|
Weakness. If there was one thing that made her physically
ill, it was weakness. Nature was not weak. Nature was the ultimate power.
What could man make that Nature could not destroy? Their fleshy bodies, their
cities, their pitiful notions of achievement? What was a church compared to a
forest? A painting compared to a mountain, a symphony next to a flower…
Well, actually, she liked music. Even her plants liked
music. Mozart in particular. And there was nothing in Nature to compare it
to. The mathematical underpinnings of music were absolutely man-made, and it
had to be said, it was… beautiful. A THOUGHT THAT MADE HER WANT TO SCREAM!
Beautiful belonged to Nature. It belonged to Flowers. It was hers, and this
filthy animal, masculine, homo sapien, civilized, plant-eating THING had made
something that was wholly theirs, wholly unique, and wholly beautiful. JUST
HAVING THE THOUGHT MADE HER WANT TO RIP HER HAIR OUT BY THE ROOT!
It was so weak. Pamela’s little thoughts and
feelings. As the living embodiment of the Goddess Lifeforce, Poison Ivy
rebelled at the idea of hating any part of herself, but that, that… Pamela
had become such a burden. People made something beautiful. It was
disgusting. But now she had that thought in her head, and it was all because of
that part of herself that, for lack of a better term, she called Pam.
She was so gullible. So weak and gullible. She whined and
moaned about Harley Quinn’s devotion to Joker, but was she any better? She kept
going back too, kept going back to that notion of connecting with someone,
finding acceptance and friendship—Goddess help us, she might even have hoped for
Love—with animal, homo sapien, civilized, plant-eating people.
Ivy’s fingers had intertwined and she twisted the gnarled
pink and green with nervous anger. How could she ever have thought herself a
seductress when she was the one getting sucked in time after time by those
stinking apes? She was beautiful as the flower is beautiful. It’s natural that
men admire the rose and the orchid for its beauty, but the flower does not lower
itself to notice their admiration. Its beauty simply IS, as the flower is,
serenely existing in a state of natural perfection. It’s natural that humans be
drawn in, as Nature decrees. They are drawn to beauty like insects are to
scent, but no flower demeans itself noticing let alone caring. Pamela was
unworthy to be a flower—a truth she might have sensed, for her chosen legend was
not a flower but a vine that punished those who got too close. It wasn’t
seductive, it didn’t waste time looking pretty, it just grew and
spread and made the bastards miserable. It was a title that suited her
aggressive temperament, it suited her anger and it even suited her red hair,
given the tint of new leaflets in the spring. The only thing it didn’t suit was
the needy mass of feeling called Pam.
The spastic finger-wringing stopped and Ivy took a long
deep breath. She looked coldly at the body lying where it had fallen, the vines
slithering off a neck still red where they had dug in. She walked over with
regal indifference and slid her shoe under the belly to roll Edward Nigma onto
his back. His chest still rose and fell, an observation that produced an
uncomfortable throb of relief that she regarded like a toothache.
It was starting again. These feelings. Like the refrain
of a once-familiar song playing softly in another room. She tried to ignore it,
to deny it, to block it out. She knew the way it went, the way it would always
go, the way it was. The sensations it produced, they weren’t good, they weren’t
serene and beautiful like the blossom of green and wondrous Goddess Spirit she
wanted her life to be. They were weakness – humanity and weakness –
masculine, animal and ugly, dread and failure.
It always won in the end. It got louder—trying to block
out a song you knew when it just kept getting louder. Even when she
succeeded, for a time, it would infect someone who brought it closer where she
couldn’t HELP but hear it. Harvey, Harley, humming its horrid little tune. Its
infectious little tune. It was almost impossible to NOT FINISH A MELODY YOU
KNEW ONCE IT GOT INSIDE YOUR HEAD THAT WAY!
Ivy looked down into the face of a man who had once made
love to her—granted it was in the grip of her pheromones, but Pamela always told
herself that, like hypnosis, there was a limit to what they could make a person
do. When it came to sex with Nigma, she was quite sure it gave him an excuse to
do something he really wanted. A theory that was proved in her view by the fact
that they were back on speaking terms a few weeks later and also that, quite
recently, he’d kissed her.
The fact that she had kissed him she chose not to
consider. Ditto that she was the willing participant in that “Green One Night
Stand.” If we were going to start dismissing pheromones as nothing more than an
inhibition-reducing stimulant akin to a few sour apple martinis and a hit of
ecstasy, then she’d really have to consider why she was plying Edward Nigma with
sour apples and X in the first place.
Again she inhaled as a wave of revulsion rose like bile to
the very top of her throat, then subsided. Green fingers ran through the
intense henna-red locks that now graced only the left side of her head, and the
bliss of cool air soothed across a two-tone brow trickling with sweat. This was
the kind of shit she was trying to be rid of, a tumor that got through her bark
and was eating its way ring by ring to her core from whence it would spread up
to all of her glorious branches, poisoning each splendid leaf, and sinking all
the way down to her roots to taint all her future days at the source. It had to
end. Pink fingers rose to massage her right temple and lifted the brown hair on
that side to let the air cool her neck. It felt good—but somehow the contrast
of hot and cold made her feel nauseous and faint. Blood pressure spiked. She
considered killing Edward Nigma... and passed out.
 Chapter
1
Justice. It was the watchword of Bruce’s life and it
didn’t always mean pounding his fist into a criminal’s jaw. Today it meant
nothing more than going down to the kitchen and letting Alfred say I told you so.
