Chapter Eleven

I had Alfred prepare the whole nine yards and then some. But I know impressing her with my willingness to spend money for the company of a woman will not be enough. I have to find a way to gain her trust.

So, I study her as we go through the pleasantries when she arrives. Her dress is a red so dark it is almost black, and it serves to enhance the effect of dark fire in her hair and eyes. She seems amused by Alfred, saying in a difficult to interpret tone, "A butler. How very Old World." And then she introduces herself to him, politely asking his name and shaking his hand. After this she steps from the foyer into the main hall, turning in a slow circle to take it all in.

Alfred gives me a subtle glance with a raised eyebrow, and withdraws to finish dinner.

"We have a little time before we eat. Would you like to see some of the Manor?" I ask as I approach her.

She looks over her shoulder, giving me that sly half-smile from under the wave of her hair, "Better just give me the nickel tour. It's all I can afford."

I take her around a few rooms on the first floor, leading her into the parlor.

"Have you been in Gotham long?"

"I just moved a couple of months ago, but it's already been too long." She makes a face, "I hate this city."

"Then what are you doing here?"

Moving to examine the painting over the fireplace, she replies, "Oh, I grew up here, and Gotham has a way of haunting you. It was probably inevitable that I'd end up back here. This is Boklin's Isle of the Dead, isn't it?"

"Yes," I move closer to her, but she can't take her eyes off the lonely island in the picture.

"I could have sworn I saw it at the Kuntsmuseum Basel just a few years ago."

"There are five versions of it, three in museums, two in private collections. What were you doing in Switzerland?"

Whatever it was, she's remembering it with an odd cynical smile on her face. "I was … entertaining a very wealthy nobleman for my employer," she says finally. She is still staring at the painting. "It's lovely, if a little sad," her voice becomes low, "It is a far, far better resting place I go to than I have ever known…" She quotes, then shakes herself and recovers her enigmatic smile, "Sorry. I don't mean to wax poetic. It must be the surroundings." As she passes her hand over her face I catch a glimpse of a struggle, a kind of tension, and I remember her fear from last night.

She hides it well though, smiling prettily at me, "So, tell me about 'stately Wayne Manor'."

"What would you like to know?" I ask while I usher her into the ballroom.

"Come on," she looks up to admire the crystal chandeliers, "this place has been here forever, since Gotham was a little coastal village. Surely there are stories. Got any ghosts?"

She says it playfully, but the question echoes in my mind.

"I don't know about ghosts," I say easily.

"Hey, are you related to Mad Anthony Wayne?"

"Yes, actually." I am suddenly aware that she has skillfully turned the conversation away from herself. "He was my great-granduncle, several times removed."

"So, does insanity run in the family?" she asks with a wicked grin.

"They say it skips a generation."

She laughs.

"Dinner should be almost ready." I offer her my arm and she takes it. As we climb the stairs, I tell her, "It's such a nice night, I had Alfred set us a table on the balcony."

We enter the second floor sitting room, where the tall French doors stand open to display a candlelit table. I pour two glasses of wine and we move to stand at the balustrade.

"So, what do you do for a living, Marlowe?"

She smiles, "Oh, this and that. Fundraising mostly."

"That must be interesting." I lean over to rest my forearms on the ledge.

"Not at all," she says lightly. Then she tilts her head slightly as she looks at me. She reaches over and slips a finger under the edge of my shirt where the top buttons are undone and it has fallen open a little. "That's some scar."

Sharp eyes. I glance down to where she's peering under the material, "Skiing accident about a year ago. I hit a tree doing about ten miles an hour. The stump of an old limb punctured my shoulder. Broke the collarbone and one of my legs."

She winces, "Ouch." As she slowly draws her hand back, her fingernails just brush the skin of my chest.

I smile, posturing a bit to make her think I'm trying to impress her, but her next words send a spark up my spine.

"It looks a little like the scar a bullet leaves," she says.

"Does it?" I lift the edge of my shirt and pretend to examine it. Then I frown and turn to her, "How do you know what that looks like?"

A slow smile curves her lips as her right leg appears through the slit in her skirt. Reaching down she pulls the material aside, turning a bit. Just below the V of the silky material is a spidery scar on the side of her leg where she had been shot through the thigh muscle. It's at least fifteen years old, meaning it had to have happened when she was perhaps twelve or thirteen.

I meet her eyes, which still look amused. "Oh, I've lived quite a life," she says, sliding her leg back and smoothing the material demurely.

"I guess you have."

