The Further Adventures of Batman (22 page)

Kittlemeier set to work wrapping the belt and the gloves, then placed them into a nondescript shopping bag and handed them across the counter to the tall man.

“That will be . . .” He thought for a moment, then named a sum that did not seem too exorbitant to him. “In cash, as always.”

The tall man grunted, withdraw his wallet, took out a number of large bills, and laid them on the counter.

“Until Thursday, then,” said Kittlemeier.

“Until Thursday,” said the tall man. He picked up his shopping bag, walked out the door, and entered the backseat of his limousine, which immediately pulled out from the curb and was soon lost from sight in the rush-hour traffic.

Kittlemeier put the money in his cash register, then checked his wristwatch. He badly wanted a cigarette, but his next client was
never
late, and so he remained behind the counter.

At precisely 5:15
P.M.
, a wiry man with thinning blond hair entered the shop, looking furtively into the shadows before he approached the counter.

“Well?” he demanded. “Are they ready?”

“Four of them are,” answered Kittlemeier. “Two were completely beyond repair. I will have to make entirely new ones.”

“Do it. And last time you gave me only eighty question marks. This time I want at least one hundred, and I want you to know I will count every last one.”

Kittlemeier pulled out a pad of paper and began scribbling in his almost illegible scrawl. “One hundred question marks each,” he muttered as he wrote.

“And the material must be strong, and the dyes waterproof.”

“Waterproof dyes,” said Kittlemeier, while scribbling furiously.

“Can you do it?”

“Of course,” said Kittlemeier.

“I must have them by next Monday, because on Tuesday . . .” He threw back his head and giggled hysterically.

“Monday,” said Kittlemeier, nodding. “Ten o’clock in the morning?”

“Ten o’clock,” said the man.

Kittlemeier placed four neatly folded green costumes in a brown paper bag from the local grocery store. He then took a fresh sheet of scratch paper and scribbled a figure on it.

“This is more than we agreed upon.”

“My original figure was for repairing six costumes. I did not plan on having to make two from scratch.”

“You kept the old devices for the new costumes?” queried the man. “I would be very unhappy to find that I was paying for new weapons when the old ones were in perfect working order.”

“I kept them,” said Kittlemeier. “You can inspect them when you return next Monday.”

The man stared at him distrustfully for a long moment, then pulled out a roll of bills and placed them on the counter.

Kittlemeier counted them carefully, then looked up. “Please bring another six hundred dollars with you on Monday, and then your account will be up to date.”

The man nodded almost imperceptibly, then grabbed his bag, turned on his heels, and left.

It had been a long day, and old Kittlemeier was getting hungry. He sighed; it was satisfying to be known as the very best in your trade, but your time was so seldom your own.

He checked his watch again, and decided that he had just enough time to go out for a quick sandwich before Selina arrived for her fitting.

Batman
in
Nighttown

Karen Haber and Robert Silverberg

W
hen the masked and caped figure walked into the black-and-white marble entry hall of the Wayne mansion thirty minutes before midnight, excitement ripped through the mass of party-goers.

“Can you imagine! It’s Batman. Someone call the police,” Alice Chilton said in feigned alarm. Resplendent in her gilded Indonesian dance garb, she strode forward to get a better look at him.

“Oh, no. Don’t call the police,” Mara Osuna said. “Call Channel Five news. I think he’s exciting.” And, sinuous in a black spandex cat costume, she too prowled closer, gliding through the splendid ballroom with barely concealed eagerness.

Trial attorney Carlton Thayer, done up as a British Redcoat, raised his glass in mock tribute. “Somebody’s got to deal with crime,” he said. “Certainly the courtrooms can’t handle it all. I say, more power to him.”

“He’s just a damned vigilante,” Alice Chilton retorted. “We can’t have people taking the law into their own hands. Even if they are wearing blue silk gloves.”

She turned to their host, who was standing quietly to one side, a bemused expression on what was visible of his face.

