flay at an ancient fundraiser slowly emerging to drop as the final
printout onto a stack of Google Earth views of Riverside Drive. Selina
told him to bring the printouts along with ‘that stuff on the desk,’ which
turned out to be a stack of index cards and freshly clipped pages from the
auction catalogue. By the time he got back to the sofa, his tea had
been moved to an end table, leaving only a black and gilt statue of a seated
Bast moved to a far edge of the long, low coffee table. It was almost
as if the goddess was meant to watch over the proceedings, but before Batman
could renew his grumbling about criminal superstition, Selina dispelled the
impression:
“Think of this like one of the data wells,” she said,
indicating the empty table top. “Arrange our bits and pieces just like
your evidence, rearrange them, make notes, and see what starts to take
shape.”
Bruce liked the sound of that but hid the reaction in
a sip of tea.
“Today’s hunt was the auction house,” she said,
placing a stock picture of the Crispin’s façade at the top of her canvas,
and next to it, like half of a blackjack hand, she set the photo of Richard
Flay. “Now, I had hoped Richard would be there today. He usually
is, so we’re going to pretend. Using the same hunting ground too often
creates common denominators that cops can pick up on…”
“You don’t say,” Bruce-Tommy murmured.
“The same person can also show up at a number of
different events, so if you hit targets you found at a Crispin’s auction,
the members’ restaurant at the museum, and Bruce Wayne’s cocktail party all
in the same month, you’re probably thinking that’s three different leads
from three different sources. But if Batman or, say, some theoretical
policeman who isn’t a moron happens to get lucky and talk to this guy, it
turns out he was at all three and there’s no telling what he might have
noticed and pass along…”
“I didn’t realize you thought in those terms,” he
said, eyes twinkling with the possibilities that had suddenly emerged.
“Assume Coronet is aware of all the invisible complexities that Matches
isn’t—”
“If I’m aware, he’s aware,” Selina said tersely.
“The interconnectedness of niches,” Bruce-Tommy went
on. “The—”
“Less finesse, spit it out.”
“Money is a small world.”
She smiled.
“When you’re not making the guest list for a
Wayne wedding, yes. Money is a small world,
old money is a
small town, and the Upper East Side is a village. Now break down the
pros and cons for me.”
Bruce considered this, and spoke slowly as he thought
it through:
“It’s a vulnerability… not critical but significant.
There is overlap, as you said. Richard Flay is the art world, the
charity circuit and social register; Barry Hobbs is the art world and Wall
Street.”
“Oh there’s endless overlap there. The first
thing any of them do after making a killing on derivatives is put together
an instant art collection.”
“And overpaying every step
of the way,” Bruce noted, experimenting with a bit of Fop Wayne’s contempt
on Tommy’s lips and watching Selina’s reaction as he continued.
“Driving up the price of any 19th
Century French nude, trying to throw together in a week the kind of
collection that took generations of—”
“Oh my god, you still haven’t gotten over that
Gervex,” Selina laughed. “Okay first, less old money with an axe to
grind, more disdain of a real art lover. You’re someone who
appreciates Henri Gervex’s Rolla
seeing it go to a wallet who looks on it as nothing more than a status
symbol. It’s not that the buyer paid a lot; that would be fine if he loved
that painting that much. But this idiot could have got exactly the
same kick buying a vacation house in Useppa, instead he paid over twice the
estimate—”
“Nearly three times the estimate,” Bruce corrected.
“Keeping it out of the hands of someone who
might really appreciate it. You don’t care so much about the
nouveau riche
driving up the price; that works entirely in your favor. Next week
you’re going to be the one selling, and the black market notices everything.
But you can resent this troglodyte owning it when it’s nothing more than a
piece of furniture to him.”
“I can do that,” he nodded. “You had a second
note?”
“Not exactly. Nothing related to Wall Street
collectors per se. I just wanted to mention… that painting
specifically… I almost came to you about it. That summer, your
relentless bitching about getting outbid on that Gervex was… spectacular,
and much discussed. I figured if you wanted it that much, you’d
probably pay high six figures to get it… you know… my way.”
“Oh really,” his lip twitched. “What stopped
you?”
“Oh I don’t remember, something came up.”
“Selina.”
“It doesn’t matter. Certainly not for Tommy
purposes.”
“Selina.”
“Just be
careful. If you hear about some
society type who can pay literally any price you ask and is passionate about
losing some precious bauble at auction, he might be the perfect buyer if you
steal the thing. Or
he might be Batman.”
“You’re not saying that you suspected—”
“No, nothing like that. I was never within a
mile of the truth. But, I told Alfred once, something about the
foppish airhead never added up for me.”
He kissed her cheek—and then abruptly returned his
attention to the coffee table.
“We haven’t made much progress with the crime board,”
he noted, sorting through the printouts. “Let’s see how fast I can
catch up... The source of the lead is at the top, like the dead body
on a murder board” he said, pointing to the front of the auction house and
Richard Flay. “Two potential targets are our suspects: the porcelain
cat, and the punch bowl,” he announced placing them beside each other under
Flay’s picture. “The cat is at the Ambrose Townhouse, Sutton
Place—that’s her alibi…” That photo took its place under the cat. “The
punch bowl along with the leggy terra cotta is on Riverside Drive…”
The picture of the house went below the punch bowl, and the Google Earth
satellite photo of the neighborhood beneath that.