Alfred arrives just then, with dinner. I hold her chair for her and seat myself as he goes about the presentation. I watch her. That's the advantage of playing a womanizer, I can observe her unhindered and it will be read as sexual interest. She handles it with perfect composure. She is tremendously skilled at being provocative. Mysterious and alluring, with no hint of obviousness about her. I've met a few professional women who work at the level of wealth that she must, and they have all had exactly this air. Referring to them as call girls or prostitutes never seems quite accurate. They are courtesans, and their profession is as much about entertaining a man with charm and conversation as with sex.

I would be completely sure that is what she is, but for one thing. Courtesans are always well heeled enough to afford the best. They don't stay in storefront lofts in bad neighborhoods. But then, that may have to do with the fear I still sense buried deep beneath her practiced façade. Perhaps she is hiding from someone.

She plays my eyes with hers like she is playing a harp, a pluck, then a trilling stroke. She raises her glass to take a sip, licking the dark wine from her lips.

As we eat, I try again. "What kind of fundraising do you do?"

"Political, mostly."

"Have you done any work for anyone I might know?"

"My firm has worked on the campaigns of Representatives Sharon Kelley and Drew Mostanowicz."

"Didn't I see you with Senator Fagen at the fundraiser?" I see nothing but the most off-hand reaction to Fagen's name.

Precisely nonchalant, she says, "You might have. I know John well. My firm was practically founded on his campaigns."

I watch her carefully, "He has always struck me as smart and capable, a good man."

She raises an eyebrow at me, "Good? Now there's a word I don't often hear applied to him."

"Really? Why not?"

She gives me a grin, "I work for politicians, Bruce. None of them are good people."

"So, what in Gotham has you so busy?"

I catch a flash of emotion passing over her face before she drops her eyes, "John asked me to work on … a couple of long-term projects for some friends of his." Sighing she lightly touches my hand where it rests on the table, "I'm sorry, but I'd really rather not talk about work if you don't mind."

"Why not? Don't you like what you do?"

"Like it? I…don't know. I'm good at it. I've never really done anything else," her voice has gone soft, and I see the struggle again. It is plain to me she is talking about her real work, not her cover story when she says, "It's just…" she shakes her head, "It's complicated…what I do."

"Complicated how?" I keep my tone casual, though I know I am close to something. She is – troubled.

She sighs suddenly, narrowing her eyes at me, and giving me a dangerous little smile, "What part of 'I don't want to talk about work' don't you understand, Bruce?"

Back off, or you'll lose her, "Well, what are we supposed to talk about?"

"We can talk about what you do," she suggests.

I laugh, "Me? I don't do anything."

"Except court famous, beautiful, wealthy women."

I lean in, still laughing lightly, "You shouldn't believe everything you hear."

"You mean you're not a shallow womanizer who lives to collect notches on his bedpost?" she asks, in an innocent tone.

With exaggerated offense, I respond, "Absolutely not. I am a deeply sensitive man looking for a soul-mate with whom to share my life."

She laughs, shaking her head. "Doesn't matter, either way." Then she runs her eyes over me in a searing glance, "And don't think it doesn't pain me to say it. You are definitely my type." Closing her eyes for the briefest second, she opens them to look at me, smiling kindly, "Besides, you seem like a fairly decent person. And I've come to realize recently, that I really – am not."

"Why don't you give me a chance to make that decision?"

"Okay," she laughs softly, looking at her watch. "I've got about another hour."

"Do you have another date tonight?"

Her laugh stops suddenly. She runs a hand over her face and through her hair, tilting her head back and searching the sky for a moment with her eyes. "I don't think you can call it that," and her voice holds a hint of pain.

Gently, I ask, "Do you want to tell me about it?"

She turns an indulgent smile on me, "No."

"You really don't make it very easy to get to know you."

She looks down to where her hand slowly turns her wine glass on the table. Glancing up, there is that wicked grin, "Be glad."

I raise an eyebrow at her. For all her mysterious evasions, she seems strangely honest in her reactions, and I can tell that I have managed to make some connection with her. Unfortunately, I don't know what it is.

"If I only have you for another hour, why don't you tell me the story of your life? I'm going to find out something about you before you leave."

She raises her glass to take a drink, grimacing slightly, "I don't know, Bruce. We just ate. How strong is your stomach?"

"I think I can take it."

"Well…I'll tell you part of it anyway. It's relevant to why I came here tonight. One thing though," and here she looks at me very seriously, "no pity. I don't do pity."

I look questioningly at her, but agree, "Okay."

