The Strange Case of Frank Norton

Author's note: I don't own anything in this story, except for the general plot.

Chapter 1

As far as nights in Gotham went, this one was turning out pretty ordinary. Petty thieves were breaking and entering, smugglers were counting money in smoke-filled basements … Batman had just managed to pin the Joker against a scaffolding on a roof.

"You are not going to give up easily, are you," grumbled the hero.

"You're a fine one to talk, considering you've been hounding me like a terrier," came the mocking reply.

Caught as he was, the Joker looked straight into his captor's eyes and promptly kicked him.

Now, Batman had on his standard armored suit. That included protection in the groin area. However, even with padding like that, a hard knee to the family jewels was still surprising and a rather unpleasant affair. Unfortunately, it also gave the Joker an opening to exploit and manage to slip away. In the scuffle, Batman felt something pull from his side.

When he'd righted himself, the dark knight saw two things: the Joker standing near the edge of the roof, grinning like a madcap … and his grappling gun in the hand of the villain.

"Sly fingers," the Joker said, wiggling said appendages. "Oooh, I've always wanted one of these! Let's see how she runs."

He pointed the gun to the nearby building, fired it and jumped with a howl of maniacal laughter. Murmuring vile curses under his breath, Batman made to follow. After all, his cloak had served as a glider on more than one occasion.

It wasn't difficult to locate where the mad bastard had landed – a balcony window stood broken. The bat came down on the balcony and started towards the interior of the building. The lights were on, and he could clearly see the Joker standing inside waiting … and pointing the grappling hook in his direction. The weapon wasn't deadly by itself, but who knew what the madman had in mind for it.

"Now let's see if I can…."

"Ahem," someone coughed.

Both hero and villain whirled around. Apparently the room had already been occupied before their arrival. A man stood at the far end, to the left of Batman.

He was a tall, unremarkable fellow, with grayish hair. The living room (for what else could it be with the sofa and armchair combo, paintings on the walls and a chandelier) was unremarkable too, for the most part. The man was standing before a very large stereo console and holding a vinyl record.

The Joker, ever the observant one, asked, "Oh, is that The Dark Side of the Moon?"

The man nodded.

"Goody. I haven't listened to that one since I was a teenager. C'mon Bats!"

He made his way to a large sofa and plonked down.

The man looked at him, shrugged and turned around to load the record onto the player. The Joker was patting the seat next to him in an inviting manner. The situation was absurd!

"Sir, I strongly suggest that you …" Batman couldn't finish his sentence.

"There is a time and place for fighting, and this isn't it," the man said in an even and almost emotionless voice.

"He's right about that. C'mon, you can try to cuff me later," piped up the madman.

Batman stood there frowning. The evening had gone quiet and it was bothering him, but he couldn't concentrate on that at the moment.

The man had finished preparing his stereo and had dropped the needle onto the record. The familiar heartbeat of Speak to Me was coming out of the speakers. With the experience of a thousand battles against the Joker, the caped hero knew that his arch enemy could act completely randomly at times. Apparently this time he had decided he wanted to listen to Pink Floyd.

Batman wanted nothing more than to continue the fight. He was sure he'd manage to haul the Joker back to Arkham tonight! However, it was the knowledge of that random nature that stopped the hero. "Who knows what tricks he still has up his sleeves? I really don't want to risk the life of a bystander." So, he sat down on the sofa … as far away from the Joker as possible and slightly sideways, so he could keep the villain under watch at all times.

The Joker, on the other hand, seemed completely content. He was sprawling comfortably, grinning and nodding in time with the music. Similarly relaxed, their "host" was in the armchair with his eyes closed.

When the chimes at the beginning of Time started, the Joker giggled, "He, heh … dingle, dingle, dingle!"

When The Great Gig in the Sky came, he even hummed along, apparently remembering the melody.

For many minutes the scene remained the same. The only movement was when their odd host got up to turn the record over.

Shortly before the end of the album the strange man got up and left the room.

