The Further Adventures of Batman (45 page)

It was not difficult, the following week, for Bruce Wayne to entice Millie on board his yacht. He arranged to have lunch at one of her tables on Monday and Tuesday, and by Wednesday he extended the invitation in casual conversation. The following day, on which she was free, they set out on board Bruce’s cabin cruiser with Alfred loyally at the helm.

“I don’t think I even know your last name,” Bruce said as they pulled away from the dock. “It just says Millie on your uniform.”

“Millie Steiner,” she replied. “It’s German.”

“How long have you worked at the Yacht Club, Millie?”

“Two years now.” She shielded her eyes from the sun and watched shoreline passing by. “I like it. You meet lots of interesting people.”

“I saw you leaving work the other night wearing a pretty fancy bracelet. Was that a gift from someone you met at the club?”

She blushed slightly and turned away. “He told me not to wear it. I could get in trouble if he knew you saw that.”

“Ah! You have a secret admirer.”

“Sort of,” she admitted.

“Somebody told me you were with Anton Bartizan before he was killed. Is that true?”

For a moment she seemed on the verge of leaping overboard to escape his questions. Then she calmed down and found herself a seat in one of the swivel chairs that were fixed to the deck for deep-sea fishing. “What do you want from me, Mr. Wayne?” she asked, all traces of her smile gone. “Are you a detective or something?”

“Heavens, no! I’m only making conversation. I like to know all about the women I date.”

“I think I’d better go back.”

“Have a drink first and then we’ll swing around.”

She agreed with some reluctance and Bruce shifted the conversation into less dangerous waters. Her whole manner had changed, though, and she was on her guard. He noticed her obvious nervousness when she realized the yacht was headed into Milliton Cove. “Why did you bring me here?” she asked.

Before he could answer, Alfred shouted from the helm, “Speedboat bearing down on us, Mr. Wayne.”

Bruce saw it off the starboard side, coming up fast. Almost by instinct he pulled Millie from her chair and fell to the deck. There was a burst of fire from an automatic weapon as the pursuer passed them by. The bulkhead above Bruce’s head splintered under the force of the bullets.

“My God!” Millie gasped. “They’re trying to kill me!”

“Who, Millie? Who’s trying to kill you?”

“Are you all right, sir?” Alfred called out.

“So far. Let’s get out of here, fast!”

Later, in a safe harbor, finally able to unwind a bit with a drink in her hand, Millie Steiner began to talk. “They tried to kill me,” she repeated. “Maybe next time they’ll succeed. I have to tell someone about it.”

“About Bartizan?”

She nodded. “They paid me to lure him out to Millionaires’ Cove. It was an anniversary of sorts for us—one month since we’d first gone out—and he bought me that diamond bracelet. I brought him a bottle of Courvoisier from the club. He’d never had it before but he liked it. I was waiting for him to give me the bracelet when they attacked—” There were tears in her eyes. “The fireflies. They burnt his sails and boarded us, just like in pirate days. That’s why he calls himself the Pirate.”

“Who does, Millie?”

But she ignored the question, speaking as if to herself. “He came down into the cabin to protect me, and the Pirate followed him with that cutlass. I thought they were only going to scare him and steal his money. I didn’t know the Pirate would kill him. It was the most awful thing I ever saw. Then he went through Anton’s pockets and tossed me the bracelet. I almost threw it overboard, but I knew Anton had bought it to give me and I decided I should keep it.”

“Who is the Pirate?” Bruce asked again.

But she’d fallen silent, as if a spring had run down. She stared out at the water and he realized the sun had grown low in the sky. It would be evening soon. “What are his plans?” he asked softly.

“There’ll be another attack. He said there have to be at least three.”

“Why? For the money?”

“It’s more than just money. It’s real estate. I don’t understand it all, but I’m afraid. If he sent them to kill me it means he saw me wearing the bracelet too. He thinks I can’t be trusted anymore.”

“We’ve got to get the police after this gang. Can’t you understand that?”

“Yes,” she said quietly, staring off at the low clouds reflecting the sunset.

“Who is to be the third victim?”

“You are. He picked you when you started noticing me.”

Bruce Wayne smiled slightly. “When?”

“I was to lure you out to the Cove with your yacht, any night this week. Now that they’ve tried to kill me I don’t know what to think.”

“If they’re still watching let’s go there tonight.”

“You’re not afraid of anything, are you?”

“I have friends in the right places.”

They’d been cruising Milliton Cove for nearly an hour and Bruce was beginning to think it was all for nothing. If they no longer trusted Millie it wasn’t too likely that they’d walk into so obvious a trap. He decided to give it another half hour and then head for home. About ten minutes later he spotted a large craft running without lights some distance away, and turned to Millie. “You’d better get below. They might be coming.” She didn’t need to be warned twice.

“What about you?” she asked from the top of the hatch.

“I’ll be right down. I have to warn Alfred.”

He hurried up to the helm where Alfred was already turning the wheel to avoid the other vessel. “He’s running without lights, sir!”