He didn’t like admitting he was wrong, but after all the years Alfred put up
with his youthful arrogance and willful denials, he deserved that
satisfaction—and maybe Bruce deserved the punishment. Maybe that’s what
prompted him to take the route down to the kitchen he’d always taken as a boy.
“Hey, Alfred,” he said, an unconscious shift in his voice
evoking his younger self. “What are you cooking?”
Lack of foresight wasn’t a crime. A lapse of judgment
wasn’t blackmail and the stubborn refusal to admit a wrong turn and change
course wasn’t murder. But it was a mistake and Justice said a man should own up
to those.
Alfred noted the tone and the question, but he made no
mention of Bruce’s frequent visits to the butler’s pantry as a boy. Instead he
pointed to the various preparations as he named them.
“Scampi Mornay, Salmon Quiche, Pheasant Normande.”
The sequence was familiar but Bruce couldn’t place where he
knew it from. The detective’s instinct to connect the dots pushed everything
else from his mind, and he scanned the counter automatically for a clue to fill
in the blanks. He spotted an index card and began reading upside down—Artichoke
and Hazelnut Soup, Lobster Consommé with Truffle and Crepe—without even
realizing he was doing it. Petit escargot in pastry, lobster and wild
mushroom crumble, smoking gun with ginger plum sauce.
Alfred was talking but Bruce was no longer paying
attention. His eyes had stuck on the words smoked duck on the paper in
front of him as he realized with a sickly lurch he was staring at his mother’s
handwriting.
“Alfred, what is this?” he asked sharply.
“I just told you, sir. With the upcoming changes in the
household, one thought it best to revisit some of the older recipes one was apt
to draw on in proposing menus for various occasions, and make such modest
adjustments as might be wished to update them for a modern palate—while
retaining the essence of the originals, of course.”
Bruce’s eyes narrowed to slits. The effect could be
terrifying behind the mask, but without it, it seemed like his eyes were
reacting to the garlic sting in the air.
“Alfred, I know Selina’s told you we’re not doing any
special entertaining for the engagement. And after, she’s already running the
house. There aren’t going to be any changes on that score.”
“Perhaps, sir, but it is a first principle of domestic
service that a young wife is in no way bound by statements she made as
bride-to-be. One prefers to be prepared.”
“Nothing is going to change,” Bruce declared with
I’m-Batman finality.
“Very good, sir. That being the case, one noted in the
morning paper that the beauteous and conspicuously photogenic Lund sisters are
coming to Gotham. Shall one make the usual arrangements for a night of club
hopping and photo ops?”
Bruce scowled as he usually did in the face of Alfred’s
sarcasm. Lili and Lise Lund, ‘the Jet Set Twins from Norway’ as the tabloids
liked to refer to them, were what he’d come to talk about, but having the
subject he meant to introduce as an olive branch flung at him with such barely
concealed mockery… He reminded himself that he was here to own up to the ancient
mistakes and let Alfred claim his ‘I told you so.’ He wasn’t any less wrong
because spotting an old list put him in a bad mood.
“They’ve already been in touch,” he said resignedly. “Been
sending me selfies all morning, want me to take them to all the hot spots of the
moment before they become the hot spots of ten minutes ago.”
“What regrettable timing, sir, when your engagement was
just announced.”
“Very funny, Alfred. Of course that’s why they’re coming.
It’s the talk of Hôtel du Cap, apparently. They heard the news and dropped
everything—barely took the time to shop and finish their tans, couldn’t wait
for the scandal they were starring in to run its course. They made sure
everyone from Monaco to St. Tropez knew they were headed to Gotham for a last
hurrah with kjære elskling Bruce. Selina’s having fun pretending to be
angry, not because of the selfies but because I don’t have a plan.”
“It is curious, sir, that one so noted for contingency
planning did not foresee the possibility when you were crafting the playboy
image.”
Bruce’s lip twitched.
“Particularly when you pointed it out a few dozen times,”
he said with a playing-along show of contrition. “You were right, Alfred. The
‘life of the public Bruce Wayne as I crafted him’ produced ‘echoes’ which a
then-inconceivable future Mrs. Wayne must now be burdened with. I’m lucky she
finds it funny.”
“Not really, Master Bruce. Any woman you could possibly
deem suitable to share your life would have to have a certain perspective on
Batman, the choices you’ve made in concealing his identity and so forth.”
“You’re doubling down on your warning?” Bruce asked with an
unbelieving chuckle. “Selina thinks it’s hilarious that Batman, the
protocol-writing mastermind, never saw it coming with the Jetset Twins, but
you’re going to stand there with that disapproving scowl like there’s still some
dire music to face?”
“If you are heading down to the cave, sir, please inform
Miss Selina that there will be another tasting for her in about half an hour.”
“She’s… in the cave? On her own, at this time of day?”
Bruce asked, but Alfred was too absorbed rolling out pastry to respond.
Schedule: Commissioner James Gordon
9:15 Meeting w/
Deputy
9:30 Review Operation: Neighborhood Impact
10:00 Meeting w/ Dunhill on the way rookies assigned upon
graduation from the academy
10:30 Meeting with DCPI on Social Media Backlash
11:00 Press conference
12:15 Lunch w/ Ramirez
2:15 Briefing from Rowanski, Major Case
2:30 Dick Tech.
“Carol,” Gordon called at a volume to make it through the
wall without resorting to the intercom, and only then depressed the button to
say in a more moderate tone “Can we please find some way to refer to the pilot
program my son-in-law is working on that doesn’t sound like we’re outfitting
Major Crimes and the 29th Precinct with space age penile implants?”
