The Further Adventures of Batman (38 page)

“Thanks,” Dick said, smiling.

“It will take a while.”

“That’s all right.”

After a half-hour, Lieutenant Rose emerged from his cross-examination of Carol. Dick overheard his remarks to Sergeant Brady.

“She wouldn’t finger the ringleader,” Ross said. “She’s terrified of him. We’re stymied. I tried every argument on her. She says he’ll kill her if she gives him away. Looks like she pulled the job under the influence of some hypnotic drug like sodium pentothal.”

“That would explain her dreamy, mechanical behavior in the store—” Brady said.

“As if she were following someone’s commands.”

Dick stood up and approached them. Brady introduced him.

“This is Dick Grayson. He’s OK. A talented reporter for the Gotham High
Clarion.”

Dick smiled. “Maybe Carol would open up for me,” he said. “We know each other. I think she’d welcome speaking to a friend.”

Ross said, “Carol is under eighteen and we’re not allowed to release any information about the case to the press.”

“I understand, Lieutenant. I was more interested in general about teenage crime and how to prevent it. I promise I won’t report any specific details of the case.”

“It might be a good idea at that to have Dick talk to the girl,” Brady said. “He’s a good man. You can trust him.” He winked at Dick. “Dick’s her own age and talks her language. She feels intimidated by police questioning—but she might confide in him.”

Ross rubbed his chin. “O.K. Nothing to lose. She won’t open up to me. But don’t push her, Dick. The girl’s desperate and close to cracking. Let her turn to you for sympathy and understanding.”

“I’ll go easy,” Dick said.

The lieutenant conducted him to Carol’s cell. “There’s someone to see you,” he said.

Carol glanced up at Dick with a dazed look.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” Ross said, closing the heavily barred door.

“Hello, Carol, how are you?”

“Hello,” Carol murmured in a hollow voice. She made a place for him on her narrow cot. Sitting down beside her, Dick touched Carol’s hand. Tears started from her eyes.

“I’m sorry to find you in a place like this, Carol. I happened to be at the station. It must be a terrible ordeal.”

“I thought leaving home was rough—going out on my own. But this is the worst experience of my life.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Carol hesitated, biting her lip.

“It will make you feel better if you get it all out,” Dick coaxed. “It hurts to keep all that emotion bottled up inside.”

Carol began to speak in a barely audible voice. “It all started at home. Dad was very strict, especially about dating. I got yelled at all the time. I was flunking courses in school and was miserable at home. So I made up my mind to leave home. I went down to the railroad depot. I had enough money to take me as far as Gotham City and still have a few dollars left. I wasn’t thinking straight. I didn’t know anyone in Gotham.

“When I got here, it was late in the day. I got on a bus and just rode up and down till the driver made me get off. I was hungry and peeked through a luncheonette window. Then I saw this man sitting on a bench, looking straight at me. He was middle-aged and distinguished-looking, with thick gray hair and expensive clothes. He stood up and started toward me. I got scared. I thought he wanted to pick me up.

“ ‘Excuse me,’ he said. He had a very smooth voice, with a trace of a foreign accent, ‘I couldn’t help noticing your interest in the diner. Are you hungry, down on your luck?’

“I said, ‘Please leave me alone,’ and started to walk away, but he followed.

“ ‘Don’t be afraid,’ he said. ‘I’m not making advances. You look hungry and lost. I know how it feels. I’ve been in the same predicament.’ His voice was very soothing. It kind of made you want to trust him. ‘You’re hungry, I know you are. Won’t you join me for dinner?’ he kept saying over and over. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Leave me alone.’ He just answered, ‘You
will
join me. I know you will.’ ”

Dick interrupted. “He sounds almost like a hypnotist, repeating the same phrases over and over. That’s how a hypnotist works, you know.”

“I guess so. Anyway, I finally accepted his offer, almost against my will. I was so hungry, and like I said, he had this way of making you want to trust him. His eyes were strange. He could stare straight through you, as if he read your thoughts.

“After we ate, he asked me if I had a place to stay. I said I didn’t—” Carol broke off abruptly, turning to Dick with a look of alarm. “You’re not going to tell any of this to the police, are you?”

“Not if you don’t want me to,” Dick assured her. Dick wished he could persuade Carol to talk to the police but was afraid of interrupting her story.

