"The Eternal Ifs."
Then.
Jim Gordon.
When he slept he didn't dream.
Not about Chicago, or his son or his ex-wife. Not what they might be doing these days or how old little James must be by now and what kind of man he was becoming.
Not about Sarah, his wife, brave and headstrong, his rock in his most desperate times, dead these long years because of a maniac. Not the way her hair fell when she laughed, or the way or the smell of her. Tobacco and Chanel.
Not of the Batman, or who he was or how he came to be.
It was in his waking moments that he dreamed.
He dreamed of Barbara.
Walking in Robinson Park. The greenery close in all around them, cobblestone paths through hedgerows of yew and juniper, pines and oaks and elders, and in a grove by Pinkney Fountain a half-circle of apple trees. The summer sun shining through golden leaves.
He sees it now. In his mind's eye. As clearly as he's walking into the Clocktower now. As clearly as he's in a drab blue elevator going up to an apartment that used to be his. And used to be his daughter's.
He dreams of walking with her. Following the west path far enough to come upon the Twelve Caesars statues. A generous donation from eons past, or so he heard, from one of the Waynes who founded the city and believed life lessons could be best gleaned from men who lived two thousand years ago in another country. All twelve: Barbara explained it to him once. First there was Julius Caesar, a man who having been given power never gave it up. And the rest. Augustus, Claudius, down to Domitian, the final failure.
They stand there looking at Augustus.
He envies her brain. That magnificent intelligence that he did not have. Or maybe he did. Maybe it was a different kind. He asks her. "I don't know," he smiles, "what do you think?"
She cocks an eye and says, "you're the smartest man I've ever met, Dad, don't sell yourself short."
He wondered now if he had. If it had been years of lessened self-presence. If he'd...if he'd lowered himself in order to fit in. To match himself to Gotham. To this town.
This.
The elevator dinged open.
Police, his own officers, lined the hallway.
This.
He dreamed of his life and the way he was living it these days. He thought about his early days in this town, young and angry and full of righteous fervour. Trying to prove something to himself or to someone. Trying to keep it all together in a town that was determined to rip it all apart. Piece by piece. He remembered that first year.
The valiant efforts of the Batman, and of Harvey Dent, and Gordon himself-to change this town. To remake it. He thought about those people. People that didn't matter anymore. The Falcone crime family and how Dent had systematically murdered all of them but one. The Maroni family, a victim of the crossfire as much as an instigator. How Dent was the only one left standing at the end of it all, and how that violence, that brutal end to the way the world used to be, had put them all in their present positions.
He sighed.
He misses the good old days.
He really does.
He misses Barbara.
God help him, he even misses the Batman.
He walked over the threshold, held up the crossbar police tape and slid under. DeFilippis and Weir standing there waiting for him. They were older now, they were just kids in earlier time. In another life. Before all this, when there was a No Man's Land over this city, they were two young officers, good police, stuck here and in love and they had survived. And now they had made a life.
They were among his most trusted officers. They knew him when he was old, and here he was pushing sixty-five. Older still. Older still.
He didn't know art, he wasn't an interior decorator. But he knew he liked Barbara's apartment. All natural colours, dark blue and green in sort of French strands, an antique shop if antique shops looked lived in. And yet not. Like it was its own museum.
It had always looked very clean, he thought, or not really very lived-in at all. He admired it: her tenacity, that magnificent organisational superiority she had.
She had a good life, he thought.
He looked to one side in the den: a tufted leather davenport with a plaid throw over one arm. Copies of the New Yorker and NewsTime stacked upon a cushion. Toile curtains pulled back across a bay window and staring down at Grand Avenue.
DeFilippis coming up behind him. "Sir."
He turned to him and said, "yes?"
"Uh, we found something."
Gordon frowned. Followed DeFilippis back and down the long hallway past Barbara's bathroom, twin guest rooms, into the master suite. A king bed in a tufted leather headboard. Oak bookcases on either side.
"Alright?"
"Here," DeFilippis said. He went to one case and flipped Moby-Dick forward. "CSI didn't want to touch anything until you had a look."
Gordon breathed deep when the bookcase spun on its axis. DeFilippis jumped out of the way.
