by Jason Starr
“It’s good to see you,” Karen said. “I wasn’t expecting to see you for at least another week.”
“I just got nervous when I couldn’t reach you, so I figured I’d come today.”
“Nervous?” Karen was confused. “Why? Phone service sucks up here. You haven’t been able to reach me before, and you didn’t get nervous.”
Thomas didn’t want to frighten her by telling her about the robbery at Wayne Manor, and about his suspicions that Strange could have been involved. At least not yet. So he tried to keep the mood light.
“Oh, you know how I get,” he joked. “I’m like an overprotective father.” Then his eyes shifted toward the end table, landing on the music box he’d bought her last Christmas. She followed his gaze.
“Thank you, again, for the gift—I love it,” she said. “I listen to the music all the time. Especially at night, when I find it very comforting.” Then she hesitated. “Wait, is that weird?”
“No, it’s charming,” Thomas said, but he decided to shift the topic. “How are you fixed for clothes?”
“I’m okay,” she said. “Not much use for formalwear out here.”
“You sure?” he pressed. “Winter’s coming. Supposed to be a cold one this year according to the almanac. I’ll get you a warm coat—wool or down.”
Whenever Thomas brought Karen shirts, blouses, or coats he cut off most of the right sleeve, so she could get them on and leave her claw exposed. It didn’t seem nearly as sensitive to temperature extremes as the rest of her body.
“It’s very generous of you,” she said. She glanced at the floor then, and continued. “You know, I’m glad you’re here, because I’ve been thinking a lot about this, well, situation. And you don’t have to keep coming here, you know. I mean, Bruce is getting older now, and you work awfully long hours. I’m sure you’d rather spend time with your family than with me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Thomas said. “I enjoy coming here. And you are family to me.”
“I believe you… and I don’t believe you,” Karen said. “I know you care about me, and you’re a good man—if my own father were like you, then my life would’ve been so much different.”
She took a sip of tea, then looked away. When her gaze shifted back toward Thomas, her eyes were glassy, as if she was holding back tears. That was strange—she never cried.
“I can feel it whenever you come here,” she said. “I can see the pain in your expression when you look at me. Even when you’re smiling or laughing, it’s always there, in the background.”
“That isn’t true,” Thomas said.
“It is. I see it right know,” Karen said. “I know what it’s like to feel shame and self-hatred, so I’m pretty good at spotting it in others.” She snickered a little, holding one hand up to her nose. “Others. Like there are any others. I mean in you. I can spot it in you.”
Thomas reached out to hold her hand. When he realized he was about to grab her claw, he pulled it back instinctively.
“I… I’m sorry,” he said.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I don’t blame you. Whenever I see it in the mirror I get freaked out, too.”
“Look, I understand how you feel,” Thomas said, “at least I think I do, and I’m not going to lie and say it will always be as it is now, but I really do love spending time with you. I think you’re funny, and smart, and wise and—I know this will sound corny, but you’ve taught me a lot about how to live my life. Your fearlessness and dignity in the face of adversity are nothing short of remarkable.”
“You’re sweet, Thomas, and thank you for saying that.” She got up, walked to the window and stared out. “I appreciate all you’ve done for me and I don’t blame you for anything that happened to me, but I know you. You’d be happier without me in your life, without this obligation.”
“I’ll never abandon you,” Thomas said.
“It’s okay—I’ve lived a lot longer than I expected to when they were… treating me at Pinewood. Ha, treating me, like I had a medical condition that needed curing. I think their brainwashing is still affecting me, all these years later…” She cut herself off, and was silent for a couple of seconds and then said, “Oh my God.”
She still had her back to Thomas, still staring outside.
“What is it?” Thomas asked.
“I… I just saw someone,” she said. “Oh my God, he was behind that tree, and now he’s—”
A gun fired, and then glass in front of Karen shattered. Thomas darted across the room, grabbed her by the waist, and tackled her to the side as another bullet shattered the rest of the window where she had been standing a second earlier.
He held her down on the floor.
“Did you see who it was?” Thomas asked.
