Jack felt the wrestling hold disappear. He stood again and straightened his coat, then ran a hand through his hair. He glanced around at his attacker.
Now, this was crazy.
The guy was maybe six feet tall, well muscled and wearing some kind of bat costume. Maybe, Jack thought, he really was some kind of professional wrestler. The bat had backed off a bit, giving them both some breathing space, but his eyes were fixed on Jack.
Jack grinned at him.
“Nice outfit,” he remarked.
There was no reply. Well, what did Jack expect from a guy in a bat suit?
“Jack?” Bob called up. “Let’s get out of here.”
Jack saw the .38 lying on the catwalk. That was the problem with a messy setup like this—people were dropping guns all over the place. And that’s when he saw Eckhardt turn to leave.
Jack grabbed the gun.
“Eckhardt!” he yelled. “Think about the future!”
Jack fired once. Eckhardt sprawled on the floor, dead, Jack was always good at this sort of thing. He turned the gun on Gordon.
But then the nut in the bat suit moved. Jack glanced over. There seemed to be a question on the bat guy’s face—a question or a challenge. Jack smiled. Nice outfit or no, you didn’t cross Jack Napier.
He fired, point blank, at the bat.
But the bat wasn’t still. He did something with his cape, swinging it forward.
The bullet ricocheted, bounced right off the goddamned costume, straight back to Jack.
He felt the pain in his cheek. Jack’s hand was there before he knew what he was doing. His fingers were covered with blood. He had been shot in the face.
He fell backward, off the catwalk, over the railing. No! His hand grabbed the catwalk’s edge.
He looked down. Below him, on the factory floor, was a bubbling vat twenty feet across. He had to pull himself up. But he had no strength. The whooshing sound was much louder here. He must be close to the sluice gates. His face was burning off.
His fingers slipped from the walkway, but he grabbed a pipe just below instead. A round, slippery pipe. The guy in the bat suit reached down from where he knelt on the catwalk, and grabbed Jack’s wrist.
Jack lost the pipe, but the Batman held him. His grip wasn’t firm; Jack could feel the bat’s cloth-covered fingers slipping away. He tried to reach his own hand up to grip the other’s wrist, but there was no strength left. Even through his burning nostrils, he could smell the fumes below. There was nothing left. Was this the end of the joke?
He felt his wrist slide again, felt the bat’s grasp slip by his fingers.
Jack fell.
He screamed all the way down.
The scream echoed around them as Napier plunged into the bubbling slime.
Gordon shuddered. Nobody, not even Jack Napier, should die like that.
“Goddammit!” he yelled. “We had him!”
But his men weren’t quite so emotional. With Napier gone, they had trained their guns on the Batman. A pair of police officers had worked their way to either end of the catwalk. They had him trapped.
Well, Gordon thought, they’d have something to show for their night’s work.
“Hold it right there,” he ordered.
The Batman raised his hands. The officers approached him from either side.
The bat flicked something at a nearby wall.
The room exploded with light, like an indoor fireworks display. Gordon shielded his eyes. The cops up there had been blinded. Where the Batman stood a moment ago, there was a pillar of white smoke.
“Look!” somebody yelled as a hook and line emerged from the smoke to latch on to a window overhead. Some of the men had started to fire, but the Batman was already shooting upward along the line, lost in the shadows above the lights.
The police stopped shooting into the dark. The bat was gone.
“Who is this guy?” somebody asked.
“I don’t know,” Gordon replied, “and until we find out, put a lid on it.”
His men finally seemed to be getting things under control. One by one, the remaining gunmen were giving up. But he had seen the Batman! This night had given Gordon a lot more questions than answers, and, with Eckhardt and Napier dead, there were probably some things he’d never find out.
There was only one thing Gordon was certain of: He’d see the Batman again.
First, it had been only his face.
Now everything was burning. He forced himself to think. Where was he? What could he do?
