THROWAWAY CARD

Chapter 8

Disclaimer: Batman and related characters are the property of DC Comics.

Author's Note: A slightly longer chapter for you this time, and a quicker update. I do hope you enjoy it.

It's like having left the iron on, Batman thought as he scaled the side of the building soundlessly, and having that tiny nagging anxiety that when you get back your house may have burnt down or at very least your rooms will be full of smoke…

..I console myself with the thought that at least the car can contain anything he might manage to do, up to and including a fire - aha. There we go.

He stopped outside a second-floor window with one broken pane covered in a web of tiny cracks spanning out from a neat bullet-hole. Inside, a dirty yellow light bathed three figures at a table set some way back from the glass in the centre of the floor. The rest of the room was full of boxes, crates and through the broken pane Batman could smell the curls of stale smoke and the reek of damp woodwork that has only ever had the chance to partially dry out. Some sort of argument seemed to be going on among the figures at the table, and a warm waft of Chinese noodles hit Batman as he swung into the room with a crash through the rotten timbers and cheap, weak glass.

Someone ordered moo goo gai pan and got shanghai prawns? That's what this argument is about? The criminals of my city are astounding in their complexity.

Perhaps this is why they're so easily impressed with a man who can break an elderly window and dodge a tray of rice thrown at his head by a drunken idiot without difficulty. They don't have high expectations and those expectations are disappointed so often anyway…

He left the building by the front door about six minutes later, and approached his car with (he had to admit) vague trepidation. He deactivated the lock and the doors slid back with a whisper.

"Now I know you're sick," he said, folding his arms and addressing his passenger. "You're still here."

"Close the door," snapped the Joker peevishly, "the rain is ruining my coiffure and you don't want to have to pay for a new 'do on your care in the community allowance, believe me."

Batman got into the car and the doors slid closed. Rain dripped from his shoulders and cape into the foot well and over the upholstery. The Batmobile curved smoothly out into the road under a wash of low hanging cloud.

"Next rest stop I want ice cream," said the Joker, worrying at his restraints like an animal, first with his nails, then with his oversized, even teeth. The straps remained intact. "Where are we going anyway?"

"The marina," came the reply.

"The docks? Now look, I knew you'd fallen on hard times, but sleeping with foreign sailors? That's low, even for you."

"When we get there," Batman continued, ignoring the quip, "I will release the restraints and you will come with me and do what I tell you."

"Oooh," grinned the Joker, "am I paying you for this or are you paying me?"

"You will do," repeated Batman with all the patience he could muster, "what I tell you."

The Joker lolled the red length of his tongue disrespectfully. "Tease."

His captor narrowed his eyes at him in irritation.

"You may even enjoy it."

The Joker clapped his bound hands together in delight. "I knew it! We're going to Disneyworld!"

The criminals cheated of their Chinese meal had been very helpful, in the way of all wrongdoers dangled several inches off the floor by their collars. They were small-time: a few casual petty thieves who hung around on the edges of the Murietta gang and did occasional thug work for whatever boss had risen to the top of the heap that month. But they had one important asset: they had Danny Wallace. Danny, who seemed to have a unique gift for memorizing unusual and interesting things that went on in the underworld. Danny, who couldn't seem to help noticing things happen when a whole crowd of slightly more intelligent criminals swore blind that nothing had happened at all, honest, and besides they'd been at home in bed all night.

Danny, whose almost photographic memory was only rivalled by his almost incurable case of verbal diarrhoea when Batman slammed him against the wall. He had remembered a huge amount of useless information - and one useful fact.

Just over a fortnight ago a courier from an internationally known black market pharmaceutical organisation had delivered to the apartment of one Alonso Butrassi. The delivery had come refrigerated, and had been very small.

Butrassi…A name I recognise. He's a hitman…and he's a good one, even by my standards. He has one weakness, though: he's a coward. A lot of snipers like him are. They can only be in control from a safe distance.

Batman steered smoothly out onto the waterfront road, trying to ignore the sound of the Joker whistling "It's a Small World After All" through his teeth and pulling at his restraints.

And I have the advantage of Alonso tonight. I know where he lives…and he doesn't know I'm coming.

The Batmobile slid silently to a halt in one of the multiple tiny alleyways leading down to the marina, where the rich men's yachts lay soaking on the water under the heavy rain.

"Joker," the Batman said seriously, tapping the madman's arm to get his attention. "Time to go to work."

Alonso Butrassi let himself into his small apartment, heavy paper sack of groceries balanced precariously under one arm. He slammed the door shut behind him with a swing of his thin hips and threw the keys across the hall table with a rattle.