“No,” she said.
“Where’s the gun I bought you?”
“In the bedroom. In the top drawer of my dresser.”
“Stay down here, you understand me? Don’t move.”
“I won’t,” Karen said.
Thomas crawled, as fast as he could, into the bedroom. He passed other windows and feared that if he stood above the level of the sill he’d be killed. He had no idea who had shot at Karen, but he knew it was no coincidence—he’d been followed.
In the bedroom he came to his knees, reached up, and opened the top dresser drawer. He knew he didn’t have much time. Fumbling around he felt undergarments—panties, something silky, maybe a slip.
Damn it, where is it?
She said the top drawer, didn’t she? He tossed the undergarments onto the floor, reached further inside, but nothing was there. Becoming more frantic, he opened the other drawers, flung clothes onto the floor, but couldn’t find the gun.
Then he heard noise—a screen door opening, a creaking footstep. Someone was on the porch. He checked the bottom drawer, the only drawer he hadn’t checked yet, but the gun wasn’t there either. He got up and looked in the drawer of the night table, on the small bookshelf, in the closet, but time was running out.
The front doorknob rattled.
He looked for another weapon—the table light with a heavy base was the best he could find. He removed the shade and held the lamp upside down, over his shoulder like a club. Then he heard a loud bang and realized that the intruder had broken down the front door.
Thomas hoped Karen hadn’t listened to him after all. Hopefully she’d gotten away—maybe climbed out of the broken window and run into the woods. He moved to the door, stood with his back against the wall, and listened carefully. He heard creaking footsteps, but no more gunshots—a good sign, because if Karen had been in clear view the person would have shot again.
Suddenly there was a man’s voice.
“Okay, come on, let’s make this easier for all of us,” the man said. “I mean, it’s all over now anyway, so what’s the point of the hide-and-go-seek crap? I’m gonna find both of you anyway, so you might as well make it quick.” The harsh, gravelly voice sounded unfamiliar. Thomas remained still as the man’s footsteps grew louder.
“Come on, you freak show, where are you?” the man said. “Come on, lemme put you out of your misery. I’ll put a bullet in your head, right between your pretty eyes. You won’t know what hit you. You, too, Mr. Billionaire Wayne. It’s time to go bye-bye.”
Then the man stopped walking. All Thomas could hear was his own breathing, then maybe the intruder’s breathing too, unless he was imagining it. He kept a strong grip on the lamp, ready to swing.
Maybe ten seconds passed. It seemed much longer.
Then the footsteps resumed. As the guy entered the bedroom, everything seemed as if it was in slow motion. Thomas saw the tip of the gun, then the whole gun, then the guy’s arm.
He made his move—swinging the lamp like a club. He’d hoped to hit the man in the face, to knock him out or at least stun him, but the intruder was much taller than he had expected—maybe a foot taller than Thomas. The lamp’s brass base hit the guy’s upper chest.
Still, t
he force of the blow knocked him off balance. Thomas dropped the lamp and grabbed the guy’s arm, the one with the gun. As they struggled, his assailant managed to squeeze off a couple of shots. They went into the ceiling.
“You shoulda let me make it easy,” the guy said.
Thomas was overmatched physically, but he had learned some self-defense moves from Alfred. He kneed the guy in the gut, and when he bent over, Thomas head-butted him. Stunned, the man dropped the gun to the floor. Thomas went for it, but just when he was about to grab it, the guy grabbed him by the hair and pulled him back.
“You had your shot and you blew it,” the intruder said. He lifted Thomas up and tossed him, head-first, against the dresser. Sparks blocked his vision—he felt as if he might pass out, but he knew if he lost consciousness he’d never wake up again. So he garnered the strength to wheel around and charge at the guy—who wasn’t expecting any more resistance.
Thomas wanted to tackle him, but the guy was too strong. He couldn’t budge him, and the man easily grabbed him and pushed him back up against the wall. He must’ve retrieved his gun while Thomas was dazed, because he had it in his hand again and he pressed the tip of the barrel against Thomas’s forehead, between his eyes.