“Good, we’re not making any decisions yet, but we’ll
do rooftop recon tonight on both, from one block away.”
He said the last words with her, knowing Catwoman’s
recon habits and compelled to make it known that he knew her recon habits.
Then he pulled a brochure from his jacket.
“Actually I have a third lead. Your ‘beginner’s
luck’ paid off after all. When I picked up my ties from the check
room, look what was left behind from someone’s checked bag, made its way
into mine.”
Next to the punch bowl, he set down the brochure for
the Crispin’s Fine Art Storage Service. Selina began to giggle.
This period is all effort and intent. It is mastering
technique. ~Maki Sensei
A typical first day student would let the
details of the first hunting trip settle before attempting a second.
He would recon the Sutton Place and Riverside locations tonight, make an
appointment to view the Fine Art Storage facility later in the week, and
spend the time in between researching the cat, the punch bowl, and what was
known of the Desilva and Ambrose collections. But Bruce was not a
typical student, and by the time they finished at the cat lair, it was the
cocktail hour. So they window shopped their way to Bar Drôme while
Colette speculated what kind of inducements could possibly be offered to
tempt Catwoman—the
Catwoman—to disclose her single most lucrative
hunting spot in Gotham. Tommy guessed that Batman tricked her into it,
and Colette told him he was picking up the check.
“So why is this place different from any other hotel
bar?” he asked once they’d ordered.
Colette looked around and then shook her head.
“To be honest, I have
no idea.
Only in Gotham—only on the Upper East Side—could
a bar named for a minor French river in a hotel named for a minor Greek
goddess pull off Moroccan, European and Chinese décor, with a few animal
prints thrown to keep the whole thing from looking random, charge more for a
cosmopolitan than a lovely Dalwhinnie 15, and somehow make it all work.
Olive jars, red lacquered walls, velvet curtains and leather floors, it
pushes all the right buttons and I honestly have no idea why. But in
about fifteen minutes, you’ll see it. The D&G wool three pieces start
rolling in, and in two drinks, they want to sound
impressive—to be
overheard
sounding impressive.”
Tommy grinned.
“And that’s why we call this ‘hunting,’” he said,
lifting his glass—but then, for just a fraction of a second, something was
off. Something… like a pre-echo of the déjà vu from the auction house…
But before it could solidify into the conscious instinct that always warned
her when the Dark Knight was near, it vaporized into pleased surprise.
Tommy was finally getting into the spirit of the project. “So we have
fifteen minutes plus the first round,” he was saying with an enthused boyish
charm that didn’t resemble the playboy or the fop. “Tell me what to
expect? What’s a garden variety lead you pick up in a place like
this?”
“Collateral,” she purred. “Stories that begin
‘Thirty years ago someone wanted to buy a vineyard.’ Or a radio
station or a shipping company, and they financed it with a Cézanne.”
“Secured loans,” Tommy prompted, “You’re saying we’re
here to eavesdrop on bankers.”
“Mostly, some insurance but mostly bankers. The
new guy who just took over the account a few years ago… the old loan officer
is retiring and now they’re the one going to the vault four times a year and
confirming the thing’s continued existence. It’s quite a high.”
She added the last because Tommy looked skeptical,
but his raised eyebrow meant a longer explanation was needed.
“The loans roll over,” she said like it was
phone sex. “Nobody remembers they exist for the most part, they’re
just line-items in a ledger somewhere. To everybody but you.
This amazingly precious thing, this $30 million still life
by Cézanne exists
only for you.
You are the only living soul who’s set eyes on it in a decade…” She
let the thought hang in the air for an enticing moment, then concluded in a
light, businesslike tone. “It’s a kink, one common to buyers of stolen
art too.”
Tommy’s smile and head-tilt was ambiguous, as was the
swallow he took of his drink.
“Great, we’re drug dealers now,” he said lightly.
“No, it’s more like we’re selling beeswax lip balm.
If a few people are using it to get high, well…”
“I see.” His eyes met hers, and for a moment
they were Batman’s, fiercely penetrating. “What about you? When you
get your hands on one of these secret pieces, ever get a buzz?”
“Occasionally,” she admitted. “You knew that
already, you’ve seen me a little buzzed. It’s rare, and there’s a much
better chance when it’s more than a simple loan like the stuff we’re talking
about. When the item is hidden away in that vault for a very
particular reason…” she paused because his eyes had flickered to somewhere
behind her several times. “See something interesting back there?” she
asked.
“No,” he fibbed. Interesting was too strong a
word. Instead he wrote three lines on a napkin and slid it across the
table. “The times you were buzzed,” he stated, rather than putting it
as a question.
She read—Manipur
Ruby, Federated First Metro, Monet—and then
glanced up to meet his stare.
“Not bad,” she admitted, reaching to take his
pen and added “Figgy’s emeralds, Dancers in Blue” and slid it back.
