VII.

Luc couldn't hear the music in Arkham anymore. He'd tuned out the pulsing beat long before, his eyes and ears fixed somewhere else. He would find himself on the dance floor without being sure how he'd gotten there, a girl with black lipstick caressing his hair and some part of him warning her off, he wasn't even sure why. There was a name, Cécile, and for some reason she meant something to him . . .

Then Luc was on his knees, his head swimming. He had dreams like this, not ones flavored with Ecstasy but rather when he was just plain drunk on cheap red wine. Rooms started spinning, surfaces beneath him became porous, and he was in and out of water like some kind of trans-dimensional fish. And now there was a man standing above him. Luc exerted effort to understand what the man was saying. " . . . who is he?"

"Some Goth with a taste for X." Luc focused. There were polished black shoes and a charcoal leg of a suit trouser in front of him, and above to his right was a rumbling-voiced man, a skinhead in thin-legged jeans chewing on a toothpick. The rest of him was either obscured by darkness or lost in the haze of smoke and drugs and wine . . . "French, I think. Speaks with an accent."

"What does he do? Is he anything interesting?" Luc realized for the first time the chill emanating from the owner of this voice, the clinicalness and perverse interest masked by indifference—a bit like Cécile's voice, then, except belonging to an impossibly tall, thin man. "Skeletons rattling in any closets?"

The skinhead replied, "Well, look at him. The makeup and the piercings and shit."

The tall, thin man seemed to freeze his compatriot with a smile. "A dime a dozen. Gotham's crawling with them, and most of them are wannabes. I saw enough in the real Arkham." Luc peered upward, distinguished a pale, gleaming face, dark hair, frozen blue eyes behind glasses. "Still, he'll do."

The skinhead grabbed Luc by his jacket collar and dragged him into another room, this one bright enough to make him wince. There were test tubes arranged along a wall, books stacked alongside vats of chemicals. It gave off a bad smell. Luc could feel the sweat pouring off him, soaking his black t-shirt. He didn't protest. He had to admit, part of him was a little curious. What did the clinical guy want? Luc, who'd never found it necessary to inform Cécile he kissed boys as well as girls, thought that, for all his coldness, the clinician had very nice lips.

"What are you going to do?" he managed to ask. "If I'm going to be guinea pig, I might as well know what for."

"I haven't introduced myself," said the cold man. "I'm Dr. Crane. I'm glad you asked about the trial version of the drug you'll be testing for me."

"Trial version?" asked Luc weakly. "Don't I get compensation?"

The skinhead grunted, but Dr. Crane merely smiled his wintry smile as he filled a syringe with a clear liquid. "Certainly. This is a world premiere of a chemical formula upon which I have been working for months. It's a prestigious position you're in, Mr. . . .?"

Luc was barely able to get his name out before Skinhead held him and Crane jabbed him with the syringe. Then he felt violently ill. He was allowed to curl up on the floor of the laboratory, the faint sound of the thrumming metal music keeping him awake as it pulsed through the walls. When he looked up, he was surprised to see Crane peering down at him with a wicked smile, hand poised over a notebook. Waiting. Studying. "S-s-s-sick bastard," Luc muttered into the carpet, though he couldn't help smiling. "What's it supposed to do?" asked the skinhead. "Upper or downer?"

"Neither," said Crane, wiping the steam off his glasses. "It's something I've been developing for my overseas clients. A specific admixture they've asked me to create." The skinhead made an impatient sound as Luc began to groan. "I don't suppose you read? It's something of a chemical version of verita serum."

"What the hell . . .?"

"It's from Harry Potter," said Crane with infinite disdain. "I had a lot of books to get through in solitary." He was prevented from elaborating when Luc dove face forward toward the carpet. Then there were tears streaming down his cheeks of their own accord. The words were bubbling up from some secret place, and he couldn't make them stop. He knew in some distant part of his brain that it was the chemical injection that had caused him to loose his torrent of confession. He forced his hands over his mouth, the sweat streaming down through his hair, mixing with his tears and spit, but Skinhead grabbed him then and clamped his hands away from his mouth. So he went on.

