Batman 2 - Batman Returns

by CRAIG SHAW GARDNER

  Selina replied before he could get into further trouble. “It’s okay.” She shrugged. “I had to go home. Feed my cat.”

  Bruce couldn’t believe it. He looked into her eyes. “No hard feelings?”

  She pressed close to him. She looked up and smiled.

  “Actually—semihard, I’d say.”

  Oh. Bruce took a step away, suddenly embarrassed. If only he didn’t find Selina Kyle so attractive.

  But he did.

  Selina did an amazingly slow pirouette before him, graceful and sexy at the same time.

  “There’s a big, comfy, California king over in Bedding,” she suggested. “What say we—”

  “You mean,” Bruce asked with a certain irony, “take off our costumes?”

  Selina’s answering laugh sounded more sad than happy. “I guess I’m sick of wearing masks.”

  “Same here,” he agreed. “So why did you come tonight?”

  She shook her head. “You first.”

  He drew her close again. “To see you.”

  She didn’t reply for a long moment. When she did, he heard that same sadness in her voice.

  “That’s lovely, and I really wish I could say the same, but—I came for Max.”

  Bruce almost stopped dancing. Max Shreck? Was there something going on in front of him that he hadn’t even seen? An office flirtation, or maybe even romance?

  “You don’t mean—you and Max?” he asked tentatively.

  This time Selina’s laugh let him know he couldn’t be further from the truth. She shook her head.

  “This and Max,” she explained.

  She reached into her purse and pulled out a derringer.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Bruce pushed the derringer back in her bag and continued to dance. Selina was surprised she had even shown it to him. She had meant to keep her gun a secret from everyone. But then she had told him about it, straight out. There was something about Mr. Bruce Wayne, something mysterious, but something that made her want to trust him at the same time.

  She looked at the surprise on his face, and decided to talk before he did.

  “Now,” she began, “don’t give me a killing-Max-won’t-solve-anything speech, because it will. Aren’t you tired of this sanctimonious robber baron always coming out on top? When he should be six feet under?”

  Bruce shook his head ruefully. “Hey, look, I’m sure you have plenty of reasons to hate your boss, but—” He threw his hands in the air, as if he didn’t know the answer either. “Jesus, Selina, you’re not the judge or the jury. I mean, just who do you think you are?”

  She looked back at him thoughtfully, and a little sadly. Before the Ice Princess had died, she could have told him. She had so much anger against so many things; and that anger had come out as Catwoman. But now?

  “I don’t know anymore, Bruce,” she said, and she could hear her own despair.

  Still they danced, swirling around the floor to that slow, sad song. She looked overhead and saw mistletoe. She leaned forward and gave Bruce a gentle kiss that somehow felt sad as well.

  “A kiss under the mistletoe,” she said, repeating another’s words. “Mistletoe can be deadly, if you eat it—”

  Bruce looked at her, and told her other words she knew.

  “But a kiss can be even deadlier, if you mean—it.”

  He stumbled over the last word, as if he had guessed the same thing she had.

  They both spoke at once.

  “You’re her?” he said at the same time as she asked “You’re him?”

  They were. They both knew it in the instant they spoke.

  He was Batman?

  And she was Catwoman. But who would believe it?

  Besides the two of them.

  Bruce very gently undid the cuff of her blouse, and pulled back her sleeve. His hand on her skin was almost a caress as he felt her upper arm.

  “The burn I gave you,” he said. She could hear regret in his voice.

  But she needed proof as well, she realized, as she undid the bottom button of his shirt and felt along his stomach muscles. There was the row of scabs.

  “The puncture wounds I gave you,” she replied. She sighed. This was all too much for her. “Oh, God,” she whispered, afraid to say what came next. “Does this mean we have to start fighting now?”

  Bruce’s only answer was to pull her closer. She hugged him tight. She was scared. She imagined they both were.

  “What do we do?” she asked after a moment.

