Chapter 3: Tone-Deaf Trump
People have a way of disappearing in Gotham. It was just the nature of the city itself. There was a downside to this fact in the cases where a dockworker or office clerk went missing…their families and friends left with no clue to their whereabouts…knowing that they'd been the victim of some terrible crime picturing their bodies buried in some remote field or sunk to the bottom of the harbor.
There was also an upside to Gotham's ability to make people disappear, at least from a criminal's point of view. As quickly as the three men had exchanged one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for a briefcase full of cocaine, the night had swallowed them and allowed them to vanish into seemingly thin air. As the three men sat silent, like robots or drones, driving deeper into the city in a black sedan, they failed to notice a small black bat-shaped device affixed to the back edge of the briefcase containing their score.
The sedan wound its way through the city, taking a predetermined route that allowed the men to notice if they were being followed, a cellular phone rang. The pale man that had originally made the exchange put a hand inside of his trench coat, and pulled the phone from within one of the pockets. He opened the phone and put it to his ear without a word.
"I'll take your silence and the fact that you answered as a mark of your success. Hurry up and get your asses back here…Tony doesn't want to be late for da pickup."
There was a click and the pale man pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it for a moment. The grin never left his face, even as he put the phone away and nodded to the driver watching him through the rearview mirror. The driver nodded his acknowledgement, and floored the accelerator. The car leapt forward and deeper into the night.
"They're on their way…" Sammy set the receiver of the phone back upon the cradle and stood up. "I'm gonna tell Tony…"
"I wouldn't do dat if I was you, Stretch…Tony don't like ta be interrupted in da middle of his songs."
Sammy clenched his jaw at the mention of his nickname. Sammy was tall and skinny…not normal for a wiseguy, so his peers had begun calling him Sammy-Stretch over a decade ago. The name still grated his nerves. Stretch looked to the stage at the front of the club he was in. Upon it stood Tone-Deaf Tony, head of their mob and the worst karaoke singer this side of Gotham. At the moment he was singing a song that Sammy identified as a Frank Sinatra original only because of the words. It was all he could do not to flinch as Tony's voice cracked and missed note after note. No one dared tell the mob boss that his karaoke was on par with Yoko Ono.
"I'll wait till he's done…and stop calling me stretch, mook."
"Hey…hey!" The man who'd addressed Sammy as stretch put his hands out in a gesture of feigned ignorance. "No need for dat kinda talk. Next ting you'll be callin' my mother a whore or somethin'."
Sammy stood only for a moment as Tony finished up his song. Then turned and started to walk towards the stage. After a moment he turned back around to the other mobster. "Oh, yeah…forgot about dat. Your mother is a whore." The other mobsters at the table laughed and began taking shots at their partner as the man glared daggers at Sammy's back.
"Hey, boss…" Sammy leaned in close to Tony's ear. Tony was a large man. He had thinning black hair that was greasy and slicked to his head, and a stomach that confessed his love of Italian food. He made the fifteen hundred dollar suit he was wearing look sleazy instead of classy. "They're on their way…and they got the stuff."
"Good…good." Tony spoke in a strained voice. He breathed hard with each word and any motion that took the least bit of effort. He wheezed and puffed even while sitting. Sammy had always thought Tony took the Godfather thing way to far…even for a real life Italian-American mobster. "Make sure that everything is ready…I don't want our partner here any longer than he has to be. Understand?" Tony had said the word 'partner' as if he'd been rolling it around in his mouth like wine, then had nearly spat it from his lips as if it had been an unpleasant taste.
"You got it, boss." Sammy moved away from the stage and gave silent thanks that the meeting room he was preparing was far away from the karaoke room. Tony started into a Journey song and Don't Stop Believin' nearly chased Sammy from the room as he hustled to follow his orders.
Over an hour later, four people entered through the back door of Tony's, cloaked and covered from the rain. The leader of the four, a long gangly man whose frame spoke of wiry strength, wore a wide-brimmed purple hat with an obnoxiously bright yellow feather in the band. His suit was a bright purple with green trim and from the bottom of the trousers jutted white wingtips. The man's skin was incredibly white and his hair and fingernails were bright green. As the man raised his head to meet the gaze of Sammy "Stretch" Tutuola, his bright green eyes and ear-to-ear grin gave the hardened gangster a moment of doubt for his safety. The man looked…insane.
"Ahhh…Stretch, isn't it?" The man grinned, and it was obvious to Sammy that what he'd thought was a grin before was simply the normal position of his face. Bright white teeth framed in almost comical red lips. The man waited, then let out a cackle at Sammy's reaction to his face.