“What do you think, Bruce?”

Bruce Wayne had been watching the doppelganger of his crime-fighting alter-ego with amusement, and perhaps with a little perplexity. He swung about now and smiled at his aunt.

“I don’t know if this Batman is a criminal or a saint,” Wayne said. “But I do know that he’s late. Alfred, see if our unexpected guest would like a drink.”

“Very good, sir,” the butler said in his clipped British accent. “And perhaps the gentleman would like me to take his cape as well? No?”

‘Batman’ shook his head.

When the newcomer accepted a glass of champagne, Wayne lifted his own flute in a toast.

Clever, he thought. And a damned close replica. If that’s how I look, the effect is even better than I’d hoped. The cape is very good.

‘Batman’ moved into the main ballroom, joining the assorted demons and sprites, witches and warlocks. Wayne tracked him for a moment in deepening fascination.

It was a little dreamlike, he thought. As though I’m standing outside my own body, looking at myself arrive at a party. He admired the stranger’s audacity. Did he know whose house he was at? Probably not. Or perhaps he knew very well, Wayne told himself. Who is he? I’ll find out at the unmasking.

Wayne circulated through the party, playing the part of host to perfection. Initially, the young millionaire had regretted his offer to let the masked ball be held at Wayne Manor. But Aunt Alice had been so persuasive, wheedling until he gave in. He certainly owed her a favor. Dear Alice. All those holidays, home from prep school, which he’d spent in her warm, gracious company. After his parents’ murder, Alice Chilton had been very good to him. An “aunt,” yes. Though not a blood relation, she was almost a second mother. The least he could do was provide a place for her Women’s Auxiliary Charity Ball. Besides, he wanted to deflate his growing reputation as a hermit. And so the cream of Gotham society, bewigged, bejeweled, and by now pretty well inebriated, was crammed into his mansion, awaiting the toll of midnight to unmask.

With a quick motion of his hand, Wayne reached behind his own mask—a grinning, red-faced devil—and wiped the sweat from his jaw. Through the mask’s narrow eye-slits, he peered at his jeweled Rolex. The time was 11:40
P.M.
Only twenty minutes to go. He adjusted his sleek red tuxedo. Perhaps he should have come as Batman, too. But that would have been too easy.

“Swell party, Wayne,” said a brown-cowled figure sporting an owl mask, with a long, thin cigar poking bizarrely through its mouthpiece. The tones were the bass rasp of Police Commissioner Gordon. “Nice to see the old mansion lit up like this.”

“All for a good cause,” Wayne said. “I don’t mind, as long as nobody breaks the Ming vase. Or,” he said, staring meaningfully at the Commissioner’s stogie, “uses the Egyptian urn for an ashtray.”

Gordon exhaled a large, malodorous cloud of smoke. Wayne coughed.

“Is your life insurance paid up?” he inquired pleasantly. “I’d hate to see your lung x-rays.”

“And I’d hate to see the bill for this party,” Gordon said. “But it’s not my problem, I guess. How long have you been back in town now, anyway?”

“Six months, Commissioner.”

“Gstaad lost its appeal?”

Wayne forced a debonair chuckle. “The world is filled with all manner of delights and distractions, yes. But occasionally one needs to come home.”

The gray eyes behind the owl mask fixed him with a shrewd gaze.

“I don’t know, Bruce. If I had the money and time, there’s plenty of places I’d be happy to call home besides Gotham City.”

With a shrug, he moved off.

A good man, Wayne thought. A good cop, too. Perhaps too good. He had a deep streak of keen curiosity, Gordon. Way too much curiosity. Did he suspect the truth?

Wayne walked across the ballroom toward the door.

“Don’t just walk right by me like that,” said a throaty female voice.

Wayne turned. Ellen Harring was standing by the window, her white-gloved hand resting coquettishly upon her hip. Her blond hair fell loosely down her back, gleaming like a dazzling cascade in the lamplight. She was dressed as a houri, all golden veils and shimmer.