What lay beyond was ingenuity too much for even him to imagine. A bank of computers and monitors, a central HDTV with a floating logo he didn't recognise in the centre. An array of keyboards beneath each. A bankers lamp on top of a small bookcase to one side, a PowerBook on the shelf next to it and open to the GCPD main intranet page. Four monitors across the top, surveillance footage on each one of places he didn't recognise.
He stepped forward into a beam of light.
"Sir?"
He heard DeFilippis, but did not understand.
He frowned. Those harsh cop features set into stone. His mustache turned down. His eyes narrowed.
Barbara.
What were you doing?
The central monitor changed: the logo faded into a computer desktop. He looked at it. The cursor scrolled over a full screen of icons with names he didn't recognise-he managed to make out "Luthor," "Drake," "Wayne," and "Elliot" before the arrow settled and double clicked on one called "In Case of Emergency,"
He looked at DeFilippis. "A minute, Andy?"
DeFilippis nodded and left.
Gordon looked back at the screen. The desktop icon became an open video player.
Barbara on the other side. Young and beautiful. Her glasses low and loose on her nose, a wisp of hair covering half her face. She moved it away. Looked at him.
"Hi, Dad."
"Barbara..."
She smiled and choked and looked around.
He touched the monitor.
She looked around for another minute. Took her glasses off and wiped her eyes. Put them back on.
He thought of himself in this moment. Stupidly. Selfishly.
About how he had kept it together through this whole.
This situation.
Finding out she had been killed. Identifying the body. Learning it was the Mad Hatter. Of all people. Learning through newspaper clippings that Tetch would face trial. Refusing hand over foot to Surrillo and Spencer and Garcia-refusing to testify. Refusing to give Tetch or the media the time of day. Taking leave of absence to avoid such things. Avoiding the Batman, or maybe the Batman was avoiding him. For a month.
An eternity.
All things considered, he was doing a pretty good job of keeping it together.
But this.
Standing here. Seeing this new side of her. Whatever it was.
This was.
Worse.
He started crying.
Barbara spoke. Finally.
"Dad. I need to be honest and clear. I'm Batgirl. In another life I was Barbara Gordon. These days I'm called Oracle.
"This existed before. Something I'd typed up on an ancient word processor during the No Man's Land. Then, it was meant as a chronicle of the times. And, in case we didn't survive, a lifeboat. For everything we were and everything we were going to be. It covered the fall and rise of some pretty extraordinary people. And some pretty ordinary people. Most of these people aren't even alive anymore and if they are they're so faded in importance that they might as well not exist at all. But. As it turned out, it was ordinary people who ended up saving Gotham from worse than thieves and murderers.
"People like you. Like Sarah. Like the Batman.
"People who saved this city, Dad. To this day I can't believe it. And I can't imagine what would have happened if we'd failed.
"If Gotham had slid into oblivion. If. The eternal ifs.
"What I am sure of is that I love you, Dad. Forever. And so this letter serves as a warning. Because everything on this computer is everything I am. It tells a story, Dad. Of the second greatest family I have been a part of, and the remarkable men who have sacrificed their lives to save this town.
"And yes, Dad, one of them is you.
"So here goes nothing. Once this video ends, the software will open Documents. There will be a list about five years long in there of everything you need to know. I need you to read it, and to understand it. And if you don't right now then maybe you will. Someday.
"And so what I said was true. This letter existed before. But I deleted it. Because we had come back from the edge.
"And I've spent the last few weeks rewriting it, along with everything else that's happened since. The history of Gotham ever since No Man's Land. Up to and including the recent disappearance of the Joker. The son of a bitch who put this bullet in my spine.
"I rewrote it all because I wanted you to know. Because I love you enough to tell you. Because I've lied to you for years, and because the truth hurts less than that. Because the Joker hasn't been seen in months and because that scares me. So I'm going to end this now. And I'm going to find him.
"And uh. If something happens, then I needed you to know all this. I needed you to believe, and I need you and Batman to work together. To find this man. To put an end to it all.
"I love you. Forever.
Oracle Journal. Entry 001."
He looked at the ceiling. Breathed in and willed the tears away.
The video ended. The window closed. The cursor moved over to Documents and it came open. The first document was labelled "Batman."
