DC Comics novels--Harley Quinn

by Paul Dini

  Eventually, she thought she could persuade Dr. Leland to give him yard privileges—very brief at first. But when she saw how well behaved he was, she’d let him stay outside longer, and with fewer armed guards. Maybe even no snipers.

  And then someday, it would be the Joker’s turn to go to the County Pool. How proud she would be! It was all a matter of helping him take one step at a time. They would take those steps together and then one day, those steps would lead the two of them out the front door of Arkham Asylum, through the gates, and back into the real world. He would be a free man and she would be right by his side.

  Harley had the whole thing mapped out in her mind by the time she got back to the Joker’s cell. Except when she laid it all out for him, his reaction wasn’t what she’d hoped for.

  “And how long will this brilliant scheme of yours take?” the Joker asked her. “How many decades?”

  “Not more than one,” she told him, maintaining a cheerful, encouraging attitude. “Or not much more. But you can’t look at it that way, not all at once. You have to take one step at a time, and I’ll be right there with you—”

  “Easy for you to say.” The Joker gave a hard, humorless laugh. “One step at a time, you’re with me all the way. But you’re not. When it’s quitting time, you get to knock off, go home and leave me here, buried alive. And what are the big rewards I get if I’m a good boy—an extra minute of hot water in the shower? A dinner only half the orderlies have spat in rather than all of them? If that’s it for the next ten years, I gotta tell you, I’m just not feeling the love.”

  Harley was shocked. “Who spat in your dinner?”

  “How should I know? I can’t tell one of gob of saliva from another,” the Joker said bitterly. “What time is it? How long before you leave me again like you always do? How am I supposed to sleep tonight knowing that tomorrow three schlubs are getting out of this godforsaken snake-pit to go swimming. And all they had to do was sit and nod like bobble-heads at whatever that quack Davis babbled at them.”

  The Joker dug his fingers into his hair and, for a moment, Harley was afraid he was actually going to rip it out of his head by the roots. Then he looked up again, his face agonized.

  “I’m trying, Doc, I really am. But I don’t think I can stand having to sit down here and think about those three nothings paddling around in water-wings.” Tears began to well up in his eyes; Harley felt her jaw drop. “Like I said, I’m trying. But when I look ahead, all I can see is a long straight empty road through a place more barren than a desert. And at the end of it is an open, unmarked grave in Potter’s Field.”

  “Don’t!” Harley sat down beside him. “You mustn’t think like that.” She touched his arm lightly.

  The Joker shrugged her off. “When you leave tonight—when you walk out that front door into the cool night air—I want you to imagine how you’d feel if you knew that the only way you’d ever leave this building was on a stretcher with a sheet over your face.”

  “Don’t talk like that!” Harley had meant it to sound like a command but it came out as a desperate plea. “I would never let that happen to you!”

  The Joker looked at her, and she had never seen his eyes so sad. “I want to believe that, my dear Dr. Harley Quinn, I really do.”

  “It just takes… a little time,” she said lamely.

  The Joker dropped his head. “Of course it does,” he said in a low, mournful voice. “But maybe not much more than a decade, so I guess I should be glad about that.” He took a long shuddering breath. “I thought you were different. I thought you understood that you have to be bold—daring! You have to grab the world and shake it up, not creep through it like a mouse.”

  Harley knelt in front of him and took his face in her hands. “Have faith in me,” she begged him. “I won’t let you down. You’ll see.”

  He took a deep shaky breath and looked up. His eyes were shiny but not quite tearful.

  “You’ll see,” Harley said again in a whisper.

  The Joker leaned forward and, for a moment, she hoped this was the moment she had dreamed about, hoped for, yearned for.

  It wasn’t.

  When his lips were bare inches from hers, he drew back and lay down on the bed with his back to her. “Good night, dear doctor,” he said, speaking through a yawn. “Sleep well. Maybe tomorrow will be better.”

  Oh, puddin’, you have no idea, she told him silently.

  Everyone in the van, including the patients, stared at Harley with the same dumbstruck expression.

