The Further Adventures of Batman (26 page)

I have spoken to my attorneys and instructed them to prepare a contract of indemnification as you requested. I assure you I am not in the least offended by this request. On the contrary, I think it a matter of sound business practice.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Bruce Wayne

REPORT TO: David O. Selznick

FROM: Lieutenant Tom Murchison,
Los Angeles Police Department

DATE: January 19, 1943

Ivan O’Connor tells me you plan to pay $150,000 to the supposed kidnappers of Joan Teel. I think this is a mistake. At this point we don’t even know for sure she’s been abducted. My advice is to stall, then set up a meet with the supposed kidnappers with me and two of my men ahead of you at the site. The decision is yours but I think our chances of getting Miss Teel back are better if we act rather than if we rely on the good graces of kidnappers.

This whole situation is complicated, as you know, by the reports of sightings of a man dressed like a black umbrella at Miss Teel’s apartment last night. The custodian swore the man wearing a black hood and black wings came out of the Teel apartment. That’s not the strangest costume I’ve seen around this town over the past thirty years but it rates right up there with Barrymore in his birthday suit and a top hat.

I tried to reach you by phone but couldn’t get through. I’d prefer you destroy this letter after you read it.

Sincerely,

Tom Murchison, Lieutenant,
Los Angeles Police Department

MEMO FROM: David O. Selznick

TO: Ivan O’Connor, Security

DATE: January 19, 1943

The Teel situation is taking too much of mine and the studio’s time. I’m concerned for Miss Teel’s safety and the fact that you and Lieutenant Murchison have made so little headway in finding her. I’m willing to take your advice and not have Murchison set a trap for the kidnappers when the money is delivered. I am concerned, however, that the kidnappers insist that I personally deliver the money. What’s to keep them from kidnapping me and making an even greater demand?

No, at his next call I intend, as you suggested, to tell the kidnapper that an emissary, you, will be delivering the cash. I’ll tell him that this is the only way I will deal with the situation. Then, God help us, I hope they agree and that we deliver the money and get her free, after which I want you and Murchison to find this person.

MEMO TO: David O. Selznick

FROM: Ivan O’Connor, Security

DATE: January 21, 1943

This is to confirm our telephone conversation this morning and your instructions. I will pick up the package from you on Wednesday night, your office, take it to the tiger cage at the Griffith Park Zoo at midnight and trade it for the merchandise agreed upon.

MEMO FROM: David O. Selznick

TO: Janice Templeton

DATE: January 21, 1943

I’ve just come into my office this morning and discovered that someone has been through the copies of my recent memos and papers. No one is to go through my papers without my direct approval.

MEMO TO: David O. Selznick

FROM: Janice Templeton

DATE: January 21, 1943

I have checked with the night janitors and with night security. Both sources report no one entered your office during the night. I’ve also checked with the secretarial pool. No one entered your office and I assure you I did not. I am most distressed and should you wish my resignation it will be on your desk within an hour of your so informing me.

I hesitate to add this but feel I must. One of the night janitors, Baylor Riggs, who has been on several occasions reprimanded for intoxication while at work, reported that a “big fat black owl, big as a man” was prowling around the building after midnight. It is possible Mr. Riggs may have seen someone but security and his supervisor doubt it.

MEMO FROM: David O. Selznick

TO: Janice Templeton

DATE: January 21, 1943

I value your service very highly and have no intention of asking for your resignation. These are both difficult and interesting days for all of us and I rely upon your discretion and judgment and expect that you will continue to participate in our creative growth in the future. I would appreciate your arranging for locks for my files this afternoon. One set of keys only. I’ll carry them with me.

NEWS ITEM:
THE LOS ANGELES TIMES,
January 24,1943

—A large bird reportedly escaped from the Griffith Park Zoo some time after midnight last night, according to reports of an overnight caretaker at the zoo and a patroling police car.

In spite of the reported sightings, zoo officials report that no animals are missing from the zoo.

Dr. Leon Santucci, a veterinarian with the zoo, speculated than an eagle attracted by the caged animals may have flown down from the Hollywood Hills. “It’s happened before,” said Dr. Santucci. “Not often but it has happened.”

The caretaker, Oliver Palmer, reported the sighting of the bird near the large mammal cages. According to Palmer, “the bird seemed to be attacking a man with a suitcase.” Palmer says he shouted and tried to come to the assistance of the attacked man, but both bird and man were gone when he got there.

Another explanation of the strange events came from Lieutenant Tom Murchison of the Los Angeles police who was in the vicinity of the zoo after midnight on an unrelated matter. Murchison said that he saw two men emerging from the zoo, approached them and determined that they were “a couple of drunks playing games in the zoo.”

Zoo officials promised a complete investigation and a tightening of zoo security though zoo officials said it is difficult to get sufficient help with so many men and women serving in the armed forces or engaged in work vital to the war effort.

MEMO FROM: David O. Selznick

TO: Tom Murchison

DATE: January 23, 1943

I have destroyed your note to me as you requested. I ask that you do the same after reading this. I am pleased that Miss Teel is free and unharmed after her ordeal and imprisonment in Ivan O’Connor’s basement. I’m not sure how Batman figured out that Ivan O’Connor was involved in her abduction, but I’m glad he did or O’Connor would have gotten away with the money and, in spite of his protests, might, as you have suggested, not have allowed Miss Teel an opportunity to tell her story. If possible, I would like to keep the entire episode as quiet as possible which, my lawyers tell me, means making a deal for a reduced sentence and a plea of guilty by O’Connor. Please work with our attorneys on this. As you know, Mr. O’Connor’s departure leaves an opening in our security section. I would be pleased if you would consider the post.

