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Waidaminut

Nightwing was still cooling his heels in the evidence locker of Precinct number thirty-two, GCPD. He'd been waiting to sign out a couple of handguns Batman had sent him to pickup for ballistic tests on the things regarding a murder over by the docks two days ago. It looked like the bad guys were working both Gotham and Bludhaven so this one was a family affair for a bit of a change.

He was waiting.

Just hanging around waiting for the Evidence security guy to get back from the longest dinner break in the history of the world.

Waiting.

Nothing to do.

Bored, he hopped off the table he'd been sitting on, swinging his feet. There were about a million boxed and envelopes on the shelves in some random order, as far as he could tell. There was no rhyme or reason, they were just all jammed together there, overflowing onto the incredibly dirty floor.

Sighing, he started poking through this and that, exploring, seeing what he could find. Maybe something here would be interesting. Doubtful, but it was better than counting the dead flies on the windowsill.

A pair of broken handcuffs here, a box full of switchblades there. A lot of plastic bags with old clothing, a lot of it bloody and gross. A couple of laptop computers, probably waiting to have their hard drives searched for something or other. Plaster casts of tire tracks and footprints. Boring.

Boxes and boxes, shelves and shelves of guns filled an entire wall; sawed off shotguns were on one shelf, a bunch of Uzi's were on another. Cheap Saturday night specials overflowed one entire floor to ceiling cabinet and a couple of Bazooka's were leaning against the wall. There was a cabinet of homemade bombs, another with partly dismantled timing devices from God knew what—more bombs, but who knew what or why. There were a few old German Lugers, a couple of old rifles that looked like they may have seen action in one of the World Wars, or maybe both of them for that matter. It looked like pretty much something for everyone was here. Hundreds and hundreds of guns. Eventually they'd all end up melted down and sold for scrap when whatever cases they were attached to were settled. That would be a while, but it would happen sooner or later.

Maybe if he looked through the newest box of handguns he might, maybe, find the ones he was send to get. Maybe. It could happen. He had the case numbers. They should be here. He could get lucky, right? They all had tags tied to them, how hard could it be? They were only brought in this week, they should be near the top of whatever pile the police had going for recent cases, right? Maybe in this box.

He opened another storage box, this one as full as the rest but closer to the desk and the scrawled dates on it were worn away—this one could have just about anything in it. Inside was the same jumble the other boxes and crates held, the guns just put inside with nothing wrapped around them, any fingerprints long destroyed. Shaking his head to himself at the evidence gone, never to be recovered, he started digging, finding nothing worth looking at. There was just the usual mix of snub noses and cheap plastic street guns…until he caught a glimpse of something lighter in color than the rest of the dark steel or hardened synthetic.

The handle was almost white, off white or maybe cream colored ivory and intricately inlaid with what looked like gold and silver or maybe platinum set with diamonds, rubies and emeralds. He gently pulled the pistol out of the box and brought it out to look at it carefully in the harsh lighting of the weapons crib. It was old, that was obvious. The ivory had that rich patinaed look it only get when it's really old, like at least a hundred or more years old and the workmanship was outstanding. You don't live in Wayne Manor for ten years without learning the difference between a cheap copy and the real deal and this thing was as real as it got.

If he had to guess 'Wing would have placed this from Europe, maybe France, Germany or possibly Russia mid eighteenth century. He couldn't identify it much more than that but someone at a museum or one of the big auction houses in the city, a specialist in antique guns would know. He was still looking at the thing when the clerk, back from his leisurely dinner wandered back in, holding two donuts and a Styrofoam coffee cup.

"Yeah? Wha'dya want?"

Nightwing gave him the permission form to take the guns he'd been sent for. The man looked it over, grunted and pulled them from God knew where in a back room. Nightwing signed the book, the old pistol still on the table. "Do you know anything about this one?"

The man gave it a quick glance, checked the number on the tag and pulled up a number on his computer screen. "Yeah. That was part of a big arms bust 'bout four years ago. The perps are doing time but no one ever claimed that thing. Old, huh?"

"I guess. What'll happen to it?"

"Public auction, probably. Why, you want it?"

Nightwing knew that if he walked out with the thing this idiot wouldn't care but the Bat would eviscerate him. No, thanks. But… "You mind if I sign it out and see what I can find out about the thing?"

"Yeah, like I care. No skin off my ass, do whadev'r ya want."

