Ivy entered the lobby of Arkham Asylum, spotted the same woman behind the reception desk who had been there the last time, and knew this wasn’t going to be easy.

Of course, it didn’t really matter who the person guarding the front door was. Ivy was sure every employee had been thoroughly briefed on what had happened the last time she visited. Even that first time, the receptionist had said Ivy wasn’t permitted to see Harley. It was only through a loophole that she’d been able to gain access, and that loophole was undoubtedly closed now.

Sure enough, the woman took one look at her and said, “You’re not allowed to be here. Dr. Bartholomew instructed me to tell you that your visitation privileges have been indefinitely revoked for all Arkham patients.”

Ivy narrowed her eyes. “I’m sure he did,” she grumbled.

She was reluctantly willing to acknowledge that Bartholomew’s orders weren’t entirely unacceptable. The last time she’d seen Harley …well, it wasn’t something she liked to think about. In fact it was a memory that had still haunted her two days after.

Ivy didn’t need a repeat of that. She was too busy with the grand reopening for that kind of – distraction. It was probably for the best if she simply didn’t come at all.

But Ivy felt confident that she could avoid a second incident like that. Obviously she’d underestimated the amount of time Harley would grieve for that laughing pile of manure, and then she’d made the mistake of losing her temper just a bit.

Certainly by now Harley had gotten over both the Joker’s death and Ivy’s little faux pas. Even if she hadn’t, though, Ivy was prepared to overlook that and humor the girl.

And once that was out of the way, they could focus on the real reason for her visit. It was over a week since her confrontation with Selina, and by now she’d banished any slim hope that the other woman would call again. That left her with her original predicament, namely not having someone to talk to. Someone to bounce ideas off, to give their opinions about the newest features the Lounge would be offering …and all right, maybe to offer Ivy a bit of assurance that everything was going to work out. Harley had always been good at that.

Certainly she wasn’t visiting because she felt badly about the last time. Not at all.

“What about the good doctor himself? Am I allowed to appeal to him directly?” Ivy asked.

“Dr. Bartholomew’s orders also extend to every male employee here. Obviously that includes him,” the receptionist said primly.

Ivy permitted herself a grim smile. The staff here was operating under a dangerous if understandable belief that her powers didn’t work on women. Ivy knew this was no longer the case.

Even if she hadn’t particularly been able to enjoy the discovery.

Unfortunately, she’d had very little opportunity to do further testing of her new abilities. She left the Rydbergii very rarely, which meant the only women she saw were her employees. Ivy had briefly considered trying to green one of them, but she’d decided not to. She suspected Raven and the others had returned to their jobs only because they believed they were safe from “greening.” If she gave them any sign this was no longer the case, Ivy worried they would quit en masse. Penguin had warned very strongly against this, and anyway she had no intention of conducting endless job interviews.

Her only testing had been two random encounters with strange women on the sidewalk outside of the Rydbergii. Both women had been guarded at first, but within a few moments they’d become as friendly as if they’d known her for twenty years. These experiments didn’t provide her with nearly the kind of information she needed, however, to figure out how to get the most efficient use out of her powers with women.

Besides, both conversations had been extremely uncomfortable reminders of Selina – how defenseless Ivy had been in the wake of her fury, and how alone it had made her feel when she realized Selina’s warm wishes had been empty. Not like when Harley was with her, or Harvey. Harvey, who she’d never had to green except for one or two insignificant times in the beginning. Of course, then he had to go and screw everything up …mentally she shook her head. Why was she now thinking about HIM of all people?

“Is there something else you need?” the receptionist asked.

Ivy started, having become lost in her own thoughts. It would be a simple thing to take control of this self-important woman. Let Arkham know that none of its employees, male or female, were safe from her power. They would quickly realize that they had no hope of denying her what she demanded.

Yet she hesitated. She still didn’t fully understand how to control her new powers. She still wasn’t sure why the herbs she was taking increased her abilities – or for that matter, why overuse of the herbs could burn her powers out forever. That little tidbit of information from the woman at the magic shop had been especially disturbing.

And the doctors here weren’t as completely defenseless as she liked them to be. Even something as simple as locking her out of the building could conceivably thwart her. It wasn’t like her pheromones were so powerful they could shatter glass, after all.