Jack had fallen into the vat, but he hadn’t stayed there. He had been pushed, with tremendous force, out with a wall of water, hanging for an instant in the open air. He had gone out the sluice gate, and fallen, forty feet, into the East River. The river that still threatened to drown him—if he didn’t burn up first.
There was something in his hand, something small and hard, with corners. Jack opened his eyes in the moonlight. Even with the water in his face, even through the pain, he could see, somehow, that he had grabbed his lucky deck.
The ace of spades slipped away in the current, the bullet hole clear through the black center. Then another ace, a nine, a deuce, and all four jacks, card after card carried away by the torrent. He gasped for breath as he felt the last of his lucky deck slip from his hand.
The last card was a joker.
CHAPTER FIVE
BATMAN FOILS ROBBERY!
JACK NAPIER DEAD!
WHO IS MASKED VIGILANTE?
Alexander Knox had never seen anything sweeter than those headlines. Gordon would have to tell him the truth now.
“Yes, Commissioner,” Knox said into the phone. “If there’s no Batman, then who dropped this guy Napier into the acid?” He grabbed the portable microphone with his free hand. “Wait a minute, I want to get this on tape.”
There was a loud click, then a dial tone. Gordon had hung up on him. Knox grinned. You can run, Commissioner, but you cannot hide from this ace investigative reporter. Sooner or later, you’ll have to answer for everything.
He looked up. Vicki had come into the room while he was on the phone. She was hanging up a series of photos on his bulletin board—it looked like some kind of a map. Bob the cartoonist peeked in the door, grinned at Knox, and tacked up a present of his own: a drawing of the Batman, with his arm on a somewhat startled Knox’s shoulder. Jokers, Knox thought. There’re always jokers.
He hung up the phone.
“Vicki Vale!” he called, pointing to himself. “Let me introduce you to Nostradamus!”
Vicki smiled and shook her head. “Look at this, Allie.”
Knox stood up and walked over to get a better look at the bulletin board. Vicki had put together a sort of montage map using aerial photographs.
She pointed rapidly to small yellow pins she’d placed in the photos. “Here’s the inner city, and here’s Axis Chemicals. Here are the sightings so far.”
Knox shook his head in wonder. “Did you do this? This is great.”
Vicki shrugged her lovely shoulders self-deprecatingly.
“Maybe the Batman’s got some sort of flight pattern or something.”
“Yeah!” Knox answered with growing enthusiasm. “Tonight we’ll walk the trail.”
This time Vicki’s smile was a little apologetic. “Tomorrow, maybe. I’ve got a date with Bruce Wayne. Sorry.”
Knox couldn’t stand it.
“Bruce Wayne?” he demanded. Maybe his voice was a little louder than it should have been. “No, a date is when two people go out to enjoy each other. A date with Bruce Wayne is when he goes out to a restaurant with mirrors, by himself!”
He looked back at Vicki. Her face was awfully close to his. Knox suddenly forgot all about shouting. God, look at those big blue eyes, those perfect lips. She was closer still. He closed his eyes.
She kissed him on the forehead.
His eyes opened. She was still smiling.
“You’re awfully sweet to be concerned,” she said brightly, “but
thanks anyway.”
With that, she left.
Bruce Wayne? Knox thought. What could she see in Bruce Wayne? What did he have that Allie Knox didn’t, except maybe money and a fabulous mansion and money and blueblood breeding and money and social connections and even more money? And now he was going to get the girl, too? That wasn’t fair!
Well, ace investigative reporters knew what to do when things weren’t fair. Certain private lives were about to get a public viewing. He picked up the phone.
“Copy, get me the morgue.”
“Morgue here,” a bored voice answered.
“Morgue,” Knox replied, excited enough now for both of them. “Give me all you got on Bruce Wayne.”
Vicki had been a lot of places around the world, but, somehow, none of them had been as nice as this—the two of them horseback riding in the fields behind Wayne Manor, the late-summer air cut by the first breezes of autumn, the setting sun turning the entire world to red and gold. She was sorry when they caught sight of the stables again. There were some moments, she thought, that should never end.