  “I don’t know,” Bruce replied. “Until we figure it out, let’s—let’s keep dancing.”

  For the moment, Selina realized, that was fine with her.

  Now this was really more like it!

  The Penguin cackled as the dust and dancers settled around them. Nothing like a nice little explosion to shake them up. Well, tonight, The Penguin would make them pay!

  Bits of the floor sailed back to earth.

  People screamed.

  Pieces of ceiling rained down around them.

  People fainted.

  Parts of other things fell down, too. Some of these had once been costumes; or what had been inside the costumes.

  People ran.

  The Penguin made a small bow from within his duckmobile. “You didn’t invite me, so I crashed.”

  The four penguins he’d brought along squawked approval.

  His Honor the Mayor stepped forward. The Penguin had to admit, he was a snappy dresser. Of course, The Penguin always was a sucker for a toga.

  “What do you want, Penguin?” His Honor demanded.

  The Penguin pushed him out of the way. He had no more time for mayors. He had much more important things to announce. He looked out at the assembled party-goers to make certain he had their total attention.

  “Right now, my troops are fanning out across town, for your children!” He paused to allow the audience to gasp. “Yes, for your firstborn sons. The ones you left defenseless, at home, so you could dress up like jerks, get juiced, and dance, badly!”

  He turned to a certain older firstborn kid.

  “I’ve personally come for Gotham’s favorite son—Mr. Chip Shreck!”

  Even more people gasped. A couple even screamed.

  Ah, violence, threats, murder. Why did The Penguin ever leave those things he was so good at?

  Well, all that was sewage under the bridge. Because with dear Chip, and hundreds of other Chips from all over town, The Penguin was getting back into murder in a big way.

  Hey, this was even better than being mayor!

  This was terrible!

  The two of them had gone down together when the floor exploded. Bruce had been underneath, to cushion the worst of her fall. By the time they had both regained their feet, The Penguin had managed to take Chip Shreck captive.

  Selina turned away from The Penguin and his goon.

  “Bruce,” she said. “We have to do something!”

  But Bruce was gone.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Max stared in horror as his son was taken hostage.

  “You’re coming with me, you Great White Dope,” The Penguin declared with perverse glee. “To die, way down in the sewer.”

  Max almost stopped breathing. For the first time that he could remember, he was truly frightened.

  “Not Chip!” he called out, surprised how strong his voice still sounded. “Please! Penguin—if you have one iota of human feeling, you’ll take me instead.”

  The Penguin turned to Max and sneered.

  “I don’t,” he barked. “So, no.”

  But Max knew he had to save his son. He threw himself toward The Penguin’s huge duck.

  “I’m the one you want!” he insisted. “Penguin, please! Ask yourself!” He pointed to himself. “Isn’t it Max Shreck who manipulated and betrayed you? Isn’t it Max, not Chip, whom you want to see immersed to his eyeballs in raw sewage?”

  The Penguin paused to consider Max’s plea.

  “Okay, you have a
point. Plus the hysterics are getting on my nerves.”

  “Let Knute Rockne live for now.” The thug removed his gun from Chip’s face. Cautiously, the younger Shreck backed away. He looked to his father, as if he was sure that Max had a plan.

  Max’s relief at seeing Chip freed was soon replaced by dismay at having the gun put to his own head.

  Max looked at the birds around him. The penguins were not only wearing funny-looking helmets, they were armed! And the way they were pointing those guns, they looked ready to shoot into the crowd.

  The whole world went gray as four smoke bombs went off simultaneously.

  What was he doing? He wasn’t the self-sacrificing sort. Well, he had sacrificed himself for his son. It was a shock, but Max realized he did have a shred of human decency.

  And that decency would be the death of him.

  “Dad!” he heard Chip call from somewhere in the crowd. But he had no reply as the smoke closed over him.

  All Max could do was cough.

  And now the wonderful Penguin’s plan took shape. He could see it now, all the talented members of the Red Triangle Circus Gang tumbling their ways into the homes of Gotham’s firstborn sons.

