Interviewing the Mad Man
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A cobweb hung silently from the interrogation room's ceiling. The space was cold and sterile. It hurt to be in there. Arrested the suspect and detaining them long enough to get them into this room had been the victory. The catching not the charging had been the reward.
And now in this basement below Gotham, in this dark hole in the ground where the evil of the city would languish in the light, a mad man sat and smiled. A forced smile carved from pure hatred and pressed upon his face like a scar stretching the skin of the world. The dark, hallowed eyes darted between everywhere and nowhere until finally resting on their prey. A tired man looked into these eyes of hell and simply smirked. The Joker had played his last card and Commissioner Gordon had the winning hand.
The clown had sat solemnly quiet for a good ten minutes, waiting for his conviction from Gordon. The whirring of the lights that hung from the ceiling dominated any silence that may have been. The observation windows showed bleakness and yet from behind them, they could feel perhaps a hundred pairs of glistening eyes judging and hating together. He had no way out now. His diversions had been and gone and now the man in the purple suit and a sketched smile was left without options. Sure he had his hoards in Arkham, he had his contacts in land and overseas but no way of getting the word out to rescue him now. No second chances. It hadn't even been announced that the infamous Joker had been captured and was now sitting, like an innocent school boy, in front of the City's highest ranking police chief, Commissioner James Gordon.
It had been a long few days where a cloak of darkness had been pulled swiftly over Gotham and now the nightmare was over.
'Any words for me, Gordon?' The Joker seemed to whisper. His voice crawled over the room and his smile placed the punctuation on the ears of those listening. He was starting to find this whole affair rather tedious. 'Any words of wisdom from Gotham's favourite shadow?' He licked his lips, coating the thin red scratches in more vile hatred. 'Hiding in the dark and leaping out only to throw the light on those you do not wish to associate with? Those who, if we take back the barriers, aren't so different from yourself…'
'Joker…' Gordon leant back in his chair and crossed his arms, 'Your mind tricks can't affect me. Not anymore. I have witnessed your kind for over twenty years. The filth of Gotham. You snivel and you grovel and you latch on to the basest fears of the silent majority. You beg for attention because that's all you can ever wish to achieve. You are going down for…just about every crime in the book and some new ones which I threw in for good measure.' Gordon's usual, calm demeanour was allowing him to talk to this man…this creature without any other policemen in the room. It was just the two of them. Man to monster, just…talking. If this conversation had taken place after Gordon's family had been terrorised, he would have unleashed a hell that only Gotham's finest policemen could throw upon the city's scum. That of silence. To the Joker and the others like him who prowled around Gotham, silence was the worst reaction. No opportunity to wield your cunning into an escape and no way to manipulate your enemies. But this man…or whatever he was who sat in front of the Commissioner, didn't deserve silence. He had created havoc and had unleashed pandemonium on the streets of Gotham. He had almost turned the world on its head. He would get what he deserved in time. And only because of the constant, but secret, support of the police by a man, a creature, whose name was now dirt. A man who would be hunted down and accused for the wrongs he had never committed because it was right to do so. If it hadn't been for the Batman, Gordon doubted if he'd even be there interviewing the madman. He had saved Gordon and the city in so many ways this night…and yet the illusive Batman had lost everything. That was the price of servitude, which would one day catch them all.
Finally, The Joker leaned forward. Resting his elbows on the single table that divided the two men and light from dark.
'You think this is all a big joke to me, don't you, Commissioner?' The Joker laughed. His cold, rancid snigger. 'You think I do this to sate an appetite. A longing … I don't. I do this to prove to men like you that you are wrong and that the world you obey is corrupt. I do this to bring your fears into the open air and drag the sane to insanity. And men like me look at men like you and your fancy lives where you put on your brrrrave smiles...' The Joker touched the tips of his carved smile, pushing them in so that mild spurts of blood oozed from the wound, unleashing the laugh again. 'And ask…Why so serious?'
And the room descended into darkness…