Batman (19 page)

It took Batman approximately two minutes to get from the Ace Chemical factory, through Park Row and across the barricaded part of the Old Gotham Freeway, to Amusement Mile, where the Gotham Casino stood near the old police headquarters, which had been abandoned since early in Commissioner Gillian B. Loeb’s tenure.

Once the casino had been Oswald Cobblepot’s showplace, but Batman had seen and heard nothing from the Penguin since the end of Protocol 10. Was he now in league with the Mad Hatter—and by extension the Riddler? It wasn’t out of the question.

Perched on the small water tower near the once-lavish building, Batman looked down at the street side. Its grand facade was shabby and neglected now, much of the neon shattered. The only cars on the street were abandoned—he had left the Batmobile on the freeway access road near the southwest corner of the Gotham City Olympus. No light was visible through any of the casino’s windows, but that didn’t mean anything. Like all of its kind, the Gotham Casino’s gaming area was sequestered from the rest of the world. Management liked to keep its gamblers away from windows and clocks, so it was easier for them to get lost in chasing that ever-elusive big score.

He dropped to the street and approached the front door. Easily bypassing the lock, he entered the casino, passing through a huge dark lobby hung with chandeliers. Their dangling crystals picked up light from an open doorway across the way, giving the lobby ceiling the effect of a starry sky. Batman heard the ratchet and jingle of slot machines. He crossed to the door and looked through.

The floor was alive with activity, all of it confined to a single area. A long row of people, all dressed in frock coats and silk suits, formal right down to the white spats on their shoes, moved from slot machine to slot machine, each pulling the lever once and then moving on after seeing the result. Behind them came others, wearing rabbit ears and uniforms decorated with the four suits of a deck of cards. They wrote with quill pens on long, dragging sheets of paper, recording the results of each spin and scurrying to keep up with their formally dressed partners.

Some of them looked up and saw Batman, but his presence didn’t affect their activity. They looked at him, looked over their shoulders as if someone must be watching, and then hurried on.

“Jervis Tetch!”

Batman’s voice carried over the clangor of the machines, yet everyone on the casino floor continued to ignore him. He walked along the rows of slot machines, scanning the room for the Mad Hatter, but not finding him. As the next gamer rushed past obliviously, Batman reached out and grabbed him by the collar of his coat.

“Where’s the Mad Hatter?” he growled.

“Unhand me!” the man cried. His eyes were wide with fear, but Batman didn’t seem to be the source. “I’m frightfully late!” Still the crime fighter retained his grip—if anything, he tightened it.

“Where is the Mad Hatter?” Batman repeated. He gave the man a shake.

“I beg you, sir, I do not know who that is. Let me go! There are arms to pull, numbers to see. Calculations must be performed!”

Batman let him go. With a gasp of relief the man scrambled to the nearest slot machine and pulled its arm. The wheels spun and returned a lemon, a cherry, and a number 7. The rabbit-eared woman following the patron dutifully recorded this, and then they were off to the next machine.

The casino floor had perhaps two hundred slot machines, and not all of them were being pulled in sequence. There was a pattern here, and Batman knew he would have to see it from above to understand it—if understanding it was worth the effort. Knowing Tetch, it would be some lunacy from Carroll’s book. The whole place stank of fear.

Those who didn’t believe fear had a smell had never been in its presence.

“There are numbers in the air here,” the Mad Hatter said from nearby. Batman turned to see him in the dealer’s position behind a blackjack table, his stringy straight hair falling out from beneath that ludicrously large top hat. The Dark Knight walked toward the table, and the Hatter dealt him two cards.

Batman looked at the cards. Ace of spades, ace of clubs. He glanced back up at the Mad Hatter, who beamed at him.

“Mustn’t act rashly,” he said.

“Split,” Batman said, flipping the aces over and lining them up next to each other.

“I do love an ace,” the Mad Hatter said. “It means one, it means eleven. Those other cards, they’re prisoners of their letters and numbers. Only the ace breaks free!”

From somewhere nearby, a raucous bell sounded loudly. Batman glanced over and saw a river of coins pouring out of the slot machine’s payout tray.

“Jackpot!” crowed the Mad Hatter. The entire crew of gamblers and rabbit-eared scribes converged on that machine. The man who had won the jackpot fell to his knees and covered his face as the coins continued to fall around him. The scribes scribbled on their scrolls and the other players all drew knives from within their fashionable ensembles.

“A once-in-a-lifetime event!” the Mad Hatter bellowed as the slot pullers fell on their colleague. Before Batman could move a muscle, their bloody knives flashed in the lights from the machines. When their work was done, the Mad Hatter raised both arms.

“Now then!” he cried. “Mustn’t be late!” The patrons and scribes ran in every direction, returning to the machines they had been approaching when the jackpot bell rang out.

“You’re going to run out of slot pullers,” Batman said grimly. He watched as the scribe who had been assigned to the doomed man took off her rabbit ears and approached the blackjack table. The Mad Hatter dealt her two cards.

She glanced at them.

“Hit.”

He dealt her a third card, the seven of hearts.

She flipped over her other two cards. Eight of hearts, nine of hearts.

“Bust,” the Mad Hatter said. He drew a knife from the inside pocket of his coat. The scribe tilted her head back, exposing her throat. “Batman,” the Hatter continued, “the Riddler wanted me to teach him the secrets of controlling the human mind. You see I excel at this. The secret is simple. One must make the subject fear you more than he—or in this case she—fears death. Madness is quite useful in this regard.”