Signing his name on another piece of paper, he put all the guns in a bag, each one wrapped against getting scratched or anything and headed out. His first stop was the Cave to let an impatient Bruce get started on the ballistics, then Dick went over to the computer to see what he could find out on his own about the old gun. Not much, actually. Obviously it was about two hundred to two hundred and fifty years old and clearly it was a private commission from someone with some serious money. It was possible it had once been part of a pair of dueling pistols and he found a few markings that suggested that his original thought might have been correct; it was probably Russian originally. But what the hell it was dong as part of an arms bust in Gotham was anyone's guess. Stolen, sure, of course, but from where, from whom?

As far as he could tell no claim had been filed with any major police department in the United States, Europe or Interpol. That meant whomever had it stolen from them may have stolen it themselves and that thief may have snagged it from another thief as well back to forever.

So what to do?

He could call Barbara and see if Oracle could find anything but he doubted it since he has access to the same police records she did.

"The markings match, we have our smoking gun to tie them to the gunrunners."

"Did you just make a joke?"

Bruce gave him a filthy look; yes, he'd make a joke. A very small one. "Let's go shut them down."

The next day, gunrunners behind bars, Dick made a call (as Nightwing, friend and occasional collaborator with Batman) and arranged a meeting in an hour with the curator of Weapons and Armor at Gotham Museum of Art. The man was really quite pleasant, considering that he'd probably been ordered to drop whatever he was doing and play nice with the son, or whatever he was, of the man who had prevented the place from being robbed. Plus, his dad—or whatever had returned those missing Monets and Picassos just last year. Without going into details, Nightwing produced the pistol and asked if the man could tell him anything about it. When pressed, he just said he'd happened upon it unexpectedly and was curious.

Okay, sure. Taking the thing and looking at it from every angle with a magnifying glass he finally was ready for his off the cuff verdict.

Eighteenth century Russian, as Dick has suspected. It was clearly a custom, commissioned piece and it looked like—just let him check on something—yes, it seemed remarkably similar to a pistol given to Catherine the Great by the French Ambassador as a good will gesture. The thing was catalogued and described but no pictures were known to exist but—look here—that was her cipher engraved in the gold and the two headed eagle of the Romanov dynasty right there if you looked closely. Was there any providence about its origin? No? What a shame but in his opinion, that's likely what this was but how on earth it ended up here was, well, who knew? These things happen all the time, what with the black market in historical objects and valuables.

Thanking him, Nightwing took the thing with him then made a call to Jim Gordon. Half an hour later he was in the Commissioner's office.

"So as far as I can tell the thing is probably stolen with no provenance and whoever stole it probably got it from someone else who stole the thing and so on back to Catherine. We could call the Hermitage and see if they have any ideas but since it's not listed anywhere, even on the stolen artworks list I don't see who we could really return it to."

Jim was looking at the thing—it really was a beautiful piece of work. "We could see if any of the surviving Romanovs want it or see if maybe the Hermitage would be willing to take it. Or I guess we could sell it at public auction and give whatever it raises to the PBA or something."

Sure, they could do one of those things, or… "Why don't you just donate it to the Museum here? You'd get yourself and the department some good publicity and then if anyone steps up to claim the thing we could see how legitimate their claim is."

"Well, God knows we could use some good publicity but I think the idea of a big auction might be the way to go since we'd get the publicity and the money."

" 'Up to you. 'Later."

The auction was held three months later after letters went out to people with a possible claim to the pistol, none of whom seemed all that interested in the thing, which was a little surprising. The big auction house was packed and reporters covered the sale, taking pictures when Bruce Wayne posted the highest bid. He was known to have an assortment of old guns, among a number of other things and so it wasn't unexpected that he'd be here today.

"Congratulations, Mr. Wayne. That's quite an addition to your collection."

"Thank you, Clark but I think I'll just give it to the Gotham Art Museum, if they'll have it. I think they will, don't you, though? It's a pretty little thing when you look at it, even if it is a gun and all. I guess you wouldn't want to try to actually fire it or anything, would you?"

"No, I wouldn't think so…That's generous of you, sir." And probably a big tax write off, too plus Bruce had brought attention to the number of guns still in the city and the problem of art theft. Not a bad day's work, all in all.

"I like to see this sort of thing made available to the people, you know and to be perfectly honest, I really don't have room for the thing in the house. You know, people think I have all this room—and I guess I do, but you'd be amazed how quickly a place just fills up and before you know it you can hardly turn around…"

Clark Kent smiled; there was little he enjoyed as much as Bruce in idiot playboy mode.

Note: This idea for this little story is based on a real incident. There is an ornate antique (18th century, I think), hand made pistol on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It was donated by the NYPD maybe twenty or so years ago and turned up as part of a gun raid, mixed in with the modern stuff, pretty much as described in this story. I've always loved that.

1/31/07

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