“Promise?”

“Please don’t make me promise, Carol—for your own good and for the sake of others, too.”

“If you don’t promise I won’t say any more.”

“All right, I promise.”

“Because he’d kill me if he found out I told anyone about him.”

“Who, Carol? Won’t you tell me his name?”

Carol shook her head vigorously.

“All right, go ahead, Carol. He asked you if you had a place to stay.”

“Yeah—well, I told him I didn’t and he said he ran a shelter for homeless kids like me. When he said that, I started to see him in a different light. Before I’d thought he wanted to take advantage of me. But now I thought he was just being kind. I was so relieved to hear the word ‘shelter,’ and I wanted so much to think that someone cared about me and wanted to help. So I went along with him to the ‘shelter.’ Some shelter! It was a place for stray kids, all right. I was shocked—some of them were hung over, some were smoking pot. A few were high. I couldn’t understand why they were allowed to use drugs. They used them openly right before The Man’s eyes. They didn’t try to hide anything.

“ ‘You let them use dope?’ I asked.

“ ‘Each to his own,’ he answered. ‘Many of the kids are addicts. They don’t tell me how to live, I don’t tell them. I’m here to help them in any way they choose. If they are going to use drugs, I prefer they use drugs openly instead of sneaking them in under the pretence that they’re clean. It’s more honest that way. Don’t you agree?’

“When I first walked into the place, it seemed like a crazy way to rehabilitate young people. But I went along with him, even though part of my mind still questioned.

“The Man introduced me to the gang. ‘This is a new recruit: Carol Logan,’ he announced. I wondered what he meant by ‘recruit,’ but let it pass. I got to know some of the other kids. When a guy came and asked me if I’d like a snort, I thought he meant a drink. He gave me some white powder he called ‘H.’ I didn’t know what to do with it, so he showed me how to sniff it through my nostrils. It was the first time I ever tried heroin. I got sick to my stomach and had to throw up. The guy told me that’s how most people react the first time. He tried to get me to take another snort, but I felt so sick, I said no. I wanted to leave the place, but I was tired and sick, and had no place to go. I asked The Man if I could lie down. He acted very concerned, and showed me to the girls’ sleeping quarters. ‘You
will
like it here. I’m sure you will,’ he kept saying.

“It wasn’t a shelter at all. It was a dope ring. They didn’t use the word ‘ring,’ of course. Insiders called it ‘The Circle.’ The Man lures other kids in the same way he did me. He gets them hooked on drugs—if they aren’t already. Then he sends them out to steal jewelry and things. He promises drugs to the kids who do, and threatens to cut off the supply if they don’t obey.

“That first night he offered me some medicine to help me sleep better. It wasn’t dope, he said, just something to make me relax. His voice was so soothing that even when I saw he was going to inject me with a needle, it didn’t bother me that much. I said ‘All right,’ and he injected me with the stuff.”

“Do you know what drug it was?” Dick asked.

Carol shook her head. “It wasn’t dope. I’m sure of that. All it did was put me to sleep.”

“He never mentioned its name?”

“I can’t remember.”

“Try.”

Carol twisted her lips. “I’m trying, but it doesn’t come.”

“Was it sodium pentothal?”

Carol’s eyes widened. “Sodium something. That might be it.”

“Sodium pentothal is the so-called ‘truth serum.’ I did a report on it once. It’s a drug that puts you to sleep and makes you more suggestible. It’s used to brainwash people; it lowers your resistance.”

“You mean he was hypnotizing me? Planting ideas in my mind? While I was asleep?”

“I think so, Carol, Start with this morning. Tell me everything that happened before you walked into the department store.”

“That’s just it. I can’t. It’s all a blank.”

“The man gave you the imitation diamond ring. Didn’t he?”

“I guess so. He must’ve. I don’t remember.”

“How else could you have gotten it?”

“I don’t know. Nothing makes any sense. I found myself standing in front of the store. I had no idea why I was there or how I got there. I remember hearing The Man’s voice. It was like he was speaking to me, telling me what to do.”

“I think you heard his post-hypnotic suggestions. He must have used the drug and put you to sleep, and then gave you instructions. When you walked into the store, you heard his voice exactly as you heard it under hypnosis. Part of your brain acted like a sleepwalker’s, obeying his commands.”