“There,” she said sweetly. Now, you have a complete list. The
nights you encountered me, mid-job, and I was buzzed. Look around the
room, and do what you just love to do,
~Great Detective~.” The last words
were signed, but Bruce needed no more than the playful dare in her eyes to
know what she meant.
“This line refers to Catherine the Great’s court
necklace?” he asked, pointing to the emeralds, and she nodded. “And
this one would be.”
“Dégas,” she said flatly.
He worked on the problem as they watched the coming
and going of patrons and scrutinized the scraps of conversations they
overheard. What was the common denominator in those five Catwoman
heists… and what did that shared X-factor have to do with the clientele at
Bar Drôme?
To succeed barehanded against an enemy who is armed,
unnaturally strong, or even possessed of magic requires only that you
control the space. ~Maki Sensei
Tommy Coronet didn’t return to his flat that night.
He and Colette parted ways after the bar, and Bruce made his way to the
satellite cave under Wayne Tower through a subway maintenance tunnel.
After patrol, Batman’s logs took precedence over any notes from Tommy’s
hunting trips, and in the morning, Bruce Wayne had a Foundation photo op at
Leslie’s clinic. He’d barely have time to get Tommy home to don his
disguise before meeting Colette for lunch—fighting the Midtown/Downtown
traffic both ways.
Of course he could, theoretically, go back to the
Wayne Tower and disguise himself there. It would mean wearing the same
clothes as yesterday, which Colette would notice, or dressing Tommy out of
Bruce Wayne’s closet, which Selina would notice. He was beginning to
envy Matches’s central location in Hell’s Kitchen… and to consider the awful
truth that he made a rookie mistake settling downtown. Batman could
not make a rookie mistake where Gotham was concerned, and neither could
Bruce Wayne. But apparently Tommy Coronet could.
As he made his way downtown, he convinced himself it
was a perk. He’d taken pains to create distinctions between Bruce
Wayne and Batman, between Matches and Bruce Wayne. With Tommy, they
occurred naturally… As he made his way back uptown, the
rationalization began to fade, and as he fought his way through the
lunchtime wave of bodies streaming from the 53rd Street subway station, he
had to admit, he would have been better off at The Mark as Selina intended.
Once he understood this hunting situation, he would have picked a location
closer to his prey... As he approached the MoMA, he thought back to
his earliest logs speculating about Catwoman living in the neighborhood when
their first encounters occurred only a few blocks apart. She seemed
too intelligent to steal in her own backyard, but she’d navigated the
rooftops with surer knowledge than he did during that first high-rise chase…
He turned just short of the main entrance into
the more discreet door labeled The Modern, remembering the shock when he
discovered she really did live in the East 60s, practically the crossroads
of the art and social worlds, jewelry stores and diplomatic circles that
made up Catwoman’s territory. And he was
appalled to learn
that cat burglars far and wide favored The Mark when they came to Gotham
precisely because one of their own had been tripped up using the hotel’s
hair gel. It was inconceivable that otherwise intelligent men and
women could be so careless. Now here he was, only a day into learning
what the actual workday was like, wishing he was staying there himself.
He made his way down the curved hallway to “The
Modern,” the Michelin 2-star restaurant within the museum. He glanced
absently into the bar as the hostess greeted him… and stumbled giving the
name on the reservation as he saw Barry Hobbs being shown into the dining
room.
“I’m sorry, I don’t have a Waycahcronet.
Sometimes we do get the name wrong. You said it was for 1:15?”
She consulted her book, and in the spirit of being
helpful, Tommy looked over the top of the podium and pointed… “Ah, there it
is. Coronet. Company name. My assistant often does that.
So much easier to spell.” …and saw the worst case scenario on the seating
chart. The Hobbs table was directly behind his. Either he or
Colette would be back to back with Barry Hobbs throughout the meal, or Hobbs
would be on the far side of his table with one of them in his direct line of
sight. The hostess said his party was already seated, and Tommy
followed her into the dining room to see that it was the former seating
arrangement that had played out. Colette—wearing Selina’s
caught-with-the-Romanov-Icons pout—was facing an empty seat with Barry Hobbs
at her back. That meant the only danger was his recognizing her voice.
Without the misdirection of the physical disguise, it was a possibility… but
evidently one Colette anticipated because she added a different type of
misdirection as she greeted him in French.
“Ah, Tommy, Tu es en retard, alors, j'ai
commandé le vin.”
“You know he does speak French,” Tommy answered in
that language before kissing her cheek with continental flare. Selina
would reply, again in French, deepening her accent to a soft Parisian burr,
and so they would continue throughout the meal.
“The way he pronounces
catalogue raisonné, mise-en-scène,
and Jacque Louis David? He has no ear
at all,” she
laughed. “I doubt he’d get three words together if he was listening,
and all that matters is that he doesn’t recognize my voice from the board
meeting. Long as we keep this up, I’m sure it will be fine… That said,
it really might be time to reevaluate your thoughts on superstition.
This has to be some kind of curse. Cat burglars aren’t supposed to
fall in love and switch sides, and this is probably why. Nobody was
dumb enough to do it before, so I’m the lucky one who uncovered the curse.
They’ll probably name it after me.”