“Yes, Commissioner,” his secretary replied with a giggle.
“Thank you, we don’t want Watts stirring up another round
of sensitivity seminars.”
“Commissioner, I give you my word, before it comes to that,
I’ll say I harassed you.”
“I don’t think that would stop him, but I appreciate the
thought.”
Glancing down at his screen, Gordon saw his 2:30
appointment had been changed to a line of closed parenthesis creating an
outrageously inappropriate image before blinking out entirely to be replaced by
the bland but professional designation Consult: D.Grayson, Introducing and
Integrating Advanced Applications to Investigation SOP for Non-CSI Personnel
Without Specialized Technological Skills.
Alfred’s elevator was closer than the study, so Bruce took
it down to the Batcave and so passed the experimental “data well” before
reaching any of the workstations. The hexagonal chamber surrounded by
semi-transparent wall-screens was lit up with GPD Major Case, Scotland Yard and
Interpol files on long ago art thefts. Selina wasn’t in the well, but… The
instincts from a thousand nights walking through recent crime scenes prompted
him to tap the side of a feeder bank between the data walls. The panel had been
opened quite recently, and bending to look underneath the core partition, he
could see one of those pristine claw-tip wire splices that was the signature of
a cat crime. He closed the panel and proceeded into the main cavern. There, he
saw Workstation One logged in with the same five screens on the monitors:
Interpol, Scotland Yard, GPD…
Selina’s workstation was lit up too, with entirely
different data. There was background on a Tintoretto oil painting in a
corporate collection but disputed as the property of a holocaust survivor...
Sales literature and the horizontal cross section of a Phoenix vault... The
layout of an office building with the camera locations marked off… A
spreadsheet with security guard rotations and keycard access points…
He was clearly looking at the leg work for a… cat crime. A
cat crime being planned in the Batcave. He looked back at his own
workstation. The Interpol image was a large, silver-gilt picture frame from
Palazzo Corsini, signed “Meow” with a deep cat scratch in the empty space where
Surrender at Rivoli had been. Though the painting had been taken years
ago in another country, the mockery seemed acutely personal.
“Catwoman!” he called out with the ferocity of early
rooftops that was ill-suited to the proximity of the JL Comm Platform where she
stood.
“Right here, handsome. No need to bellow,” came the low
but playful stage whisper. He blinked. She was standing on the raised
rectangular base as if for a video call with the League. Except her back was to
the camera and monitor. Instead, there was a triptych of semi-transparent
wall-screens like those in the data well. The same files displayed as at
Workstation Two.
“What are you planning?” he asked with a suspicious but
less aggressive head tilt.
“I don’t like the hexagon. It’s too cramped in there,
especially if we’re both looking. I thought I’d try this. See how nice and
spread out they are, but you can still take it all in at a glance.”
He joined her on the platform and looked it over. “The
well was only an experiment. This has some merit. We’ll give it a try. But
you didn’t have to reverse engineer from the data well. You could have told me
what you were thinking; I would have set it up.”
“What do I look like, Pammy?” she said crossly.
“Um, no,” Bruce said quickly, remembering that Poison Ivy
said she needed ‘Nigma’ to set up her email.
“I’m allowed to play with the tech toys, right?” she said,
letting her hands dance teasingly around his waist the way she used to toy with
Batman’s utility belt.
“No,” he graveled firmly. “Absolutely forbidden—You’ll
enjoy it more that way. And so will I.”
With that, he kissed her forehead, delivered Alfred’s
message, and admitted to a few wild suspicions that crossed his mind when he saw
the files she was using to set up her project.
“Well that explains the bellow,” she laughed. “You didn’t
really think I was going to go all bad girl and snag the Tintoretto, did you?”
“Not too bad, but I thought maybe there was going to be
punishment for Lise and… ahem, yes, Alfred?” he said, turning to the source of
the suddenly silent bats.
“Begging your pardon, sir, miss. There is a young woman to
see you.”
“You’re on, studly,” Selina said playfully, smacking
Bruce’s bottom.
“No, miss, I should have been more precise,” Alfred said
dryly. “The visitor is not one of the Lund sisters, and she is here to see
you. A Doris Ingerson. I’ve shown her into the morning room.”
The association of former henchmen called The Z had become
independently wealthy, at least temporarily. Their business model was simple
enough: they would perform a series of unimaginative but cash-rich jobs for
start-up funds and put the money into constructing a theme lair or front
operation for any Rogue due for release from Arkham who wanted to pay for the
service. For an additional fee, they would perform those lackluster fundraising
jobs flying their client’s colors—though nobody took that option anymore. There
were enough additional fees incurred when you hired the Z, and the extras they
dreamed up on their own were funnier. It was the sheer audacity of it that
impressed: getting 3D body scans at a clandestine but space-age SoHo tailor to
get custom-made jeans digitally fitted to the millimeter—on Two-Face’s tab.
Each brazenly expensed extra outdid the last, which is the only reason they
lived to do it twice.
It wasn’t the most lucrative business model in the world
until the war between the mobs and the Rogues. Falcone properties were taken on
nearly a daily basis, and Nigma ordered each to be refitted with the theme of a
predetermined Rogue. After the war, the properties fell into the hands of an
outfit called NMK where Selina Kyle was calling the shots. She favored using
the Z over contractors with suspected ties to the deposed Falcone family, which
was all of them. After months of constant, high-paying work, the Z were flush
as never before. Prudent men and women might have invested the money and never
worked again—but then prudent men and women seldom go into criminal henching.