Batman held himself in check, but if the Mad Hatter moved the knife, the fight was going to be on. He wasn’t going to sit there while Tetch cut the throat of a brainwashed minion, just for fun.

“You know what I love about a casino?” the Hatter asked. “The randomness. Nothing is rational here. People try to beat the odds. It’s silly, even stupid, but charming, because one sees human optimism and human desperation working together in intimate proximity. You know, the numbers we’re creating here will lead me to my Alice.”

“How?” Batman asked, to keep him talking.

“Because I, too, am a desperate optimist. As are you.”

“I’m more of a realist,” Batman said.

“That’s an ugly word. You fight and fight and fight and never win, but you keep fighting. If that qualifies as realism, you’re closer to madness than even I had hoped.”

“You were telling me about mind control.” Something changed in the ambient sounds, but it was subtle, and didn’t seem to be a cause for alarm.

“I do love that there are no clocks here,” the Mad Hatter said, ignoring him. “That permits me to convince my comrades that they are always on the verge of tardiness; and lateness,
tsk tsk
, is most strictly prohibited. With no clocks,” he continued, “I determine the time! It’s always six o’clock! He gathered himself, and looked straight at Batman. “Tell me, has Robin enjoyed the tea and bread I set out for him?”

“You did that?” Batman responded. “If that’s true, then you got here in record time. He said the tea was still hot when he came into the room.”

“Did it, had it done—it’s just a matter of verbiage. Words! We speak them. ‘Callooh, callay, all mimsy were the borogoves, and the mome raths outgrabe.’ Soon the numbers will reveal where my Alice has gone, and we will be together again.” A dreamy smile spread over his face, and he leaned toward the scribe, who still waited with her throat held up for the blade.

That’s it.
Batman reached out, caught the Mad Hatter’s wrist, and with his other hand slapped him in the face hard enough to knock his hat off. A look of shocked dismay took hold of his features.

“That was uncalled for, O Dark Knight,” Hatter said. The look slipped and was replaced with a sad expression. He looked at his knife hand, imprisoned in Batman’s grip. “May I put my hat back on?”

“Tell me about mind control, and the Riddler.”

The Mad Hatter dropped the knife. It clunked hilt-first onto the green felt of the blackjack table. With his free hand he reached down to the deck of cards and dealt Batman two, one for each face-up ace. Keeping his grip on the Mad Hatter’s wrist, Batman flipped over the cards.

Eight of clubs, eight of spades.

He had the proverbial dead man’s hand.

“Who could have predicted that?” the Mad Hatter said.

Abruptly Batman realized he wasn’t hearing the sounds of the slot machines. He glanced over his shoulder and understood why. The gamers were all gathered around the blackjack table, and they all had their knives out.

As the first of them slashed at him, Batman pulled the Hatter’s arm down, using his mass as a counterweight and launching himself into a twisting backward somersault over the table and into the dealer’s enclosure. He landed with the Hatter between him and the knives. Tetch sprang at Batman, who spun into a judo takedown, driving his opponent to the floor.

The gamblers began to scramble over the table to get at him. He dropped the nearest with a straight right hand, doubled another over with a spinning kick, then felt the tug of a knife blade cutting through his cape and the sharp bright pain of a blade nicking the back of his shoulder.

One of the slot players grabbed him from behind. Batman countered with an elbow that blocked the slash of his knife and followed through to crunch into the side of his face. He glanced down and saw the Mad Hatter on hands and knees, picking up his knife again. At the same time another slot puller leapt from the table, knife high and aimed at Batman’s face.

He stepped forward, ducking his head and grabbing a double fistful of the knife puller’s shirt and cravat. Pivoting, he brought the man down on the Hatter’s back with the force of his thrust and the slot puller’s momentum combined. The air
whoofed
out of the Hatter’s lungs and he rolled around on the floor gasping for breath as Batman stabbed a heel into the fallen gambler’s head. He recovered just in time to dodge another knife thrust.

Four down, but there were plenty more where they’d come from. In this confined space, sheer numbers would overwhelm him sooner or later. They were all on the table now, spread evenly around its half-circle. Their eyes were completely devoid of consciousness, as if they weren’t aware what they were doing. The contrast with the Hatter’s manic whimsy was even more unsettling than overt bloodlust.

One of them jumped down into the dealer’s enclosure. Batman dropped him as soon as his feet touched the floor, but in turning to do that, he exposed himself to others. A knife gouged at his ribs, slowed but not stopped by the protective material of his suit. He spun and kicked the wind out of his attacker, caught two others and smashed their heads together, then took another cut across the thigh as one of them flailed in mid-fall.

Eight down.

An idea occurred to him.

“That’s eight, Tetch,” Batman said. “Half of my hand. You’re the ace.” With one hand he fired a grappling hook up to the balcony. With the other he grabbed the Hatter around the waist. Still struggling to get his breath back, the villain didn’t resist as Batman triggered the spooling mechanism on the grappling gun, and jumped up out of the enclosure.

He and the Mad Hatter swung up and across the floor to the balcony, where Batman braced his feet and heaved the Hatter up over the railing before vaulting after him.

“I do appreciate the symmetry of that,” Tetch gasped. “Quick thinking.”

Batman hit him hard, twice. His eyes rolled back in his head, and then slowly focused again. Glancing down at the floor, Batman saw the gamblers looking around. Their scribes waited patiently as they searched the casino floor for Batman, and when they didn’t find him, they simply went back to what they had been doing.