Batman was finished patrolling for the night.  There was no reason for him to be perched atop a building at this point.  He really ought to be headed for the cave, where he could put all his thoughts into that night’s log entry.

     But home meant Selina, and he wasn’t prepared to see her right now.  It wasn’t that he was angry or upset with her.  It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see her.  It was only that feelings could be complicated for him whenever it came to her and…

     Nygma.

     The news that Riddler had asked Selina point-blank if he was Bruce Wayne had been the least shocking information she’d provided him that day. He knew of all his enemies the one most likely to one day penetrate his secret was the one who saw it as a riddle (“Who is under the Batman’s mask?”), had a compulsion to solve riddles, and the intelligence to do so. He long knew this was a possibility, and had long ago constructed protocols should it occur.

     Frustratingly, those carefully-planned protocols had gone right out the window once he heard what else Selina had to say.  There had been three things, each more troubling than the last.

     One, Nygma did not want Bruce Wayne to be Batman.  Like Oedipus he still needed an answer to the riddle, even if it wasn’t what he wanted to hear, but he had also implied that if it was true, Selina should lie and say it wasn’t.

     Batman had never considered that one of his enemies would learn the secret of his identity, but not want it.  It was a mindset he had never planned for.

     Two, Nygma didn’t want Batman to be Bruce Wayne because he knew Selina was in love with Bruce, and because Selina was his friend.  He couldn’t put Batman in a deathtrap knowing that if he died, it would hurt his friend tremendously.

     It was a very normal feeling to have.  My friend’s well-being is more important than my own selfish wants.  Batman didn’t like it.  He didn’t like his enemies having normal, unselfish feelings.  He didn’t like having to see his enemies as humans.

     Three, Nygma had told Selina that he initially got the idea from someone else. 

     That meant there was some unknown person out there who conceivably knew his secret as well.  Some person who might not care about Selina’s happiness.  And only Nygma knew this person’s identity.  Dealing with Nygma became secondary to taking care of the mystery threat.

     Events had played out swiftly.  Selina had warned Nygma that if he wanted to know the truth, he should ask Bruce himself.  In typical Riddler fashion, he instead sent a clue – a cat inside a box decorated with question marks – to Bruce Wayne at his home.  That night, when the Riddler arrived at the Parker Exchange, Batman was waiting.

     It wasn’t a crime.  It was the only way the two men could feel comfortable having this kind of discussion.

     The protocol had called for Batman to point out that if Riddler revealed the secret, it would no longer have any value for him, like a riddle where everyone knows the answer.  Instead, he’d proposed a trade.  He would confirm his identity, in exchange for the name of the person who gave Riddler the idea.

     It would give Riddler the closure he needed.  It would also give him some small sense of victory, having “forced” Batman to reveal his real name in exchange for something he needed from Riddler.

     It would give Batman the bitter satisfaction of knowing how little joy Riddler would derive from the outcome.

     Fortunately, the mystery person had turned to be Talia al-Ghul.  Riddler had made some evasive comments about their encounter after Talia’s recent attempt to frame Selina.  Apparently it had interfered with his latest scheme.  Batman hadn’t wanted details.  If Riddler had had to deal with Talia, then this had been a very bad week for him indeed.

     He supposed this was the best-case scenario.  It was very possible that the Riddler had been neutralized as a serious threat, if he could no longer bring himself to hurt Batman.  When viewed in conjunction with the Joker’s death, Harley Quinn’s extended stay in Arkham, and Poison Ivy’s poor handling of Penguin’s criminal operations, this marked yet another major step in reducing “costumed crime” in Gotham.  It was changing Gothamites’ lives for the better.  It was changing his life for the better.

     It just meant that he had this… connection with Nygma that he hadn’t had before.  Because of Selina.

     And because of that, Batman derived little joy from the outcome.       

     Along with the required background in science and biochemistry, any self-respecting botanist needed a basic knowledge of Latin.  Admittedly Ivy didn't know enough Latin to, say, translate Caesar's Commentaries, although certainly Ivy never had the desire to read them.  One arrogant man's attempts to repeatedly glorify himself, when all he did was chop down a hundred forests in order to make more catapults.

     Anyway, Ivy still knew more than enough Latin to understand what the derivation was of the name of any given plant species.  Hence the name "Rydbergii", for example.

     As said Rydbergii Lounge closed for the night, the phrase that kept coming to mind was annis horribilis.  That perfectly described what her life had become.