Letter to David O. Selznick

From Bruce Wayne, The Beverly Hills Hotel

January 25, 1943

Dear Mr. Selznick:

Batman and I truly appreciate your hospitality but he informs me that he would like to withdraw his offer to participate in a film based upon his endeavors. He informs me that his decision has something to do with the handling of the abduction of Miss Teel and the subsequent handling of the case. Batman does not believe that he is sufficiently prepared to deal with Hollywood at this point. Should a time come when he feels differently, he assures me that you will be the first to know.

Please give my regrets to Miss DeHavilland. Should she or you ever get to Gotham City, please consider staying at Wayne Manor.

Sincerely,

Bruce Wayne

MEMO TO: David O. Selznick

FROM: Harlan Turbekian; Turbekian, Zimmer and Kitt,
Attorneys

DATE: January 26, 1943

I have copies of the reports, memos, and data you forwarded to me along with your very persuasive conclusions concerning the identity of Batman. I and my associates are not certain that we have sufficient evidence that Batman indeed broke into your office though the circumstantial evidence is certainly overwhelming. We will, as you instructed, hold the documentation concerning Batman’s identity until such time as you wish it or wish, as you indicated, to turn it over to another production company.

Wise Men
of Gotham

Edward Wellen

B
ruce Wayne wore a bemused smile as he mingled with the other guests aboard billionaire real estate developer Jack King’s luxurious yacht. He also wore his Batman outfit.

It seemed a risk worth taking, for this was a costume ball—and he had already spotted three other Batmen. And—truth to tell—his outfit, somewhat the worse for wear after his latest adventure, looked the least authentic of all.

That, however, was not the cause of his bemusement. It had suddenly struck him how ironic it was that such a glittering occasion had such a sad cause.

Jack King and his wife Queena were throwing a benefit bash for the homeless of Gotham City.

On his way here to the yacht basin, under the neon that fogged the stars, Bruce Wayne had passed many ragged shapes huddled in stinking doorways or nestled in cardboard cartons or crumpled over steaming sidewalk grates, and he had dropped here a dollar and there a dollar. He looked around now at the other guests; they too had seen the homeless—but the homeless seemed already far away and forgotten in the babble and clink and band rhythm.

All about him in the dazzling ballroom, the men as well as the women flaunted their jewels and stuffed their faces. All appeared well-clothed, well-fed, well-housed.

Handsome Jack King and beautiful Queena King most of all. He knew them behind their gem-encrusted masks. Jack was the eye-patched pirate and Queena was the harem slave.

Others of the elite were also easy to spot. Hizzoner the Mayor moved about, glad-handing. Mayor Ned Notts and developer Jack King were at political odds, and had had their shouting matches by way of newspaper headlines and talk shows. However, the plight of the homeless—toward which neither had demonstrated any particular sensitivity—now drew them together in this fleeting show of care. Their teeth gleamed in big smiles at one another for the benefit of press flashbulbs and television lights. The charity ball brought Jack King favorable publicity to offset the bad, such as evicting the poor—and so adding to the homeless—to make way for his grandiose projects, and no doubt allowed him to charge off considerable expenses against taxes. The charity ball afforded Mayor Notts, who was running for re-election for the nth time, a welcome opportunity to put a new gloss on his tainted administration and to shore up his eroding popularity.

Keeping close company with Hizzoner were his political backer, Rudolph Newkirk, the newspaper magnate; Hizzoner’s crony Housing Commissioner Sam Rubin; and Hizzoner’s temporary ally in the election campaign, environmentalist Glenn Dubois.

Wayne marveled at the rampant hypocrisy. It seemed an ego thing between Nott and King, because Mayor Nott had cosied up to other developers of luxury housing; Nott and King each appeared to covet the role of Numero Uno in Gotham City. Newkirk’s papers were doing a hatchet job on King, printing exposés of King’s projects, hinting at big bribes for permits and tax abatements, and interviewing the poor harassed out of buildings standing in King’s juggernaut path—while Newkirk himself was an insatiable gobbler-up of papers and television stations. Commissioner Rubin had done little to rehabilitate abandoned buildings to house uprooted families; for some unfathomable reason he found it more practical to cram them into rundown-but-expensive, rat-and-roach-infested, single-room-occupancy hotels. Environmentalist Dubois had stood in the way of building out into the bay because of what that would do to the fish population, but had offered no alternatives. And here all of them joined with the Kings to raise money for the homeless.

Another personage Bruce Wayne easily picked out was his old friend Police Commissioner Gordon. Gordon’s presence took away much of the bad taste in Wayne’s mouth.

Commissioner Gordon had come as a musketeer, but security seemed too much on his mind to let him play the part with ease. He kept up the pose with gallant flourishes and courtly bows whenever he met someone he knew, or was introduced to someone new. But his knuckles were white on his sword as he checked the placement of his men and women, and he jerked around whenever a voice grew too shrill or a glass suddenly crashed to the ballroom floor.

Wayne smiled wryly. He knew what preyed on Gordon’s mind. This past week the media had been full of the fevered auction at which King outbid even the Japanese for a Rembrandt. The battered gavel had finally knocked the masterpiece down to King for eighty-six million dollars.

Commissioner Gordon’s big fear had to be that someone would use the swirling confusion of the charity ball to steal the Rembrandt from under his patrician nose, for the famous painting hung in a stateroom here aboard the
Île de Joie.