But to be kept from Harley because of one mistake was inexcusable! If only she could get to Dr. Bartholomew and make him understand!

Ivy paused. She’d been able to make Selina understand that what had happened had been a mistake. She’d avoided a great deal of pain not by greening Selina, but by talking to her and proving what she said was true.

She shrugged. If it worked on Catwoman …

“Look,” she said to the receptionist. “I want to speak with Dr. Bartholomew. Now.”

“As I explained a minute ago – “

“You couldn’t possibly know this,” Ivy went on, “but my powers affect women now. I could show you, if you like.”

The receptionist didn’t answer at first. Obviously finding out she wasn’t as safe as she thought wasn’t very pleasant. “You’re bluffing,” she finally said.

“I could take your memory of the next five minutes away if I wanted to,” Ivy replied. “But I suppose your time is valuable, and my time is much, much more. Why don’t you just work with the assumption that I’m telling the truth?”

The other woman didn’t say anything.

“Now,” Ivy continued, “I could just use my powers to compel you to give me what I want. But I’ve decided to try something different today. I’m told it gets results. We’ll both talk it over like rational adults– and then you’ll give me what I want. Otherwise I might decide it’s simpler just to make you my new best friend. Now, how does that sound?”

A minute later, the receptionist was on the phone to tell Dr. Bartholomew he had a visitor that couldn’t wait, and Ivy was pleased with herself. It was true, you really did catch more flies with a pitcher plant than you did with a Venus flytrap.

Jenna straightened the cuffs of her blouse while she waited for these potential investors to finish reading. She couldn’t tell what anyone was thinking until Mopey Dog asked a question.

“Let me get this straight,” he pronounced, setting down the market analysis. “You want to go into head-to-head competition with Cobblepot and his Iceberg Lounge?”

“Not exactly,” Jenna corrected him. “You see, the Iceberg Lounge is currently closed. It has been for weeks, and there’s no sign of when it will be reopening.”

“Closed for renovations, I’m told,” Fishface pointed out. “That happens every year.”

“Yes, but not for this length of time,” Jenna pointed out. “Usually it’s for a week or less.”

“That tells me the new Iceberg is going to be bigger and flashier than ever. Which is not what a fledgling nightclub wants to go up against.”

“But if we open first—” Jenna began eagerly, thinking of the stronghold she would have on all the former Iceberg clients before Ivy even opened her doors.

“If you open first you’ll be outshown the minute Cobblepot reopens,” the jowly restaurateur pointed out. “A ‘hot new nightclub’ has the lifespan of a mayfly, Ms. Leibowitz. It’s one in a hundred that keeps going for more than a year, and that one is the Iceberg.”

“It won’t be called the Iceberg actually,” she said. “My sources tell me the new name will be the Rydbergii Lounge.” The looks on the faces of the men and women in front of her told Jenna that nobody understood the reference. She herself had to look it up. That alone should demonstrate how out of touch the new Iceberg would be with the market (and the world at large), but Jenna had a different point to make. “Rydbergii,” she said, pronouncing it with a foreign and affected lilt to emphasize its unsuitability. “Per Axel Rydberg, a botanist from over a hundred years ago. The scientific name for western poison ivy is named after him.”

Looks of comprehension began to dawn in their eyes, and Jenna smiled. At last it was all falling into place. She took some projections off an easel next to her, and replaced them with a blown-up photograph. “My sources also tell me that Oswald Cobblepot has been replaced by the new proprietor, Poison Ivy.”

As if the investors in the room needed to be reminded of Poison Ivy’s mental instability, the photograph showed Ivy in a straitjacket and being dragged out of a courtroom. Jenna had found it in the Gotham Post archives.

“Before I continue,” Jenna said, “I’d like to ask each of you to take a moment and think about what you know of this woman. Maybe you had an unlucky encounter with her.” In fact, she’d made a point of inviting several men who Ivy had targeted in the past. “Or maybe you’ve just seen her on the TV. Whatever you do know, ask yourself what kind of person she is.”

Jenna spent her moment reflecting on what this meant for her if she succeeded. She already had sold her Starbucks franchise and earmarked all of her savings for this project, but it would take a great deal more money for “Jenna’s” to be on a scale with the Iceberg Lounge, whatever its name was. That was the reason for this meeting. If even a half-dozen of these people, some of whom had successfully invested in other nightclubs and all of whom were looking for the hot new thing to profit from, she’d have both the money and the credibility she needed.