“Sayonara, billionaire,” the guy said. “Too bad you can’t take your money with you, huh?” He had scars on his face, a few teeth were missing, and his breath was foul. “But don’t worry, this is the painless part.”
Thomas stared straight ahead, at the guy’s thick neck, ready for the permanent darkness of death, and then he saw an image of Bruce, on the veranda overlooking the gardens at Wayne Manor, reading Beowulf. Bruce had a content, peaceful, Buddha-like smile. He was so young, but wiser than his years and had so much potential. Would he ever realize it? Was he strong enough to survive in Gotham without his father?
Then something odd happened. The image of Bruce vanished, but no gunshot was fired, and darkness didn’t set in. Thomas was still staring at the man’s neck, but something had pierced the center of it, maybe a blade, and then blood spurted like water from a garden hose. It came from the guy’s mouth, and Thomas’s face was warm and wet.
Then he realized it wasn’t a blade—it was one of Karen’s claws, and as she yanked the claw out of the guy’s neck, he crumpled to the ground and lay still.
Blood stung Thomas’s eyes. He could barely see, and the salty, metallic taste on his lips disgusted him. Then he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and saw that Karen had remained standing there, mesmerized and horrified, staring at her bloody appendage.
“It’s true,” she said. “It’s all true.”
Thomas had no idea what she was talking about. After his close encounter with death, he was still in shock himself.
“What’s true?” he asked.
“What people have always said about me,” she said. “Strange and Pinewood didn’t turn me into a monster—I’ve always been a monster. That’s what people used to say about me, after I killed my parents. In newspapers, on television, people on the street. ‘Karen Jennings is evil, she’s a monster, she deserves everything she gets.’
“I used to think they were wrong, that they didn’t understand who I really was. I was abused, I did it in self-defense. I told them I was the victim, not them. But no—they were right, and I was wrong all along. This is who I really am. This is the real me.” She looked frantic, but still she refused to cry.
“You’re not a monster,” Thomas said, “you’re a hero. You just saved my life, for God’s sake. Of course, I could’ve handled it myself if the gun I gave you had been in your dresser.”
She looked startled at the mention, and it seemed to calm her down, as he’d hoped it would.
“Oh, that’s right,” Karen said. “I got nervous the other night, and put it under my bed. Who knows? Maybe I was having a premonition.” Then her eyes widened, looking to Thomas’s left. “Thomas, watch out!”
Thomas turned and saw that the man, with the gushing wound in his neck, had managed to get ahold of the gun and, with his weak, unsteady hand, had aimed it again.
Thomas dove toward the man and wrestled him for the weapon. He couldn’t get the gun away, but managed to twist it, so that it was aimed upward, at the man’s own face. He had a demented smile, blood dripping from his lips.
“The carnival always ends,” he said.
Then the guy, most likely delirious from blood loss, probably unaware of where he was, or even who he was, pulled the trigger and a bullet ripped through his own head, splattering his brains on the wall behind him.
There was sudden, absolute silence in the room.
“The man in charge of Pinewood…” Karen looked terrified. “The man with the weird beard and the tinted glasses. He… he’s behind this, isn’t he?”
She seemed incapable of moving, and Thomas couldn’t either.
Hugo Strange.
Thomas’s greatest fear had come to pass. It had to be him—he had to be responsible. He’d hired people to break into Wayne Manor, and now had hired someone to follow Thomas, to find out what he knew. To locate the last, irrefutable evidence of his crimes.
Still, Thomas didn’t want to frighten Karen. Though she didn’t know Strange by name, she’d seen him many times. The poor young woman, she’d been through so much—he didn’t want her to feel any more pain. He stared at the mess on the wall—blood and brains dripping in a seemingly coordinated way, like a macabre work of modern art.
“Looks like we have our work cut out for us,” he said. “How are you fixed for sponges?”
EIGHT
A bunch of degenerates were hanging out in front of the liquor store on Caldwell Street and one of them recognized Harvey.
“Hey, look who it is.” The guy’s voice boomed. “Harvey Bullock. GCPD’s finest.”