It opened.
He breathed.
And started reading.
He started at Bruce Wayne, the early years, and wound his way fast through the rest. Things he'd lived through. Others he didn't know had happened at all. Or happened differently.
His life. Her life. Through other eyes.
He checked his watch. Looked back at the screen.
He became aware, disturbingly and quietly aware, that he was alone in the apartment. The dull roar of police activity out in the apartment was gone.
Then.
He heard breathing that wasn't his own.
Turned his head a bit.
"Why."
From behind him, the shadow spoke. "Because she trusted you." Then it paused. And said, "The way you trusted me."
Gordon looked at the shadow.
"Have I?"
"Jim," the Batman said. "Let me explain."
"Save it, Wayne," he said.
Silence.
"Five minutes on her computer told me everything."
The Batman waited.
"Why her?"
The Batman was silent. Motionless.
"She wasn't supposed to be part of this."
"She died believing in the mission, Jim. She was a fighter."
Gordon leant forward and covered half of his face with one hand. Then he looked up, tears in his eyes: "Was she happy? With you? Uh. With being Batgirl?"
"Yes," the Batman said. If he was breaking inside he did a fine job hiding it.
Gordon stood. Started pacing. And said, "Bruce Wayne."
"...Yes."
Gordon breathed. "…We had this conversation during the No Man's Land."
"I remember."
"I was angrier then."
"I know."
Gordon said, "You do, don't you."
"Yes."
Gordon looked at him.
"She was my daughter."
"And my partner," Batman said. "The most dedicated partner I've ever had."
"Because all the others left?" Gordon said as his voice shattered. "I hope it was worth it. I hope she didn't..."
The Batman frowned. And remembered Nigma's final words. Was it worth it, Bruce?
More. Will it ever be worth it.
And Ra's. Asking the same question a different way. How many more, the Demon had said. Just think. How many.
"I hope," Gordon said. "She didn't waste her life for you."
"I don't believe so. She loved it. And she loved you."
"I would've supported her."
"Jim."
Gordon stared blankly at the floor.
Batman frowned.
He looked to one side and pulled the cowl off. Underneath lay Bruce Wayne. Cool and cruel and old. A thin black carpet of stubble, scars bisecting it all in small places, spade black hair slicked back from a sharp widows peak. Harsh, deep eyes. And yet. A tired and sad boy. Somewhere in there.
Bruce regarded Gordon.
"This is all I have, Jim," he said. "It's all I am."
Gordon frowned. "I never cared. Who you were or…"
"I didn't trust you before, and Barbara died because of it. I'll spend the rest of my life making up for failing her. And failing so many others.
"What do you mean?"
"I know who got Tetch out of jail," Batman said. "I believe I can find him. And put an end to…all this. As Tetch was entering this building, Robin and I were hunting the Joker."
"What?"
"We were going to find him and put him away for good. We were close."
Gordon looked at him. "How close?"
"One safehouse left. Which means he's probably already there."
"And now?"
"Now," the Batman said. "We are all out of time. Grief and my personal failings have eaten up valuable time. I interrogated any of my old enemies who may have had knowledge, and came up wanting. Mostly."
"Mostly?"
"As you know, Bruce Wayne or someone that looked like him managed to free Tetch from Arkham so he could kill Barbara. That someone was Doctor Thomas Elliot."
"Elliot?"
Bruce nodded. "You remember."
Gordon made a face. "I knew you couldn't have sprung the Hatter."
"Elliot. Tetch. The Joker. For some bizarre reason they're all working together. And I think they know the ground is shrinking beneath their feet."
Gordon looked at the computer.
"Jim," he said. "Tonight, we can end it. But it's going to take everything we have."
Gordon stifled some tears, and thought of those statues again. And of Barbara walking with him. Walking. Using what that madman had taken from her.
"Tonight," he said.
"Yes."
Gordon looked at him.
And then his phone beeped. He flipped it open and said, "Yes?" Pause. "What?" Pause. "Found him where?"
Now.
Tim and Chase III.
Our phones beeped together. One after the other. We looked at them in unison. The message was even the same.
Chase's came from her plant inside the courtroom. Probably Spencer herself if half the rumours were true.