  “Is this some kind of joke?” Dr. Patel demanded.

  “No,” the Joker chuckled, “it’s some kind of Joker.”

  Harley stepped on his foot, giving him a warning glance. “It’s part of his therapy,” she said. “The decision was last-minute but it’s completely authorized.” Before Dr. Patel could argue, she stepped back from the van’s open side-door and urged the Joker to get in. She was about to climb in after him when she saw that every seat was taken.

  “Looks like you just got de-authorized.” Dr. Patel twisted around to look at the Joker in the seat behind him. “You. Out.”

  “Stay right where you are,” Harley ordered the Joker, who hadn’t moved. “I’ll follow in my own car. My patient can ride with me.”

  “No, he can’t,” said the man in the passenger seat up front. “It’s against the rules to transport a prisoner in a private vehicle.”

  “He’s a patient,” Harley corrected him.

  “I don’t care if he’s a kumquat,” the man replied. “No Arkham inmate is allowed to travel unsecured in a passenger car.”

  “He shouldn’t really be here, either,” said Dr. Patel, glaring at Harley. “We’re set for three patients, not three patients and him.” He turned to the Joker again. “Out. Better luck next lifetime.”

  “He can ride if there’s a seat for him,” Harley insisted. “Which there is, right?” She looked at the guys in front. It crossed her mind that there shouldn’t have been any extra seats, but she couldn’t think why and there wasn’t time to wonder. She was too busy taking bold action, grabbing the world and shaking it up, which was the only way you could make any real progress.

  “Dr. Quinzel could sit on my lap,” the Joker said helpfully. Harley glared at him and mouthed Don’t.

  “Nice try, but it’s one seat to a customer,” said the man in the front seat. He looked at Dr. Patel and shrugged. “Relax, Doc. We still outnumber the, uh, patients.”

  “Then it’s settled,” Harley said quickly, before Dr. Patel could argue. “I just have to run up to my office and get my car keys.”

  When she came out again, the van was gone.

  * * *

  Harley told herself she was only irritated the van hadn’t waited, not flooded with an overwhelming sense of impending doom. Maybe the driver had fully intended to wait for her but Dr. Patel ordered him to go, just out of spite.

  Well, he’d get his, Harley fumed as she got behind the wheel of her Smart Car. When Dr. Leland came back tomorrow, she would find Harley’s detailed report on how the Joker had been on his best behavior throughout the trip to the County Pool, with no thanks to Dr. Patel, who had been obstructive and uncooperative.

  Of course, Dr. Leland would be shocked at her daring to take such bold action. In fact, she would probably yell a little—or, okay, a lot. But once she got past that and Harley explained about bold action and grabbing the world and shaking things up as the key to making progress, Dr. Leland would be impressed. In fact, she might actually be awestruck. She’d try not to show it because a boss wasn’t supposed to be awed by their employee. But Harley would know she was.

  Then maybe Dr. Leland would see she shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, she had taken Harley’s advice letting the trip go ahead. Surely she’d see Harley’s taking the Joker to the County Pool really had been the best way—the only way—to demonstrate how successful her program of therapy had been. She’d probably have to remind Dr. Leland how it was always easie
r to get forgiveness than permission.

  Harley just hoped her boss wouldn’t praise her so much that it alienated the other doctors. Dr. Patel’s head might explode.

  * * *

  Two miles from the County Pool, Harley spotted the van on its side in a ditch. All three of Dr. Patel’s patients were sitting on the shoulder looking traumatized. One of the nurses was shouting into a cell phone and gesticulating with his free hand. Dr. Patel was nowhere to be seen; worse, neither was her puddin’. Harley’s heart was pounding so hard it was painful as she pulled into the breakdown lane, and she had trouble getting her door open because she was shaking with terror.

  “What happened?” she asked, running up to the nurse with the phone. “Where’s my patient?”

  Nathan the orderly pulled her away from the nurse, who turned his back to her. “We had an accident,” Nathan said.