“And flying the skull and crossbones, I dare say. Kill the engine and get below. It’s time we had a little help from Batman.”

“But how can you—? The young woman will know.”

There was a roar like a cannon from close off the port side, and suddenly the air seemed filled with fireflies streaking toward them. “Below decks—quickly! I’ll handle the woman.”

There was a clatter as the first of the fireflies struck the cabin cruiser. “What are they?” Alfred asked, terrified.

“Small nails heated red-hot and then fired from a cannon. If we had sails they’d be on fire by now.” He shoved the Englishman ahead of him down the steps to where Millie Steiner waited.

“What’ll we do?” she asked, trembling with fright. “This time they’ll kill me too! I know they will.”

“Quick! You get into this locker. Alfred and I’ll take the next one.” He pushed her into the narrow enclosure and closed the door.

Above deck, the darkened attacker edged closer. Within minutes it crunched against the side of Bruce’s yacht as grappling hooks lashed them together. A half dozen armed men boarded quickly, led by a bearded pirate with a black patch over one eye.

That was when Batman swooped down upon them, swinging himself from the radio mast to land feet first in their midst. “It’s Batman!” one man shouted, firing a wild shot with his weapon as he toppled backward over the side.

Two men threw themselves at Batman and managed to wrestle him to the deck, but only for an instant. He kicked out with his feet, catching one in the face with his blue boot. Then he rolled over and yanked the other’s legs out from under him. A fourth man came at him with a deadly grappling hook held high, but Batman pulled another of the attackers off balance into the weapon’s path.

The Pirate himself had retreated onto his ship, where he was bringing the small cannon to bear on Batman’s chest. “You meddled with the wrong person this time!” he snarled.

“Not so fast, friend,” Batman said, leaping the widening gap between the vessels. He grabbed at the barrel and swung it around just as the Pirate yanked on the lanyard. Another blast of nails was loosed, but this time they splintered the wood of the Pirate’s own ship, a ketch with black sails and darkened running lights.

“Run him through!” the Pirate shouted to the only remaining crewman on his feet.

The man ran at the caped figure with his cutlass drawn, but Batman leaped up, caught the boom above his head, and swung his feet into the attacker’s chest. He came down firmly and turned to face the Pirate. “These are better odds,” he said. “Just the two of us, Pirate!”

“I won’t be stopped by you, Batman! Where’s Wayne and the girl?”

“Below deck, safe from you.”

The Pirate raised his sword, just as a blinding beam of light hit him full in the face. “What’s that?”

“Commissioner Gordon and the police, arriving just in time.”

“Damn you!”

He hurled the cutlass at Batman and turned to flee, but Batman was on him with a flying leap, pinning him to the deck, ending the battle with a hard right fist to the Pirate’s jaw.

A moment later Commissioner Gordon and his men were boarding the yacht from their patrol boat. “Your tip was certainly on target, Batman. I’m only sorry we were a few minutes late.”

“No harm done, Commissioner. Here’s the Pirate and his entire gang.”

“But who is he? Why did he carry out these crimes?”

“I don’t need to remove his false beard and eye patch to know his identity. There were enough clues to that.”

The Pirate struggled to rise, but Batman shoved him back to the deck, pulling away his disguise until they could see the face of Rusty the bartender.

“You see,” Batman told the commissioner a few minutes later, when the Pirate and his gang had been handcuffed and transferred to the police boat, “the robbery part of the attacks was always secondary. What he really wanted to do was drive people away from the Cove and bring down real estate values. It was happening already—plans for a new restaurant were abandoned. That was exactly what Rusty wanted, because once the land values were low enough he planned to buy up several parcels himself and open a restaurant and marina. I think you’ll find that the members of his gang are all waiters at the Yacht Club.”

“My God!”

“Figuring Rusty for the ringleader wasn’t difficult. The Pirate launched his attacks by firing a small cannon loaded with a charge of nails heated red-hot. The technique was especially effective in setting sails on fire, and was used not just by pirates but in the Revolutionary War as well. Rusty liked to read books about the American Revolution, so he would have known about it. He also made the remark that Anton Bartizan’s favorite drink was Courvoisier cognac, but Bartizan never had that before the night he died. If Rusty knew he drank it, he must have been on board the
Dragonfly.
He must have been the Pirate.”

“You’ve done Gotham City a great service, Batman,” Commissioner Gordon told him.

“It was my duty.”

“Where are Bruce Wayne and the others who were on board?”

“Down below, hiding in the supply lockers. You’d better tell them it’s all right to come out now.” And with those words Batman swung himself over the railing and dropped to the dark water below.

While the commissioner made his way down to the cabin, Batman quickly shed his costume in the water and boosted himself through a porthole in one of the lockers, helped by Alfred. It was the same way he’d left the locker earlier.

The commissioner freed Millie and then opened their door. “Come out, Mr. Wayne. I hope you haven’t been too inconvenienced.”

“What’s been happening?” Bruce asked, wrapping a jumpsuit around his damp body and hoping the commissioner wouldn’t notice his wet hair.