The Further Adventures of The Joker

by Martin H. Greenberg

  But it didn’t happen that way.

  As if from outer space itself, there came a whizzing, whining, singing thread of steel. As supple as a cowboy’s riata, as swift as a line cast by an expert fisherman, its barbed end caught the ring at the end of the key and whipped it out of the Mayor’s grasp. Like a hooked salmon, the silver object sailed over a thousand startled faces, and before they saw the fisherman himself, a caped figure straddling the top of a light stanchion, the concealed bomb did what bombs are meant to do. It exploded—but harmlessly, in midair.

  Gordon’s heart bounced between throat and chest as he saw Batman drop nimbly to the ground, already reeling in the Batwire that had saved so many lives.

  But his mission wasn’t completed. From his vantage point atop the stanchion, Batman had witnessed what the Commissioner himself had seen, the exchange between the tall “airline employee” and the Mayor’s aide. He had recognized that a switch of keys had taken place, and that the man who had casually boarded the small copter was the perpetrator.

  The rotor blades were already turning, and they could see the deathly white mask of his face through the cockpit window, fixed as always in a diabolic grin that not even failure could wipe away. Even though his assassination was foiled, the Joker would soon be free to continue his career of malevolent mischief.

  Batman didn’t accept defeat so readily. He raced across the tarmac at Olympic speed, but the whirlybird was already beginning its ascent. For a moment, it looked as if Batman had lost him; but then they saw the steel lariat streaking forth once more, like a strand of lightning traveling from earth to sky. They didn’t realize that its grappling hook had caught the tail wheel until they saw Batman lifted into the air, suspended from the copter like a performer in an aerial circus.

  It may have been the shouts from below that alerted the pilot to his unwanted passenger. He leaned out and glared at Batman, his green hair blowing wildly in the wind.

  It was only too obvious what he decided to do next. He headed the aircraft toward the control tower of Gotham Field. He was going to lose his dangling stowaway by crushing Batman against the tower.

  His first pass failed as Batman wrapped his powerful legs about the wire and swayed away from danger. But on the ground below, a horrified Commissioner Gordon knew that the Clown Prince of Crime had gravity on his side. Sooner or later, he would smash his archenemy out of existence. Gordon almost wished he had never sent the message that brought Batman to this encounter.

  The second pass against the tower was more successful for the Grinning Ghoul at the controls. Batman managed to avoid its full impact, but his side thudded against the structure with an impact that could be heard on the ground. They groaned for him and then gasped as they saw his grip on the wire loosen. Then they cheered as Batman managed to regain his hold.

  The third pass would be the fatal one; that was obvious. It was also obvious that the Joker was enjoying this game. He took his time, circling the tower, dipping the copter lower so that there would be virtually no way for Batman to escape a full collision with the building. There would be only one alternative—to release his hold on the wire, and die an ignominious death on the ground.

  There was a terrible, almost eerie silence among the crowd as the copter completed its circle and headed for the structure, and Batman’s death.

  Then Gordon realized something. The Caped Crusader was no longer caped.

  The significance of the fact only became apparent when there was a strange, rendering, sputtering sound over their heads. And then Gordon understood. Batman had thrown his cape into the rotor blades, and the blades had found it indigestible. The rotors had slowed and then stopped, and the helicopter was beginning to spin out of control. Now gravity was no longer on the Joker’s side.

  It wasn’t on Batman’s side, either. But now that the Joker was no longer in control, Batman could take a desperate chance. He swung on the wire toward the control tower, and let go. When he landed on his feet, there was a roar from the crowd, but it wasn’t loud enough to drown out the explosion that shook the ground when the copter fell to earth.

  A thousand feet raced to the site of the crash, and a thousand eyes saw the broken body of the pilot amid the flames that began to consume it.

  It was the ultimate punchline for the Joker.

  Death.

  Commissioner Gordon wasn’t sure how long he had slept. He had fallen across his bed, fully-clothed, when there was still daylight in his window. Now there was darkness, and a strange glow in the room. Then he realized that Batman was there, silhouetted against the moon, waiting silently for the Commissioner to wake from his much-needed sleep.