     Once the Joker was dead and the Penguin belonged to her, the plan had seemed absurdly simple.  With the profits from Cobblepot's black market operations, her secret accounts would swell.  This money could go toward any number of plans she had to protect plant life worldwide.  With the success of the new Lounge, Ivy would ensure that nobody could possibly think that anyone besides her - a certain finicky cat came to mind - was the leading lady of Gotham's underworld.  And after a suitable period of grieving, Harley would be released from Arkham in time to join her at the Rydbergii's grand opening.

     It had looked beautiful in her mind's eye.  But none of it had come true - yet.  True yet.

     True, the underworld operations were making money, but profits were down from when Cobblepot was in charge.  She couldn't understand why.  If he could do it, why not she?   And her share of the pie wasn't sitting in the bank.  So far it had vanished in a flood of Rydbergii renovations invoices.  And Harley… was probably crying in a padded cell at that moment in Arkham, growing worse with grief and guilt every day.

     To cap all this off, the Rydbergii's grand opening that night had been a total disaster.  They'd had a total of forty paying customers.  Forty!  The take hadn't even covered the cost of advertising the opening.  None of the prominent Rogues had come.  None of the less-prominent Rogues had come.  Not even the henchmen had come!

     She snarled under her breath.  They thought they could blackball her?  Wait until they tried to hold out a few more days.  Where else could they go?  They'd come crawling back to her, and she'd generously promise not to green them if they were good little boys.

     "Ms. Isley?"

     Ivy looked up from the bar, startled.  Raven was standing there nervously.  "What?"

     Raven hesitated.  "Well, um - some of the girls are a little anxious," she finally said.  "They won't be able to make a living on nights like tonight."

     "It will get better," Ivy said dismissively.

     "But… if it doesn't, they'll look for better pay elsewhere."

     Ivy looked at Raven like she were a particularly unwary species of bug that had come to gnaw on something sweet, only to find it was inside a pitcher plant.  "And pray tell, Raven, what makes you think it won't get better?" she asked innocently.

     Raven didn't like that question one bit.  She shouldn't have approached Ivy in the first place, but the girls were more than nervous, and Raven was one of the only people with the seniority to approach Ivy.

     She waited a moment, as if to think about Ivy's question.  She didn't need to think, she knew exactly why it wouldn't get better.  Instead she thought about the last time the Iceberg Lounge had a "grand reopening" because of Poison Ivy. 

     For reasons the hostess was never entirely clear about, Ivy had encased the entire building in living plant matter while she ranted from the rooftop.  Mr. Cobblepot, with what had been his usual take-charge attitude, had commandeered Mr. Freeze's ice gun and used it to blast an exit from within. 

     While the interior of the Iceberg was largely intact afterwards, outside was a different story, and scaffolds went up for days as the Lounge was closed for repairs.  But when the doors finally reopened, the place looked better than ever, as it usually did after a Rogue-related shutdown, and business was brisk.  Whatever ax Ivy had had to grind with the Iceberg, it had obviously failed.

     If Ivy hadn't so clearly tried (and failed) to make THIS reopening work, Raven could almost believe that this was a wildly successful renewal of that old, forgotten grudge.  Because so far, their only customers were civilians and tourists.

     Raven didn't need to have the mind of someone like the Riddler to understand how this had happened.  For all intents and purposes, this was Ivy's "lair" now.  And any man who knew her was more likely to enter a cave filled with bears waking up from hibernation than step into Poison Ivy's lair.  That eliminated the important Rogues except for Catwoman, and it was common knowledge that she wasn't friends with Ivy either.  That also eliminated henchmen, organized crime, and gangs like the Ghost Dragons.  And with no men, there was no reason for the groupies to show up either.

     The only way Ivy was going to pull in the old crowd was if they had no alternative, and a few months ago that might have worked.  But it was common knowledge that a rival club called "Jenna's" catering to the same customers was opening in under two weeks.

     Common knowledge, that is, to everyone except Ivy.  [

     Raven had attended a secret gathering of Rydbergii Lounge employees weeks ago.  Most women wanted to quit, but no one was willing to be the first.  There was a fear that if the Lounge went belly up, Ivy would be looking for people to blame other than herself, and that "disloyal staff" would be high on her hit list.  Plus there was always the chance that Cobblepot would regain his senses before long.  Raven and Dove had both confirmed that Cobblepot was alive and somewhere inside what had been his old quarters above the Lounge, before Ivy had greened him and moved in.

     Alive, if you could call permanent, hopeless devotion to Poison Ivy a "life".  Raven shivered.

