The Further Adventures of Batman (32 page)

To a smattering of applause, Captain Jacoby splashed out of the Caribbean Sea. Greater applause attended Newkirk’s introduction.

One eye on the spearfisher, who stopped by the side of the pool to towel his legs, Batman watched Newkirk good-sportedly take off shoes and socks and roll up trouser bottoms before stepping into the pool.

Newkirk lifted one foot into the pool and then the other. Batman tensed. Now the Riddler would make his move.

Captain Jacoby straightened and turned to look at Newkirk. Batman set himself to leap at the spearfisher.

But the move came from the woman knitting. She rose from the bench, dropped her crewel embroidery, and bent to pull the male plug of a floodlight from an extension cord snaking from the wall socket. She whipped the female end of the extension cord at the pool.

Crewel . . . cruel
. . . flashed through Batman’s mind. The Riddler!

Everyone stood stunned as the length of cord, like some slick-backed electric eel, arced toward the water. Everyone but Batman.

He lunged for the extension cord, grabbed hold, and pulled it from the wall socket just as the other end was about to hit the water with a terrible hissing and sparking. Newkirk stood frightened but unharmed.

With a curse, the Riddler—with wig askew, his identity now clear—dove for the embroidery, grabbed the crewel needle, and thrust the sharp point straight at Batman’s heart.

A ragged figure hurled itself between the needle and Batman.

Batman let others give chase to the Riddler. He bent to the ragged figure that had taken the deathblow meant for Batman.

He strained to hear the homeless man’s last gasps. The man stared into Batman’s eyes.

“The eyes . . . the eyes of the kid . . . who watched me . . . knock off his folks . . . in the stickup . . .”

It took a moment to sink in, then Batman felt a rush of rage. But the man’s eyes had closed. The man was past Batman’s hate, past everything except, perhaps, peace.

Bruce Wayne held a sort of postmortem, a gathering of himself, Dick Grayson, Commissioner Gordon, and Dr. Amicia Sollis.

Alfred had a riddle of claret at the proper temperature, and they were doing justice to at least the magnum.

Batman’s string of victories over the Riddler had had swift and amazing consequences.

Gordon looked darkly through his half-full glass. “Jack King overreached himself—with no golden handshake at the end. When the Wise Men of Gotham lived to frustrate his grandiose project, his whole house of cards collapsed. Even his Swiss and Caribbean assets were frozen, and the
Île de Joie
was attached for back taxes, together with all its treasures—including the
real
Rembrandt discovered rolled up in the wall safe.”

Dick said, “I happened to be at the yacht basin at the time news of the attempt on Newkirk came over the radio. I happened to see Jack King leave the
Île de Joie
and zoom away in a speedboat. I’m surprised he didn’t take the Rembrandt with him.”

“Had other things on his mind,” Wayne guessed.

Amicia smiled wryly. “He didn’t think to take Queena with him. I hear Queena filed for divorce, asking huge alimony. Fat chance she’ll collect, with all his creditors—wolves, sharks, and vultures—seeking him by land, sea, and air, but at least she has all her jewels.”

“A Wise Woman of Gotham?” Wayne asked. He looked at Amicia. “I know a wiser.”

The Police Commissioner and the Avenger of Evil met one more time about the affair of the Wise Men of Gotham, just that Gordon might thank Batman—and update him on the hunt for the Riddler.

“He’s escaped us again. We’ve looked high and low. First place, of course, was low—the basement of Exposition Center.” He shivered. “What a pesthole! It’ll take some doing to clear those creatures out of their nests and burrows and to squatter-proof the place.”

Batman put a hand on Gordon’s arm. “Let them be. From what I hear, Jack King will be needing somewhere to lay his head.”

Northwestward

(BLACK WIDOWERS #61)

Isaac Asimov

T
homas Trumbull said to Emmanuel Rubin in a low voice, “Where the devil have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you for a week,”

Rubin’s eyes flashed behind the thick lenses of his spectacles, and his sparse beard bristled. “I was away at the Berkshires for a week. I was
not aware
I had to apply for permission to you for that.”

“I wanted to speak to you.”

“Then speak to me now. Here I am—that is, supposing you can think of something intelligent to say.”

Trumbull looked about hastily. The Black Widowers had gathered for the monthly banquet at the Milano and Trumbull had managed to arrive on time because he was the host.

He said, “Keep your voice down, for God’s sake, Manny. I can’t speak freely now. It’s about,” his voice dropped to a mere mouthing, “my guest.”

“Well, what about him?” Rubin glanced in the direction of the tall, distinguished-looking elderly man, who was conversing with Geoffrey Avalon in the far corner. The guest was a good two inches taller than Avalon, who was usually the tallest person at the gathering. Rubin, who was ten inches shorter than Avalon, grinned.