"The jury is returning. Come back inside now."
We looked at each other. Sighed without meaning to. Stood.
Made for the doors.
She flashed her DEO badge at the bailiff outside and checked a thumb between herself and me. He nodded and pushed the door open for us.
I remembered what she said. Quite an experience to live in fear.
That's what it is to be human.
I frowned.
We sat down in the back pew.
It all seemed to happen in slow motion:
The bailiff stepping forth and telling us all to rise. Spencer looks over one shoulder at us. At Chase. That practised attorney look betraying nothing.
Surrillo coming up and rapping her gavel twice and saying Be Seated.
Two deputies leading Tetch in. He looks at Spencer with this sad, distant look. Like he's here but really a million miles away. Who could blame him. In the last five years there's been fascinating work in criminal psychology about dissociation-that million miles away look that typically only the most heinous of offenders develop as their trials near conclusion and transition into sentences and prison terms. A man named Aristotle Rodor wrote the book on it.
He posited that partaking in what he called a transformative self-event, actualised murder for instance, caused the conscious mind to dissociate from itself-either as coping or culpability. To close off and shut up, disparate parts of the mind in order to achieve a goal-in most clinicals, murder itself. To think two thoughts at the same time. What a remarkable thing...
Even as Tetch sits down and faces the bench. I keep thinking of that look on his face.
And I start double thinking it. Was he put up to it? Was he in control of himself. Did he know.
"He said someone put him up to it."
Chase looks at me. "What?"
"When we took him to the GCPD. Tetch said, 'he put me up to it.'"
Chase looks at me. She gets this focused look and glances around and says, "Who?"
I don't answer.
I work it through.
Someone looking like Bruce was able to remove Tetch from Arkham. Sign him out or something.
Suspects.
A Clayface would be easy but unlikely. Hagen's been dead for years. Preston Payne disappeared a decade ago with his wife and son in tow, and Basil Karlo-
Basil Karlo hasn't been seen since.
Since Elliot's first scheme-
Oh.
Damn it.
"Oh."
"What?"
I look at her. "Too fast for my own good. How many of us do you have files on?"
She makes a face. "All of you. Name one."
"Doctor Thomas Elliot."
"Oh."
"We need to get to Wayne Manor right now."
I start to stand and she forces me down.
"What are you-"
"Sit. First things first."
I look ahead. Surrillo looks to one side.
A door opens. The jury files in, a tall and slim man in a pressed Izod and coke bottles for glasses, the foreman, ends the row and stays standing while the rest sit. He holds that all powerful slip of paper at his belt buckle and stares at Surrillo. He doesn't even need to read it. I can tell. He memorised the verdict and he's just all too proud to finally deliver it.
"Mister Foreman," she says. "For the people of Gotham City versus Jervis Tetch, on the charge of manslaughter in the first degree, how finds the jury?"
"We find the defendant guilty, your Honor, of murder in the first degree."
"The court thanks you, Mister Foreman, please be seated."
He sits.
Tetch shrinks into himself.
Gugina starts thumbing through her files.
Spencer and Van Dorn sit back in unison.
The gallery stirs. No one is surprised. There are whispers and hands over faces and gossiping. Thoughts and opinions and nothing that matters anymore.
Surrillo slams her gavel and belts out, "Order!"
"Bailiff," she says and takes her glasses off. "Please remove the defendant from the court so we can schedule sentencing."
Then she raps the gavel. And it's over.
Tetch looks at the floor and shakes his head.
Then all the players take their roles.
A bailiff is upon Tetch. Standing him up and leading him out of the room.
Surrillo stands and leaves. Gugina next, in a huff, then Spencer and Van Dorn and Spencer says to Chase right before she leaves, "this good with you?"
Chase says nothing.
We go out together and the hallway is a storm.
She looks at me and says, "Outside."
And outside we go.
The press has been squatting here for weeks through miserable December and now January weather. By the time we have it outside they're already on their feet broadcasting. A row of them right at the bottom of the steps and talking to their cameras. I look at it all too briefly. Then Chase pulls me aside. And I'm back in reality somehow.
"You know," I said. "I've been to these before. You don't need to chaperone me."
"What's that, sass? I finally warrant sass?"