     It was also at that meeting that rumors of "Jenna's" spread among the staff.  It didn't seem like Ivy knew, and no one was going to be the bearer of bad tidings.  They figured she'd find out on her own sooner or later.

     As far as Raven knew, Ivy had NOT found out on her own.  When she finally did, Raven didn't want to be anywhere near her.

     "Raven?"

     Raven jumped.  She'd almost forgotten where she was.

     "You were going to tell me why the Rydbergii could conceivably go out of business at some point?" Ivy prompted her, eyes like a snake's.

     Raven swallowed.  She could have told Ivy that it was her idea of "interacting with customers".  Ivy had tried to talk to several guests, evidently thinking it was her job to make them feel welcome.  Evidently she also thought she could do this by going into the usual rant, denunciating various people and businesses for their role in harming the environment, only to awkwardly drift to a stop and ask the customers "what they thought".

     Even this pathetic try made Ivy clearly uncomfortable, but not as much as the guests.

     Raven could have told Ivy that she felt sad for her that no one ever bothered to teach her how to make small talk with strangers, but Raven wanted to go on living.  The last time Poison Ivy lost her temper inside the Iceberg, she’d put Roxy Rocket in a coma.  And then there was all that new greenery in the Rydbergii – just because there were no giant flytraps, it didn’t mean the walls were any less dangerous.   

     So she settled on a safer answer.  "Because the other Rogues might not come back?"

     Ivy laughed.  She acted like it wasn't somewhat nervous laughter.  "Oh, don't worry about that, Raven.  People like that, they need a place where they can have a drink and an audience.  Where else can they get that but here?"

     "Nowhere, I guess," Raven hazarded.

     "Precisely."  Ivy sighed.  "If this… rough patch lasts for a few days, I'll give the staff a temporary raise if it means getting them to stay put.  Do you think that will calm their nerves?"

     "I suppose so," Raven said, startled.  That was…  possibly the first right move Ivy had made that night.

     If she didn't make more, though, Jenna's might open to find its competition was already nothing but fertilizer.

     Talia was more than ready to leave Gotham behind.  Her latest visit had been a fiasco from the start, one which had snowballed with every passing day.  Clearly every additional hour she remained here was an invitation for some new disaster to strike. 

     There was, however, one distasteful but necessary errand left for her to perform before she could leave.  That was to make sure the impudent troll Edward Nygma understood that what happened between them was a mistake.  A ghastly, horrible, apocalyptic mistake, which they would never repeat.

     While generally it was considered in poor taste for a man to leave a woman's bed before she awoke the following morning, Talia would have preferred it if Nygma were gone when she awoke that day with a splitting hangover.  There had been screaming - followed by groans, whispered curses, and a chastened little man fleeing in terror.  She had come to Gotham to present the bankrupt carcass of Lioncorp at Beloved's feet as a gift.  Then there was to be a scheme to shatter his relationship with the damned hellcat by framing her for burglary and murder.  This would culminate in Beloved at last acquiescing to the inevitability of their love.

     Instead she had a drunken sexual encounter with another man.  And not a particularly fine specimen, either, even if the lovemaking itself was well overdue and not unpleasant.  Perhaps men had gotten better at it since the nineteenth century. 

     The only reason she had not had a DEMON assassin dispatched after Nygma immediately was the knowledge that it was not entirely his fault.  It was the impolite stares and comments she had received from total strangers since her arrival.  If not for this constant barrage of contempt, she would not have had dinner with the first man to offer a kind word, and she certainly would not have over-imbibed.  That had led to her state of arousal, where she had thrown herself at the first man available.  Any man in that position would have been helpless to resist her charms.  (Any man except Beloved, which still vexed her.)

     Therefore, Nygma would not be ritually strangled.  But he had to be made to understand that they were not in a relationship.  If he began showing up uninvited and making demands on her time, that would be intolerable.

     So, during her long-delayed visit to DEMON's headquarters in Chinatown, instead of an assassin, Talia had requested a courier to locate Nygma and arrange a final meeting.  There she suffered yet another unpleasant surprise when she discovered that Gri'oriBr'di and Nygma had a business relationship!  That Nygma had been renting space from DEMON and had slept there only a few nights ago!  While this did make it quite easy to have Nygma contacted, it also killed any desire she had had to get to know her father's lieutenant better.  Any man who would enter into business dealings with the deranged puzzle-maker must have very poor judgment.