None of the Z wanted to retire, but they did become very particular choosing the
jobs they would take. Nigma and Kyle as the twin sources of all this good
fortune could snap their fingers whenever they wanted. Joker could too,
because… Joker. Anyone else had to be interesting. An A-Lister like the Mad
Hatter might find himself waiting behind Maxie Zeus because the latter’s
requirements included a ‘lightning machine’ that was awesome to construct and
the perfect excuse to host a Christopher Lee movie night before turning over the
keys. He might even find his order bumped in favor of Hugo Strange,
Ventriloquist and Catman who each had the foresight to include a case of Omaha
Steaks, Jameson’s Irish Whiskey and a box of Cuban cigars, respectively, with
their work orders.
Zound set down the receiver on an old-fashioned rotary
telephone whose masking tape label read “Zowie’s Florals.” It sat in a row of
similar antiques indicating Zack’s Diner, Zoik’s Oriental Rugs, Café Zoophilly,
and Zook’s Watch Repair.
Today’s call for a floral delivery was from Selina Kyle, so
naturally Zed volunteered for the meeting. “301 West Prince Street,” he said,
giving the address the caller specified. Then he teased, “You’re not going to
actually bring her a bouquet of flowers, are you?”
“I may,” Zed said, unashamed of his conversion into the
most enthusiastic and devoted of Catwoman fans.
They’d begun on the worst possible footing: the very first
time Catwoman tried to hire the Z, Robin and Batgirl crashed the meeting and
Catwoman was convinced it was Zed who led them to her. Their second encounter
wasn’t much better, but at the third, she saved his life. That would have
evened the scales but it would not have accounted for Zed’s zealous admiration
on its own—not without the WT Black. In contrast to the aged rotary phones the
Z used for their landline fronts, they each had an object in their back pocket
provided by Ms. Kyle for their personal use. As nearly as they could tell, it
was a 5G Wayne Tech Prototype. It looked like a cell phone, made calls like a
cell phone, surfed the net, played music and uploaded pictures of chicken pad
thai to Instagram like a cell phone. But according to their patroness, the WT
Black was not ‘a cell phone;’ it was a highly encrypted telephonic
android-metavert device that possessed “the closest thing you’ll get to
NSA-proof, CIA-proof, and most importantly JLA-proof data-encryption until
LexCorp gets its hands on the Thanagar patents.”
What that meant was their calls and browsing were
anonymous, which was nice, but more importantly, their locations couldn’t be
traced. That’s how Falcone’s men tracked Zed, Catwoman said, and to make sure
it didn’t happen again, she equipped them all with these untraceable phones.
They all received one, but Zed’s was the first, and as one who made First
Contact with the source of this secret spyware prototech, he guarded his
position as official Z ambassador and go-between. He took the subway to Prince
Street and hummed his childhood spy-thriller theme song as he walked the few
blocks to the former cat lair at 301.
Catwoman greeted him at the door, ushered him inside,
offered him an iced tea, and then set about asking the kind of questions she’d
asked before—questions about the lair of another client which she must know
jeopardized the entire existence of the Z (not to mention his own).
“No. Catwoman, I appreciate the super-phone, and the life
save, I’m sorry about the whole Robin-Batgirl thing and I really, really
don’t want you to threaten me with that whip thing again, but I can’t. I just
can’t. If we started giving out information like that any time somebody
threatened to rough us up, I mean I know I kinda did that twice, but nobody ever
found out about that ‘cept you. If word got back to the Bat, I’d be, like,
getting slammed against an alley wall two and three times a week.”
“I figured that’s what you’d say,” Catwoman said with a nod
of resigned calm, and then called in a much louder voice “You can come in now.”
“Okay, here it comes. Bring on the goons,” Zed said, hands
gripping the edge of his chair, bracing for torture as he turned to where
Catwoman was now looking as she said:
“No goons. Game Theory.”
Zed blinked. He knew there was a Rogue fashion-model
called Mannequin, he’d seen the pictures. She was nothing compared to the woman
before him: very tall, very sleek, masked, platinum blonde. She had one of
those bodies that was like a walking coat hanger, and the silky jumpsuit she
wore looked like it belonged on a runway. A strip of clear mesh down the center
separated blocks of green and yellow. The rest was solid black on top, green on
the bottom. Very dramatic and—if it wasn’t clearly the costume of a Rogue who
outranked him—it would be very, very sexy.
“Ma’am,” he said, jumping to his feet with the instincts of
a henchman who knew staring below her chin could get you killed.
“At ease, Zed. Game Theory, take off your mask,” Catwoman
suggested.
She did, and… “Oh,” Zed said aloud.
“You recognize her, I take it?”
“Picture on the coffee table, next to the chess set,” he
said. “I mean… Riddler had your picture in every lair we made for him, ma’am.”
He grinned awkwardly and then added “Your hair was different. And you had
kind of a tan.”
“I think it’s fair to say The Riddler would not mind you
giving this lady the information she’s asking for,” Catwoman said, acting as
arbitrator. “You see, they had a date a few nights ago and he didn’t show up.
She hasn’t heard from him since, and he’s not answering his cell. We don’t even
have a phone number for his new lair.”
“That is very awkward,” Zed said cautiously. “Maybe Batman
got him!”
Both women glared at him with undisguised contempt.