  “Batman!” he said. “I was hoping I could see you—”

  “I knew you would have questions,” Batman said.

  “What I really have is gratitude. The whole city is grateful for what you did today!”

  “I’m not here for my medal,” the Caped Crusader said somberly. “There were too many lives lost while I was away.”

  “You can’t be everywhere at once. And God knows it took us long enough to realize what was going on. But how did you find out? You had no briefing at all!”

  “I did have a briefing—from my new supercomputer. While I was away, it recorded every crime committed in Gotham City, and searched them for relational factors. The computer reached its own conclusion, Commissioner, just as you did. That someone was playing a deadly prank involving a deck of cards.”

  “Then it must have also guessed the prankster,” Gordon said. “It could only have been one man.”

  “Yes,” Batman said. “That was only too obvious—except for one factor. The Joker’s motive.”

  “We’ll never know it now. He’s taken the answer to his grave. But at least that Grinning Devil is in Hell where he belongs, and that’s far more important.”

  “I believe I know the motive,” Batman said quietly.

  “You do? You mean your computer—”

  “No,” Batman said wryly. “That’s one thing about computers—they don’t think as deviously as Man. I realized the truth only when I applied an old legal question to every crime involved. Who benefits?”

  “But—nobody really benefited. The crimes were senseless!”

  “It was senseless to kill thirty-six musicians. It was senseless to kill four men named Jack, four ‘queens’ and four ‘aces.’ It was senseless to kill three self-styled ‘kings.’ But if King Harold of Lumidia had died, wouldn’t his death have benefited one person? His successor?”

  The Commissioner’s jaw went slack.

  “I don’t understand, Batman! Why would the Joker care who ran that little country?”

  “The Joker didn’t care,” Batman said grimly. “But King Harold’s would-be successor cared. He especially cared about making sure that nobody—absolutely nobody—would guess that he had anything to do with the assassination of his ‘beloved’ monarch . . .”

  The blood rushed out of the Commissioner’s head.

  “Good Lord! Are you suggesting that all these crimes were meant to cover up one crime?”

  “That’s what I’m suggesting, Commissioner.”

  “And that it wasn’t the Joker behind it? That the Joker was just being framed by this—would-be King?”

  “His name is Herbert,” Batman said. “He’s Harold’s cousin, his only living relative. Or rather, his deceased relative. Because it was Herbert’s remains that were cremated in that helicopter crash this morning.”

  “Batman, are you sure?”

  “Herbert had been in this country for the past four years, earning himself a graduate degree in political science and playing on the college’s basketball team. He was also a skilled mechanic, an amateur pilot, and a crack marksman. He was six-feet-five, very clever, very ambitious, and completely ruthless.”

  “But how did you know? What made you guess the truth?”

  “Once the idea occurred to me, it was simple enough to track Herbert’s movements from the day of
the first murders. He could be placed at the scene of almost every crime. But there was also something else . . .”

  “I know what it was,” Commissioner Gordon said. “Something that even that supercomputer of yours doesn’t have. It was your incredible intuition!”

  “No,” Batman smiled darkly. “It was something that occurred to me about Herbert’s master plan. He was eliminating the entire deck of playing cards. But he forgot that every deck has two Jokers.”

  Museum Piece

  Mike Resnick

  CATALOG

  Special JOKER Exhibition in the Batman Hall of the Gotham Museum

  (Catalog Notes by Richard Grayson, Esq.)

  Exhibit 1:

  Lethal 10,000-volt “joy buzzer” with which the notorious Clown Prince of Crime dispatched five different people, including two members of his own gang.

  Exhibit 1A:

  Rubber gauntlets and thick-soled rubber boots created especially for the Batman by Reuben Kittlemeier (deceased). By allowing the Joker to think him unprepared and helpless, the Batman was able to get close enough to arrest him while the electric charge passed harmlessly through the safely grounded crime fighter.

