AMOUR FOU
Disclaimer: "Batman" and its characters are property of DC Comics and Warner Bros.
I
Prologue
"The Night Watch"
Don't let the dark into me
We killed the angels that warned us of you
Don't let the dark into me
We raised the tower of Babel for you
Don't let the dark into me
We let the children build temples for you
Don't let the dark into me
Don't let the vengeance of Heaven be you
(Gary Numan, Dark)
It's a windless, smoggy night at the Gotham docks.
The foghorn calls to warn the mariners, lest their attention slips, and late night walkers to keep an extra eye on their way home.
The apparent calm fools nobody. Each and every Gothamite is aware that the dark wing that used to protect the city like a blanket has now fallen upon it, to suffocate it. Hero and murderer wear the same mask.
It's an uncommonly uneventful night in Gotham.
No gunshots, no police cars chasing someone in the streets. Even crime seems to have chosen some form of restrain this dying day, the day Harvey Dent has been laid into the ground, a waxen mask on a wasted body, a heroic veil hiding an inglorious demise.
James Gordon keeps his gaze glued to the TV screen, but the images of that afternoon at the monumental graveyard don't really register in his mind. He doesn't recognize as genuine the tears shed by the populace, and feels guilty about it. He's the only keeper of the great chicanery. He and his accomplice, the dark avenger who as of today will have to hide and carry the burden of slander.
James Gordon thinks lying is in the blood of the city. The city rests on putrid foundations, and there's precious little that he can do at the moment, save for taking a look at his own children and call it a day.
It's a harsh and stagnant night in Gotham City.
Pino Maroni, for the first time in months, goes to sleep with a smirk on his lips. The loose cannon is under custody, in solitary in the pits of Arkham Asylum, and his nemesis is now no more than a mass murderer with a gigantic ransom on his head, after doing him the splendid gift of ridding him of St. Harvey Dent and his own father.
And now there's a city ravaged by bombs and panic to reconstruct, which translates into scores of contracts ready to fall into his lap and hundreds of bribes to cash.
Being naturally an optimist he knows that things are returning to their erstwhile condition, to the good old days. And he'll be the first in line to reap the fruits of that rebirth, once made clear to Umberto who's in charge now.
For the time being he just has to wait for the smell of fire and gunpowder to disperse.
It's a night of pale, flickering light in the Gotham haze.
Bruce Wayne is watching them from above and his impression that they might belong to another world makes the sense of loneliness that's been oppressing him for the last few days even more crushing.
The watchtower has struck two. Tonight the guardian angel won't spread his wings. He's not needed at the moment, and outside he's being hunted for, to be put in chains. It's what he wanted, no matter if no one will ever say thank you to him. Thinking like a criminal, acting like a vigilante, this is what he must learn to do now. So he needs some day to prepare for the police. For Jim Gordon.
And still there's a bitter mouthful to swallow. Harvey Dent was buried alongside Rachel.
Bruce Wayne wishes he had a cuirass to shield him from that kind of wound, but not even Fox could put one together for him. And Fox isn't there anymore, anyway.
They all slowly drift away.
It's a night of frenetic activity on the hill a mile away from Gotham center.
Paulo Morales has been working in Arkham for ten years, but has never lived through hours like these.
He and Everton unload from the van the last madman to be sheltered inside those walls. They were picked because they're the tallest, the bulkiest, the strongest. And Everton has heavy hands. Further, six snipers are ready with tranquillizing darts that would knock an elephant out. Their wide open eyes make him uneasy: should their aim be a quarter of an inch by the side they would send him to dreamland instead of the felon. Thankfully the detainee has decided to cooperate.
The guy must have well-introduced allies: he won't be sent to Blackgate to wait for the trial. Or maybe someone hopes that they can fix his brains before he gets to court, so that they can slap thirty life sentences on him. But that's Dr Arkham's worry. His worry is to see that he makes it to his cell.
Oh so meekly, held in his straightjacket, the weirdo moves his head from side to side, smirking. He smirks constantly, there's no way to make him stop, "not even a hefty punch to the left kidney" Everton confirmed after experimenting with it.