Tommy watched the back of Barry Hobbs’s head while
she prattled. There didn’t seem to be any reaction to worry about. She
was probably right—though Psychobat hated admitting it—that speaking French
was a sufficient precaution. Still, the need to register some
criticism prompted him to turn the bottle of wine ever so slightly to
consider the label before pouring himself a glass.
“Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc, that’s a
broadminded
choice for a French woman,” he noted.
Those who knew Tommy’s secret might have gleaned a
hint of Fop Wayne in the remark, but Selina knew the difference between
Bruce’s feigned snobbery and Psychobat’s sincere, hyper-critical analysis of
her undercover habits.
“He can’t see what we’re drinking,” she pointed out.
“And if he could, I’m a polite traveler. When in Rome—or in this case,
the United States, drink their least objectionable wines. Now, let’s
get down to what we’re here for.”
The last was said with a sweet smile meant to poke
Psychobat in his all-business, no-time-to-flirt-with-the-cat-burglar eye,
but it received only an approving grunt (that might very well have been
meant for the wine).
“Despite the Michelin stars, this isn’t a foodie’s
restaurant. There are two reasons to have lunch here: location and
location. You’re either in the art world, or it’s a power lunch and
you picked this place to impress whoever you’re meeting with. You have
until we order to pick two tables of each type… Ooh, they have the foie gras
tart today, yum.”
Once they’d ordered, Tommy had until the first
course arrived to analyze his first table. He selected Barry Hobbs
since, if he was going to play the superstitious criminal, it
was Tommy who ran
into the guy (literally) in Metropolis. Even Selina’s half-joking nods
to Beginner’s Luck drew a rather portentous circle around Hobbs crossing his
path again here in Gotham. Superstition aside, Catwoman had always let
curiosity guide her, almost to a fault, and his curiosity was piqued as to
what Hobbs might be up to… So there were two strong arguments on the side of
building Tommy’s mindset as a thief—arguments Batman might still have
overruled if not for his personal distrust of the man. Barry Hobbs
admired Luthor. He was in Metropolis. Just as the Selinas and
Tommys of the world followed their instincts as thieves, crimefighters
followed their suspicions, no matter what trivial bits of happenstance gave
rise to them.
“The fellow behind you,” Tommy said thoughtfully.
“He’s my first pick. Here to impress. The suit says banker.
Very successful one, but as far from the art world as you can get.
Same with the woman he’s with. Even at this distance, that’s good
jewelry but so conservative it’s painful. I mean why bother?”
“Close,” Colette said. “I agree about the
jewelry, that’s a bullseye. And of course you’re right about the
banking angle. But you would have done some research into the social
scene before you came to town, so you’d be able to recognize him from photos
at museum openings and galas where he’s identified as a board member.”
“Not only at this museum, but at the Met,” Tommy said
as if he’d absorbed the information and was integrating it on the fly.
“Opposed that Man’s Reach thing with Superman… So a foot in the art world,
but it’s still a power lunch; they’re still boring bankers—“
“Lose the contempt,” Colette cut in sharply.
“Bankers
made the Renaissance happen. And some have very nice art collections:
everything well-insured, stolid, boring Gientzig keypads with their mother’s
zip code as the pin.”
“Got it,” Tommy grunted, the same look in his eye
when he was absorbing something new and rewriting his internal monologue in
the moment. “Back to the pair we were discussing. They are both
bankers, I stand on the theory that he brought her here to impress.
His tenuous connection to the art world just makes it more of a
chest-beating thing. As a board member, the museum is his home turf.
He’s an insider and a big shot in this room.”
“Very good. And what if anything is useful
there for us?”
Tommy considered it, and the woman. She was…
not attractive. Apparently by choice. Severe, mannish hair
wasn’t at all flattering to the shape of her face. Within a year or
two of forty, one way or the other, her minimal make-up did nothing to
downplay the signs around her eyes and mouth, while a seemingly constant
frown accentuated it. That part could have been the relic of dental
work or even a stroke, but everything about her body language said it was
calcified bitterness. It was impossible to think she was on a date,
and nearly as impossible to think Barry’s interest was of a personal nature.
He must want to impress her for business reasons…
He shared the analysis, and Colette was polite.
“Impressive, but probably not useful. For
our purposes, the crucial thing to figure out is if he wants to impress
today, impress her specifically,
or if that’s his basic resting pulse. Somebody who’s always trying to
impress because they’re insecure, who uses art as a club to beat down the
less cultured and connected, they’re going to have a collection that’s all
about the names. Trite, safe, sure things. No sweet little
Foujitas, tempera and silver leaf, portrait of a socialite and her cat, for
this guy, no sir. Modigliani, Matisse and Picassos all the way.”
The waiter brought their starters, ending the time
allotted to analyze the Hobbs table. With a final glance at the drab,
blonde woman, Bruce considered his personal knowledge of Barry Hobbs.
He was petty, selfish, mean, inclined to cheat if he thought he could get
away with it, and carried a grudge. But he was not insecure. He
wasn’t one to habitually impress, so that meant his interest was in that
woman specifically.
He then turned the detective’s eye on Selina.