     Even headquarters itself had, in her mind, become infected with Nygma's presence.  Cheated of the chance to hold their meeting on home ground, where she would be firmly in control, she had been forced to propose a neutral site.  That had led to the difficult question of where.  In any fine establishment, she was more likely to encounter more rude and undignified Gothamites.  Any other establishment was beneath her.  Reluctantly, however, she had agreed to meet Nygma at this deplorable diner.  It was not only important that she not be recognized.  It was also important that she not be recognized with him.

     "I will be leaving Gotham this evening, and I do not plan on returning any time soon," Talia informed him as he fidgeted with small packets of artificial sugars.  "We will probably never meet again.  I think that is best."

     "No problem," Nygma muttered.  He seemed to have a hard time looking at her.  The poor thing.  He was probably devastated. 

     "I realize it must be hard for you to hear this," Talia said magnanimously.  "I can only imagine how wonderful it was for you.  It was… good for me too.  But it can never happen again.  I am promised to another, and it would never work between us."

     "Right."

     He had been more talkative the other night.  He was taking it worse than she had expected.  She had to be firm.  "Do not try to contact me again," she warned him as she stood up, her beastly American coffee untouched.  "Otherwise I will have to have my minions execute you."

     "I'll try to resist," Nygma said, putting a hand to his head as if it pained him.

     "Good," Talia said.  It was gratifying to see how powerfully she had affected him in so short a time.  "And I hope you are able to find someone who can… try to do for you what I did."

     Instead of responding, Nygma dropped his head and banged it on the table.

     "Well then, farewell," Talia said before she swept out.  She was in a hurry - hurry to get away from this diner, this man, and most of all this city and its people.  But it wasn't a complete loss.

     You've still got it, Talia.

     You've still got it, Eddie, he thought sourly as she dashed off.  Still got the ability to attract the stupid and the delusional.

     The decision to agree to meet with Talia one more time had not been an easy one.  His life had been turned upside-down since she gave him the idea about Bruce Wayne being Batman.  Since then he'd confirmed it, solved one of the most jealously guarded secrets in the world, obtained the kind of information his fellow Rogues would have murdered and massacred for.  And it had made his life harder.

     So the idea of sitting across from the woman who had completely screwed up his life wasn't a very appealing one.  He'd only agreed because he was afraid that she would send a killer after him if he refused.  Someone like Greg's new henchman, the next Gotham Strangler. 

     Eddie had been relieved when Talia said she wanted to end things.  He didn't think they'd really even begun, but clearly she wasn't right in the head.  Still, he was troubled by the fact that she, surprise surprise, just would not shut up.  That she evidently believed she was the world's greatest lover was no shock, even if he did feel the need to bang his head at one point.  But this conversation could have been handled with a phone call.   Instead she needed to justify her decision endlessly!

     One phrase that especially stuck out was "I am promised to another".  After she'd left, he had begun to worry that her incessant blathering was a result of the fact that she really did have feelings for him, but that she felt compelled to end it because of an arranged marriage.  She'd said it was good for her too.  What if she was trying to convince herself, not him, that it couldn't work? 

     He had a sudden image of Talia leaving the poor sucker at the altar and showing up at Eddie's lair, having proclaimed to her father that she would only marry for love, and that lucky him was the man she loved.

     And that would be when he called Bruce to save him from forty ninjas.

     Hopefully he was just imagining things.  It was bad enough having to figure out what to do with his life now that he knew Batman was Selina's steady boyfriend.  Having to juggle Talia would make things three times as hard, and she simply wasn't worth it.  True, she hadn't been as bad as the hopelessly brain-dead groupies he encountered at the Iceberg.  Nobody could be as bad as ‘Clurissa’, still etched in his memory.  And the sex had been gratifying.

     But she was clearly INDOORS - no Doris.

     There's a delightful little scene in a classic film titled Caddyshack II where Robert Stack ventures into his country club for the first time since it was bought out by a vulgar little man played by Jackie Mason.  The clubhouse looks exactly like it used to, and for a moment Stack starts to think that maybe things won't be that different.  And then he goes outside and finds the golf course has been turned into an amusement and water park.  We tell you, we were rolling on the floor, laughing so hard it drew tears.

     We are lying, actually.  Caddyshack II is truly unworthy of its II.  It is a miserable comedy, and Harvey has reminded us repeatedly that the first Caddyshack is ten, even twenty-two times better.  We are willing to concede the argument, but the cold hard fact remains that Caddyshack was the FIRST movie, not the second.  As such, we have not seen it in some time.  It is a cruel twist of that bitch we know and love, Fate, that the movies were not filmed in reverse order.