The dude seemed sort of familiar. He had stringy long hair, over the shoulders, and looked like he hadn’t had a bath in weeks. He was drinking from a bottle of Scotch, without even bothering to put a paper bag over it.
Heading into the building to question Roberto Colon, Harvey nodded, vaguely acknowledging the seedy speaker. Then the guy broke away from his friends and came over to him.
“You don’t remember me, do ya, Harvey?” the guy said.
“Your face looks kinda familiar, but not the rest of you.” He looked the guy over, and made a half-hearted attempt not to show his disgust.
“I grew it out in Arkham.”
Harvey stopped, facing the guy. He took a closer look.
“You really don’t remember me, huh?”
“I don’t,” Harvey admitted.
“Ryan… Ryan Maxwell. You arrested me. They said I wasn’t fit to stand trial, and they were right—I wasn’t.”
Harvey was a quick draw, but he put his hand a little closer to his piece just in case. When an ex-con you locked up met you on the street, it rarely led to anything positive.
“Name rings a bell now,” Harvey said. “What did I arrest you for? Armed robbery? Rape?”
“I strangled my wife.”
Suddenly Harvey remembered the case. The wife hadn’t shown up for work for a few days. When Harvey and one of his ex-partners arrived at the apartment, Maxwell was sitting at the dining room table, having dinner, across from his dead wife. The body had been decomposing, but Maxwell didn’t seem to notice or care. The guy was a real freakin’ whack job.
“Shouldn’t you still be in Arkham?” Harvey asked.
“They let me out last week,” the guy said. “Get this. They said I was cured.”
Harvey wasn’t surprised. Because of overcrowding, Arkham had a revolving door these days and often let dangerous people out too soon—people who remained a threat to themselves and to society. You couldn’t blame the asylum for the problem, though. It was a numbers game—too many crazy people in Gotham versus too few beds in which to put them.
“Good for you,” Harvey said, and he gave Maxwell a thumbs up. “Well, it was great catching up.” Before he could
move, however, Maxwell got in front of him, wouldn’t let him go into the building. Man, the guy reeked, like he’d doused himself with a new cologne called Back of a Gotham Taxi.
“Trust me, Ryan,” Harvey said, “you don’t want to do this. I’ve already been having a messed up day, and you don’t want to deal with Harvey Bullock on a messed up day.”
“But you can’t go yet,” Maxwell said. “I mean you didn’t give me a chance to thank you.”
Harvey tried to breathe through his mouth to avoid the stench.
“Look,” he said, “I’m gonna give you and your hygiene issues one chance to get out of my face, and then I’m gonna have to cuff you and run you in. Next time they send you to Arkham, they’ll throw away the key.” He was bluffing, but the guy didn’t look like the brightest bulb in the chandelier.
“That’s exactly what I want.” Maxwell’s eyes widened with excitement. “Cuff me, please. You did such a great thing when you arrested me, Mr. Bullock. I’ll do anything to go back to Arkham.”
What the hell…
Harvey didn’t know how the shrinks tested people to find out if they’re crazy, but if one of the questions was, “Do you want to go back to Arkham?” and the person answered, “Yes,” then it was a safe bet the guy was a full-blown whacko.
“Maybe you have short-term memory loss,” Harvey said, “but Arkham ain’t exactly a country club. People would kill to get out of Arkham. A lot of them have.”
“No, no—I loved it there,” Maxwell insisted. “It was the happiest time of my life, really it was. I had three meals a day, and the occasional maggot in my grits didn’t bother me. I was busy all the time, had free medical care, lots of chances to socialize with talkative, eccentric people. Sounds sort of like a luxury cruise, doesn’t it?”
This can’t be real, Harvey thought. The guy continued.
“The bed wasn’t the most comfortable in the world, but I got used to it. One downside was that it was hard to get booze, but not impossible. It’s kind of like a mini-Gotham in there—it’s all about connections. If you know the right people, and do the right favors for the right people, you can get whatever you want. Out here… well, it sucks.”