Underneath the Tommy and Colette façades, he knew Selina’s tells and he knew
the mention of the “sweet little Foujitas” meant something. He
considered her view of the dining room… She’d seen the waiter coming with
their food and that meant a change in topic. With the arrival of the
first course, he was expected to go on to another table he’d identified, and
with that thought flittering in her subconscious, the example of an artwork
Hobbs wouldn’t collect was Foujita’s Portrait of Emily White. The
painting hung in the Art Institute of Star City and Batman had tried for
years to get through Oliver’s thick skull that it was a semi-probable
Catwoman target.
Their table was against the glass wall that looked
out on the plaza outside the museum’s entrance. Tommy pretended to
watch the pedestrians for a moment, while he scrutinized the reflection of
the room behind him and the tables Colette faced… He saw no one likely to
have prompted the Foujita, so he turned casually to his other side and,
reaching for the salt shaker, looked directly into the curved booth along
the far wall that he’d only been able to glimpse with his peripheral vision.
“Art World, nine o’clock,” he said, digging into his
salmon. “You could tell from the red and black number, or the woman
with the nails, but in this case we don’t have to rely on deduction.
The man on the left is Ian Scully, with the Neue Galerie until he closed the
deal on the Klimt. Then went out on his own, opened Gallery Esprit on
Madison. This is his meeting. At least one, maybe all of the
guests are from out of town. My guess, the moustache is from Star
City, specifically the Art Institute, and the others are or represent
private collectors. They’re here to discuss lending pieces to an
upcoming show at Esprit.”
His lip twitched.
“Which means that Emily White’s cat is coming to
Gotham… “
To control the space and thus your attacker, you must
first control yourself. To control yourself, you must become the
Void. ~Maki Sensei
Tommy went through the motions of analyzing two more
tables, but he had no doubt which of the four leads would be deemed
“Cat-worthy.” When the entrees came, he’d slid his phone from his
jacket and, hoping he didn’t sound too much like the Lund twins, declared
himself “one of those tiresome people who simply must take a beautiful
picture for Instagram.” Pretending to conduct a photoshoot with his
stuffed chicken and chestnuts, he captured several discreet shots of the
diners across the aisle, and had the printouts ready when Colette knocked on
his door.
The incense burned, discreetly evoking Japan and the
Rubens taken from the Odawara board room… The little dish of nougats sat
next to her chair, whispering of jade and gold bars in Kowloon… and the
photos, clippings and notecards from the first two hunting trips were tacked
onto a white board which reproduced their arrangement at the Cat Lair.
The coffee table was cleared, a blank canvas for tonight’s analysis…
Selina repeated the low whistle of her first visit as
she took it all in.
“At the risk of puffing your ego into the blindly
overconfident zone you think all criminals live in, this is pretty amazing.
You’re a freakishly good student.”
Before long, photos of Gallery Esprit, the Portrait
of Emily White, and clippings from Gotham Arts Quarterly had taken their
place on the coffee table, while Tommy spouted details about Tsugouharu
Foujita as he wrote out the index cards and arranged them under the heading
picture of The Modern.
“At the height of his career, Foujita was more famous
than Picasso at his,” he said, scrutinizing a clipping on the Star City
curator and switching his position with a close-up of Emily’s cat.
“Settling in the Montparnasse district when he finished his studies in
Tokyo, fell in with the heavy hitters of Paris: Modigliani, Picasso, and
Matisse… Got a lot more research to do, naturally—that should go here—but I
was thinking a little rooftop recon might be in order before I go back to
Google. I know it’s premature, but I was thinking…”
“I was thinking
you were more interested in Barry Hobbs’s table than Ian Scully’s,”
Selina cut in. “I know the way you get, and the way you sounded
analyzing him compared to the others, I was sure you’d be leaning that way.”
The impulse to deny it didn’t feel especially like a
crimefighter’s, but the satisfaction when Selina finally believed him did
feel like a triumphant Psychobat.
The exhibit at Gallery Esprit and its expected feline
guest star joined the possible targets from other hunting trips on the crime
board, and Selina said it was just as well: the possibility of a theft with
a cat tie-in warranted an important lesson. Assuming he was born Tommy
Whatever, feeling his way as he went instead of benefiting from a teacher
like Colette, he would have to be able to hit a new city, find information
and get traction without any help or instruction.
Since that was something Bruce did all the time as
Batman, he didn’t see the point of the exercise, and Selina said “Yes,
exactly.” She told him to dress for the Iceberg and bring plenty of
clean cash.
In the Void there is no technique. At this level,
technique is useless. You must forget all you have learned. You
must have learned so well that you can forget and still perform.
~Maki Sensei
The first thing Bruce realized about
maintaining a secret identity was the importance of surface reactions.