Bruce reined in his mount, a dark stallion with just a hint of white, as they reached the stable yard. Vicki quickly followed on the polite but frisky strawberry roan she had been given. She looked over at Bruce as they both dismounted.
“You’re not bad on a horse.”
He raised an eyebrow in disbelief as he groomed his horse with a curry comb. “Horses love me. I keep falling off. Maybe that’s why they love me. You should see me. I’m one big mass of bruises.”
Vicki couldn’t help but laugh. “Maybe we can arrange a little examination?”
Bruce put the curry comb on a rail and turned to her.
“Yeah, how about right now?” he asked quickly.
Vicki almost felt as though she should take a step away.
“Just kidding,” he admitted.
He flashed his quick, mischievous grin. “You thought you had me, didn’t you?” He started to walk up toward the main house, then stopped so that she could walk beside him.
Vicki looked over at her date, even more dashing in the reddish glow of the setting sun. There is something about you, Bruce Wayne. Something that tries to be very hard, almost impenetrable, but is really very, very vulnerable. Vicki thought about how quickly he’d picked up on her innuendo. She’d had that sort of problem with men before. But with Bruce, the “how about right now” wasn’t the blundering sexual come-on she might get from an Allie Knox. With Bruce, the comment seemed more of a defense mechanism, as if he had something to hide.
They walked the rest of the way to the manor in silence. Bruce led her to a broad patio at the rear of the house and asked her to sit in a chair at one side of a white table. Alfred appeared silently, bearing a bottle of champagne. He smiled briefly at Vicki. She smiled back. Then the butler was gone.
It took Bruce a long moment to get the champagne uncorked. He obviously gave this work to other hands most of the time. The cork popped at last, and Bruce managed to get most of the champagne into a couple of handy glasses.
There was a discreet cough from the patio door.
“The Historical Society called to remind you of the banquet,” Alfred announced. “Should I say you’ll be there?”
“Yes, absolutely,” Bruce agreed a bit distractedly. He glanced at Vicki. “I’ll be there.”
The butler turned to leave.
“Alfred—” Bruce interrupted his retreat. “Which society?”
“Historical,” Alfred replied.
“Oh, yeah, right,” Bruce replied brightly, as if a veil had been lifted from his eyes. “Yes.”
Alfred smiled politely and disappeared into the house.
Vicki looked over at Bruce. “That Alfred’s great.”
“I can’t find my socks without him,” Bruce agreed. “Been with the family since I was born.”
He yawned as he finished pouring the champagne.
“Am I keeping you up?” Vicki asked with a grin.
He looked a little sheepish. “I’m sorry. I’ve got a lot going on at the moment.”
“Like who?” she needled.
That seemed to fluster him even more. “No, just business. I’ll be honest with you, I bore myself silly.” He lifted his glass in her direction, as if in a toast. “Tell me about you.”
Vicki considered as she cradled her champagne glass in her open palms. What was there to tell?
“I take pictures,” she began. “And I love doing it. I feel naked without a camera.”
One corner of Bruce’s mouth turned up slightly. “Well, we’d better get you one.” She found herself smiling in return.
“Go on,” he urged.
“I’ve been floating around for a while, doing fashion,” she continued. “It was all right . . . I don’t know. Things change.” There was something about this man, maybe his intensity, that made her really want to explain the way she felt, in a way that perhaps she hadn’t even explained it to herself.
“How old are you?” she asked him at last.
“Just turned thirty-five,” he answered.
About what she’d guessed. “You’ve probably had it happen too. You wake up one morning and say, ‘Hey! This is who I am!’ ” She paused to take a sip of her champagne. “I see things through cameras. All kinds of things. Not just long legs and great skirts but . . . things. You know?”
“I’m not sure,” he replied.
“Well.” She put down her glass with a shrug. “I just picked up and left.”
“What did you see?” he prompted.