Jenna had provided each of the invitees with a detailed prospectus of her plans for Gotham’s newest nightclub. She had the location picked out, and she’d consulted with one of Gotham’s leading architectural firms. She’d laid the foundation with hard numbers, because these people needed something concrete to throw their money at. But she’d saved her biggest selling point for last, and it was the picture next to her. When they understood that the competition was at best a paper tiger, and at worst an unstable sociopath certain to self-destruct, they’d run to fill the void that Ivy was about to create.

“How reliable are these sources of yours?” one woman asked before Jenna could go on.

She suppressed a flash of irritation – these were investors, after all, and they were bound to be annoying at times. Although she’d (perhaps unreasonably) hoped they would become more pliable once she’d played her trump card. She glanced again at the picture of Ivy straining furiously against her restraints, and tried to look as sane and reasonable as possible in contrast.

“Extremely reliable,” Jenna said. “Any of you can go there and find out for yourselves. Poison Ivy has never been known for her subtlety.

“I’ll lay out what you all know already. Poison Ivy is a homicidal maniac and a convicted criminal. She persists in the delusional belief that plants are more important than people,” she said with a sneer. “She altered her own genetic structure, and it turned her skin green.” Even if she insists it’s alabaster, she added to herself.

“Some of you may also know that Ivy is a vengeful harpy. A self-important, narcissistic bitch with an acidic personality that can pit concrete. Other people are only on this planet to amuse her.”

Jenna smiled. “In short, she’s possibly the least-qualified person in the city to be running a nightclub, a hospitality business of any kind, and for that matter any endeavor requiring non-combative contact with the public at large.”

“You’re assuming Cobblepot isn’t still running the show. Behind the scenes, that is.”

“My sources indicate the renovations have been quite extensive,” Jenna assured them. “Ivy is erasing every sign of Cobblepot’s stamp on the place, and replacing it with her own signature, as if she was a new pharaoh chiseling out the old one’s name from the statuary. Do you really believe that the Penguin would allow that?”

She chuckled as she worked the room. “No, more likely that Ivy has him under her thrall. Every man in this room – in this city really – either knows what that’s like, or he’s heard about it from someone else. And that’s just one more reason why the new Lounge will fail under her management. What man would dare enter the establishment? She might slip something in his drink, or simply use her powers to put the entire room under her control.”

Her biggest fish, Bruce Wayne, had declined her invitation. Her research had indicated he would be one of the men most receptive to her pitch, having been “greened” along with the Wayne Foundations’ entire board of directors in one scandalous incident. Another sizeable fish, however, was front row, center seat, and it was he who spoke now.

“You’re right,” Randolph Larraby III said. “I’ve been victimized by Poison Ivy. I remember what it was like. And there are at least a half-dozen men in here who can say the same. But nobody went to the Iceberg Lounge because they enjoyed Cobblepot either, with his ridiculous vocabulary and his ‘nouveau riche’ pretensions. And Poison Ivy certainly has assets …which a man can at least enjoy from across the room.”

A few men chuckled with him.

“They went,” Larraby continued, “because the Lounge had notoriety. The owner was a prominent theme criminal who catered to the most infamous lunatics in Gotham, and yet it was still high-class. People like us, going to the Iceberg was like going to the zoo. Real, live dangerous animals, all in captivity. Dinner and a show. Catwoman, if you were really lucky. And Poison Ivy, she’s one of them. Ms. Lieberman, without the Gotham Rogues, you’ve got just another nightclub, and those are a dime a dozen. What makes you think they’ll choose your club over hers?”

Jenna didn’t bother to correct him on her name. “Actually, I’m glad you mentioned Catwoman. I trust most of you saw her off-Broadway show Cat-Tales?” She drew one last sheet of paper from her prepared materials. “I found this on the Internet. It’s a quote from one of her monologues. ‘The men of Gotham After Dark, who allegedly can’t resist her, have a little expression for Poison Ivy, ungallant though it may be to repeat it – there are women you need two, three glasses of wine before an evening with them is palatable, then there are four-dirty-martini women, there are a-shot-of-Jack-Daniels-and-a-snort-of-cocaine women …and then there’s Poison Ivy.’”