     At any rate, we approached the doorman at Jenna's with something approaching the trepidation Robert Stack must have felt when he arrived at his clubhouse doors.  We have heard reports that Jenna's is appealing to the same kind of clientele as Pammy's Rydbergii Lounge, namely people like us.  (We use the term "appealing" loosely.  Since the Lounge reopened last week, reports indicate that the Rydbergii appeals to no one except our former "Petal".)  No one seems to know much about Jenna's, however, except that it's being bankrolled by wealthy, law-abiding citizens, namely people not like us.  There's a concern that the place will be a disappointment, since people not like us really don't understand people like us.

     We must be more nervous than we thought.  We're starting to sound like Jervis.

     Bravely we summon our courage and head for the doors.  After we flip for it.  Unscarred side up, drinks it is. 

     The doorman is dealing with a would-be customer when we arrive.  "Rogues, henchmen, and groupies only," he tells the luckless man.  "Your name or gang ain't on the list, you ain't gettin' in."  He sees us, begins to raise the wad of papers to his eyes, and then stops himself.  "Of course, Mr. Two-Face," he says.  "Come right in.  Make yourselves at home."  

     Referring to us in the plural.  We like him already.  We sneer at the man who has been denied, and enter.       What we find is - not quite the golf course.  Miniature golf, maybe.  But not a water park.  Jenna's is spacious and dark, rather like a high-end lair.  It seems to have been unable to resist joining the ranks of restaurants and clubs that festoon their walls with posters and knickknacks from a bygone era, but at least there appears to be some kind of theme: old revolvers, arrest warrants, crime scene photographs.  We like the vintage film noir posters where men whose faces are half-hidden in shadows smirk as they point guns.  It's almost as if "Jenna" added them specifically for us.

     Then we see a poster for the animated Alice in Wonderland film, and a stuffed crow, and a photo of Edgar Bergen and that pompous, monocled little dummy of his, and we begin to think they ARE there because of us.

     "Harvey."

     We turn.  We are embarrassed to admit that we were so busy gawking that we barely paid attention to the Ghost Dragons, hired goons, and would-be wenches, and so we didn't notice Scarecrow until he said our name.  "Crane," we say.  "What do you think?"

     "The decor suggests they're trying a bit too hard to make us feel welcome.  Which is prudent, for should they not be afraid of offending us?"

     "Hrm.  Anyone else show up yet?"

     "Nygma is about somewhere.  Jervis, of course.  And—”

     We stop listening, as our attention is grabbed by a woman who briefly emerges from the throng before vanishing again.  A woman with red hair, wearing a revealing green dress.  We catch a glimpse of her face, but it's not Ivy.  What the hell?

     "It's not her," Scarecrow confirms, understanding our distraction.  "That's the woman whose name is on the door.  She hasn't said much, but I believe her choice of attire is meant as some kind of challenge to Poison Ivy, to show she's not afraid.  Fearless, if futile." 

     "Maybe we'll see how brave she really is," we say as we head in her direction.

     We catch up to her beneath a circus advertisement filled with clowns.  Evidently some people even today aren't convinced the Joker is dead.  We can't exactly blame them.  "Nice outfit," we leer.

     Jenna, if that was really her name, smiled back at us.  "Harvey Two-Face," she says.  "Our most prominent guest so far tonight.  I'm glad you came.  I should thank you for all this."

     Preening at the compliment, we're not sure why she wants to thank us.  Or why she looks familiar.  "For what?"

     "We met a few months ago at Starbucks?  I was the manager, and you were there with Riddler and—”

     "We remember."  We would rather we didn't.  Time spent with Blake - yech.  "Four shots of espresso."  Although we can't help think we've seen her somewhere else…

     Jenna chuckled.  "Yes, I'm Jenna Leibowitz, manager and part-owner.  I put all my money into opening this club when you told me that Poison Ivy was reopening the Iceberg.  I had a feeling that could be a business opportunity."

     "For Pammy this could be an opportunity to kill you."  The club, plus the hint of curls in her hair, the dress showing plenty of cleavage and leg - it's not a challenge, it's spitting on Ivy's foot.

     "Yeah, well, the success Jenna's is going to become, I don't think anyone is going to want to let her ruin things.  Besides, Poison Ivy gives us redheads a bad name.  It's time one of us stood up to her."  

     Jenna is obviously crazy.  Maybe she's "people like us" after all. 

     To be continued…