Chapter 7
The first question she had was a very obvious one- how did The Joker know her name? She stared numbly at the tape recorder Gordon had put in front of her, everything that she had been through in the past few hours flashing through her head as if these were her final moments. She reached for the tape recorder then stopped, looking up at Gordon with a sudden pang of panic.
"This…isn't going to explode or something is it?" Annie asked nervously. "Because if it is, I'm telling you right now, I'm not going to help you if it means blowing up here."
Gordon seemed to consider this for a minute as he examined the tape recorder. He cautiously turned it over in his hands, searching it for any sign of real danger. At length, he raised his eyebrows in a sign of hopeful determination and placed it back on the table.
"Well, there's no apparent device attached to it. Usually, when The Joker's going to cause an explosion, he wants us to know about it. I think it's just a tape recorder."
He stared at her expectantly, not wanting to urge her on in case of bad judgment, but letting her know that he was irrevocably curious. She sighed and took the tape recorder in her hand, flinching with the expectation that there was still something else yet to be discovered. She closed her eyes warily and pressed 'play'.
There was a pile of static at first, insinuating that something horrible was going to happen, but all of a sudden, music began to play. It was a familiar song- low brass squawking out a limited sequence of notes with a percussion beneath it that sounded like bones rattling against a rusted fence. A voice emerged from the persistent, musical commotion in a dry, rasping hiss that calmed her momentarily with a spurt of personal remembrance:
"I'd sell your heart to the junkman baby for a buck, for a buck,
If you're lookin for someone to pull you outta that ditch you're outta luck, you're outta luck."
Gordon grimaced in confusion and looked up to Annie. He saw the familiarity in her face and paused in a state of even greater confusion. "What…is this?" he asked.
She smiled ironically, keeping her eyes on the tape recorder. "It's a Tom Waits song, God's Away On Business. Figures The Joker's a fan of Tom Waits. I should have guessed when I saw that sign around the guy's neck." Gordon continued his blank stare at her. She looked up at him as if it were all so obvious. "I listen to this stuff, okay? I think it's awesome. The thing, the sign on the lawyer's neck was a line from the song. I know Tom Waits forwards and backwards…"
Her moment of clarity was quickly interrupted by horror. She kept her eyes on Gordon and allowed for her gaze to fade before his eyes into recognizable terror. "How does he know that? How the hell does he know that I listen to Tom Waits?"
Gordon appeared more nervous at this conclusion and got up to look at the door to his office, ensuring that they were truly alone. "Well, we're not letting you go anywhere without close surveillance, that's for sure. The Joker is clearly trying to communicate with you. I'm not really sure why, but in any event it can't be good for you. Looks like he's sending a message, and for some reason, this message is for you. Maybe…" he paused. "Maybe you actually…know what this is…"
He pulled from his pocket a small Polaroid photograph that he had been keeping. "This is a photo that was taken of the victim before we released him to the morgue. One of the officers noticed that some blood was seeping through his suit, so we loosened it a bit and we found this…carved into his chest…"
Annie took the photograph and nearly gagged from the image she saw. Gordon looked apologetic that he showed it to her, but she knew as well as he did that it was necessary.
In the flesh of the lawyer's chest were the words: "God's away, God's away, God's away on Business, Business. HA!"
She pressed her hand to her forehead. The headache was coming back in a big way. Gordon took the photograph back from her and clasped her hand encouragingly. "I know that this is unethical and that it must be very hard for you, but we're out on a limb here and we'll do almost anything now to stop The Joker from doing this again. So I have to ask you, do you have any idea why he wrote that? Any idea at all?"
Annie shook her head for a moment, but then something switched on inside of her. It was the same panic button that had been pushed when The Joker had the knife to her cheek, the one that made her go out on a limb to reach beyond all that she could possibly know and find something deeper and truer than before. She stared hard into Gordon's eyes as the darkest realization she could possibly entertain reared up inside her mind and barred its fangs in her frightened little throat.
"He knows The Batman is gone." She whispered. "God's away on Business. He knows we're defenseless."
(Author's Note: Okay guys, I am desperately sorry, but I have to leave you there. I am going away for a week and I won't have computer access. SO…do review and stay tuned. I'm excited for what this is going to become )