The superficial meaning was clear to many of those gathered: those who knew Ivy best, the coveted rogues whose presence would make or break an Icebergesque nightclub, did not consider the prospect of spending time with her appealing without massive doses of chemical pheromones. The deeper meaning, however, Jenna was less certain she could convey. It was a matter of compare-and-contrast.

Catwoman’s stage show had sold out. She embodied everything that drew the public to the costumed criminals of Gotham. She was colorful, dangerous, sexy, illicit, thrilling—and at the same time safe enough that no one felt their lives were in peril just being in the same room with her. In short, she was everything Poison Ivy was not.

Ivy was no less beautiful, but in almost every other way she was Catwoman’s exact opposite. What Jenna really wanted was for her would-be investors to put themselves into the mindset of the Gotham rogues. If Bruce Wayne had come, it would have been easy. His very presence would be a reminder without her saying a word. Since Selina Kyle began dating him, most of those in the room had met her in a social context, or at least been in the same room with her at some gala or fundraiser. So they’d tasted that vicarious thrill, an actual Gotham rogue in the room, and you could compliment her shoes or remark how much better the band was than last year. That’s what her club had to offer that Ivy’s would not. Selina Kyle was a draw. If you were Riddler or Two-Face and she asked you to go to a party, you’d go, wouldn’t you? Unlike Selina Kyle, Ivy was unpopular with her own kind. Unlike Selina Kyle, Ivy’s image was quite unmarketable.

“If they had no other choices,” Jenna said tentatively, “they’d probably don their noseplugs and go to the Rydbergii Lounge. But trust me, they’re looking for an excuse to go anywhere else that will serve them. If this club will open its doors to them, they’ll come. And where they go, the tourists will follow. And let’s face it, the Iceberg Lounge was a bit antiquated. Oswald’s little dinner club was twenty years behind the times. When word gets out on how hip, how trendy our place will be, the twenty-somethings will flock there. I’m telling you, we can’t miss with this. It’ll be … catworthy.”

“Of course not, Doctor,” Ivy said flatly. “I simply made a very persuasive argument.”

“Hah! I imagine you did.”

“What’s she doing here?” Ivy asked, directing an unfriendly look at the other occupant of the doctor’s office.

Dr. Bartholomew casually glanced at the woman standing to his left. “Oh, you remember Doctor Fitzsimmons, of course. She’s helping with Harleen’s treatment, and naturally I felt she should sit in.”

“You just want a woman on your side,” Ivy replied. “And her name is Harley.”

He smiled grimly. “It’s just a precaution, Pamela. All orders concerning Harleen Quinzell require both our signatures, to prevent any – coercion. And you know perfectly well that Harleen is the name she was born with.”

“She likes to be called Harley, Doctor,” Ivy said, irritated by his manner, and yet secretly amused by his smug certainty that Dr. Fitzsimmons was safe from “coercion.” “She’s already depressed. She doesn’t need someone calling her a name she doesn’t like.”

“She’s depressed because of the Joker’s death, Pamela. She needs to understand that that life is over, and that she can resume her old life as Harleen. What she doesn’t need are reminders of her time as Patient J’s sidekick, and that most certainly includes you,” Dr. Bartholomew told her. “I was convinced of that even before that incident you incited last week.”

Ivy’s stomach clenched at the memory. “I didn’t know that would happen,” she grumbled.

“But you knew you were forbidden from seeing her. And you did anyway. I don’t know what you said to her, Harleen wouldn’t tell us, but she was extremely agitated and had to be sedated. Harleen has to focus on her own treatment, not cater to your selfish needs.”

“My–” Ivy stopped. She had to get a grip on her temper. She couldn’t yield to temptation and green them both any more than she could at the reception desk. The short-term win would only lead to long-term disaster. “I know why she – overreacted. It won’t happen again.”

“And why did she overreact?” Dr. Fitzsimmons asked, speaking up for the first time.

“It was private,” Ivy replied.

“That’s what we’re talking about, Pamela,” Dr. Bartholomew told her. “Harleen needs our help. If you were really her friend, you would help her by staying away.”

“I disagree,” Ivy said. “I can help her more by seeing her.”

“Why?”