"Look," I said and pushed away from her. "I have to help Bruce. So either help me or get out of the way."
"Suddenly you have to help Bruce? Obligation over choice? So much for your reticence, Tim."
I shook my head. "I don't have time for this."
I got halfway down the steps before she called to me. "I would."
I turned. "You would what?"
"Help you."
I looked at the bank of reporters and their cameras. Back at her.
I walked back up the steps. "How."
"The Joker. When you find him...I'm saying DEO can be at your disposal."
"Luthor wants him gone that bad?"
"Luthor," she said. "Wants everyone gone. A full on, no bullshit twilight of the superheroes."
"Fine," I said. "Whatever. Agent Chase, it's been a pleasure. Tell your boss-"
"That you're still thinking of an answer to his question," she said with this smugly smile. "Aren't you."
I waited.
She pulled a pack of Lucky Strikes from her coat and lighted one. "The offer stands. The next step is yours and I hope you take it. Or don't. It's your choice." And she turned and walked away.
I made a face. Maybe it was a frown. A disappointed one. I breathed and looked back at the street.
The SWAT van was pulling up to the curb. The media spread out, roaches in the light. From the side entrance came a host of deputies and Tetch, in shackles at the wrist and ankles. Still staring at the ground.
I watched them load him into the back of the van, chains and all. Watched a million cameras and phones flash in the throng. Watched the backdoors slam shut on him.
Watched the driver roll the window down-
-Blow a kiss to one of the deputies.
I looked at her. Right at her.
And.
She.
Looked.
At me.
She-
She said something. I could read her lips.
Buh bye Boy Wonder.
"Oh no."
Then she threw the van into gear and sped off.
I pulled my phone out. Dialled Bart.
"Yello?"
"It's me. Come get me."
"Huh?"
"I'm downtown," I said. "They just booked Tetch. Come get me."
"Oh hey congrats!"
"Quinn was impersonating SWAT, she just kidnapped him!"
Silence.
"Bart!?"
Nothing.
"Bart are you there?"
I looked up the street. Where-
"Hey," he said. Right next to me. Wearing plainclothes. "Sup?"
I put my phone away. "Home," I said.
"Okay but I gotta hold your head."
"Uh."
"Whiplash," he said. "Hold on."
I smiled. Not everything has changed. Bart, for instance. Still the Kid Flash. Still young. Still optimistic.
"You know," I said. "I haven't said it before, but I'm glad you're here."
He smiled back at me. "Yeah yeah."
And then it was all a blur.
Now.
The Joker and Harley.
There was only one option left.
The Bat had shut down the rest. One by one, piece by blessed piece.
Except this. The Ace Chemical Plant, nestled tightly in between Park Row and the Bowery. Not the plant itself, that lay further south: this was a substation, they called it. A tall, claustrophobic industrial spire, all gantries and catwalks, cold and unexciting steel architecture inside, and himself sitting at a steel workbench with his trusty sidekick, Boo Boo the Rubber Chicken Surprise.
He hated it and loved it.
He was doing a pretty good job not thinking about it all, but whenever he did, whenever a reminder of his current refugee status popped back into his head, he got pissed off and took it out on Harley.
Once, he had more. Now. Less.
And it was pretty difficult to get a laugh out of all of it.
He told as much to a pile of corpses that used to be some high school wrestlers.
"I mean, really," he said and patted one of their dead decaying dead butt cheeks, all flabby and pasty but not for long because you know that's dead bodies for you. He thought this one was DeSales. The good looking one, the strapping one with olive skin and brown hair all matted, bloody, over to one side. Maybe it was Jordan? Who even cared? "It's not that I don't care, Slick, I just. Don't care."
He pulled the scissors out of a spot between Boo Boo's legs and began twirling them idly on one finger.
Sighed.
He laid down flat and matched the kid's stare. Smiled a little bit.
You're just not being sporting.
He made a fist and punched the poor sucker.
Disappointing is what it all was. Escape from Arkham all those months ago, give McQuaid and the boys the best run of their lives, and now here he was hiding out in the old Ace factory and for what. A bunch of half baked plans that came to nothing, Harley jumping in with Hush, and old Tetchy getting slap-handed in court.