  Exhibit 2:

  This was a two-headed coin (note that both heads are defaced) that the Joker had manufactured during the brief period of time that he allied himself with Two-Face, another criminal kingpin. Two-Face was known to always flip a coin when deciding between mercy and brutality, or even committing a crime versus obeying the law, and the Joker managed to plant this coin on Two-Face’s person so that he would always elect to follow in the Joker’s criminal footsteps.

  Exhibit 2A:

  This coin seems identical to the coin in Exhibit 2, but there is one vital difference: this coin, created by the Batman, is weighted so that, when flipped in the air, it will always land on its edge. The coin, which the Batman managed to substitute for the Joker’s coin, so unnerved Two-Face that he turned upon his former ally, and during the confusion the police, under the leadership of Commissioner James Gordon, were able to capture both villains.

  Exhibit 3:

  This is the automatic pilot mechanism from the Pagliacci, a blimp that the Joker loaded with a deadly gas and aimed at the Thomas Wayne Memorial Stadium during the fourth quarter of the Gotham Bowl on New Year’s Day.

  Exhibit 3A:

  This is a child’s bow and hunting arrow with which the Batman improvised his last-second response to the Joker’s threat. The blimp, struck in midair, dispersed its gas over the sea, and not a single member of the crowd of 75,000 was harmed.

  Exhibit 4:

  This normal-appearing fountain pen actually releases an ultrasonic blast that temporarily paralyzes its victim, and was used on the Batman when the Joker disguised himself as an autograph seeker.

  Exhibit 4A:

  This is a mask of the Joker’s first known murder victim, which the Batman wore beneath his cowl as a safety measure during that period of time when the Joker publicly threatened to reveal his secret identity. When he was momentarily overcome by the ultrasonic fountain pen (Exhibit 4), it was this mask that the Joker revealed beneath the Batman’s cowl. The shock of seeing his long-dead victim caused the Joker to go into a near-catatonic trance, a condition that persisted until hours after the Batman regained consciousness and returned his archenemy to Arkham Asylum.

  Exhibit 5:

  Remains of exploding baseball, capable of killing everyone within a radius of fifty feet, which the Joker substituted for the normal baseball that the mayor was supposed to throw out on Opening Day.

  Exhibit 5A:

  This is a chemically treated catcher’s mitt that the Batman, disguised as the catcher for the Gotham Giants, used to muffle the explosion just prior to apprehending the Joker.

  Exhibit 6:

  This earthen jar holds the contaminant with which the Joker planned to poison Gotham City’s water supply.

  Exhibit 6A:

  These eyebrows, blue-tinted contact lenses, false nose, and blond wig formed the disguise the Batman used to impersonate the Joker’s henchman while substituting half a gallon of perfectly harmless Vitamin C for the contaminant.

  Exhibit 7:

  Clipping of hair, purportedly taken from Robin’s head. The Joker, aware that Robin had been called out of town on a case while the Batman was otherwise occupied, used this in an attempt to entrap the Batman by convincing him that Robin was his prisoner.

  Exhibit 7A:

  Electron microscope with which the Batman analyzed the clipping in Exhibit 7, and proved that the hair came from a dog infested with a certain species of flea that could only come from Olson’s Kennel on the shore of the Gotham River. He relayed this information to the police, who, led by Commissioner James Gordon, broke into the kennel and captured the Joker’s entire gang.

  Exhibit 8:

  Coffin used by the Joker when he faked his own death to gain access to the North Gotham Mausoleum.

  Exhibit 8A:

  Sound detector with which the Batman detected the Joker’s heartbeat in the mausoleum where the criminal’s loot from the Gotham Diamond Exchange robbery was hidden.

  Exhibit 9:

  Juggling balls filled with knockout gas, which the Joker used during his attempt to steal more than $200,000 of gate receipts from the Gotham Circus.

  Exhibit 9A:

  False clown nose worn over breathing filter by the Batman, who masqueraded as a Gotham Circus clown to apprehend the Joker.

  Exhibit 10:

  This mounted snake is a rare South African variety whose poison leaves victims with a grotesque smile on their faces. This is not the actual snake used by the Joker, but is a member of the same species. (Courtesy of Gotham Museum of Natural History.)