The money he'd been paid for this last job hadn't been enough. Nowhere near enough to cover his debts – especially considering the time and extra trouble he'd gone to preparing the darts. He began to unpack the bag without bothering to turn on the lights. The watery moonlight filtering in through the window and gleaming dully on the oily night waters of Gotham Marina below was light enough: and besides, if he was going to have to tighten his belt for a while, electricity might be one of the things to start with.

Because he certainly wasn't going to be taking on a job like that again soon, not a chance. The difficulty of the mark, the materials and preparation aside, no money on earth would be enough to wipe away the nightmares he'd had after spending two weeks living in Arkham, his only focus that devil's perpetually grinning face…no wonder he couldn't sleep at night and had to fill his time doing his grocery shopping at the all-night store…

"Hello, Alonso."

A packet of rice exploded, littering the already dirty floor as Alonso's hand gripped it in shock. Shaking, panicked, he fumbled for the light switch, and the kitchen sprang into warm, cheerful illumination.

The Joker was standing on the other side of the kitchen table, his thin, angular body leant carelessly against the refrigerator. His left arm was in a sling, and he was not smiling.

"Got any cheese?" asked the Joker, gesturing at the paper sack with a flick of his long fingers. When Alonso, petrified, shook his head, the Joker clicked his tongue in disapproval and moved away from the fridge. "No? But don't you know that cheese is full of calcium? Mother Nature's bone-strengthener?" He indicated the cast on his arm. "I didn't get enough dairy in my diet, and look what happened to me. Still. There's hope for you yet, I'm sure."

He began to root around in the grocery bag.

"It wasn't personal!" Alonso gasped, finally finding his voice through the tight, strangling haze of panic that was threatening to overcome him. "I mean - I'm sorry…"

The Joker looked up from the bag, an expression of huge regret on his face.

"You should be," he said, and hefted a packet to Alonso's eyeline. "Microwave hamburgers? The cholesterol special of boil-in-the-bun-fun? Really, young man, haven't you heard the name of the biggest killer roaming Gotham's fair streets?"

He turned and flung the burger at the wall, abruptly. It stuck for a moment, then started to slide down slowly.

"Heart attacks, kiddo, heart attacks kill over twenty-five percent of middle-aged men every year in Gotham alone…and they call me a murderer…."

Alonso's eyes tracked the descent of the burger with almost hypnotised intent. His mind was struggling through the panic, looking for possibilities, something, anything to get him out of this alive. There had to be something. He could get at his weapons, his nearest gun was in the breadbin behind the Joker…

And the Joker was alone.

When his eyes turned back to his uninvited guest, the Joker was smiling, and that smile leached all hope out of Alonso's body.

"I know what you're thinking," the madman said, the scarred lines of his mouth stretched to full extent as he grinned. "You're thinking, 'He's alone here. He's just one skinny clown, and hey look, he's got his arm in a cast. How hard can it be to take him out, a guy with a broken arm?' "

The Joker threw back his head and gave a hoarse crow of laughter. Not thinking, with the laugh tearing along his nerves like razor-wire, Alonso put his head down and rushed him, taking refuge in the act of a man who knows that flight will do him no good and that fight is his last option.

A bony knee came up sharply into his groin, and as he grunted with the shock of that, something cold and hard that went thunk as it connected slammed down into the back of his neck.

"And I know what you're thinking even now," the voice of the Joker whispered cheerfully in his ear as he staggered. "You're thinking, 'surely no-one is crazy enough to use their broken arm as a weapon', hmmm?"

Alonso felt surprising strength as a thin arm shoved him hard into the side of the kitchen sink. His head smacked into the taps and white agony pulsed through his skull.

"Sadly for you," the Joker continued, as Alonso gave an animal moan and tasted his own blood in his mouth, "everything you've been thinking is wrong, wrong, bad and wrong…"

Alonso felt his collar being snagged, and he looked up into sharp green eyes above a predator's grin. The Joker regarded him with twinkling amusement.

"See what happens to your brain when you don't get enough healthy greens?" the Joker said in a school-marm's sing-song tones. He reached out and plucked an egg from the carton in the ravaged grocery bag, holding it up before Alonso's bloodshot eyes. "This is your brain. This – " and the egg smashed as it hit the floor " – is your brain on drugs. And this – " he tapped his own forehead with a cold, vindictive look in his eyes, "- is my brain on drugs! The drugs you put there!"

Alonso's teeth clacked together as he tried to speak. He could feel, numbly at first, but with gathering pain, that several of them were loose or broken.