“Well it’s possible,” Zed backpedaled. “They could be
keeping it out of the papers or something.”
Both women glared.
“Look, I gotta think if Mr. Riddler didn’t give you an
address or phone number, it must be because he doesn’t want you to know—don’t
hurt me, there’s still a way. I could maybe go over myself and check on
things. Just to make sure everything’s okay. Okay?”
He looked pleadingly at Catwoman, who deferred to Doris.
He looked pleadingly at Doris, who broke into a wide my-hero smile that left Zed
dazzled. He would do this. He would solve the case of the missing Riddler.
For her.
Notdead. Dead Ton. Dated… on. Donated… The only way
Edward Nigma knew to process the situation was to get his mind working. He was
not dead—Ado Dent—and he knew he was not dead because his throat—Hot
Rat—hurt—thru… Not a proper word. Still, not bad for a man nearly
garroted by a monster vine from hell. Swallowing saliva—Avails, Is Lava, La
Visa—was like swallowing pebbles covered in ground glass—which neither he
nor anybody else ever swallowed, so that was dumb.
His brain wasn’t quite working yet. But paid was goon…
Noooo… pain was good… considering the dead numbness in his arms…
and his legs… and his torso… pretty much everything below the neck… and the fact
that he couldn’t open his eyes… and then the really scary part after he did some
deep breathing and found he could open his eyes and things didn’t get
substantially brighter because of the stuff covering them like a second set of
eyelids. They didn’t let in enough light to make out much, but his eyes
adjusted and he started to work out the texture, Eddie was fairly sure he was
looking at the underside of leaves.
Zed didn’t really think Batman nabbed the Riddler. If it
was at all likely, Catwoman would have thought of it before he did. But he knew
weird stuff could happen, so he wanted to check the outside of the lair
thoroughly before trying to get inside. The sign outside read Double Negative
Percussion (con-un-drums, Zowie’s idea) and it had openings along the bottom
that would drop Tetris-style formations of blocks on an unwelcome intruder’s
head (Zoik’s idea). The blocks could be loaded with either gas or explosives
(standard) but came filled with peanut shells for testing and demos. A case of
those was now included with every lair, since Zooks noticed that no matter how
similar the perimeter defenses were to those of previous lairs, the client
always wanted more demonstrations and trial runs than they planned on. It was
dangerous guessing ‘why’ where Rogues were concerned, but it wasn’t much of a
stretch to think they just wanted to play with the new thing. So an extra case
of peanut shell blanks was made up for each element of the defense system,
clearly marked TESTING DUDS and left at the back door as if the Z had forgotten
to take them away. In Riddler’s case, Zed had left the crate himself… And there
it sat outside the back door, on the exact spot where he’d left it.
That settled the Batman question. The Riddler hadn’t even
tested his perimeter defenses. There was no way he would have begun a crime
spree without having the lair prepped for a Bat-attack. He hadn’t even opened
the box… which Zed could understand with a babe like that Game Theory waiting on
the outside. All Zed wanted when he got out of the joint was pizza and tail, if
he had a woman like that, it’d certainly take him a while to get around to
thinking about freaking riddles for Batman.
So Zed took a deep breath and put his rudimentary
house-breaking skills to work with his inside knowledge of the locks. Three
electronic switches, a plug spinner, a 12-slider, Assa 6000 and a deadbolt. Took him 90 minutes, during which he vacillated between bragging how fast he
was beating it and complimenting Zound on an unbeatable set up. He also went
back and forth on scuttling his principles, calling Catwoman with the address
and letting her check it out herself. It’d mean losing face, which wasn’t a big
deal with Catwoman, not after the lamppost incident, but with that Game Theory…
that very tall and slender and very, very blonde Game Theory… Eventually he
made it through the maze of locks and counterlocks to enter the lair.
It was certainly lived in, but it felt like no one had been
there for days. The white board—that Zoiks cut specially to fit the recessed
space under the carved wooden question mark he made himself—bore the heading THE
PUZZLE THAT CANNOT BE SOLVED in big block letters. Next to it was a cheesy
heart shape made from mirror image question marks. Underneath was a list of
Rogues, some at large and some at Arkham… and hashtags. That was a clue, and
Zed tried the desk next. While the computer powered up, he noted lists
scattered around the keyboard and mousepad. Each had a name of a Rogue from the
whiteboard, some with cryptic notations underneath. A few repeated the
hashtags, and one… Zed winced when he realized the cryptic notes referred to
Bruce Wayne’s engagement to Selina Kyle. He realized he should have mentioned
it when he saw her—then the thought was forgotten as he realized something
else. He turned back to the white board and saw that all but four names on the
list had a little mark like a checkmark beside them. All but Clayface, Roxy
Rocket, Poison Ivy and Killer Croc—and one of the slips on the desk had the
address of Roxy’s hideout and Poison Ivy’s Greenhouse along with two other
locations, one of which was a manhole on Canal Street.
Zed never considered himself a detective, but it wasn’t a
stretch to think Riddler was off to see the four Rogues on that list.
Clearly, there was nothing to do but wait, and clearly
waiting was not Doris’s strong suit. Waiting was essential for a cat burglar,
however. Selina never intended to go on coaching Doris after her objective was
accomplished with the Zeitgeist break-in, but since Doris needed to get her mind
off her troubles, she decided to resume her lessons.
It began with simple trivia. Doris was Eddie’s perfect
match in many respects, one of which was encyclopedic knowledge in a few chosen
areas and a scatter shock of detail in dozens of others.