This wasn't how he had envisioned coming clean to the world about his complicated, frustrated feelings for Cécile and the subsequent times he'd been unfaithful to her. His suspicions about her father and where she'd gotten her windfall cash flow and the curious package she'd received back on rue St. Denis. But as he drifted off into exhausted sleep, his dehydration deemed critical by Crane but not deadly, he did feel absolution. Crane and the skinhead might not be a priest in the confessional, but surely the effects of the drug could help him to erase the guilt and the shame and the rush of stupidity?

"Interesting," said Crane, taking off his glasses.

Cécile had found Luc on the front steps to the apartment complex when she'd gone out in the morning to buy cigarettes. He was in same recumbent, unfeeling position as a black bag of garbage. He didn't respond to her as she tried to drag him up to the elevator, and even in the heart of hearts that seldom felt panic, she considered phoning her friends at Waterman. "I'm taking you to the hospital," she said breathlessly, irritated that she'd allowed his entropy to reach this point. The uppermost question in her mind was how she would pay for Luc's treatment, how she would have to miss afternoon classes to stay by his side in the emergency room all day.

Luc pushed her away from him. "Just get me upstairs," he slurred. "I need water." Cécile did as she was told, helping Luc into the elevator and getting him glass after glass of water from the tap once he was sprawled on the couch in their apartment.

"Are you sure you won't make yourself sick?" she said in rapid patois.

"It's what he said to do," Luc panted.

"Who?"

Luc rubbed his eyes, smearing the mascara and eyeliner. Cécile could tell he'd been through hell, but had he crawled to their apartment himself? Had someone dumped him from a taxi? How long had he been downstairs with the garbage? "And you were really concerned, weren't you?" he sneered. "Didn't even try to look for me when I didn't come home."

"I called your phone," Cécile said, her voice trembling. She took a deep breath, determined to hide her own culpability and the slushy feelings of regret. "Where is your phone? Where have you been?" Luc began to protest. "Yes, fine. I won't be your mother. But you want me to be concerned? There, I'm concerned."

Luc leaned over and muttered into the arm of the couch, "Ice queen . . ."

"What?"

"I'm all right," said Luc. He made an effort to keep his voice level, and smearing his makeup, he made sure Cécile couldn't see the tear tread marks down his cheeks. "Do we have bread?" Cécile nodded to this seeming non-sequitur. "Eggs?" Yes. "Mushrooms?" Yes. "Butter?" Yes. "Okay, I make myself an omelette. What would really help me, choux-choux, is if you'd go out and buy me some aspirin."

Cécile stood in the door frame. Luc rarely referred to her by the pet name; he didn't dare as it normally made her angry. She studied his air of exhaustion, the deepness of despair and vulnerability. "If you're sure. Perhaps I shouldn't . . ." He waved her away with the same indifference one showed a buzzing bee. She felt her color rising. She never tolerated dismissal if she could help it. But something—guilt?—stayed her. She reached forward to take Luc's shoulders. She leaned down with the intent of kissing his lips—surprisingly, something she had not done in days. A foul smell and the slickness of sweat gave her a split-second's hesitation, which Luc misinterpreted. He jerked away. She contented herself with ruffling his hair affectionately.

"Aspirin, please."

Cécile walked quickly, her heels clacking hollowly on the pockmarked pavement. She'd promised Luc aspirin, but when she'd left the house and gotten on the bus, her ransacked purse had produced no cash. With her credit card maxed out, she made for the nearest bank. The absence of people on the sidewalk outside might have piqued her interest in other circumstances.

She punched in her PIN with determined fury, face twisting in annoyance equally meant for Luc and herself. The ATM balked at her, spitting her card back. She glanced nervously behind, expecting a line. With a sigh, she tried again. This time the machine accepted her PIN but flashed red and gold, insisting insufficient funds. With a huff of frustration, she swung open the door to the interior of the bank and clunked her way inside.