  Exhibit 10A:

  “Trump,” the mongoose that Batman borrowed from the Gotham Zoo to dispatch the Joker’s killer snake. (“Trump” is on loan from the Gotham Zoo. Please do not feed him or insert fingers into his cage.)

  Exhibit 11:

  This is the phony television camera the Joker used when masquerading as a member of the media during an inaugural dinner for the mayor. The small red button on the left fires the handgun that is hidden beneath the lens.

  Exhibit 11A:

  The lens from the Joker’s false television camera (see Exhibit 11). The Batman, suspecting just such an attack, had Robin sneak into the Joker’s headquarters and replace the original lens with this specially treated lens, which distorts the user’s perceptions and causes him to fire eighteen inches to the left of his target.

  Exhibit 12:

  Membership card to the exclusive Gotham Millionaires Club, made out to one Joe Ker. With this card, the Joker gained access to Gotham’s richest men and women, whom he planned to hold for ransom.

  Exhibit 12A:

  Gold-plated honorary membership card to the Gotham Millionaires Club, offered to the Batman by unanimous vote of the membership after the Dark Knight had foiled the Joker’s scheme. He declined membership, and donated the card to the Gotham Museum.

  Exhibit 13:

  This final exhibit is the cannister of lethal gas with which the Joker planned to kill himself after his most recent capture by the Batman.

  Exhibit 13A:

  Laughing-gas cannister substituted for Exhibit 13 by the Batman, which left the Joker laughing all the way to Arkham Asylum, where he currently resides. It is rumored that he is laughing still.

  Balloons

  Edward Wellen

  High above the stippled green that was a forest, a press helicopter intercepted the wind-driven ten-story-tall balloon.

  The cameraman in the chopper had a pasty face, scarlet lips fixed in a face-splitting grin, and Astroturf hair. As the chopper closed in, he used a helium tank to inflate a sausage balloon. Then he held up the sausage balloon to show lettering on it that read: SAY “CHEESE.”

  In the basket of the ten-story-tall balloon, Roman A. Clay, the billionaire publisher famous for his partying, motorcycling
, and ballooning, stepped between the two lovely models who formed his crew, put his arms around their bare midriffs, and smiled for the camcorder poking out of the chopper.

  The cameraman snapped a special cube into his fill light and triggered it. Superlight blinded Clay and his crew.

  They felt a thump and a jerk, but could see only a dazzle of benday dots. Slowly vision cleared, and revealed that a grappling iron now linked their basket to the chopper.

  The cameraman held up another sausage balloon. This one said: JOKER TOWING SERVICE.

  Roman A. Clay turned almost as pale as the cameraman. He was at the tender mercy of the notorious, the nefarious, Joker. His first thought was to unhook the grapnel, release the gas in the bag, and drop the balloon into the forest.

  But the Joker had traded the camcorder for an Uzi. So Clay made no move toward the grapnel. His hand, however, inched toward his cellular phone.

  The Joker saw the tycoon’s hand edge below the bulwark of the basket. The Joker signed to his pilot and the chopper slanted higher to let the Joker look down into the basket.

  CRACK! The Joker shot the phone out of Clay’s hand, shattering the phone in the process. Bits of high-impact plastic stung Clay and his crew, drawing screams from all three.

  The Joker held up another sausage balloon: NAUGHTY, NAUGHTY.

  Clay sagged against the railing. He looked over and down. All below was forest. The Joker had chosen the intercept point well. No one had witnessed the air piracy, no one currently watched the chopper tug the captive free balloon at a good clip off course and against the wind. All hope of rescue faded from Clay’s mind. When Clay’s balloon failed to keep its ETA, searchers would hunt for it tens of miles from where it supposedly went down.

  Needing comfort himself, he tried to comfort his crew as, under the crazy gaze of that weird face with its implacable fixed grin, the chopper towed the balloon toward the unknown.

  Ten hours later, Roman A. Clay’s staff at his Gotham City estate began to worry. And as the hours passed, the wire services started to chatter bulletins. The network anchor people impressively intoned these bulletins. Roman A. Clay’s balloon had vanished without a trace on its way home from a state fair in Kansas.