  “Thanks for that, Captain Obvious,” she snapped. “Now where’s my patient?”

  “Dr. Patel is in the van,” Nathan went on, holding her by her shoulders and talking into her face earnestly, as if he thought she might not understand him. “We can’t move him. The driver was knocked unconscious by the airbag—”

  “My patient!” she yelled. “How badly was he hurt?”

  “I don’t know.” Nathan looked annoyed now. “I’d say not at all, since he was the first one out of the van. Another car came along—”

  “Oh my God. Did it hit him?” Harley tried to pull away but Nathan was too strong.

  “No, it didn’t hit him,” Nathan said impatiently. “The driver stopped, picked him up, and drove away. Like they knew each other.”

  Harley felt a dropping sensation in her stomach. “I didn’t pass anyone—”

  “They went the other way, toward Gotham.” Nathan gave her a little shake. “Dr. Quinzel, please—listen to me!”

  Harley stared at him. “I am listening.” God, what was wrong with him? Maybe he was in shock.

  “Emergency services are on the way but I need you to take a look at Dr. Patel and check everyone else for signs of concussion or Traumatic Brain Injury,” Nathan said, trying to speak quickly while over-enunciating. “Can you do that for me, Dr. Quinzel? Someone could be hurt bad. We need you.”

  The words snapped Harley into focus. “Of course,” she said. “Where’s the first-aid kit?”

  * * *

  The ten minutes it took for the paramedics to arrive seemed like hours. By then, Harley had determined that everyone, including Nathan, had at least a mild concussion but no one had sustained a TBI, not even the driver. Harley sniffed his breath surreptitiously and checked him for a flask or pills but found nothing. If he’d been DUI, he’d hidden it well. But she’d tell the paramedics to test his blood for everything. If he was drunk or on drugs, she would kill him with her bare hands.

  Dr. Patel was in very bad shape. He had dislocated his left hip and broken his tibia and possibly his fibula on the same side. Why he wasn’t screaming was beyond her. His three patients had come through with contusions that would be multicolored by tomorrow, but they were all right. She’d thought Dudley the Dud’s nose was broken but his eyes weren’t black; apparently he just had a crooked profile.

  When the paramedics finally showed, the police were right behind them. Harley let Nathan deal with the paramedics while she told the cops her patient had been forced into a car and taken away from the scene right after the accident. They listened intently, taking lots of notes, all the way up until the moment she told them who her patient was.

  Immediately, they started pushing her toward their squad car, even though she told them she hadn’t been in the accident and she had her own car. They assured her she would get her car back undamaged. Why had they felt they had to specify it would be undamaged, Harley wondered. Why wouldn’t it be?

  Then they opened the back door of the cruiser expecting her to climb in, and she flashed back to the last time she’d been in the back seat of a cop car. She knew damned well what would happen next.

  Harley pulled free and sprinted down the middle of the road, screaming for help.

  “I wasn’t hysterical,” Harley told Dr. Leland, barely managing not to shout. “But I’d just discovered my patient had been kidnapped—”

  Sitting in the chair beside her bed in the Gotham City Hospital ER, Dr. Leland squeezed her eyes shut for a moment; when she opened them again, she looked weary. “That’s not how Nathan tells it.”

  “What does he know? He’s concussed; he probably didn’t even know where he was,” Harley snapped. “My patient was in shock when he clambered out of the van after it had rolled over who knows how many times—”

  “It tipped over on its side after it went into the ditch. It never rolled, not even once.” Dr. Leland sounded like she was having trouble keeping her patience. What did she have to be upset about? Her patient hadn’t been kidnapped.

  “Did they give that driver a blood test?” she asked, lowering her voice. “How does a so-called experienced driver end up in a ditch in good weather with almost no traffic on the road?”

  “Dr. Quinzel, what is wrong with you?” Dr. Leland demanded, her face red with exasperation and anger. “What possessed you to put the Joker in a van without restraints or armed guards? Please tell me he overpowered you and threatened your life. Tell me you acted in fear of your own safety.”