He knew the next big thing was coming. But waiting. That was killing him.
There he sat staring at the kid's dead eyes.
"You were really gonna be something weren't you, baby?"
Then he sat up and laughed. A full belly laugh. Genuine amusement.
He knew there were other worlds. On one of them, one of countless others in the multitude, this kid didn't end up a victim. This kid grew up and had a happy life, with a family, and lots of great stories, stories that ended happily and took place under trees with picnics and noodle salad. Maybe on one of those worlds this kid would've survived and been part of that happy little memory.
Not here.
He laughed again and slapped his knee and started weeping, that overloaded crying that only comes with the best bits.
Now this kid was nothing at all.
He opened the scissors.
Slid one of their blades in on one side of the kid's mouth and started carving. Not a slash, no, that was a bad joke, too trite, too on the cuff. This was a slow and easy check mark. The kid must have taken care of himself, his skin was so soft. Smooth. Easy to cut.
The Joker looked down his nose and applied a little pressure, finally the fat and elastin and skin gave, almost all together, and he got a good deep cut. Blood trickled out slowly, lamely. Joker stuck his tongue out. Put one finger on top of the cut and his thumb below to hold it all and kept going.
It didn't make a sound. Come to think of it, he couldn't say any of them had ever made sounds.
Certainly some did. Some had to! He just wasn't paying attention. Which could also be true, y'know, after so many it all starts to run together.
The one Robin didn't make a sound, or maybe the only sound in that room was the crowbar making this sweet, wet thump every time it hit home.
The girl, the redhead, what's her face, she didn't even scream either.
It was a disappointment is what it was. All these years later.
They never scream.
He made a face. Pagliacci.
Wondered if maybe. Just maybe. He was starting to lose something.
Then he stood rapidly and preened himself and said, "Bah! I can't keep denying the world my extra greatness!"
Then he looked down. Dead kid's dead eyes.
He frowned. Then it became a scowl.
He growled and kicked the dead kid in his pasty, slashed face.
"You think you're better!? Stand up like a man and tell me that! Come on!"
He kicked him again. Again. Again. Again.
"Get up! Come on, you vicious bastard!"
By this point, Dead Kid was unrecognisable. A muddy mess of a face that used to be, now blood and flesh and bits of bone.
The Joker breathed deep and rubbed his hands together.
What followed was on cue almost, and too hilarious for him to even contemplate. Somewhere behind him a steel door fluttered open, the old managers office, and out came a shambling mess of a body. A person, bloodstained and filthy, poorly hobbling on a broken leg. Not a man, nothing so self-sure, so innately strong. No. A boy, what a boy to be sure, but a boy no less. Naked except for a pair of boxers as bloodied and destroyed as the rest of him. Strong arms and shoulders and a broad perfect chest, riddled with burn marks and open wounds in irregular patterns and various states of disrepair. His face, bruised and unknowable. One eyes swollen shut, sweat and grime all over him, blood pouring steadily from his mouth. He was breathing strangely, heavily. One good eye he had left, and as he fell to his knees in front of the Joker he started weeping like a baby for his mother.
Joker crouched down in front of the boy. Touched one hand, gloved in crushed purple velvet, to this kid's ruined face.
Through his babbling and tears came one thing: "wh."
"Hmm?"
"Wh."
"Sorry?"
"Where..."
Joker lifted the boy's face and looked straight at him.
The Joker frowned
This kid was in pain. In need. He could see it in his eyes. This one longed to be different, to be more than what he was, and now here was, a poor victim.
Slightly Alive Kid started crying again.
Joker grabbed Boo Boo and stood, slid the scissors back inside it. "Don't you just look like you've had an adventure. Who are you. If I may, of course."
"Please," the boy said. "Please just let me go I won't I won't call the police I promise I oh God please ahhhhummm..."
Joker stood.
He moved over to the desk and the PA unit on it and tapped the button. "Harleen Quinzel to the principal's office, please and thank you!"
Then he turned back. Gazed idly upon the guy.
"Muh. Mister. Please just. Where. Uhhh. Where. Please help me sir I oh god I saw what they did to Jim and Jeff I oh god."
More babbling. More crying.