“A normal man can monitor six surveillance cameras for
twenty minutes, max, before fatigue sets in,” she recited in answer to a quiz
question.
“A normal man,” Selina nodded. “And a freak of nature
like, presumably, Batman?”
“Opinions differ,” Doris said crisply. “And studies
indicate the configuration of the screens is a factor. Two rows of six seem
preferable to four rows of three, for instance. But the best estimate is that a
freakishly gifted human could maybe monitor up to eighteen screens for thirty to
thirty-five minutes or six screens for up to fifty minutes. But a mind like
that would have such an aptitude for mathematics, music, anything based on
patterns, they could do way better than working as a security guard.”
Clayface didn’t use henchmen except on the rare occasions
when he impersonated someone who had “people.” Zed never heard about those gigs
until long after the fact, and before he hooked up with the Z, he’d never met
anyone who did. Zooks and Zound heard the stories later, same as him, and Zooks
heard the darker version that the reason you never met somebody who worked a
Clayface gig was because he absorbed them when he was through. He’d study your
face, your walk and even your voice while you were working, and when the job was
done—GLURP, you were gone. Added to his repertoire of anonymous Gotham faces.
“Which means he could be here right now,” Zowie had said in
a forboding voice and grabbing Zooks and Zound by their collars. “He could be
me,” she added with a psychotic gleam in her eye.
Zed had nearly pissed himself, and Zooks looked like he had
the day Joker asked all those questions about the skee ball machines in his new
hacienda. But Zound figured it out right away and shrugged.
“You guys are too stupid to live,” Zowie pronounced with a
teasing grin. “I worked one of those Clayface jobs and I can tell you right now
why none of you guys got the tap. You have to bring your own clothes. Do any
of you even own a suit?”
They all looked at each other, and when Zed rightly pointed
out that the locks on 7th Avenue pick as easy as the ones anywhere
else and they could each ‘own’ a dozen suits by sunrise if they wanted, Zowie
laughed at him.
“And it’s gonna fit like it. Face it, none of you can pass
as part of Margo Kishley’s entourage.”
She was probably right, but it didn’t change the fact that
Zed didn’t know Clayface, had never worked for him, and was taking a chance
showing up at his door without warning. He was a little uncomfortable – then
when he saw the craptastic building didn’t even have a door but was more of a
condemned, abandoned shell, he was more than uncomfortable. He went in, called
out ‘Hello!’ a few times, and eyed the support beams as if he could do more than
guess at their condition. Then he heard laughter. He followed it, forgetting
to be afraid the I-beams weren’t up to the job, and spied three neighborhood
kids: black, ages 12-14 he guessed, and playing Rock-Paper-Scissors.
“Hello!” he called again, and two ran off. One just
pointed at him and laughed.
“You here to see it?” he asked.
“What are you kids doing here?” Zed asked in return.
“We heard there was a body. We came to see. How’d you
hear about it?”
“Uhh,” Zed answered.
“Ten dollars,” the kid said.
“Excuse me?”
“To see the body!” he exclaimed like it was obvious.
“Get outta here!” Zed yelled, swatting at the kid who
laughed, dodged and bounced while taking a few swipes at Zed’s back pocket and
wallet. “You’re a fast little creep,” Zed said at last, giving up. “I’ll give
you five.”
The kid pocketed the money and pointed to a more intact
part of the structure. More walls made it darker, the condition of those walls
made what light there was… creepy. It shone through random cracks, drawing
attention to pockets of nothing as if they were supremely important. The
dramatic irrationality reminded Zed of Joker, and he unconsciously snapped into
the hyper-alertness that was in place whenever he met with the crazy clown.
Whether it was the Joker instinct or simply his eyes
adjusting to the dimmer light, Zed’s eyes widened as they gradually made out a
patch of not-quite-as-dark within the darker-dark. He swallowed and crinkled
his mouth and brow while trying to convince himself that the patch did and did
not have arms and legs.
He took a step closer, and yeah, it definitely had the
shape of a human body lying face down in a puddle of dark ooze. A weird little
trick of the light, there was a thin trail of ooze feeding into the main puddle
from the side and… and… ohmygod another trickle between his legs… There was a
think trickle of ooze coming from behind him flowing into the puddle
under the BODY!
Rather than run away – in a direction from which OOZE was
coming – Zed jumped up and to the side to get away – at least a short distance
away – from the trickle. He sniffed. He swallowed, and he took a determined
step towards the body.
“Hello!” he called out a last time. “Mr. Hagen, is that
you? I’m Zed from the Z. I would have called but you don’t have a phone.
Really bitchin’ alarm system you have here. Like, better than anything we ever
installed for Scarecrow.”
The body melted into the puddle with a disgusting glorp,
the puddle became less tarry and took on a more obviously mud-like appearance,
and finally it sprung up into the well-known form of Clayface.
“You’re a brave man,” he said, snapping fingers that seemed
to suddenly sprout for the very purpose and handing over a slip of paper between
them. Taking it, Zed was retroactively scared to see as the surface mud-bubbles
evaporated, it was his own five-dollar bill.
“Yeah, well, I beat fear toxin the hard way,” Zed said,
feeling the kudos were undeserved.
“I’ve never had the pleasure; what’s ‘the hard way?’”
Clayface asked, walking away and apparently expecting Zed to follow.
“Bat-antidote doesn’t work on me,” he explained. “Weird
body chemistry, I guess. Just had to wait it out.”
