"Welcome to the evening news. I'm Summer Gleason. In tonight's top story, officials have confirmed that the body found in an Upper East Side apartment belongs to prima ballerina Sylvie Herschel, lead dancer for the Gotham Conservatory Ballet Troup. Herschel, who recently received rave reviews for her performance in 'Sleeping Beauty', was found strangled in her home early this morning by a neighbor investigating a barking dog.
"The police department is being close-mouthed on details at this time, however it does appear that Herschel's death is connected to the murder of top fashion model Brandy Valentine earlier in the week. Both women were strangled in their homes during the early morning hours without any signs of forced entry. An anonymous police source has indicated that handwritten notes, presumably left by the killer, were found near both bodies. Though we have no information on the content of the notes, the source says that the police are now referring to the killer as 'The Trash Man' internally.
"A sketch artist's rendering shown here is believed to be the man in question. It is compiled from several eyewitness accounts of the person Brandy Valentine was last seen with. If you have any information about this man, or anything else concerning these tragic deaths, please call the Gotham City Police Department's hotline at 555-…"
A hand came up and touched the 'mute' button on the TV's remote control. Onscreen the badly drawn picture of him was left up for several more seconds before the shot cut away to the anchorwoman and her next topical subject. He wasn't worried about being recognized from the sketch that was so generic it could have been anyone, from the president to the pope.
"Trash Man," he spoke out loud to no one, tasting the words for weight and content. "The Trash Man."
He smiled, pleased. Though he was not in this for the notoriety, he felt the moniker suited him. Sanitation work was an honorable profession, necessary in a city this size to keep things neat and clean. He would accept it, perhaps even start signing his calling cards with it.
As the silent television screen showed an overly happy weatherman making small talk in front of a stylized map of the city, he placed the remote back onto the coffee table to his right, accidentally scraping the side of his hand against the edge. The pain shot up his arm and he swore through gritted teeth. He brought the hand up to see that one of the small wounds making up two mouth-sized crescents had started bleeding again. "Should have killed her," he muttered, as he wiped away the blood with a handkerchief. But that wasn't the plan. That particular morsel had a special purpose. Maybe after he was finished and his enemy left broken and alone, maybe then he would revisit the little slut and finish what he had started.
Standing from the shabby armchair that matched perfectly the even shabbier rent-by-the-week hotel room, the newly-dubbed Trash Man walked over to his Shrine, a 3' X 3' card table piled haphazardly with newspaper clippings, pages torn from magazines, and stacks of VHS tape on which he'd recorded hours of gossip shows purporting themselves as 'entertainment news.' The subject of all the material was the same – Bruce Wayne.
At the mere thought of the name, his face drew tight and dark, hands clenched in anger. His eyes sought out the framed photograph hanging on the wall straight ahead. A professional portrait: a man, a woman, three children – two girls and a boy. All were smiling. A happy family. Happy until he came along and turned her into a whore, an unclean thing to be reviled.
He looked down to see his left hand on the table, one finger caressing the top-most photograph. Wayne and the Pixie toasting at the reception following the Conservatory's opening show of some ballet or other. He liked to think of her as the Pixie. So small yet muscular in all the right places, face thin but very pretty, and close-cropped blonde hair, kept short for the assortment of wigs she had to don with her costumes. He had found her very alluring, very malleable and willing during their time together, and while she wasn't nearly as beautiful as the model, she was quite attractive, though in the end he'd discovered she didn't have the brains God gave a tree frog.
Waiting outside the stage door with a single red rose, several flattering comments, and that smile he'd perfected – the smile he learned by studying his hated enemy – had insured that she was his completely. A few offhanded comments insinuating that Bruce Wayne had personally recommended he see the show guaranteed entrance into her private domain. Later, as he was climaxing inside of her, he'd whispered, "You're going to die tonight." Instead of displaying a proper emotion like fright or disgust, she only giggled. It wasn't until his hands were squeezing the last of the life out of her that she finally realized the error of her ways in allowing Wayne to defile her and turn her into nothing more than refuse.
The Trash Man. Smiling, he looked up at the map that hung beneath the happy family portrait, dotted with dozens of colored tacks and pen marks. He'd made it his mission to clean up the trash of Gotham, and thanks to Bruce Wayne, he had his work cut out for him.
"Master Bruce?" Alfred inquired quietly as the boy he'd raised to manhood stared vacantly out the window at the waning afternoon light.
"Yes?" the distant reply came.
"Mr. Fox is on the telephone. You haven't been into the office in almost a week. He's wondering when to expect you so they can reschedule the board meeting."
Bruce closed his eyes. "Tell Lucius I'll be out indefinitely. He can manage just fine without me."
"Very good, Sir." He paused in the doorway. The newspaper was laid out on the desk in front of Bruce with the headline announcing the death of Sylvie Herschel and an accompanying publicity photo. "I'm very saddened to hear about Miss Herschel's death. She was very talented."