Paulo Morales struggles to recognize that disfigured but harmless face as the sadistic clown in the harrowing footage broadcasted by… what network was it? Doesn't matter. Even without makeup, the matter doesn't change. This man, no, this freak has weeks of solitary ahead. As he gets a scrutinizing look from the monster, Paulo Morales realizes that the arrangement will be a good thing especially for those who will be safe from his clutches.
Quick now, better be quick. Lock him in and forget about the thing, the massacres he committed with a crazed blood red grin painted on his face. Because in spite of his anger, his craving for vengeance and the animal urge to make him pay, to hurt him so badly that he'll beg for mercy, to take one or two teeth away from his obsessive smile, Paulo Morales recognizes that he's scared.
It's just another night glued to the laptop in a Gotham downtown apartment.
In Dr Harleen Quinzel's living room the PC and muted telly's artificial lights burn the woman's eyes, so she takes her glasses off and looks for some relief pondering over the final chapter.
No matter the shelves crammed with DVD's filling her evenings with passionate love stories and classic romance novels by the dozen, tonight it's a tape of crime news that provides a silent sonic tapestry to her typing. Less than thirty pages to the last word.
Doctor Quinzel's books sell well, notwithstanding her colleagues' sneering at what they dub "mall psychology". She lets them say what they want, it's all envy after all.
She had counted on her latest effort, "Criminal minds and purported mental balance", to silence them for good, but Jonathan Crane, her final chapter, had the most inconvenient idea of healing completely in record time. With every session Harleen Quinzel enthuses about his progress, congratulates him for having fully re-integrated within the social structure and asks him if he really threw his horrible scarecrow mask away. He consistently lies that he did.
Yet Dr Arkham told her in unmistakable terms not to dwell on his period of illness whenever meeting Jonathan. She's not to dig further. Her boss thinks it could be damaging. He's afraid he could relapse, and the asylum might lose reputation. Of course this is her deduction only.
And Jonathan himself chafes at her attempts to return to the topic. "These things depress me, Harley. I have an idea. We could hold our next meeting by candlelight. Would you like that? We could reminisce about our college days".
Usually she pretends to want to put him back into his place, tells him once more that trying to hook up with his psychiatrist is harmful, but Jonathan is objectively very cute and she found him attractive even as they were but freshmen. His shoulders are too gaunt, but she could overlook such a detail should she one day decide to supersede with professional ethics and really go on a date with him. Before the glint of madness, what she's really interested in, vanishes for good from his immense eyes.
Harleen Quinzel stirs and feels her collar bones creak. Immense eyes or not, Jonathan Crane won't be the icing of the cake of her book anymore. And searching Arkham from top to bottom won't help either. Neither a tour of Blackgate would come useful now, after that mined ferries matter she expects the prison to be evacuated. Weren't the boys so good, so ethically pristine, when they didn't blow a load of honest citizens up? Harleen Quinzel is ready to bet that the public opinion will cry for them to be set free.
She turns her laptop off without saving. She only wrote a worthless couple of pages full of empty phrases. She gets up, turns the light on and frowns at the begonias on the table.
"Movie night confirmed Wednesday at eight at my place. Kiss kiss. Pam".
Pam can't send messages. Pam ignores e-mail exists. Card after card, she's filling her house with vegetables. Movie night, the thrilling mid-week entertainment.
Surely Harleen Quinzel wouldn't want her life to be like the romance novels that crowd her library: she would just be satisfied with something to break the monotony. She yawns and looks around trying to gather the strength to get into the kitchen and fix herself a vestigial dinner. The faux-Venetian masks her mother bought at a TV auction glare at her with empty orbits and tight lips. Only one out of five attempts a smile. She'll be the only one spared from the trash bin.
Harleen Quinzel stops the VCR barely glancing at the clown who's spitting out menacing words at the camera.
Her last chapter will have to wait another 24 hours. Somehow she'll find a solution. After all she has nothing but her job, the gym and Pamela to spend her remaining time on.
Harleen Quinzel's problem is just that Gotham is a boring city: boring to death. Nothing ever happens in the blasted town.
Don't let the light shine on me
I am the poison that feeds life to you
Don't let the light shine on me
I am the demon that waits inside you
Don't let the light shine on me
I am the ghost that reminds death of you
Don't let the light shine on me
I am the darkness that crawls into you
(Gary Numan, Dark)