Her footsteps echoed as she stopped dead. Of all the banks, she thought. Of all the days . . . She was wrested to the floor and to her knees before she had a chance to take a step backward. She wasn't really aware of what the man pressing her against the floor was saying. For a moment, her mind refused to process English. There was a large gun gnawing into the side of her temple, and the man, dressed in shabby black with oversized army surplus combat boots, was shouting hard-edged words at her. But as to what he might have sounded like, what he might have said, she had no clue. Her knees were slick with sweat from the heat outside, and slid on the checker-patterned floor. If the command had been to offer up the contents of her purse, she would have done so, with the same dreamy indifference.

The bank tellers, some distance across the room opposite her, were giving up bags of green dollars, their frightened, hysterical faces contrasting with the curious lack she herself felt. It wasn't until the bags were being filled that she realized the bank robbers, variously dressed in black and lacking a colorful uniform, were wearing cheap clown masks. This observation niggled at her for some time, which she was free to contemplate as the man who had bruised her face with the snout of his gun had wandered off. Her knees were still oozing sweat against the coolness of the tile.

They were all wearing clown masks, and again she thought of her mother and the tragic opera of the inwardly-crying clown. That's when she thought to notice that one in particular reminded her of something. Oh, he was dressed like all the others: cheap, anonymous clothes pulled from some thrift store. There was something familiar in that hunched-over posture, the tilt of the head, the messiness of the brownish-blonde hair. The thought was sharper than the blade of a knife. The gloves weren't purple, but they may as well have been. All of it was just as she had been seeing twice a year for most of her adult life. She looked up into the blotchy plastic mask. Did he recognize her? Fear made her want to look away. Perhaps if he didn't see, she would be left alone. Okay—they steal her cash card and the maxed-out credit card. There was Luc to worry about, who needed aspirin— But she didn't look away. She remembered the conspiratorial look they'd shared as LaRoc had been scrambled, had left the Blandine workshop with at least a temporary sanction on his wandering, loathsome hands.

"Take her."

Hearing his voice made her stomach curdle. She thought of the postcards and the newspaper clippings and wanted to slap herself in the face. Hair dye and playing cards, she had told Luc, almost truthfully. That's all he was to her, damned if she knew what she was to him. She knew he had robbed banks—she had taken the marked money and used it, knowingly—and now justice had returned full circle, to mete out to her what she deserved. Penance, O Most Holy Virgin, she thought—I've had penance enough with my father in these past few months. I don't deserve . . .

The first clown, the one with the combat boots, had pulled her off the floor by the collar of her blouse. "You didn't say nothin' about hostages."

Cécile wasn't an expert on guns, but she surmised the one that the Joker held could do more damage than the one Combat Boots had used to bruise her face. "Change—of—plans." He tilted his head, almost at a rakish angle. "I make the plans, so I make the changes. Yes?" The last word was a growl, and Cécile took a deep breath. She remembered those gloves forcing her onto a bakery table with the intention of burning her skin with a lit cigarette. There was bruising pressure on her upper arm as Combat Boots dragged her to the door. They brought up the rear, and she was dumbly distracted from the getaway vehicle—though she could have sworn it was a cab—by Combat Boots raining the glass front of the bank with bullets from his gun. The sheets of glass came down in a torrent of ricocheting spikes, and she heard the screams from the people trapped inside.

She was forced into the backseat of the car as Combat Boots dove for the driver's seat and smashed his foot onto the accelerator. The Joker took the seat beside her and removed the clown mask. She was met with the familiar red gash of a grin. "What a coincidence," he said.

A/N: Crane—is—back! Since the release of The Dark Knight, I was in communication with outstanding author Blodeuedd and was delighted when she announced she wanted to write Crane for that era in the Nolan!verse. One thing I told myself from the outset of this story is that I wanted to bring in Crane somehow, and I think I've done a decent job.

The Joker's right—it is a massive coincidence. But some of the best Gothic is written on the turn of unbelievable coincidence—she tells herself. Anyway, I'm rubbish at writing robberies and masterminded crimes. I apologize in advance.