She paused for a moment. She had come to Arkham thinking about how Harley could help her, not the other way around. “Because she trusts me,” Ivy finally said. “With Joker gone, I’m the only one left she does. She sure as hell doesn’t trust any of you. You’re no better than the police.”

“She’ll come to understand that we have her best interests at heart,” Doctor Fitzsimmons said. “It’s not surprising that we’ve started slowly, and we’re going to overcome that in time.”

“Slowly, huh? Let me guess,” Ivy said shrewdly. “She still hasn’t told you a thing about what happened that night at the Iceberg.”

“We don’t have to tell you anything she told either of us in confidence,” Dr. Bartholomew replied. “In fact, doctor-client privilege strictly prohibits my doing so.”

“Uh-huh,” Ivy said sarcastically. “Fine. You don’t have to admit it, we both know she hasn’t told you anything. Have the guts to admit it to yourselves and extrapolate what it means. She doesn’t trust you and she’s not going to. So don’t hold your breath waiting for her to open up, it’s not going to happen. If she’ll open up to anyone, it’ll be me. She’s been crying on my shoulder for years. Look Doctor, she’s surrounded by reminders of her criminal past here. It’s Arkham, for Gaia’s sake. What does one more matter, if it means getting through to her quicker?”

Doctor Bartholomew looked at her. “And why should I believe you?”

“You said it yourself. I’m selfish. She’s no fun for me if she’s a crying wreck huddled in a corner,” Ivy pointed out. “Besides, you don’t need to look in your notes to know how much I hated the Joker. I’ve told you for years that the best thing for Harley was to get her away from him. Well now she IS away from him. I want her to realize that she’s better for it. I WANT her to realize that psychotic hyena isn’t worth the tears.”

“Even if I agreed with you,” he said, “I’m not convinced you won’t just upset her again. She’s had too many bad days for me to gamble her well-being on your promises.”

“Doctor …please,” Ivy said, almost choking on the word. It sounded almost like begging. “I don’t like seeing her this way. I want her to get better. I –I promise that if she has another incident like the last time, I won’t ask to see her again.” She said this more confidently, knowing there wouldn’t be any more problems. All she had to do was avoid any suggestion that it was Harley’s fault he died.

Perhaps one day Harley would take pride in the part she played in the extermination of the worst homicidal lunatic in the city’s history, but obviously she wasn’t ready yet.

Dr. Fitzsimmons leaned forward and murmured something Ivy couldn’t catch into Dr. Bartholomew’s ear. Whatever it was, his expression said he didn’t like it.

“Your time with her,” he finally said, “would have to be monitored. We can’t be surprised by another fit of hysteria.”

Ivy blinked. It – worked?

“Also,” he continued, “if we would allow you to resume visitation, that privilege will be contingent on her opening up in session as a result. If she does not begin taking an active role in her recovery, I’ll assume you’re not getting through to her and your privileges will be revoked.”

Ivy didn’t respond at first. She was still incredulous that she’d succeeded. Truth be told, she so rarely tried to get her way with men any more without using pheromones, she hadn’t really believed she could pull this off. “How often will I be allowed to see her?” Ivy finally thought to ask.

“Once a week,” Doctor Bartholomew said after thinking for a moment. “Thirty minutes. More, perhaps, if she gets better. As Doctor Fitzsimmons has pointed out, she needs to get better,” he acknowledged, “before she can think about starting her life over.”

Ivy nodded. She was a little surprised how important this was to her.

She supposed she needed someone to talk to even more than she realized.

It would be his best crime spree ever. He could operate in the style of his fellow rogues. Taking inspiration from the very pages of the Gotham Post, he could torment the Dark Knight with the most tantalizing clues all tied to the distortions that ridiculous tabloid offered the public as Killer Croc, Scarecrow, Catwoman, Two-Face, Poison Ivy, Mad Hatter …He had ranked them all, assigning a mathematical value to the degree the Gotham Post distorted their appearance, personality and methodology. He could now proceed through the list, one by one, devising clues drawn from -

“I was then commanded to take the life of the Deputy Interior Minister of Uzbekistan. I strangled him as he relieved himself in a public restroom after he left work for the day. I was told it was a message. What message, or to whom, I did not ask. My place is but to follow orders.”