"Enough," said a new voice from somewhere in the dark beyond the kitchen units. "Enough now. It's time to stop."

The Joker pouted like a child. "Aww, but Pops, I'm not tired yet. Do I gotta go to bed? I wanna stay up and watch Johnny Carson…"

"Enough," repeated the voice, and although it spoke quietly, the tone cut through the room like a knife. The figure of the Batman emerged out of the darkness by the door like an optical illusion, the long cape sliding out of the shadow like a spill of indian ink.

The relief that washed over Alonso was like ice water. Batman. The Joker was no match for Batman, everyone knew that. It was in the papers all the time. When Batman got involved, the Joker took a pretty hard fall.

If he had been thinking perhaps a little more clearly, he might have questioned the Joker's blasé attitude towards the arrival of his nemesis: but his mind had latched on whole-heartedly to one thought.

"Oh god. Thankyou. Thanks, man, thanks…"

His hands scrabbled at Batman as he lurched away from the Joker and stumbled to his knees. The face hidden in the cowl looked down at him sternly, tiny points of reflected moonlight gleaming from within the hollows of the eyesockets. The Joker stood watching, an improbable carnival figure in the little kitchen, his thin shoulders lifting slightly as he breathed hard.

"Don't thank me yet," said the Batman in a low, flat tone. "Tell me who hired you."

Alonso shook his head drunkenly, seeing as he did so one tooth fly out and strike the Joker's lapel. The Joker brush-brushed fastidiously with his good hand.

"Tell me," repeated the Batman, in the same uninflected manner.

"I can't! Listen, I'll go to prison, I don't care, anything…"

His bloodied hand fluttered anxiously in the direction of the Joker, who looked immensely pleased. "…just get me away from him!"

There was a long pause, the dramatic effect of which was slightly spoilt by the Joker bouncing on his Cuban heels and parroting: "Can I kill him, Bats? Can I? Can I? Go on, Bats, can I kill him? Huh-huh-huh?"

Batman looked down at Alonso emotionlessly.

"Tell me," he repeated a third time. "Or I give you back to him and I walk out of here."

Everything went grey before Alonso's eyes. His glazed eyes fixed on the thin, grim line of the mouth under the bat-eared cowl, staring in horrified disbelief – then to the Joker, smiling his demon's smile.

"You…you're…you're working together?" he choked, his throat clenching in renewed horror as the Joker gave a dark little giggle and clicked his heels in delight.

"It's a real Kodak moment, Alonso, ol' pal. Now tell my pardner here what he wants to know so I can get started on the happy part, 'kay?"

Alonso shuddered and turned his head away, back to the dour wall of disapproving silence that was Batman.

"I know you won't believe this," said the defender of Gotham City, a real edge of weariness tingeing his voice as, behind Alonso, the Joker started to laugh, "but giving you up to him would actually hurt me far more than it would hurt you…"

Gotham Marina, 5.32 a.m.

Batman stalked down the stairs with the Joker's wrist clamped firmly in his hand. He couldn't believe it - a dead end so soon after a promising start.

That name means nothing to me. That doesn't make sense.

He became aware of the Joker's weight dragging on his arm.

"Joker, keep up."

No-one but one of the big guns would go after the Joker. He's not a target for anyone else. Even the big crime families steer clear of him, he's far too unpredictable and dangerous for them. They leave him to me, secure in the knowledge that I'll remove him from their turf sooner or later, and while I'm dealing with him, I'm not paying any attention to their ordinary little crimes.

So it had to be one of the so-called super-villains. My money was on Ivy - the poisoning fits and she's currently on the loose. Plus, she hates him. This feels like a vengeance attack: it feels personal.

But I don't know this name at all.

"Joker," he snapped, as his arm got dragged down for the sixth or seventh time. "I said -"

Oh, hell.

The madman had been dragging on his arm for the last few flights of steps. Batman had assumed that this was a new addition to the Joker's childish behaviour, but as he stopped now and looked back, he realised he might have been mistaken. In the dingy darkness of the stairwell, the Joker had dropped to his knees, lanky limbs folded under him, unmoving, just as he had fallen. His forehead was leant against the metal handrail, scruffy green hair hanging forward over his face. When Batman pulled on his collar to lift his head, the white face was hot and sheened with sweat.

Damn. Seems the good doctor was right. He's weak. Much as I hate myself for even considering it…I must have pushed him too hard. Neither of us would ever want to admit that behind all this, we're still human.

"Joker," he said, sternly. "Get up. Time to go."