Bruce nodded absently. "I don't think I ever saw one of her performances through completely. I was usually sneaking out before the first act was completed." He pushed away from the desk and stood. "I'll be going out, Alfred."
"Very good, Sir."
Batman slipped under the yellow 'Police Line, Do Not Cross' tape and entered the apartment recently vacated by Sylvie Herschel. The door opened into a small kitchen/dining area. On the table was a pair of chopsticks still bound by a thin piece of paper imprinted with the restaurant's logo, several soy sauce packets, and a fortune cookie yet to be broken. They had stopped for take-out Chinese before coming here. He already knew what she would have had: vegetarian lo mein. It's what she always ordered. According to the police report the killer had had General Tso's Chicken. Both containers were removed by forensics for study. Two small ceramic bowls on the floor in the corner lay empty and untouched. Her small poodle, Barishnikov, had been removed by Animal Control already.
Beyond the kitchen, the rest of the apartment was made up of one enormous room, dominated by an entire wall covered in mirrors with a practice bar in front of it. He paused as his mind drifted back, sitting in one of her over-stuffed chairs one afternoon and watching her stretch and bend and turn, every graceful movement full of life and emotion.
Moving on he saw the residual fingerprint dust everywhere. But there would be no prints, just like at Brandy's apartment. He was good, this killer. He didn't touch much, and what he did he cleaned up afterwards meticulously. Even the body, which could retain fingerprints. He was good, he was careful. He'd been planning this for some time, waiting for just the right moment to unleash this fantasy revenge scheme, whatever that revenge may be for. All this devastating anger fixated on one man, lashing out on those he'd loved.
Loved? Batman pondered as he cased the large room, looking at books, CDs, photographs. This had nothing to do with love. The killer was preoccupied with sex, whether real or imagined. That was the key.
Circumnavigating the entire room, he came to the far back corner where a pair of colorful oriental screens standing perpendicular to the walls blocked off the 'bedroom'. Within the delicate silk screens an entirely different universe was contained with fans and pictures of Chinese symbols or art adorned the walls, a red and gold oriental carpet covered the floor, and a small bonsai tree stood next to the bed, a low futon with red sheets. A small rock fountain gurgled on a table with several bronze figurines surrounding it. Though he'd never actually entered this part of the apartment before, he was aware of her belief in feng shui. To her it was just another way of centering her spirit and body to become the best dancer possible.
The top sheet had been pulled back and white tape outlined on the bed where her body had lain when it was discovered. He walked over and crouched down, placing the tips of his fingers very gently in the center. "I'm sorry," he breathed, remembering her quick laughter, the eagerness in which she sought out the humor in everything. To call Sylvie an optimist was to call Galileo a stargazer. While her lightheartedness was infectious, her obsession with dancing could almost be said to rival his own dark drives. Her talent seemed boundless, but her attention was never held by anything else for very long, and that included him. The dancing flower child and the millionaire playboy had made for great publicity, but no sparks. They'd gone their separate ways with little more than a handshake, but no animosity, only a few days after he'd met her at the Conservatory reception over a year ago.
Opening the drawer to her bedside table, found a romance novel and a diary. There was only a moment's hesitation before he pulled the diary out and flipped through until he caught sight of his own name.
…Been seeing Bruce for a couple of days now. He's really not the letch everyone makes him out to be. Polite and generous, if a little loopy, but sometimes he's just so distant, like he's listening to something else, or waiting for something. And I don't even know if I can bring myself to say it, but he's actually a bit of a bore. I mean I don't think I could listen to another golf anecdote. Really don't think this is going to work out. I thought he'd be the one, but I was wrong. I know my prince is out there somewhere, a man who will kiss my hand, whisper words of poetry, sweep me off my feet. Then I won't have to come home alone anymore. It's a silly fantasy, but it's mine…
He plucked a long-stemmed red rose from a water glass standing on top of the table. Some rookie cop probably mistook it as another part of the room's decor, but he thought differently. "Was this how he did it?" he asked flower. "Did he sweep you off your feet with a rose and too much charm?" He sniffed at it idly. "Did he know how lonely you were?" Something else occurred to him. "Did he mention my name?" That thought rang true. The psychopath had somehow fixated on him, so it would make sense that he would feel a personal connection. He would probably claim to be a close friend, maybe even believing it.
Batman turned his head slightly towards the far table where the mini waterfall sat, catching something out of the corner of his eye, but when he looked directly at it he didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Turning back slowly he finally picked up what his mind had been seeing – a flash of white peeking out from beneath the table. Still crouching he moved over and slid his hand underneath to pull it out. A crumpled program of the evening's performance. Not Sylvie's. She kept them in a scrapbook in pristine condition. Scowling he flipped through the leaflet until he found notes scrawled in a now-familiar handwriting on the center page: Pixie's got a great body. Can't wait to find out how far she's willing to go. Hope she fights.
He growled and resisted the urge to mash it into a ball.