  Here’s one pretty scene, in a precious bathroom, the child’s own. The walls are covered with sheep, daisies, and the letters of the Alphabet; so cute it could make you sick. A toddler, a firstborn toddler, stands there, making faces at himself in a mirror. He’s giggling. It’s the funniest thing that he’s ever seen.

  But uh-oh. What’s this but his nannie’s voice, coming sternly through the bathroom door.

  “Billy,” she says. “If you’re not brushing, I’ll tell your mama!”

  He’s in trouble now.

  The toddler looks back in the mirror, and sees that he’s not alone.

  His visitor, the Knife Lady, grabs him before he can scream, her hand clamped firmly over his mouth. And away they go.

  Soon, this toddler will never get into trouble again.

  Too traumatic for you? All right, let’s postulate another small drama. A darling little boy sits at the windowsill, staring out with wonder at the night sky. But who should appear at his window but a happy clown?

  The boy claps his hands in delight. “Finally, the tooth fairy!” And, now that that’s all established, he gets down to business. “What do I get?”

  The clown, who can see that the darling boy has indeed lost one of his upper front teeth, smiles even more broadly than before.

  “Why, the ride of your life,” he says. “Hey, c’mon, little guy—”

  The clown reaches out a hand and the little boy takes it, ecstatic that he is going on an adventure. No need to tell him that it will be his last.

  And look over there, in that plush nursery. The infant boy sleeps soundly in his expensive crib, custom-built, no doubt, with the lumber from some endangered tree. But one of our acrobats vaults through the window, then scoops up the child in one fluid motion. The child sleeps on as the acrobat vaults back out. An alarm wails, did you say? Perhaps so, but it is too late, far too late for all of Gotham City.

  And so it goes. House after house after house. Firstborn son after firstborn son.

  And soon, the big kaboom! All of Gotham’s firstborn brats, sunken and strangled.

  It was enough to make The Penguin breathless.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Max had never known this kind of misery before.

  The Penguin had put him in a cage, but that wasn’t bad enough. The cage was hung immediately above a pond full of brown and acrid goo. Max half expected to choke to death on the fumes! And it was cold down here, too! That huge air conditioner was turned so high that there was ice everywhere; and somehow the sparks from the generator next to it did nothing to warm the place back up. Max didn’t want to know what was in this goo to keep it from freezing, but he had the feeling that the liquid could ruin his pants, perhaps even eat them away.

  The Penguin’s men had given him a ratty blanket to throw over his shoulders, but all it did was keep his shivers to a minimum. He’d die of exposure if The Penguin didn’t kill him first.

  But, then, he was quite sure The Penguin was going to kill him.

  The Penguin pranced about before him, a long black umbrella in either hand.

  “Ooh,” the bird man almost sang, “this is gonna be good!”

  He turned to Max. “To cut down a whole crop of Gotham’s most promising, before their prime—” He pointed his umbrella toward a spot past Max, and a whole lake full of some liquid even more vile than that surrounding the businessman.

  “How do I lure them in, you ask?” The Penguin continued rhetorically. He popped open a red and white umbrella. Max flinched backwards. But instead of bullets or knives, this bumbershoot transformed itself into a charming miniature merry-go-round. The music was hauntingly familiar. Maybe it was a lullabye.

  The Penguin held the charming miniature above him, and waved for a pack of imaginary kids to follow. “A little Pied Penguin action,” he explained. “And you get to watch them all sink in a deep puddle of your industrial by-products.” He turned back to Max. “Then you join them. Tragic irony or poetic justice? You tell me.”

  But Max was too cold to care.

  It was a circus train from hell.

  The odd collection of circus wagons wound its way through the early morning streets of Gotham City. They were bright wagons, painted blue and red and yellow, cheerful circus colors.

  But each of these old and cheerful wagons was a cage, its sides filled with iron bars. And behind these bars were children; four or five to a wagon. All boys, all the firstborn sons of Gotham, destined to be The Penguin’s victims. Or so he planned.