“In other words, he programmed me to steal the diamond ring and leave the phony.”

“Sure.”

“You know what that story’s going to sound like? ‘I didn’t steal that ring, Your Honor, I was hypnotized.’ I’ll never be able to prove that.”

“Not unless you tell the police who The Man is and where to find him. Right now we can’t even prove he exists, much less that he hypnotized you. You’ve got to tell the police everything—it’s your only way out of this mess.”

“I told you, I can’t,” Carol shouted. “Won’t you leave me alone? I thought you understood. I thought you were my friend.” She buried her face in her hands, sobbing convulsively.

Dick put an arm around her shoulders. “I am your friend, Carol. I’m sorry I upset you. Maybe you ought to rest a while—try to calm down.” He stood up.

“Don’t go, please! I’m sorry I yelled at you. I know you mean the best for me. If only I could make you understand.”

“I have to go, Carol. They won’t let me stay much longer. But I’ll come back tomorrow.” He stepped outside the cell and walked down the corridor. Behind him the cell door gave a resounding clang.

“Did you find out anything?” Lieutenant Ross asked eagerly.

Dick hesitated. “I promised Carol I wouldn’t repeat it to the police.”

“Oh no!” Ross exclaimed. “Are you going to clam up on me too? Why did you make that promise?”

“It was the only way I could get her to talk.”

Dick made a quick departure from the station.

Ross shouted after him. “Don’t come back here until you change your mind! Boy reporter!”

III

“I just got here myself,” Batman said as Dick arrived at Wayne Manor. “Police Commissioner Gordon thinks the Joker and Catwoman have teamed up again. I’ll have to leave soon. Want to come along?”

“I’m working on a case of my own,” Dick said. “As investigative reporter for the
Clarion.”

“Sounds impressive.”

“It involves a classmate of mine, Carol Logan.”

“Fill me in.”

Dick quickly summarized Carol’s account of her meeting with The Man, his use of injections to make her docile, and her trancelike state at the department store.

When he was through, Batman asked, “Are you sure she didn’t drop a hint as to The Man’s identity?”

“Not a one. And not a clue to the location of the hideout.”

“Well, we know this much, It’s probably in Gotham City because that’s where the guy met Carol. Not necessarily, but let’s start with that working assumption. Now what do we know about him? He’s involved with the dope market and uses hypnotic drugs with skill. He’s middle-aged, smooth, persuasive, distinguished-looking, apparently well educated. His speech is polished, with a trace of a foreign accent. Where would you look for a man of that description?”

“It could fit a lot of men. There’s a range of possibilities. We’re looking for a strong authority figure with a knowledge of psychoactive drugs—and the skill to use them. Maybe a doctor.”

“Possibly, but not necessarily,” Batman said. “It could be someone like a medical aide or orderly with experience in a psychological setting.”

“Or even a lab technician or chemist,” Dick suggested.

“Now there’s an idea,” Batman said. “How about a biochemistry professor?”

“What better front for illicit dealings?” Dick said. “A teaching post would give him the trappings of respectability—and contacts with a pool of young people. Who would suspect someone in his position?”

“Right. But it’s a long shot. How many professors know hypnosis? That narrows it down considerably. Maybe we’re dealing with a professional hypnotist, or someone who once was.”

“You mean a stage performer?”

“Yes. Unless we consider a psychologist who knows hypnosis. But that’s farfetched. It’s hard to picture a psychologist as the head of a dope ring!”

“I agree. So I’ll look for a hypnotist.”

“If he ever performed professionally, he should be in our theatrical file. Take a look.”

“All right.”

They went down to the Batcave. Batman got in the Batmobile. “Good luck,” he said. “I hope you find him. But be careful.”

“I will.”

Batman left, and Dick punched into the computer. He found the names of five hypnotists. However, phone calls to their agents disclosed that three of them were on tour. Another had just returned from an appearance at the Hawaii Hilton. Dick ruled him out.

Down to the last one,
he thought, dialing Alexander Kurtz’s theatrical agent.

“I’d like to know if you still handle Alexander Kurtz,” Dick asked.

“Not at the present time. He’s inactive.”

“You mean retired?”

“I’m not sure. He’s only about fifty. He just went on to other things. To be frank, I haven’t heard from him in years. I’m not sure what he’s doing these days.”