Eddie had wrestled with the question of whether or not to include the Joker in his rankings. True, he was dead, but they didn’t necessarily have to be alive for the riddles to work. What mattered was how much attention the Gotham Post had “lavished” on them, and the Joker had received as much ink as –

“I disemboweled him thoroughly, and in such a manner that, as he was under criminal investigation, the police believed it a suicide.”

Eventually he’d decided to leave the Joker out. Since his murder, Eddie had gotten used to not seeing him. Why ruin it by staring at his photographs?

“The first time I used that kind of poison, I injected too little and I was forced to return to the hospital hours later. I learned from my mistake, however, and in this case she died within minutes.”

Eddie threw down his pencil and stood up. He simply couldn’t concentrate while listening to a professional assassin verbally recite his resume!

He opened the door of the room he was using and leaned his head out. “Er, Greg? Does he have to do this now?”

Greg Brady waved for Eddie to come in. “Hey, Edward. Meet Il’Nar. Il’Nar, you’re going to be staying in Gotham for a while, so you might as well get to know Edward Nygma, also known as the Riddler.”

Il’Nar regarded Nygma flatly. “I have read of you,” he said. “You are an enemy of He Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken.” He looked again at Greg. “I was told I was the first to be named to this post.”

“He Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken?” Eddie asked. “WOMEN SPOOK BATMEN, HE ENTHUSES?”

“Close enough,” Greg said. “Il’Nar, first thing I tell guys here, here in Gotham we just call him Batman.”

“But to pronounce – “

“It takes too long, Il’Nar. Just Batman. Okay?”

“ …Very well.”

“And Mr. Nygma here doesn’t work for us. He’s just renting space.”

“Renting?” Il’Nar asked, clearly confused.

“Well, ever since my last group found themselves in Blackgate for the Joker’s murder,” Greg said, a brief pained glance crossing his face, “this place has been pretty empty. Eddie’s temporarily renting a room while he thinks up his next riddle.”

Il’Nar looked at Eddie again. “He does not have a hideout of his own?”

Eddie’s face transformed, expressing the most violent revulsion. “What comes of the untended hideout when the Prince of Puzzlers is incarcerated? Since the defection of my darling Doris,” he pronounced these syllables with controlled disgust, “I have been without a henchwench. There was no one to tend to the hideout while I was in Arkham. In my absence, something crawled into the air conditioner and died.”

“Doris?”

“Ex-girlfriend,” Greg supplied. “You’ll learn all this as you go.”

“Quite,” Eddie said sourly. “The air is unbreathable. I’m airing it out. With luck, maybe I can go back by July.”

“He’s not serious about July,” Greg assured Il’Nar. “Anyway, why don’t you just fill me in on why they sent you?”

Il’Nar looked abashed. “I was given the task of killing the newspaper reporter Clark Kent.”

Eddie blinked. Even in Arkham he’d heard about Kent and President Leiverman. There was enough animosity there to make Batman and Riddler look like friends by comparison. And the person in charge of LionCorp since Lionel Leiverman was elected president was the daughter of the man whose League of Assassins sent Il’Nar to off Kent? …It was the kind of stupidity Eddie would expect from and empty suit like Ra’s al Ghul, but not from Superman’s great foe Lionel Leiverman.

“And you failed,” Greg said.

“Yes. I – I do not understand how. Neither did my superiors. They agreed, he should have died. They were unable to determine what I did wrong, and that is the only reason I am alive today,” Il’Nar said.

“So this assignment is your punishment,” Eddie said.

“Yes,” Il’Nar said coldly.

“All right, well, I won’t hold it against you, Il’Nar,” Greg told him. “I do have one more question, though. You’re the first DEMON agent to arrive in weeks. Why now? Do you know anything?”

Il’Nar hesitated. “I do not know,” he eventually admitted. “Sometimes there is talk when someone is assigned to a new post for a special purpose, but in the case of the city of He Who Must Not – ” He caught a look from Greg. “Of Batman,” he said, “it is widely felt that the less said, the better.”

Eddie whistled. “Other side of the world from Gotham, and these boys are more scared of him than the crooks right here.”

“Eddie,” Greg said. Then he stopped. “Il’Nar, could you give us a minute?”

“Of course, My Lord.”

Greg waited. “Outside, I mean.”