To his surprise the madman swayed to his feet almost immediately, but his balance didn't sustain him: Batman lunged to catch him as he almost toppled over the handrail into the three-floor drop of the stairwell. With the Joker lolling bonelessly against him like a late-night drunk, Batman began to hurry down the last few flights.

Have to get him out of here and put him somewhere secure until he recovers.

The rain hit them hard as they emerged onto the street. A little way out in the docking channel, a late-night arrival was mooring up under the downpour, and occasional glimpses of moon flickered through the scudding clouds. Batman hustled his staggering captive through the rain, blinking away the water that was dripping into his eyes -

A blurring of raindrops in his vision kept him from anticipating the swift kick: the sudden loss of balance that resulted from the abrupt flare of pain in his kneecap made him momentarily clumsy. His gauntlet, slick with rain, was shoved from its grip on the thin wrist as the Joker crowed with laughter. The slosh of water in the harbour to Batman's left was suddenly very loud, and his thoughts, wise after the event, clamoured relentlessly in his head:

I should have known, I should have known, I should have -

Recovering fast, he turned in an alert crouch, the laughter ringing in his ears. The harbour seemed empty, save for the distant figure engaged in tying the painter to the dock.

Where are you.

The Joker's weight hit him square in the centre of his back, and he lurched forward sharply, determined to keep his feet. His boots skidded on the wet concrete, and with a lurch of alarm he felt his right heel skid out over the edge of the dock.

A blunt shove on his back that was the Joker pushing back and letting go, and his entire foot groped at nothingness. He lost his footing and fell, upper body smacking into the hard ground, fingers grasping to pull himself back from the brink.

The Joker, stood in the rain a few feet away with one hand on his thin hip, looked utterly unconcerned. "Ta-Ta," he smiled, blew a delicate kiss from his red lips with fluttering fingers, and then bounded forward to stamp on Batman's hands. The heels on the absurd shoes were weighted with steel, and Batman felt the protective gauntlet armour crumple painfully into his knuckles. His nerves instinctively spasmed, and he dropped into the water a few feet below with an undignified splash.

The water was shockingly cold, but not too deep this close to the harbour. Batman kicked off the wall and threw himself back up onto the harbour parapet, ignoring the sharp ache in his hands. He landed neatly, legs braced to hurl himself forward at his enemy, water spilling from him in rivulets.

The harbour was empty. The new arrival further down the dock, having moored his boat, was leaning on the rails, smoking and watching the dripping Batman with interest.

Batman pushed to his feet and made a swift sweep of the nearby streets, knowing already in his heart that it was a pointless task. The Joker was gone.

If he's gone back to kill Alonso…no, he's not that stupid. He won't have stayed around here.

Or maybe that's what he'd want me to think…

For one long moment that felt to him like an eternity, Batman stood under the relentless rain and tried, as he had done so many times in the past, to predict the unpredictable.

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Review Responses:

Cyn Wraith: Thankyou, and don't worry about the mix-up at all. I'm glad you're loving my Joker, and that you think his peculiar brand of humor fits in with the story. I am feeling much better, thanks for your good wishes, and the writer's block is in retreat.

Nightmare1: You have no idea how long I agonised over those Scoobydoo references, wondering if I was going too far. I'm so happy you liked them!

giveGodtheglory: Thankyou so very much:)

E.A.V. : heh, yeah, Joker lives to irritate Batman, I think. And no, I don't think we've seen the last of poor Ari Kelly...

SpiderFreak: Thankyou! I do like cocoa, so I had some of tbat and put some of my favourite music on, and once my antibiotics kicked in I began to feel like writing again. I hate it when I'm in themiddle of something and my ideas desert me.

Dark-Lady-Devinity: I think Batman will probably hate me for sticking him with Joker in this...I'm glad you liked it, and I hope this chapter explained what was going on at the end of the last one..

meow: Thankyou, I'm feeling a lot better. And I know what you mean, I can't help liking Joker, nasty little psycho that he is.

Hades' Phoenix: I hope you've managed to get a little sleep since you reviewed. :) Thankyou so much. Can't get enough of the evil bastard, eh? Sounds horribly familiar...I seem to have a serious jones for him at the moment and this story is fuel for the fire.

Robster72: Banter. I love that word. It's my favourite type of dialogue, too.

Spectral Sereda: :KJ hugs: I am so pleased you're still reading. You may recognise the middle section of this chapter, I think... :) And "believeable" is just about the highest praise any author could hope to get...

chewie-2006: Thankyou! Yes, Batman is having to deal with the criminal equivalent of a stroppy five-year-old...poor guy. :)

Kelly Renee: :KJ smiles: You're really too kind, thankyou so much. And look, I even managed a quick update!