As Fop Wayne he would meet people, unaware of their hidden agendas and
criminal ties. He would blither about the helicopter transfer from
Cannes as the only
way to arrive in Monaco while Batman sniffed like a bloodhound for the scent
of dirty money. He would amble through a story about the
ultra-exclusive Amber Room at Jimmy’z while Batman followed the trail of
forged Pacific bonds through a Falcone Ponzi scheme to the corporate money
behind questionable loans from a German expat… to his goon firebombing a
drug store. Bruce would be thrilled to meet a fellow car enthusiast
and talk happily about Ferrari’s wind tunnel in Maranello, oblivious to his
new friend’s move from drugs into guns and racketeering, and the trail of
bodies he’d left tracking down a crate of cash that would tie him to the
laundering front in SoHo…
Tonight’s operation must reverse that mental
process. Tommy Coronet was new to Gotham. He might know how to
conduct himself in the night markets of Cairo and the criminal haunts of
Ladbroke Grove, but none of that prepared you for the Iceberg Lounge.
Being true to the character he was creating, Tommy should strut in like a
thousand brash criminals Batman had seen over the years, confident in his
abilities and his experience. A sophisticated, well-traveled
individual—not jaded, not cynical, but someone who’d seen the world: the
penthouses and the gutters, the saints and the sinners. Being an
intelligent man, he would realize his mistake within minutes, possibly
within seconds, and he would do his best to fake it. It was a
phenomenon Batman had seen many times but had a hard time absorbing: a man
of the world trying to wrap his brain around
this.
He might fool a few transplants but every
true Gothamite would see his bluff.
That was not an approach Batman would condone,
not at the Iceberg. Tommy must simply know what Bruce knew, what
Batman knew: how to deal with Oswald Cobblepot, with Killer Croc, with King
Snake and Jervis Tetch. With Harley Quinn if, God forbid, she was in
there, knowing that whatever she saw Joker could hear about through the
filter of that airhead’s perceptions. Tonight was not a
lesson from which
he would learn anything to craft the identity of an international art thief,
it was something to get through—a task
to complete to satisfy Sensei,
so she would move on to something useful. So a Stanislavski approach
was suspended for the evening. Tommy Coronet was no longer a person,
it was a performance that would be conducted like Playboy Wayne—with all of
Batman’s knowledge, instincts, observations and priorities at the helm.
It was no longer acting, it was simply a lie. Bruce knew things and
the Fop pretended he didn’t. Tommy
didn’t know, but he would pretend he did,
and somehow, though there was no earthly reason for him to be able to pull
it off, he would be as confident and effortlessly familiar with the Gotham
underworld as the Dark Knight himself.
Waiting until Talon or Crow were there to see,
he passed the turn to the 11th Street lot and took the curbside space
nearest the front entrance. Mark was on the door and, not recognizing
the man or the car, he called out that most people didn’t want to risk
taking the last parking space, just in case.
Tommy pointed into the darkness and said there were others available down
the street.
“It’s your funeral,” Talon chuckled, and Tommy
checked his watch, unconcerned about flashing the costly Rolex in front of
such obvious lowlifes.
“It’s after ten,” he said with a con man’s easy
smile. “Joker, Scarecrow, Freeze and Zeus are all up the river, who
else could be coming that isn’t already in there?”
There were grudging nods at the logic, and Tommy
slipped Mark a folded bill. Then while he moved to open the door,
Tommy’s eyes flicked up at Talon’s, extending two fingers with another
folded bill wedged between them. Not a word hinted what it was for,
which produced a vibe that was equal parts threat and uncertainty.
“Might rain,” Tommy said in answer to the unspoken
question. Rain meant the need for an umbrella… and Talon pocketed the
cash as silently as it had been given.
Magical gifts and superpowers afford no advantage with
one who achieves the Void. Those who anticipate attack are easily
misdirected. ~Maki Sensei
Tommy offered Raven a warm smile as he neared the
dining room, which brought the expected greeting that allowed him to
approach her podium sending mixed messages if he was there to dine or flirt.
The warmth of his initial smile cooled to the emptiness of the playboy’s,
the shallow ass he used for years to discourage all but the gold diggers.
Raven was too busy noting how often he looked at her cleavage to realize he
was checking out the dining room the rest of the time:
There were two centers of power in the room, clusters
of danger were everywhere, but only two foci that commanded awareness
without dramatically drawing attention: King Snake’s entourage and the
central table where The Riddler held court with Game Theory.
KGBeast had a booth to himself along the back wall, with two armed enforcers
from the Chechan mob hunched at a small table nearby, presumably there to
watch him and doing a bad job pretending they weren’t… And the Mad Hatter
was at his usual table but not engaged in his usual gossip. Instead he
was eying Riddler and Game Theory—eying Nigma and Doris—with the same
jealous glare he had for Joker and Harley when she arrived on the scene.
So, a typical night of crosscurrents.
It took only a moment to log it all, cross-index
every threat’s sightlines and path to the exit, by which time Raven was
asking if she could show him to a table—asking with the edge that meant go
away if he wasn’t there to eat.
So he headed into the bar, though he regarded Sly as
a danger equal to any in the dining room. The bartender had a natural
gift for facial recognition integrated with a complicated matrix of other
information—most of which, fortunately, was confined to alcohol consumption.
But Sly had served Bruce Wayne and Matches Malone, and Tommy wasn’t thrilled
at giving him a third customer with the same mouth as Batman. Still,
standing around without a drink or ordering through a waitress without
sitting down at a table was apt to attract attention. So he risked a
beer that didn’t seem like it would be worth remembering, and twisted around
to see the TV as he ordered to keep from giving Sly a clean angle on his
face. Before it was time for another round, he felt a tap and Peahen
said she’d bring him a refill in Mr. Cobblepot’s office.