  Occasionally, a baby’s cry would break through the near silence. Most of the boys seemed too terrified to speak. Somebody called weakly for help. An acrobat leaned down and told him, “Shut up and enjoy the choo-choo ride. Or you’ll be sorry.”

  The locomotive stopped, waiting for the next delivery. At the wheel, the Organ Grinder impatiently plucked his monkey from his shoulder. He looked back at the collection of acrobats, jugglers, and clowns aiding him in his work.

  “Would you hurry up loading those kids already?” he yelled. It looked like he was getting tired of this whole trip.

  A shadow fell across his face, startling the driver out of his boredom. His monkey screamed. He looked up as Batman yanked the Organ Grinder from his seat.

  He’d make sure the thug got a little action. And after he was done here, he had a short appointment with some acrobats, jugglers, and clowns.

  The Penguin had to get this just right. No use frightening the little darlings before they all drowned horribly in the toxic ooze. He pirouetted with his colorful umbrella, ready to lead his firstborn victims in a merry dance.

  “This way, kiddies,” he said in his most inviting tones. “Jump right in!”

  Of course, if the kids disagreed, he’d just machine-gun a few of them to get them started.

  He paused as he heard a shriek from the entryway to his lair. He stopped the music as he saw the Organ Grinder’s monkey scamper down the stairs toward him. A smelly, noisy creature, the monkey, not at all as regal as an emperor penguin; but why was the monkey here without the Organ Grinder?

  “So, where are the kids?” he demanded of the beast. “Don’t tell me they stopped at McDonald’s?”

  “Boss!” The clown pointed. “He’s got a note!”

  Indeed, the filthy little creature did clutch a piece of paper in its fingers. The Penguin snatched it away and uncrumpled the page.

  “ ‘Dear Penguin,’ ” he read. “ ‘The children regret they are unable to attend. Have a disappointing day. Batman.’ ”

  What?

  No children? It took The Penguin a moment to come to grips with this. And it would take him more than a minute to control his anger. If he could just get that Bat in the sights of his umbrella. But no, where was a hero when you wanted to kill him? Nowhere to be found!
>
  Well, The Penguin would just have to kill something else. He glared down at the monkey. The beast looked tip at him, hopping and dancing across the icy floor.

  “You’re the messenger,” he reminded himself, “it doesn’t make sense to shoot the messenger.”

  He grabbed his second umbrella, the one loaded with bullets, and turned to pump twenty rounds into the Fat Clown.

  There. That felt much better.

  And The Penguin wasn’t finished yet. He had more plans. Bigger plans. Deadlier plans.

  But, this time, he’d use somebody he could trust.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Why hadn’t he just done this in the first place? After all, he’d been planning this campaign for years, designing the special headgear, fitting the guns and heavy weaponry so that they could be operated by birds. But he’d gotten sidetracked by dreams of personal glory, or personalized revenge. But these dreams had depended on outside factors; people and events that The Penguin could not control.

  He looked out at his troops, over a hundred strong. It had taken The Penguin and the remaining members of the Red Triangle Circus Gang close to a whole day to outfit them all, but it had been worth it, for they’d finished their work just before Christmas Eve.

  And what next? The Penguin had thought about this speech long and hard, for it would lead to his greatest moment!

  “My penguins,” he began solemnly. “We stand at a great threshold. It’s okay to be scared. Many of you won’t be coming back.”

  He had to stop and wipe away a tear. Yes, this was his day of glory, or, as he liked to think of it, Operation Penguin Storm. It was inevitable, he guessed, that it would come to this, especially after his years of grueling study led him to discover the exact pitch and frequency that would cause penguins to follow his every command. That was one advantage to spending years in the sewers—it gave you plenty of time for research. Sure, his troops would be little more than zombies to The Penguin’s radio signals, but his cause was just. Not to mention incredibly bloody.