"It works both ways. You'll see." She smiles, but is watching my reaction carefully as she begins, "I never knew my father, and I barely remember my mother, except that she drank a lot and wasn't real happy about having a kid. Then one night, she just didn't come home. I never did find out what happened to her. We lived in a walk-up tenement on the East End and the manager ran me off as soon as he figured out she was gone. I lived on the street for about a year."

I keep my voice carefully neutral, "How old were you?"

She shrugs, "About six."

I nod.

"I caught a bit of luck then and got taken in by…" she stops, smiling softly in remembrance, "by a fabulous old broad named Annie Karanolstikov, but we just called her Annie K." Grinning at me, she says, "Annie was a madam. She ran a house down on the East End. She let me earn a room." Then she laughs, "Oh, get that look off your face, Bruce. I didn't turn tricks when I was six years old. I did chores, cleaned up, did the laundry. You have to wash the sheets a lot." She throws extra emphasis on the last word, and laughs at me again. Leaning over, she runs a hand up my arm, giving my shoulder a playful squeeze, "I love bluebloods. So prim and proper. At least on the outside, right?" Still laughing softly, she sits back, taking another drink.

"You really have lived quite a life," I say. "How long did you stay there?"

"Several years, actually." She sets her glass down, "Annie was eventually killed by some gangs taking over the prostitution in the neighborhood. That was the night I got this…" she touches her leg absently.

She says it all as easily as I've had other women tell me about their ponies and birthday parties growing up. She says it in exactly the same way as they did, as if she expected me to understand completely.

"You wouldn't believe the characters that lived at Annie's place. I haven't thought about them in years…Annie, Kim, Marguerite, Cassie," she laughs. "Cassie was this two hundred pound Guatemalan who chain-smoked from waking to bed. She smoked while she ate, in the bathtub, while she tricked even, and she ate like you would not believe. She was only, maybe, five foot three, so she was almost as wide as she was tall. Had a real mother complex too. I don't remember how she ended up in Gotham, but she hooked so she could send money to her mom, who had her three kids back in Guatemala. She sort of acted out on me, since she missed them so much. She and Annie, they really took care of me..."

She rises suddenly and goes to stand at the balcony's railing, for a moment, looking out over the grounds. When she turns back, there is something different about her, about the set to her body and a strange twist to her mouth.

"You have to pardon me, Bruce. I'm," she stops and rubs her fingertips lightly between her closed eyes. She looks up, but not at me, "I'm having trouble these days."

Don't push. Let her tell what she wants to tell.

"I've become, I don't know…disconnected." Her voice is quiet, remote. "It's like I … don't know who I am all of a sudden. And I keep coming across these memories… I thought the bad ones were hard to take, but the good ones are unbearable."

I move to stand beside her, not too close. She turns to face me.

"This is all so bizarre," she says, just above a whisper, "being here."

"In Gotham?" I ask.

She shakes her head, laughing softly, but it has a sad sound to it, "No, being here," she turns her head to look around the balcony and the room beyond the open doors, up the towering walls of the Manor. She raises her eyes to mine, and she is smiling and frowning at the same time. Now her small laugh has an almost desperate sound to it. "How did I end up here, telling my secrets – to you?" Reaching up, she slides her fingertips lightly down the lapel of my jacket, and her eyes follow her hand. "The poor little rich boy," she says softly.

When she looks up I see a flicker of something… quickly masked. As her eyes become inscrutable again, she says to me, "What I was doing here last night was reliving a moment from my childhood. Many moments, really. I used to come here a lot when I was a kid, just to sit on the wall and look at the house. There was a tree not far from the front east corner…"

"Yes, it had to be cut down a few years ago. It had died."

She laughs a little, "It was kind of on its last legs back then." She turns to look at the spot she is describing. "Wayne Manor," she whispers, slowly brushing back a stray strand of hair the breeze has blown across her face.

Then she looks at me, "The first time I came here was the night after your parents were murdered."

My face does not change. I do not move. I do not even blink.

"I'd gone down to the corner that morning to get the paper and doughnuts for Cassie like I always did. I didn't pay any attention to the headline, but the whole place just went nuts when I got back and everyone saw it – 'Thomas and Martha Wayne Killed' – and the story about it happening in front of you."

No one has ever spoken to me of it so completely without… pity.

"The whole city was strange that day. People seemed to whisper a lot so noises were louder. Everyone sort of huddled together in groups out on the street, like they were… seeking protection. I was very bewildered by it all. It was like some fundamental law had been broken. If it could happen to the richest family in Gotham… It just didn't make sense. I kept hearing adults saying that over and over. And it frightened me because I had always believed that money was supposed to keep you safe. I simply couldn't stand that not to be true. All I'd ever wanted was to find a way – " She stops abruptly, then seems to force herself to go on in her previous casual tone.