"Blessed Baby Jesus and a Ritz fucking cracker…yer da Joker…"
"The one and only!" Joker let out another cackle and did a quick step and slide to move himself shoulder to shoulder with Sammy. The crazed jester put an arm around the mobster and took a look of mock severity. "Don't let this grin fool you, my spaghetti slurping friend!" Joker moved his eyes mere inches from Sammy's lapel, licked his finger and picked at a spot that Sammy had spilled onto his suit a few hours before. Joker flicked his finger then stood up straight once again, bending Sammy backwards slightly. "I am as serious as you and your brethren in regards to organized crime!" Joker paused a moment, then took his arm suddenly from around Sammy, causing the mobster to stumble backward. Joker seemed unaware of nearly knocking the other man over as he stopped facing the three people that had accompanied him to the meeting.
"Well…at least serious about the crime part, anyway…not so much organized!" Joker spun in a slight crouch, the tails of his purple coat swinging wildly around him, and cackled again.
"We was waitin' on a Jay H. Oaker…he was supposed ta be buyin' some product from us."
"But of course!" Joker reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigar, then, with a flick of his wrist, removed a lighter from inside his coat sleeve. The purple clad maniac leaned his head back and flicked the lighter, causing a flame nearly five feet long to jet from it. The madman lit his cigar and closed the lighter. With a flick of his wrist, as if he were a magician, the lighter disappeared again.
Joker took the cigar and held it between his thumb and forefinger, then squinted his eyes and curled up his lip. "Shee? I tell ya, wid us woiking togetha' anyone that messes with us…it's curtains for them, shee, coitens I tell ya!"
One of the three that had accompanied the Joker giggled. It was a woman's laugh, and Sammy looked to the smallest of the three. The woman stepped forward to put a hand on the briefcase that had been placed on the table. She had her face painted white with black stripes painted near her eyes and she was wearing a jester's costume, complete with belled hat.
"Hey…hey, what about our money?" Sammy stepped forward and put a hand inside his coat.
"Now, now, Sammy!" Joker stepped forward and put his arm around Sammy once again. "You have nothing to worry about!" Joker stuck the cigar into Sammy's mouth and stood back. "You may keep the three henchmen that performed their duties so admirably and…" The Joker stopped and was looking down at the briefcase in Harley's hand. "Well…it would seem that things are a little batty around here."
Joker moved to the briefcase and plucked something from the back of it. He held it up for the room to see and grinned madly. Sammy squinted his eyes to better focus on the tiny object.
It was a small black object in the shape of a bat. Sammy's jaw dropped.
It had something to do with Batman. Where there was the Joker, Batman was always a step behind ready to put the madman away. Sammy looked to the Joker again and the madman began laughing. Joker palmed the device and balled his fist. There was a crunching sound as the bat was crushed then a clattering of small pieces of debris as it was dropped to the floor. The Joker laughed again and moved to the rest of his group. The four then began filing out the door and into the night.
"Hey!" Sammy drew his pistol as the door closed and ran around to the other side of the table. "What about our money?"
As the Joker and his group walked towards the bright green limo parked in the lot, Harley continued glancing back.
"Mista Jokah…what about their money? Won't they be mad?" Sammy's curses floated to them from the building as he wrestled with the door one of the Joker's henchmen had blocked.
An explosion went off then, billowing fire and smoke out of the door they'd just exited and launching the corpse of Sammy "Stretch" Tutuola several feet into the parking lot.
"I don't think Stretch will mind if we miss a payment…that cigar I gave him obviously left a lasting impression!" The Joker threw his head back and laughed and the other two goons joined him after a moment.
Harley frowned at the dead body then looked to the Joker again.
"Ohhh, what? It's not my fault he couldn't take a joke!" Joker laughed again and hopped into the limo. Harley gave one last sympathetic look to Sammy's body then opened one of the limo's doors and hopped in as well.
As the limo sped out of the lot, Joker's laughter began to subside.
"Where are we going now, Jokah?" Harley checked her makeup in a nearby mirror.
"We won't be going back to the lab…Batjerk is probably already there…destroying everything." The Joker scrunched up his nose and screwed his face into a frown.
"My brand new Wet-Load Whoopie Cushion was there! Damn! Some people have NO respect for another kook's property!" Joker slammed a closed fist into the armrest and looked out the window. "Maybe Batsie will sit on it before he blows the factory up…" This possibility cheered the Joker considerably, and the madman began giggling as he stared out the window.