Joker pulled a gun from his jacket. Pressed it into the kid's forehead.
"What's your name, Spanky?"
"Shu...Schlatter. I oh god I was with Mister Stevenson where is he is he okay?"
"No," he said. "He died."
Then he shot the kid.
Schlatter's corpse snapped back and fell to the ground with a sweet thump.
Joker giggled and said to no one in particular, "He fell funny."
From the garage at the far end of the corridor she came cartwheeling. She finally came to a stop and faced the Joker. Huffing and puffing.
She said, "Hey, baby," and pecked his nose.
He frowned.
"What's wrong, puddin?"
He stepped to one side and pointed at the boy's dead body, twisted on the factory floor.
Her eyes went wide and her mouth slacked open. "Uh."
"He said he was one of the wrestlers?"
"Schlatter," she said. "Uh. Elliot told me to bring him back. That he needed him."
Through the frown, Joker somehow manage a smile. His eyes narrowed while his mouth curled into a Grinch smile. "Guh. This is what happens when we give the kids the keys to the car, my dear."
She was breathing heavy. "Oh he's not gonna be happy."
He kept up on her and grabbed the scissors out of Boo Boo.
She looked at them, and him, and started backing away.
"You said they were all dead, Harl. That we were done with boring old Doctor Elliot. And then this clod comes walking out. So tell me sweetheart, what else. What else don't I know."
She was against the wall now, a bank of computers and printers spewing old dot matrix papers behind her.
Silent.
He growled and throttled her. Choked velvet fingers into her neck.
"Be a sport and tell your Uncle Joker. Now."
She started crying. Said, "I brought Jervis back too..."
He froze.
Surprise wasn't quite the look on his face. He didn't get surprised. Not anymore. Maybe the word was blindsided.
She blindsided him. Blackballed him. Bluebell him. All the words.
So he stopped in his tracks, kept the death grip on her and said, "Where?"
She said nothing. Looked to one side. Down the long hall to the garage.
He scowled and let her go. Backed up and breathed and moved toward the garage.
She stood there, one hand on her chest as if to control her breathing. Looking absently at the floor, dazed at the confrontation that was.
She didn't see it coming. Didn't see the Joker turn around and flip the scissors up.
She didn't even feel it when the scissors went into her neck. Right into the jugular.
She felt hot. And surprised.
He stared at that surprised, stupid little face, petite and skeletal under the greasepaint, and pushed the scissors in deeper. Her eyes widened.
He smiled when she made a sound. Finally. A sound. A little pop, barely vocal, from the back of her throat.
He breathed. Yanked the scissors out.
Watched her fall to the floor in a slump.
He wiped his slobbering mouth with the back of his hand and stared at her. And she stared right back with her stupid dead eyes driving him insane those stupid eyes and who did she think she was to bring all these ass-
Then he lost it.
Started kicking the shit out of her. Pulled the gun out and wasted what was left of the clip on her torso.
Then he strolled down the hall. Replaced the clip as he went.
Rounded the corner and there sat the SWAT van backed into the bay, the back doors open, and there was Tetch sitting idly, patiently, surrounded by a group of the boys, good strong guys in super duper purple tanks and plaster clown masks.
Joker whistled.
Tetch looked up at him. That characteristic worried look turned into a bright and sickly smile.
"Joker! Thank God you're here!"
Joker shot him in the head.
Then he was on top of the corpse, another set of dead eyes looking at him, poking the barrel of the gun into the bloody crater in Tetch's eye socket.
"You," he called Tetch. "No one gets Batgirls but me."
Then he looked up at his boys.
"This place has lost its retail value, gang. Time to abandon and look for a studio apartment, something nice and modern, don't you agree?"
Slowly the group all nodded.
"Fabbo," he said. "You all know what to do, then! Rocko! Telephone!"
A stocky clown jogged up to him and held out a Blackberry. Joker snatched it up and dialled quick.
"911," said the wage slave. "What's your emergency?"
"I'm at the Ace Chemical plant." He looked at Tetch, dead on the concrete. "The Mad Hatter is down here with a troop of Boy Scouts naked as a jaybird and believe you me, you do not want to see what kind of merit badges he's giving out!"
He hung up before she could respond.
Continued...