  Harley shook her head, bewildered. “I don’t understand.”

  “What don’t you understand?” Dr. Leland said, looking more exasperated.

  “I wanted to show you how far he had come,” Harley told her. “So when you came back, you’d see how much he’s recovered. There wasn’t a seat for me so I had to take my own car.” She went on to explain how the driver had left when she had gone inside to get her car keys and how the van was already in the ditch when she caught up with them. Her Smart Car had a top speed of eighty mph. The van driver must have been on something and driving like a maniac.

  “Experienced prisoner transport driver, my eye!” Harley said, getting worked up again. “I demand he be tested for every drug there is. Where are you going?”

  Dr. Leland didn’t answer as she left the treatment bay, pulling the curtain shut behind her. Then she poked her head back in. “Don’t move,” she ordered.

  “I won’t,” Harley said in a small voice.

  * * *

  It didn’t take long for Joan Leland to put together what had happened. A couple of miles from the County Pool, the Joker had removed his seatbelt, attacked the other passengers, especially Dr. Patel, and then gone after the driver, forcing the van off the road and into a ditch. After giving Dr. Patel a few extra kicks, the Joker had climbed out of the van and made a cell-phone call. A minute or two later, a car appeared and picked him up. No one got a look at the driver, and the best description anyone gave of the car was that it had been a light color, beige or cream.

  The cell phone interested Dr. Leland more than the car. Nathan said the Joker had it with him, and on hearing this, her heart sank. Harleen Quinzel knew patients were forbidden to have cell phones and staff members could be fired just for letting a patient borrow one. If she confronted her, the silly little girl probably wouldn’t even deny it.

  She should just fire Dr. Quinzel and be done with it, Joan Leland thought, except that would leave them shorthanded. And now they also had to do without Dr. Patel.

  Everything might have been different if Dr. Davis hadn’t been late for work.

  Dr. Davis was almost never late but this morning he had gone out to his car and found three flat tires. Because it was rush hour, he’d had to wait ages for a tow truck and then even longer at the garage for someone to change the tires.

  While he’d been waiting, he had called Dr. Patel to say he’d had some car trouble and he’d meet the group at the County Pool. Dr. Patel had wanted to wait for him but Dr. Davis insisted they go ahead—if they weren’t going to cancel it because Dr. Leland couldn’t be there, they shouldn’t delay it just because he was
running late.

  Dr. Leland asked the nurses and the orderlies why they had gone along with Dr. Quinzel’s putting the Joker in the van. They all said the same thing: Dr Quinzel told us it was authorized. We assumed that meant you okayed it. You okay everything she does.

  So there it was, the awful truth: it wasn’t Dr. Davis’s fault or Dr. Patel’s or even the Joker’s. Joan Leland had only herself to blame for this breathtaking instance of FUBAR. By allowing herself to be dazzled by Harleen Quinzel’s fancy psychiatric footwork, she had somehow given her too much credibility.

  This is the way the world ends, Joan Leland thought miserably; not with a bang or a whimper but by assumption. Better luck next universe.

  Only the world wasn’t going to end, of course—that would be too easy. The world would go on and she’d have to answer for every misstep and wrong that had resulted in the Joker’s escape.

  When the board asked her what she had to say for herself, would she have the nerve to tell them she had allowed Harleen to treat the Joker exclusively because it had been the easiest thing to do? Yes, it had made extra work for her and the other staff psychiatrists, but it had kept the Joker too busy to stir up trouble. He hadn’t been bribing her orderlies to smuggle things in or out for him, or instigating disturbances among the other patients, or dreaming up how to prank the staff in new and dangerous ways whenever he got bored.

  Dr. Leland had thought—hoped—he’d be so infatuated with his pretty young therapist, he might cooperate with treatment and improve in spite of himself. And it had kept the new doctor too busy to come up with another fiasco like the women’s group. It also kept her too busy to ask more questions about board members who came and went at all hours, and the odd characters and even odder equipment they brought with them.