“Oh, yes …I have not offended? You will give me the best kills, right?”

“Uh, yeah, I’ll look out for you,” Greg said, and sighed.

When they were alone, Greg turned back to Nigma. “They’re always stiff like this when they first show up. I always tried to loosen them up, have them hang out with the other boys, do some ‘recon’ at the Iceberg Lounge. But Il’Nar is the only one now, and I hear the Lounge is shut down for some potted plants and a few coats of green paint. You think you could, I don’t know, show Il’Nar around Gotham?”

“You want me to play tour guide for your visiting backstabber?” Eddie asked, flabbergasted.

“It’s just I’m busy here,” Greg said.

“There’s not exactly a point to renting space if I can’t actually use it, you know.”

“I’ll give you the space for free. And I’ll owe you one. Just for tomorrow, take him out for a beer or something.”

Eddie frowned. Free. REEF. Free wasn’t such a bad word, considering it was money problems that brought him here and not something more upscale. Which was why he was also a bit light on henchmen right now …

“You give me use of your boys to drop my riddles off at the Bat-Signal,” Eddie said reluctantly, “and you’ve got a deal.”

“No problem,” Greg said. “I’ll let Il’Nar know.”

“Actually, wait, before you do – “ Eddie went back into the room he was using, and came out again with two newspaper cutouts. “Now that he’s gone, which of these pictures do you think is further off on Catwoman?”

Ra’s al-Ghul gratefully terminated the connection after he felt he’d given Ulstarn time (more than enough time) to conclude his formal, meandering farewell. These Metropolis communications had always been a chore ever since he sent Ulstarn there, but now ever since the incident in Gotham …

That had created a headache on multiple levels, Ra’s thought sourly. There was the obvious impact, of course. Twenty men imprisoned in Gotham on murder charges. The posts at Gotham AND Bludhaven stripped bare of men, messengers and support staff. It was a very small number of men in terms of DEMON’s global operations, but their replacements had to be sent gradually so as to avoid notice by the Detective. It was most inefficient.

The thornier problem, however, was that no one was exactly sure how this had happened. The reports from Gr’oriBr’di were surprisingly vague, although considering it happened under his watch, he would be understandably reluctant to explain how he was to blame.

Ulstarn, on the other hand, was all too eager to explain how Gr’oriBr’di was to blame. The former head of the Gotham operation had begun sending him daily reports on his “investigation” into the Iceberg affair. Ra’s could not fail to notice that Ulstarn nurtured a passionate jealousy of the man who took his post in Gotham. While he at times encouraged competition among his lieutenants, this was not one of those times. He suspected that in the absence of evidence to the contrary, Ulstarn had begun making up facts out of whole cloth.

The situation was highly intolerable, and would continue to be so until Ra’s found out EXACTLY what had happened in Gotham. He would have to send someone there – NOT Ulstarn, who had offered several times over.

The only sensible solution was to send Talia.

The timing, at least, was perfect. A month ago his daughter might have claimed she could not leave her duties at LionCorp. Now that she had driven the company into bankruptcy, however, she had no reason to refuse him.

Ra’s still didn’t understand how that had been allowed to happen. For all her good qualities, Talia was a woman, and only a marginally competent one at that. A woman could not be expected to run a corporation of such size and complexity. He had naturally assumed that she would be the nominal head while the real running of the company was left in the hands of talented underlings.

Talia, however, hadn’t realized this. Instead, stubborn girl that she was, she had tried to run LionCorp herself. The result was inevitable: ruin.

Ra’s al Ghul rubbed his chin. While the company’s collapse was unfortunate, it wasn’t without possibilities. Wayne Enterprises now owned much of LionCorp’s former assets. If Talia could convince the Detective that she had intentionally run the company into the ground in order to lay it at his feet, he might look upon her more favorably. However she’d botched her pursuit of him in the past, the Detective could hardly refuse him an heir then.

“Ubu,” Ra’s suddenly spoke. “Have my daughter contacted at once. She is to speak with me and no other, then leave for Gotham at once.” He thought for a moment. With Talia getting the real facts of the situation …“And if we receive any word from Ulstarn in the interim, I am in conference with my advisers from… Tunisia and not to be disturbed.”

It was most satisfying when he was able to resolve several problems with one masterstroke.