"How rude," commented the Joker. "He didn't even say goodnight!"

He noticed the dark, looming presence to the side.

"Heh … I guess music time is over, eh Bats?"

The night had started out normal enough, then taken a turn for the strange and eventually for the worst. The Joker managed to escape.

Several days later, Batman was fuming. Not only was the Joker missing, but he was constantly thinking about the weird man with the Pink Floyd record.

Who was he?

More importantly, why had he stopped him from taking the madman?

Even better: why the hell had Batman agreed?

There was something bizarre going on here and he intended to find out what. Maybe that unremarkable looking man was working for the Joker.

For several days however he couldn't do much about it. In Gotham, it was apparently open season for all possible criminals. He had busted three drug dealing groups, an illegal gambling house, a brothel, a smuggling operation for weapons and countless small-time crooks.

For several days he constantly thought about the strange fellow and even dreamed of him. Batman couldn't draw if his life depended on it, but that unremarkable face was so ingrained in his mind, that he could have recreated it almost perfectly. He had done so, in fact, on his computer. But while waiting for the face recognition software to produce results, he decided he should visit the man.

That's how he found himself on that balcony again.

"Something is wrong here." He could feel it. Even before entering the room he had seen that it was completely empty. Gone were the sofa and armchair. No stereo, no paintings. The room was completely bare. Moving carefully through the door, Batman found the whole apartment desolate. It looked like nobody had lived there for a long time.

"It's not impossible that that night was a setup. I never did get to look around the place much."

Exiting the apartment, he made his way down the stairs to the entrance of the building. Fortunately, there was a porter there. He was watching the door so when Batman tapped him on the shoulder, the man spun around startled. He became downright panicked when he saw the dark knight. He stepped back, almost tripping on his feet.

"Crikey man. You're liable to give a bloke a heart attack!"

"What can you tell me about apartment 75B."

"Empty place. Wh … Why do you want to know about it?"

"Three or four days ago there must have been activity there and this man was involved."

Batman pulled out a small notepad and showed the porter the computer-generated portrait of the strange man.

"N … Not possible … ah … sir. You see, I've worked here for five years. That bloke there lived in 75B. I remember him. Frank Norton. Neighbours were complaining of loud music. Three years ago he disappeared. No trace. I remember the newspapers … a-and when the haulers came for all his junk. Flat's been empty ever since. No one's been there. I've the only keys here."

He pulled out a set of keys from his desk and displayed them to the hero.

Batman grumbled a "thank you" and quickly left. Now that he had a name the image in his mind was even more solid.

He went back to examine the place. His findings largely proved the porter's story. The front door had been locked (he'd had to use his lockpick the first time around) but that proved nothing. The state of the apartment was another story. Undisturbed cobwebs lined all windows, except the broken one. The dust looked undisturbed, save for his footprints. No one had been here in a long time.

When he got back to the manor, he discovered that the computer had produced results. The same name, Frank Norton, with all the appropriate personal data. It confirmed the porter's story: missing without a trace. He had been a loner, so it was presumed he had killed himself. There was even a photo in one of the newspapers featuring the porter he had talked to and some surly looking men. They were loading into a truck the same large stereo console he had listened to that strange evening. The article said that a year after Norton's disappearance, his possessions had been sold off in a charity auction.

Further, the face recognition program had no results to display. Batman had a connection to the Justice League network, so his machine had access to vast amounts of data. He checked the timeframe of the last three years. Even with the resources available, there were no hits.

In a slightly desperate bid, Batman decided to run a quick check on his blood for the several toxins Joker was known to use. The idea was that maybe the whole occurrence was some sort of a hallucination. No luck there either, as the analysis came out clean.

The man truly was missing.

Eventually, the Joker did resurface.

One evening, a week after discovering the name Frank Norton, Batman got an emergency call from Commissioner Gordon.

"Get down to the GCPD, right now! The Joker is here, with a handful of laughing gas grenades and 'Batman' on his mouth. He wants to speak to you."