Vicki sighed. “A lot of hotels. A little terror. A little love once in a blue moon.”
“A little terror,” Bruce repeated slowly, considering every word. “A little love.”
“It’s out there,” she replied softly. “I was never in the right place at the right time, I guess.”
Bruce had no answer for that. He stared out at his estate and the last rays of the fading sun.
So far, Vicki realized, they had been talking only about her.
“You’re a little elusive, Mr. Wayne,” she ventured. “I feel there’s a lot going on in there.”
He glanced back at her. “Oh—not really.”
“Come on,” she demanded quietly. “Say what you’re thinking.”
It took him a moment to start.
“I was just thinking how beautiful you looked on that horse . . . and that—it’s kind of nice to have someone here who notices things.”
Such a simple thing to say, Vicki thought. Somehow, it made her feel very warm inside.
“See,” she said with a smile. “I do have an extraordinary eye.” She reached her hand across the table.
“Two,” he replied. He took her hand in his. They both looked out at a sunset that might go on forever.
She’d had a little too much champagne. The only way she could keep from falling was to hang on to Bruce’s arm. How were women supposed to drink and walk in high heels, anyway?
He led her into the entryway to Wayne Manor, a modest room about the same size as the combined editorial offices of the Gotham Globe. It was all so opulent, and so unreal.
She waved at the staircases to either side.
“I feel like I’m in Paris in the thirties.” She giggled. “Is this fair? I’m half drunk and you’re not even—”
She almost lost her balance again, but Bruce caught her in time. He’d probably get her a car now and send her home. He was such a gentleman. That was Vicki’s problem. She was always getting stuck with gentlemen.
“Two drinks and I’m flying,” he admitted. She looked up at him, safe in his arms.
“Why are you afraid of flying?” she whispered.
They kissed at last.
CHAPTER SIX
Jack couldn’t see much with the bandages. And he didn’t feel like doing too much looking around this pigsty, either. He’d done enough gazing out broken windows, read too much subliterate graffiti. He’d be glad to get out of here. This
kind of hole was too low-rent even for rats.
Dr. Davis busied himself with his outdated instruments. The doctor always busied himself with something. It was so much easier than having to talk to the patients. Still, Davis had gotten a couple of bullets out of Jack before, and both patient and doctor had survived. A quack like Davis was the best you could do when you were hiding out.
The doctor turned to him at last, a nervous twitch fighting with his insincere smile.
“Well, let’s see how we did.”
Slowly, much too slowly, he snipped the bandages away, then pulled free the last of the gauze.
Davis took a step away. He gasped, the smile gone, his eyes wide with something like fright.
Jack didn’t like that expression.
“Mirror,” he ordered.
The doctor only stood there, openmouthed.
“Mirror!” Jack demanded.
The doctor cleared his throat, quickly picking up a hand mirror from the table at his side. He passed the mirror to Jack. Davis’s hand was shaking so hard that it took Jack a minute to grab the handle. He pulled the mirror in front of his face.
Oh, God!
The mirror slipped from his hands to shatter on the floor. Jack heard a low sob, which he realized must have come from his own throat.
“You—you understand that the nerves were completely severed, Mr. Napier,” Davis explained hastily.
Jack began to laugh.
The doctor pushed at the table behind him, rattling the outdated surgical equipment.
“You see what I had to work with here—”
Jack laughed even louder. The doctor covered his face, afraid to look at him.
“I’m sure,” Davis muttered, “with the proper recon—recon—reconstructive surgery—”
Jack couldn’t take it anymore. He walked out of Davis’s office, slamming the door behind him. And he laughed and laughed, screams of laughter echoing up and down the tenement halls.
He had been wrong. The joke wasn’t over yet.
It was just beginning.
God, what a day. He was getting too old for this.
He had thought the hot shower would help, but he was just too weary from all the phone calls, the legwork, the deals and arguments. That was the problem when you lost your number-two man. He had had to reshuffle the whole organization.
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