"I got this idea that if I could just see you, I'd be able to figure it all out. You had lived, and I guess I thought you knew the secret." She shrugs. "Kid's logic. The article in the paper mentioned Wayne Manor and where it was, so I set out to come here. It took me all day; first on the subway, then the train. I had to walk the last part. By the time I got here, it was pitch-black night. Everything was so strange. I'd never been out of the inner city in my life, and it was so dark, and so quiet – no people anywhere. I finally got here, and climbed the tree and saw this house…" her voice has become hushed, almost reverent. "It looked like every light in the house was on, and the whole place was just shining, like a castle in a fairy tale. Except it was real. And I suddenly understood that you were real too. All those lights. I knew if I were you I wouldn't want to be alone in the dark. And it came to me suddenly that even though you lived in a castle and had everything I didn't, even though your life was the complete opposite of mine," her gaze had been growing in intensity as she spoke, until it seems to be spearing me. Her next words are like a knife. "You were just like me.

"I had come to learn a lesson, but it turned out to be one far different than I expected. If money wasn't safety, then…" her voice breaks and she stops, but does not look away for once. And I see it again, flashing behind her eyes, identifying it at last. She looks … hunted.

She clears her eyes with a small shake of her head, and she goes on in that same, soft remembering tone, "I used to come here when I needed to get away from the city. It was a kind of haven for me." She smiles just a little, dropping her eyes, "I saw you once, close to Christmas that same year. I always thought…you saw me too. I probably imagined it."

Silence falls. I cannot speak.

She looks up quickly and her eyes search my face. Her dark eyes…they seem to see right through me.

I know her.

Barely above a whisper, she says, "You still hold it so close?" Her hand reaches up.

I cannot move.

"That's what it is about you…" Her fingertips touch my cheek.

My hand is wrapped around her wrist before even I know I have moved. I hear her gasp softly and her other hand flies up to try to push me away. Then she freezes and I am frozen too – our gazes locked in an instant that seems to last an eternity.

I know her.

I see her eyes change, feel her fingernails score my skin as her hand clenches on my shirt. I hear a freight train and know it is my blood pounding in my ears.

My arms close around her as she pulls herself to me, and our lips meet. I am aware of nothing but softness and heat, her body against mine. I lift her almost off her feet. She is shaking in my embrace.

Suddenly, she rips herself away from me, holding me back. For an instant her eyes are unmasked – and she is terrified.

What have I done?

Too many thoughts spill through my mind at once – Fagen. Gotham. Who I am. Who am I?

She backs away from me, eyes wide, shaking her head.

"Marlowe…" I reach towards her.

"No!" she flinches away. I see the marks my fingers have left on her wrist, bruises beginning to form.

What have I done?

She turns, almost running, weaving around furniture, brushing past Alfred as he enters, nearly knocking the tray he carries from his hands.

And she is gone.

Alfred straightens the dessert dishes on the tray. I stand as she left me.

"Once again," Alfred says mildly, "my hopes for a future Mrs. Wayne are dashed."

I turn my head to look at him – and he almost takes a step back.

Before I can think of what it means that I can frighten even Alfred, I go to the cave.

A little girl alone in the dark. Sitting on the stone wall that surrounds the Manor, looking at it like it is some forbidden paradise.

I stand in the pitch darkness of the cave and though my eyes are blinded I can see her before me as clearly as I saw her that winter's night.

I had waited, as I always did, for Alfred to turn out the lights and retire to his room in the far wing of the Manor, before getting up to switch them back on. Going to the windows that looked out to the road, I stood watching the full moon rise over the snow-covered ground.

At first I thought I was imagining it, for what person could be out on such a brutal night as this? But then she had moved and I saw her clearly in the cold moonlight – a child, no older than myself, shivering as she curled up, hugging her knees to her chest.

What was she doing here? There were no houses for miles, no other children anywhere nearby. Didn't she have a family, someone, to wonder where she was?

But I knew as I looked at her that she did not.

That she was like me.

A sudden piercing pain shoots through me as I remember that realization – that there were others like me, others who'd had their lives shattered, others who suffered this crushing loneliness. Others … who had even less to fight with than I did.

That night I reached out to her, that tiny figure in the dark, pressing my hand to the cold glass. When she'd raised her hand in response and I knew she could see me too, there had come a moment when I had almost felt we were touching across that wide, cold distance. For one moment not alone.

Just one moment of grace.