The Further Adventures of Batman (14 page)

Strange grammar for a physician, I thought.

“Yes,” Batman said. “It’s in the Catskills. Back in 1957, it was where the biggest crime boss meeting in history was held. Also the most embarrassing, since it was broken up by the police.”

“And is that what you think you’re doing, Batman?”

I gasped at this implication.

“I knew this conference was going to take place because I overheard your boss making the arrangements. Where is the Big Boss, anyway?”

I didn’t expect them to answer Batman’s bold challenge, but someone did. Astonishingly, the voice was female. Even more incredible, it was a voice I recognized!

“I’m right here,” Dr. Lace said composedly. “But I can hardly believe you ‘overheard’ anything, Batman, since you were well under the influence of a hypnotic drug at the time.”

Batman’s smile was wide beneath his mask.

“Sorry, doctor. Whichever delightful concoction you introduced into my system had no effect whatsoever. You see, I made sure I was immunized against all your hypnotics some time ago. At the beginning of your treatment, as a matter of fact.”

“That’s impossible!”

“The nice thing about Alpaproxide and Chloropram and the rest of those drugs—they can all be nullified by one compound. Of course, I had to be my own guinea pig before I could offer the same remedy to your other patients—like Commissioner Gordon, and Randolph Spicer of the FBI, and of course, your latest victim, Mayor Donovan.”

“Hey, what is this?” The grating voice was harsher than ever. “What’s going on here, Doc? I thought you said Batman was completely under control?”

“He was!” Dr. Lace said, and I detected a nervous quaver in her voice. “You know what he’s been doing, acting like a complete lunatic, just as I ordered . . .”

Batman laughed, without a hint of nervousness.

“I enjoyed those little charades you devised for me, Doctor. It was fun carrying out your ‘hypnotic’ suggestions. Almost as much fun as becoming your patient in the first place.”

“Wait a minute!” one of the others cried. “Are you kidding us? You
didn’t
have a nervous breakdown?”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” Batman said. “I simply thought it was the best way to find out if what I suspected was true—that Commissioner Gordon and others were being strangely influenced
not
to do their jobs. I’ve known Gordon a long time, and he never gave so many wrong orders, or followed such wrong leads, or reacted so wimpishly to a crime wave. I knew there was something wrong with his attitude, and I began to wonder if that ‘attitude’ wasn’t being formed by somebody else.”

“He is lying!” Dr. Lace said defensively. “The man was an emotional wreck when he came to me.”

“Actually, you
did
do me good,” Batman said with a grin. “You took my mind off my problems, Doctor. You gave me something to look forward to—like seeing all these illustrious gang bosses locked up in Gotham City jail.”

“I’ve heard enough!” the harsh voice exploded. For the first time, I saw its owner, a huge man with barrel chest and hands like two sides of beef. I recognized Tough Teddy Thomas, once the most notorious crime figures in the country, long believed to be part of the asphalt in the Gotham City thruway. “This guy made a jackass out of you, Doc! He was the one playing games, not you! Only I’m making sure the game is over—”

To my horror, he drew a revolver from a shoulder holster, aimed it point blank at Batman, and fired! The force of the bullet sent Batman flying back against the wall of the conference room, and then limp as a rag doll, he slid to the ground and rolled over on his face.

Before my very eyes, Batman had been executed.

The stunning event electrified the assembly. Suddenly, chairs were pushed back and overthrown. The air was thick with cries and imprecations, and then there was a mad rush for the exit. The doors of the conference room were slammed open so precipitously that I was momentarily concealed behind them. Even when I could no longer remain hidden, my presence went completely unnoticed by the mobsters. Then I realized the reason. I was dressed just like most of the hoodlums posing as hospital patients, in robe and pajamas. They assumed I was one of them!

When the room was emptied, I hurried to Batman’s side, certain that I could do no more than pay my last respects. I was already in tears, deeply regretting that I could never tell the fallen hero how sorry I was not to have trusted him from the beginning, not to have understood the elaborate game he had been playing to defeat this terrible criminal conspiracy. It was painful to realize that all his valiant effort, his willingness to humiliate himself for the greater good, was all in vain, that the villains had escaped leaving Batman to History.

Then I heard the sirens, and realized that Batman had foreseen this possibility, that he had arranged for police action before his arrival—but would they be in time?

“Don’t worry, Alfred,” Batman said. “I’ve wired all the exit doors shut with Batwire. The only way out of this building is through the garage, and they’ll run into quite a number of squad cars there.”

I could only gape at Batman as he rose to his feet and began to work his way out of the camisole.

“I’ve heard Houdini could do this in four minutes,” he said lightly. “Let’s see if I can beat his record.”

I must record that he did not. Batman was free of his restraint in four minutes and fifteen seconds. The cloth garment hit the ground with a metallic thud.

“It’s a bullet-proof shield,” Batman explained. “I slipped it into a camisole before I allowed myself to be captured. Just to be on the safe side.”

“You
wanted
to be caught?” I gasped.

“I thought it was the best way to get a confession from Dr. Lace.” He removed the tiny tape recorder attached to his belt, and smiled. “Now I have it.”

I must have collapsed suddenly, because the next minute was lost to my memory. I found myself in a chair, with Batman administering to me with a glass of water.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “The truth is, I thought it was entirely my fault that you were captured.”

“I’m the one who has to apologize to you, Alfred,” he said. “I simply couldn’t confide in you or anyone else about what I was doing; I couldn’t afford to rouse the slightest suspicion about the state of my mental health.”

“Then—it was all a ruse? From the beginning?”

“Only a game,” Batman smiled. “There was definitely a method in my ‘madness.’ ”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “I understand perfectly. And I’m sure everyone in Gotham City will deeply appreciate the sacrifices you made.”