Very apt, Wayne thought. Since his return to Gotham City, Ellen had found one pretext after another for coming by, leaving messages, indefatigably pursuing him with social hunting skills burnished by long use. Each time she made a move, he managed to extricate himself. One step forward, two steps back. For a time, he’d found it amusing, but the
pas de deux
was becoming all too intricate. Now she walked toward him as though oiled, all fluid motion.

She hooked her arms around his neck and leaned forward until her chest rested on his.

“Why don’t you come tell me all about your erotic weapon collection?” she crooned.

Wayne smelled bourbon on her breath. Gently, he freed himself from her grasp.

“You’d miss the prize for prettiest costume,” he said. “We can’t have that.”

She seemed unperturbed by his amiable coolness. Her expression was all too frank, her eyes all too explicitly intense. He cast around for escape. And found it as the mysterious blue-caped figure in the bat mask moved past them.

“Why don’t we ask Batman about his exploits?” Wayne suggested, stepping back to include the stranger. “Even a costumed vigilante could use a beautiful assistant like you, Ellen.”

She turned to gape just long enough for Wayne to slip past her and out through a hall door into the servants’ quarters.

Safe.

Wayne leaned against the plain white wall and shook his head. A shame, really. So attractive, Ellen. He could feel the heat of her against him even now. But her kind never let up. If he invited her into his world, into his bed, he knew that eventually he would regret the decision. It would all end badly, with him prying her fingers, one by one, away from his life. And he had no time, no room left for any sort of serious entanglements on that level. Europe had cured him of such things.

He moved through the dim passage, his footsteps echoing on the concrete floor, and emerged from behind a bookshelf into the gaming room. Here, the noise of the party was muffled by teak paneling and thick russet carpeting. Two amber-shaded swag lamps cast warm circles of light on the greensward of an enormous pool table. A footman in white powdered wig and purple waistcoat was making an intricate carom shot, studied intently by his challenger, an imposing sultan in flowing black robes and an enormous, bejeweled turban.

“Super soiree, Bruce,” the footman said as he watched the sultan ponder his next move.

“Harry—still hanging out by the pool table. I should have know.” Wayne paused. Even in prep school, Harry Thornton had never been able to resist a pool game. Fifteen years had only honed his appetite.

The sultan looked up. It was Wayne’s accountant, Jim Weatherby. He gestured broadly with his cue stick toward the scattered balls on the table.

“Got any tips?”

Wayne nodded. “Sure,” he said. “Don’t play Harry. He’s a semiprofessional pool hustler.” He gave them a half smile and moved on, restless. Surrounded by this swirling horde of friends and acquaintances, he was still alone, concealing his agitation, his alienation, behind clever patter and the aloofness that wealth conferred.

Wayne had come back heartsick from Europe, tired of the gambling tables and rich widows. He was weary of the same faces seen at the same spas, those hungry faces avidly scanning the crowd. All of them looking for the same thing. Fresh meat. He’d done his own share of predatory stalking, and with no little success. Long ago, he’d learned that his trim body, dark hair, and blue eyes were quite acceptable to women of all shapes and sizes. Of course, the money helped. And he’d inherited one of the largest fortunes in Gotham City.

But now he hunted different prey. He’d come back home to search for meaning. To do something useful. To avenge the past. It made little difference to him how Batman was perceived, whether as vigilante or folk hero. All he knew was that he felt alive and connected with the world when he was wearing that blue-caped costume, and hollow and remote when he was not.

He slipped through the door into the library.

Three generations of Wayne bibliophiles had amassed a collection of rarities that filled two stories’ worth of bookcases. The room, rich with its smell of antique leather binding and musty pages, its graceful cherrywood railings and ladders, was one of Wayne’s favorites. He’d hoped to take a few minutes here, alone. But he saw now that the library was already occupied. Somebody wearing a blue silk mask and cape was wandering about by the far shelves, nineteenth-century French literature. The Batman masquerader.