They reached a burned out elevator shaft, and Clayface
extended a circular platform from his foot. Zed guessed he was supposed to
stand on it, but instead he stared and pointed until Clayface told him
specifically to “Get on.” He did, it rose two floors and revealed a rather neat
studio apartment furnished not unlike Zed’s own two-bedroom railroad.
Unlike the exposed and pocked brick and concrete below, the
walls were flawless white plaster. Hardwood floors. Two windows with a big oil
painting in between of the ugly modern type Zed didn’t understand. Beneath
those, a low two-rowed bookcase ran the length of the narrow wall. Very little
furniture: a full length mirror, a funky silver metal floor lamp, a cow-pattern
chair where Clayface told Zed to sit, and…
“What is that?” Zed asked curiously, pointing to an object
that might have been the unholy union of a leather scoop chair and a clawfoot
bathtub.
Clayface explained that it was something Kittlemeier made
for him to help him ‘mush out’ at the end of the day the way normal people lay
down to sleep. He hated mushing out on a bed. Beds and carpets had fibers,
and you could not imagine how awful it was having fibers getting into your
pores. They were beastly little things. Kittlemeier came up with this special
way of treating leather. It was wonderfully comfortable.
“During World War II the British crown jewels, the Magna
Carta and other irreplaceable treasures were brought to the U.S. and placed in
Fort Knox for safe keeping.”
Selina smiled, but Doris went on. “Also the Hungarian
crown jewels in 1945, to protect them from the Soviets.”
“Interesting, I didn’t know that,” Selina said.
“And in 1973 a con man called… I think Jenkowitz, claimed
it wasn’t the real Magna Carta returned after the war. He claimed it was
switched for a fake and tried to sell the original to an Irish collector who
wasn’t nearly as gullible as he looked.”
“How could you possibly have a fake… never mind. Let’s get
out of here. I’m sick of trivia, it’s time for a field trip.”
Zed climbed up the same man hole he’d gone down to find
Killer Croc, but he ran half way down Canal Street before he dared let the gag
reflex have its say. God it smelled down there, and if he’d only been, like,
anybody else who goes down to the sewers because it’s their job, he could
have expressed that like he imagined EVERYBODY DID their first time climbing
down a stinking sewer. But no, he couldn’t because he was going to see Killer
Croc, a guy who considered that sewer home and just might take offense. So he
waited. And now he breathed.
He breathed. And breathed. And breathed.
Then he coughed a little. Suppressed the urge to puke.
Walked up to one of the sidewalk stalls selling some weird exotic fruit, pointed
to one that looked good, took a bite and smelled it for a minute or so. It was
good to have the smell of something else in his nostrils, but it seemed like he
was still getting whiffs of that awful place. Wincing, he ran his fingers
through his hair and sure enough, the faint whiffs got stronger. He had the
stink in his hair. Seeing that he was in Chinatown, he stopped in an apothecary
and asked about dry shampoo. Just something he could use right now with his
fingers to tide him over until he could go home and take a shower.
The clerk was very polite while Zed explained his
ridiculous predicament, and while they didn’t have the shampoo he needed, she
thought tea would do the trick. Any tea, she advised, pointing him to the shop
across the street – the cheapest they had would get the job done. He tried it
and it worked pretty well. The whole episode only took ten minutes and it was
enough to organize his thoughts: Riddler had been to Clayface around 11 o’clock
and he never made it to Killer Croc’s. So whatever happened must have been
between those two. That would be more useful once he knew the order in which
Riddler planned to see everybody. After he talked to Ivy and Roxy, he’d have a
better idea.
He rejected Clayface’s idea that it was all a wild goose
chase Riddler orchestrated to make Batman jump through hoops. Sure Riddler left
clues and puzzles, but if he was hatching something for the Bat, he would’ve
unpacked the defense system on his new lair, and he certainly would have told
his girlfriend. So Zed would continue his quest. On to the Green House and
then to Roxy’s.
“Struann is the oldest auction house in the United States,”
Selina narrated softly as the two women strolled together. “It was founded in
1803, been in continuous operation ever since, and have you noticed the way the
guard is still checking out your assets? He likes blondes and he likes tush,
remember that.”
“Whereas the doorman likes brunettes and legs,” Doris
noted. “1803, you say? That’s eight years before Crispin’s?”
“Very good. Original’s in London; branches in Gotham,
Paris, Geneva, Boston and Los Angeles. Now right down that hall past the ladies
room and the water fountain is Receiving. Items come from estates, galleries,
private collections, and ordinary people wanting to sell something. After
they’re receipted, they’re sent to their proper department: sculptures to the
sculpture department, prints to the print department, etc for authentication and
cataloging. The slave labor they call it; it’s on the fourth floor. There’s a
clear view from the fitting room of Liv Modero across the street. We’ll go
there next. Bring opera glasses or a small scope in your purse, take a few
items to try on, look right out their window into Struan’s.”
“Do you ever buy anything?”
“At Liv? Not usually, but I’ve been known to go on a
spree,” Selina laughed, enjoying the novelty of a criminally minded girlfriend
with a proper sense of priorities. “About a week before the auction, everything
is sent back down here to the exhibition rooms. Ooh, I like that one,” she
said, pointing to an ivory netsuke. “The night before the auction it’s all put
backstage, and finally on the day of the sale… that’s the door to the big
auction room right there, and the smaller one is right down the stairs… day of
the sale, it’s put up for auction and hopefully sold.”
“Assuming it makes it that far,” Doris said lightly.