“However,” Batman said amiably, “no matter what the news media say about all this, don’t be surprised if some people persist in believing that I really
am
‘bats.’ ”

Of course, it was the truth. It’s human nature, I suppose, to believe the worst of others. To this day, there are people who think Batman is some schizophrenic with delusions of grandeur. There are others who think Batman is only a figment of someone’s fevered imagination. Batman doesn’t mind. He’s willing to let the criminals of this world continue to live in fool’s paradise, until that dark night when they see the black shadow of batwings against the circle of the yellow moon.

Subway
Jack

A BATMAN ADVENTURE

Joe R. Lansdale

OLD GOTHAM CITY CEMETERY (early October)

The moon . . .

The cemetery was at the top of the hill and dead center of the hill was the grave. It was marked by a stone cross covered in dark mold and twisting vines. There were other graves, of course, and all of them in a state of equal disrepair, but this was the one Jack Barrett wanted.

He climbed to the top of the hill and leaned on his shovel with one hand and held his flash with the other. The beam played across the stone marker but revealed little. Age and mold and vines had taken care of the writing there. Still, Jack had researched enough to know this was the spot.

He turned off the flash, put it in his coat pocket, and looked around. The hill the grave was on was high enough that it stood above the stone walls of the cemetery and afforded a look at the city; the city that had grown up around it over the years and now blinked its neon eyes over this pile of dirt and stone and bones.

Jack could hear the cars roaring along the city streets, and he thought he could hear the rumble of the subway nearby. To the left of the hill was a great, brittle-looking oak, and he looked up through the branches to watch the moon coasting through the sky behind a veil of clouds. A cool wind blew through the cemetery, rattled the limbs of the tree, ruffled Jack’s hair, and blew leaves before it.

Jack took a deep breath, put the shovel to the dirt and began to dig. The sound of the wind, the cars, and the subway died for Jack, and all he heard was the whistle of the shovel sliding into moist earth.

He dug until he came to a cracked stone slab about which were wrapped some rusty chains held fast by a corroded padlock. He put the shovel to the chains, and they snapped as easily as if they had been twine. He worked the point of the shovel into a crack in the slab and lifted out huge chunks until he revealed a short row of dark, narrow steps.

He put the shovel aside and took out his flashlight and went down the slick steps and into the tight, dank tomb. He played the light on a rise of stone covered in dust with a collapsed skull on one end of it and a small, rectangular, metal box on the other. There were a few fragments that might have been bones lying about the stone platform.

He went over and took hold of the box. In spite of the rust that covered it, it felt firm and heavy. He took it gently and felt and heard something move inside. He put the box in his huge, coat pocket and climbed out of the tomb.

He put the flash in his other coat pocket, and then grabbed the top of the cemetery wall and pulled himself over. He scrambled down the narrow, gravel path that led through a clutch of brush and trees and delivered him to the sidewalk. He walked along until the sounds of the city filled his ears and the lights filled his eyes.

He walked on faster, his hand in his coat pocket, caressing the box there as gently as he might a woman’s thigh.

JAMES W. GORDON, Police Commissioner (mid-October)

It was only natural that the whole bad business would blow into Gotham City like an October wind with ice on its tail, and I guess you could say it was only natural a dark-minded guy with dark-minded plans would take to the subway the way he did; take to it and do what he did.

So this cold wind blew into Gotham and women started dying—bag ladies, those who hugged the underground for warmth and scrounged or begged for the things they needed.

As if things weren’t bad enough for them, along came this guy with a plan and a blade he knew how to use. He cut up women so they didn’t look like women anymore; didn’t look like much of anything human anymore. Then when he finished with them, he dipped his fingers in their blood and wrote on the subway walls: COMPLIMENTS OF SUBWAY JACK, then the number of the victim.

When he wrote Number 3, I got a firsthand look at his business. I was home in bed when the phone jangled me out of the blankets and into the kitchen to talk on the extension there. A beat cop named LoBrutto said, “Detective Mertz told me to call. Said you wanted to know if there was another one. Said you wanted to check things firsthand.”

“Send a car,” I said.

I had some instant coffee, then the black and white came and drove me over there. The subway entrance was marked off and there were a few people milling around and a lot of uniforms trying to turn them back. A couple of good detectives, Mertz and Crider, were waiting out front.

Mertz took me by the elbow and we went down the subway steps and walked along for a ways, and I could smell the vomit and urine smells that were always there, and something else too.

Blood.

When we got to the body it was covered by a yellow tarp and was lying against the subway wall.

“We got photographs and everything,” Mertz said. “Not a thing you can mess up if you want to take a look. I’ve had all I want.”

I went over and pulled back the tarp and held my breath. It’s bad enough seeing this kind of thing in photographs or in the morgue, but to see it on cold concrete, the blood still drying, the stench of death in the air, well, it gets you, gives you the willies, and I don’t care if you’ve seen death a thousand times. It gets to you if you’re normal.

Then too, I’d never seen death quite like this; never seen this kind of violence done to a human being. Maybe someone run through some kind of machinery could be expected to look this bad, but . . . well, you get the picture.

“All the king’s horses and all the king’s men . . .” Crider said. He wasn’t looking at the body. He had his back to it. Mertz was over by a concrete support smoking a cigarette and looking out at the subway tracks.

The coffee moved around in my stomach and turned sour and rose up, but I fought it down. I’ve had some experience.

I got down on one knee just outside the circle of drying blood and looked the body over, trying to be as cool and objective about it as I could. When I was through with that I looked up and took a breath and read what was written in blood on the subway wall: COMPLIMENTS OF SUBWAY JACK, NUMBER 3.