"Any hostages?"

"No, but if he sets off one of those grenades, we're all goners here!"

Before James Gordon could finish that last sentence, Batman was moving. Later, when analyzing the events, he would find that he had set a new personal record for responding to a call.

The scene at the central police station was tense, to say the least. Guns were out, pointing at the Joker. The villain was pacing to and fro, muttering under his breath. The Joker always looked crazy, as was his style, after all. This evening, however, he looked even wonkier than usual.

When he saw Batman, he immediately began shouting at him.

"What did you do? What did you do? I can't get him out of my head! How did you put him in there?"

"What are you talking about?"

The Joker seemed not to have heard him.

"He's in my head! My head is my own! Nobody goes in there without my permission. And my dreams! He is speaking to me, relentlessly … AAAH! I thought I liked Pink Floyd, but hearing those songs every night … it's driving me bonkers!"

"You already are bonkers," someone piped up from the cops.

Batman flinched inwardly at those words, but there was no reaction from the Joker again.

"I can't get that blasted face out of my mind and his music! It's your fault, Bats!"

Panting heavily, he finally ended his rant. There was complete and utter silence. Batman finally made to respond.

"I did not make you see him, Joker. You're the one usually inducing hallucinations, not I," he said calmly.

The Joker looked confused for a while, as if the meaning of what was said eluded him completely. Finally his face sparkled with realization.

"Ha! You said 'him'. YOU SAID 'HIM'," he bellowed.

Batman realized his mistake all too late. He had been so preoccupied with that face, that he had let it slip into his words.

"You know who I'm talking about, oh yeees," continued the Joker. "He's in your mind too, isn't he? That strange, average face, with hair gray at the temples and that small mole on his left cheek! I know him, you know him. THEY ALL KNOW HIM! HAAAHAHAH!"

After his laughter had died down, he looked tired, forlorn and deflated. No trademark grin and hunched shoulders. He looked around at the gathered cops and finally at Batman.

"Look, Bats, I'm calling this an evening," he said slowly, and without his usual bluster.

Everyone was stunned when he started for the door. Gordon gathered his wits and shouted, "Are we simply going to let him get away?"

"Remember, Commissioner, he still has the grenades with him," reminded Batman, calmly.

"Hey Gordon," the Joker shouted over his shoulder, "relax. The only thing I plan to do tonight is to find a bottle of whiskey and try to drown myself in it. Maybe that'll keep him out."

The last words were said in a murmur, as if he were speaking to himself. He left quietly.

"Christ, what was that all about," asked Gordon. "Who were you two talking about? Dreams … and music? I need an explanation now, Batman."

With everyone staring at him, Batman knew there was no getting out of this one. He grimaced and reluctantly, and as simply as possible, told the story of that bizarre evening, then the little he knew about Frank Norton. Everyone sat in silence for a minute after he finished.

Timidly one officer raised his hand, as if asking for attention. Attention was given to him, alright. Everyone stared. The man flinched a bit but managed to find his strength and started talking.

"Batman, that face Joker described … I've seen it too, or at least someone similar to that description. When I'm asleep at night. For the past week."

Batman raised an eyebrow at this. The situation was beginning to look stranger with each passing minute. He took out his notepad, selected the file with Norton's face and showed it to the officer. The man nodded with certainty. Batman passed the device to the next person.

"Has anyone else seen this face while sleeping in the past few days?"

As the image made the rounds, more and more people raised their hands … more than half of the crowd. Eventually even Commissioner Gordon did.

"Well, that's just peachy," the Commissioner commented sourly. "Any plans, Batman?"

"Unfortunately," the hero replied gruffly, "dealing with dreams is somewhat beyond my abilities. However, I know where to ask."

"Don't let me stop you then," said Gordon. "This whole situation is giving me the creeps."

End note:

Special thanks to Concolor44, who agreed to be the beta reader for this story. If you haven't read his works, go do it ASAP. You're missing out on a real treat.