“I think it does Jeff good to have to look up now and then,” he said.

“Listen to me, will you?” said Trumbull. “I’ve talked to the others and you were the only one I was really worried about and the only one I couldn’t reach.”

“But what are you worried about? Get to the point, will you?”

“It’s my guest. He’s peculiar.”

“If he’s your guest—”

“Sh! He’s an interesting guy, and he’s not nuts, but you may consider him peculiar and I don’t want you to mock him. You just let him be peculiar and accept it.”

“How is he peculiar?”

“He has an idée fixe, if you know what that means.”

Rubin looked revolted. “Can you tell me why it’s so necessary for an American with a stumbling knowledge of English to say idée fixe when the English phrase ‘fixed idea’ does just as well?”

“He has a fixed idea, then. It will come out because he can’t keep it in. Please don’t make fun of it, or of him.
Please
accept him on his own terms.”

“This violates the whole principle of the grilling, Tom.”

“It just bends it a little. I’m asking you to be polite, that’s all. Everyone else has agreed.”

Rubin’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll try, but, so help me, Tom, if this is some sort of gag—if I’m being set up for something—I’ll stand on a stool if I have to, and I’ll punch you right in the eye.”

“There’s no gag involved.”

Rubin wandered over to where Mario Gonzalo was putting the finishing touches on his caricature of the guest. Not much of a caricature at that. He was turning out a Gibson man, a collar ad.

Rubin looked at it, then turned to look at the guest. He said, “You’re leaving out the lines, Mario.”

“Caricature,” said Gonzalo, “is the art of truthful exaggeration, Mannie. When a guy looks that good at his age, you don’t spoil the effect by sticking in lines.”

“What’s his name?”

“I don’t know. Tom didn’t give it. He says we ought to wait for the grilling to ask.”

Roger Halsted ambled over, drink in his hand, and said in a low voice, “Tom was looking for you all week, Manny.”

“He told me. And he found me right here.”

“Did he explain what he wanted?”

“He didn’t explain it. He just asked me to be nice.”

“Are you going to?”

“I will, until I get the idea that this is a joke at my expense. After which—”

“No, he’s apparently serious.”

Henry, that quiet bit of waiter-perfection, said in his soft, carrying voice, “Gentlemen, dinner served.”

And they all sat down to their crab-leg cocktails.

James Drake had stubbed out his cigarette since, by general vote, there was to be no smoking during the actual meal, and handed the ashtray to Henry.

He said, “Henry’s announcement just now interrupted our guest in some comments he was making about Superman, which I’d like him to repeat, if he doesn’t mind.”

The guest nodded his head in a stately gesture of gratitude, and having finished an appreciative mouthful of veal marengo, said, “What I was saying was that Superman was a travesty of an ancient and honorable tradition. There has always been a branch of literature concerning itself with heroes; human beings of superior strength and courage. Heroes, however, should be supernormal but not supernatural.”

“As a matter of fact,” said Avalon, in his startling baritone. “I agree. There have always been characters like Hercules, Achilles, Gilgamesh, Rustam—”

“We get the idea, Jeff,” said Rubin, balefully.

Avalon went on, smoothly, “Even half a century ago, we had the development of Conan by Robert Howard, as a modern legend. These were all far stronger than we puny fellows are, but they were not godlike. They could be hurt, wounded, even killed. They usually were, in the end.”

“In the
Iliad,”
said Rubin, perfectly willing, as always, to start an argument, “the gods could be wounded. Ares and Aphrodite were each wounded by Diomedes.”

“Homer can be allowed liberties,” put in the guest. “But compare, say, Hercules, with Superman. Superman has x-ray eyes, he can fly through space without protection, he can move faster that light. None of this would be true of Hercules. But with Superman’s abilities, where is the excitement, where’s the suspense? Then, too, where’s the fairness? He fights off human crooks who are less to him than a ladybug would be to me. How much pride can I take in flipping a ladybug off my wrist.”

Drake said, “One trouble with these heroes, though, is that they’re musclebound at the temples. Take Siegfried. If he had an atom of intelligence, he took care never to show it. For that matter, Hercules was not remarkable for the ability to think, either.”

“On the other hand,” said Halsted, “Prince Valiant has brains and so, especially, did Odysseus.”

“Rare exceptions,” said Drake.

Rubin turned to the guest and said, “You seem very interested in storybook heroes.”

“Yes, I am,” said the guest, quietly. “It’s almost an idée fixe with me.” He smiled with obvious self-deprecation. “I keep talking about them all the time, it seems.”