If you are out of breath at the end of an exchange, it
is because you are still trying, still trapped in effort and technique.
~Maki Sensei
Oswald regarded Tommy with the same sour pucker
that greeted all tall men: Another one,
Kwak! But the prospect of new
feathers for his nest soon put such thoughts in their place. There was
no profit in vanity, after all. He would indulge in a few minutes of
the notorious crime boss playing the gracious host—a few minutes in which he sized up
this annoyingly tall stranger—but after that there would be no more
nonsense. The few minutes saw Tommy agree to join Oswald in a scotch
from his private collection and offer a square of chocolate that he said
went particularly well with the Islay malts… Oswald sat back and fixed his
visitor with an appraisingly beady eye.
“It’s your meeting,” he quacked harshly.
“I’m new to town,” Tommy said. Direct, making
eye contact. “I have friends in the moving business in other parts of
the world, but—”
“You need a local fence,” Oswald said bluntly.
“A-an
associate in San Francisco or Paris or
Dubai isn’t terribly useful if I can’t get an item
to them,” Tommy
said smoothly. “My understanding is that Gotham presents unique
challenges and that you’re the best when it comes to moving things in spite
of them.”
“Smuggling then,” Oswald said coldly.
“You want your regular people handling the sale and expect to use me like
Federal Express—KWAK!”
“It never occurred to me that you might want to
handle the sale yourself. I suppose that would depend on your fee.
Let’s say, hypothetically, I had two million in gold…”
“Kwak, I’ll get you 200,000.”
Tommy turned his head as if from a cough, paused for
a half beat, then directed Batman’s glare of righteous outrage—and impending
violence—at the tip of Oswald’s nose.
“200,000, kwak,” Oswald repeated.
“That’s a
finder’s fee,” Tommy said, every syllable
dripping with disgust.
“I’m taking all the risk,” Oswald complained.
“If it’s gold coins, I can only sell so many at a time. No telling how
long it will take to liquidate everything, and all the while, I’m in
possession of potentially stolen items, no telling who might be looking for
them.”
“I haven’t said if it’s bags of Credit Suisse ingots,
South African Kruggerands or a single bar from Lukfook in Hong Kong, and
you’re offering—”
“200,000, kwak.”
“—ten percent. That’s insultingly low.”
“Not for Gotham… but since you appreciate a good
scotch, call it twelve-five.”
“Your first offer will be thirty percent or I
don’t even consider offering what I’m…
really offering.”
“KWAK! You’re one of those, are you?”
“One of what?”
“An albatross, a sulfur-crested cockatoo, an
arctic tern,”
Oswald said like a judge handing down a sentence.
“I am not a bird,” Tommy said, the firm tone of
one who understands
Gotham eccentricities but is refusing to play along.
“You sure? It’s a compliment,” Oswald
explained. “They’re long-lived birds. Not the type that get into
debt with the wrong people, not the type that have to take whatever they can
get because if they don’t have the money by Thursday they won’t go on
breathing. That sort are very profitable, while they last—”
“But they don’t last long and when someone like your
Batman catches up with them, they’re quick to cough up a name,” Tommy cut in
as if to say ‘I can interrupt too.’ “I will repeat, I am not a
bird—but more importantly, Mr. Cobblepot, I am not a rat. What I am is
a long-game player. You’re right, I don’t need to raise two or three
million by Thursday. I can take my time, and if we can’t come to an
agreement on the gold, I can hold on to it and the Hegyi—”
“Hegyi?”
“Marcell Hegyi’s
Untitled #2.
It’s been cut out of the frame, might need restretched, won’t lose more than
an inch of canvas.” He paused, knowing this meant nothing to Oswald.
He gave Tommy a half-beat to notice before supplying the information he
would care about: “It’s worth around four million in Macau or Singapore.
Yours for two.”
The repetition of two brought the faintest flicker of
surprise, which Bruce noticed but decided Tommy wouldn’t. Clearly
Oswald picked up on it, like any seasoned Gotham operator would, and he
quickly dismissed it since Tommy was an out-of-towner. He still might
have said something if not for a knock on the door. Peahen brought him
a note and then gave Tommy a curious look while Oswald read it. Oswald
also gave Tommy a cursory glance, then he waved Peahen away with a ‘yes
alright-kwak’ and tucked the note under his blotter pad.
“When is an albatross not an albatross,” he said,
lifting his glass as if proposing a toast. “We were speaking
hypothetically, correct?”
“Hypothetically,” Tommy replied.
“An item like hypothetical gold, you want
thirty percent, fifty
on hypothetical art, is that right?”
“To begin. From time to time I might come
across items you would find particularly appealing: a hypothetical wall
plaque from the estate of a prominent collector decorated with a cockerel,
or an extremely rare 18th century charger with a couple of geese.”
“Kwa-a-ack,” Oswald said, drawing the sound out for
three thoughtful syllables. “You would expect more for an item like
that.”