“Yes, assuming that,” Selina agreed.
Zed had never been a Chelsea guy and it was years since
he’d been to the stretch of 28th Street between 6th and 7th
Avenues known as FloMa. He knew the Flower Market as a criminal: it was open
Monday through Saturday starting at 5 a.m. and not all of the stores took credit
cards. That meant the florists, high-end decorators and in-the-know amateurs
who came for the opening rush all brought plenty of cash. Oodles of cash as
they hustled their way through a thick crowd, often burdened with unwieldy
bundles. It was a pickpocket’s paradise.
That crowd was long gone, and even the housewives who
followed had thinned considerably. Many of the vendors were closed for the day,
but much of the sidewalk was still lined on both sides with six-foot walls of
green flora for sale, while the steps outside the open shops were packed with
potted plants.
“RAIOUW” a harsh feline voice sounded from below as Zed
narrowly missed stepping on an orange moggie.
“Uh, sorry,” he said, continuing on his way. He’d
forgotten about the cats. Not all the dealers had them, but an astonishing
number did. Sometimes they seemed to be actively guarding the expensive
tropical plants, but mostly they just sat there judging your purchases (like
everyone else in Chelsea). The savvy regulars seemed to make friends with the
cats. They knew the names of the kitties at their favorite stalls and stopped
to say goodbye before leaving with their purchases—a practice Zed always thought
was stupid, but now that he was practically working for Catwoman, he wondered if
he should make an effort. Sort of a good karma thing.
He went back to the orange moggie, squatted down and said
hi. The owner of the stall was close enough to see and told him the cat’s name
was King. Zed took the introduction as a cue to pet, but King nipped at his
fingers… then sniffed, then licked them. The owner asked if he’d been handling
catnip or parsley, both of which King had a passion for. Zed remembered the tea
and guessed it was probably that.
He went on his way, stopping to meet three other cats—a
grey and white longhair called Artichoke, a black pugnose called Wolfgang and a
fat tabby called Goethe—before he reached Ivy’s greenhouse. The door was
locked, so he rang the buzzer. After a minute, the door buzzed back and
clicked. Zed went inside, thinking the good luck gesture with the cats was
already paying off. He’d seen the intercom out front and, knowing Poison Ivy,
he was expecting more of an interrogation before he got in. He was ready to
give a… a full account of who he was and… and what his uh… business was…
something… boy, it was hot in here. Like steam room hot. And wet. He ran his
fingers through his hair which was already damp with sweat. The action – or
just the heat – revitalized the tea smell. It wasn’t nearly as appealing mixed
with the smell of his own sweat… unless that was the smell from the sewer still…
or something else. It was different if it was the sewer It was…. It was kind
of… boy it was hot in here.
“Come,” a honeyed voice said. “Don’t be afraid. Come
closer.”
Zed blinked. His eyes were watering terribly, either from
the haze of smelly steam or the coating of sweat thickening on every party of
his body—including his eyelids. He tried to blink away the sting, squinted and
blinked some more trying to decode the blurry source of the honey voice.
“Come. There’s nothing to fear. Only the green awaits
you. Come into the loving embrace of the green.”
He tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry. His heart
raced. And his legs were moving with a will of their own. He forgot about the
smell. Something… nicer had entered the picture, not exactly sweet and not even
very pleasant, but whatever it was, it numbed him to that awful stench. He
still couldn’t see what he was walking towards, his stinging eyes still only
registered a blur. A green blur. A green and pink blur. Green topped with
orange and pink topped with brown.
“That’s it, no man can resist me.”
Riiiight, Poison Ivy. He was here to see Poison Ivy... So
that’s the green topped with orange… Zed sighed happily at the revelation…
though he hadn’t remembered her skin being that dark and green, or her
hair that vividly orange. His heart raced faster, faster than it had in the
grip of that fear toxin. His head tilted back in a half-swoon, though his eyes
fought to stay riveted on Poison Ivy. They rolled down to behold her from a new
angle unflooded with tears and shock tore through his delirium. The
green-pink-orange-brown blur suddenly clarified into the body of a woman split
down the center like a female Two-Face. Her green side was vividly green, the
hair garishly red. Her other half had natural pink skin and perfectly ordinary
brown hair. And her expression was one of such rage and hate, the spell of her
pheromones shattered into a bone-splitting scream of self preservation.
“AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!” Zed screeched into Ivy’s face, and
though she reacted with little more than a psychotic twitch that stretched from
the left side of her upper lip to the lower half of her nose, various plants and
vines in the room shrank back from the unholy din.
“AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!” Zed continued, acting on instinct and
oblivious to its effect on the plants.
“Stop that, you’re hurting them!” Ivy yelled.
“AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!” Zed replied.
“STOP IT!” Ivy screeched.
“AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!”
“FINE!!” she bellowed, her chest heaving to convey the full
force of her hatred but finding her voice wholly inadequate. She reached out a
green hand—what should have been a perfectly normal hand apart from the color—to
see the veins were so engorged with the strain to express her rage, it looked
like a gnarled talon. “So be it,” she croaked, jerking her hand upward and
twisting into a clenched fist.
Zed’s body began to writhe and flail as... as… wrist to
neck started to prickle and sting, neck to waist was quivering and itching and…
oohhhhhh….ohhhhhh….. waist to toe was….
Oh god. His scalp was getting that same barbed tingling,
like something was alive up there and…
Burrowing into him…
And…
And….
He smelled TEA.
“AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!”
To be continued...
|