“An item like that would be a gift,” Tommy said.
“One I might hope would inspire a similar gesture.”
“Like an adjustment in your percentage.”
“A substantial
adjustment.”
There was a brief exchange of barely perceptible nods
which certainly felt like a handshake, but then Oswald sighed.
“You’re not a pigeon,” he said regretfully.
“And you present an attractive offer. One I should be very pleased to
accept on the off chance that you survive the night with the intention of
remaining Gotham, and are still possessed of enough internal organs to do
so.”
“Internal organs,” Tommy echoed.
“Yes, I believe you have given offense to an
individual whose threats frequently involve making those internal organs,
a-hem, external.”
“I see. And this individual is waiting
outside?”
“I believe so.”
Tommy nodded.
“I wish you the best of luck,” Oswald said dryly.
Dismissed, Tommy left the office. As the
door closed behind him, he considered the route to his left: an emergency
exit through the kitchen meant passing the back room and being seen by the
inhabitants, possibly being attacked if the offendee was in there. At
the very least, he’d be a joke. He intended this to be Coronet’s sole
appearance in the Gotham underworld, and that was fine as long as he left
with his prestige intact. But if he was never seen again because he
pissed off a name rogue and fled, if he was never seen again because Gotham
beat him… Not an option.
He walked boldly through the bar and into the dining
room, and felt a throb of Batman’s awareness behind his eye as he scanned
the path to the exits. There were two notable changes from his earlier
analysis. The first was something he simply couldn’t see from Raven’s
podium: the curtain of greenery that cordoned off Poison Ivy’s booth was
still in place. It was pulled back revealing an empty booth, but it
seemed as lush and full as ever. That was a mystery since everyone
assumed it was her special connection to plant life that kept it blooming in
her absence. But that connection would have shorted out with the rest
of her powers in the aftermath of her last rampage, wouldn’t it?
The second change was the Chechans. One was now
seated with KGBeast, his partner vanished, and a Russian with tattooed
knuckles sat alone at their table. His name was Ilya, and he’d played
poker with Matches Malone. There was a fresh bottle of vodka, and an
empty glass on the table in front of the empty chair. Ilya gestured to
one or the other as Peahen brought a tin of caviar and a plate of pickled
mushrooms.
Tommy ran his fingers through his hair as he
recalculated sightlines, trajectories and paths to the exit, then took his
place in the proffered seat. Ilya poured, never taking his eyes from
Tommy’s face. Sensing that the quickest way to distance himself from
Matches was to demonstrate an easy familiarity with the situation, Tommy
raised his glass.
“За встречу!” he declared confidently, and then with
that slippery salesman’s smile, “Did I say it right? It’s ‘To our
meeting,’ yes?”
“Close enough. Most Americans say
na zdorovie.”
They drank, names were exchanged, and then Tommy
called the question just as Oswald had done.
“Why are we meeting?”
“You’re new in town. You ask for a meeting with
Cobblepot. You must want a bank or a fence. There are better
alternatives in Little Odessa.”
“I’m familiar with Mr. Korsakoff,” Tommy said
smoothly. “Musical instruments aren’t really my thing, but if I ever
find myself with a Stradivarius or a Bergonzi to move, maybe even a Hilaire
or Nagyvary, he’ll be my first call.”
“Mhmph. Well, at very least you should set up
accounts through the Ottoman Bank. If you go through Cobblepot, you’ll
find he has a way of, let’s say, making up for what he gives away in that
office.”
“I will keep that in mind,” Tommy said, confused by
the lack of threats to his organs. Ilya noted his expression, and
Tommy admitted the conversation wasn’t what he expected.
“You expect intimidation?” Ilya asked, heaping an
enormous spoon of caviar on a bite of cracker, but before Tommy could reply,
he saw Ilya’s attention waver. His eye drifted to the right with the
wistful smile of a man admiring a beautiful woman, and he leaned in that
direction until his cracker dribbled caviar onto his lap.
“Well, your message,” Tommy murmured as he sensed the
presence coming up behind him.
“I sent no message,” Ilya said as the whiff of an
unfamiliar scent (combined with his earlier analysis of the seating)
announced the newcomer’s identity before she spoke.
“If I could borrow your friend,” Game Theory drawled
at Ilya while her fingers danced on Tommy’s shoulder and twiddled on his
forearm. Then…“This is for you,” she said, handing Tommy a folded
note.
She left before Ilya recovered the power of speech.
“That was, um?” Tommy managed.
“Game Theory. Riddler’s girl,” Ilya replied.
“You better read that note.”
He did, and though Batman had no trouble recognizing
the location named in the riddle, he felt sure Tommy would. Nobody new
to Gotham, nobody feeling their way through their very first visit to the
Iceberg, would know what to make of it: receiving an actual Riddler-riddle.
Even Batman who had received hundreds of the damned things never had one
hand-delivered by Nigma’s unnervingly flirty girlfriend.
“Is this usual?”
he asked Ilya.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” came the reply.
Deciding the only credible first-timer’s reaction
meshed beautifully with Batman’s own desires, he got up, pretended to do a
last shot, and marched across the dining room to confront the Riddler.
To be continued…
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