Chapter 11: Dinner Date
Bagheera smiled politely as William Barba opened the door to his two story suburban home that lay just outside of the bustling streets of Gotham City. She pretended to feel at ease with him beside her, like she was safe, but her mind was telling her to run, to not hide. Her mind was telling her to find her cousin and to stop the Joker.
"Home, sweet home," Barba announced as he allowed her to walk through the threshold first. He turned the lights on to reveal to Bagheera the luxurious furniture and decorations that inhabited his home. Barba placed his keys on the side table and held the Chinese take-out that they had picked up on their way home in his hands as he watched her closely take in his home.
She looked around with wide eyes as she took in the splendor of his abode. The couch was leather as was the matching reclining chair that sat in the corner of the living room. The television was a newly released flat screen that was hung on the eggshell painted walls. Photos of his family and small posters from old Universal monster films decorated the walls. Her blue eyes moved across the walls to a long line of degrees that hung on his wall. She walked towards them to get a closer look and felt slight surprise come over her as she took in the degrees. Several Gotham University degrees looked back at her but one took her breath away as she looked upon the scripted letters that made up his name.
"You graduated law school," she asked in surprise as she took in the Harvard degree, "from Harvard?!"
Barba smiled at her and nodded as he made his way to her side to look upon his successes.
"Believe me," he said with a soft chuckle, "It's overrated."
She shook her head as she turned to him with confusion in her eyes, "I don't understand. You have a law degree and you are in Internal Affairs," she looked at him with bright eyes as a soft, genuine smile of disbelief danced upon her lips, "Why? I mean I remember you telling me you wanted to run for DA, but I thought you had been joking."
He shrugged his shoulders and replied simply, "I wanted to make sure that this town had good cops on the streets."
Her brows lifted in surprise as she looked from him back to the degrees, a chuckle escaped her as she replied, "When we pulled up, I was going to ask you how you could even afford this place," she rolled her eyes in slight embarrassment, "I can barely afford my shitty apartment."
Barba smiled at her observation and replied as he walked towards the kitchen to place the take-out down, "I'm proud of it. I did some practicing before I decided to go to work at IAB."
"You ever think of going back," she asked in genuine interest as she followed him into the kitchen.
He smiled at her question as he turned her back on her to grab two bottled Cokes out of the fridge. He handed her one and twisted the top on his and took a sip before acknowledging her question.
"I do some pro-bono work," he said as he leaned against his counter in a comfortable stance.
Bagheera took the moment to examine his body. He wasn't lean or overly muscular, he had a bit of fat on his hips, but she had never really found boney hips attractive on a man. She smiled at him and the unease fell off of her shoulders as she looked into his eyes that held warmth instead of the coldness that the Joker's eyes contained.
"Yeah," he stated as he watched Bagheera look him over with a sparkle in her eyes, though he did not take offense to her wandering eyes, "I usually take in battered wives as clients, rape victims, sexual assault…things that go unnoticed by the newspapers when men like the Joker and Maroni are running in the streets stealing money and blowing up shit."
"That's very noble of you," she said with a genuine smile as she took a drink of her Coke, "Your parents must be proud."
"Not really," Barba answered with a shrug of his shoulders.
"What," Bagheera asked in surprise, "No," she took in his attractive features as she smiled at him and comfortably leaned against the small island that separated her from him, "Really?"
"Yeah," he answered, "They wanted me to be a doctor."
A chuckle escaped Bagheera and she instantly regretted it as pain from her abdomen shot through her body, but she kept her pain under wraps.
"I was going to be a doctor," he added honestly.
"Then what stopped you," she asked with a flirtatious grin.
"Dr. Barba," he said with a look of comedic disgust as he shook his head at the thought, "It's a horrible name," he smiled as Bagheera chuckled at his joke, "I just couldn't imagine spending my life being called Dr. Barba."
Bagheera nodded and added lightheartedly, "IAB Agent Barba does sound a lot better."
"No," Barba answered with a small smile, "in college I failed biology. I blame Bruce Wayne for that part; he always wanted to go out all the damned time."
"Oh my God," she announced happily, "I did too! You have no idea how many times I had to re-take that stupid class before I finally got it down, though admittedly I didn't fail because of partying too hard. I was always working to pay my way."
He laughed at her confession and added as he raised his bottle up in a toast, "Well thank God for criminal justice classes because without them we would have never met."
"To criminal justice courses everywhere," Bagheera replied and raised her bottle in the air and allowed him to touch his bottle against hers.
"What does you sister do," she asked as she began to look through the take out boxes for her meal.
"Emily," he said with a chuckle, "Well, she's Dr. Barba."
Bagheera smiled at his admission and asked, "So you knew Bruce Wayne?"
"Yeah," he answered as he grabbed his box and made his way to the living room, "I mean I still know him. We were really close in school, and we just sort of went on with life. We still do lunch every once in a while when we have the time."
She followed him into the living room and sat on the opposite side of the couch beside him, leaving plenty of space between him and her so he did not get the wrong idea of how the night was going to go.
"So I have a small collection of movies," he informed her as he opened his container, "Sorry about that."
"No," she answered quickly in reply, "I'll watch whatever you have. It's fine," she stopped, "Uhm, does your sister have any spare clothes that I could borrow," she looked down at the hospital gown and the Joker's dirty jacket that she still wore, "I'd like to get out of this mess."
"Yeah," he said as he explained which bedroom was hers, "I think she left some jeans up there, you'll have to borrow one of my shirts though."
"Thank you," she whispered as she made her way up the stairs. She went into the first bedroom that held the smell of Barba's cologne. The bed was made and his room was clean. His gun lay forgotten on the bedside table as she observed her surroundings. She quickly made her way to his closet and grabbed a long sleeved, button up green shirt. She hurried out of his room and into the sister's room to hurry and change out of the dirty jacket and old hospital gown.
"Do I look better," she asked as she made her way down the stairs to where Barba was sitting on the couch. She wore his emerald green shirt that looked perfect on her in his eyes and his sister's old black skirt. On her feet, he could see that she had slipped on his sister's long forgotten black flats. Bandages from the cuts on her feet stuck out noticeably from the sides of the shoes as he inspected her.
"You look comfy," he said with a proud smile as she made her way towards him.
Barba smiled at her as he explained which movies he had in his small collection. She chose the movie, a movie that she had seen in theaters when she had been in high school with Jonathon. The night moved without a disturbance as they watched the movie together.
Half way through the film, Bagheera felt a strange unease rumble through her stomach and she looked over to Barba with a look of discontent that he did not notice. She felt her body move of its own accord and she found herself leaning against him. She could smell his cologne that lingered on his starched shirt as he moved his arm and draped it over her shoulder. She closed her eyes and slowed her heart beat as she listened to the steady beat of his heart.
As she laid against him for what seemed to be hours while pretending to be asleep, she heard the hitch in his breath change as sleep over took him. She slowly lifted her head from his chest and looked him over. His eyes moved under his lids as he slipped into a deeper state of sleep. Bagheera bit at her bottom lip as she pulled herself reluctantly away from his warm embrace. She didn't want to leave him, but she had a job to finish.
Bagheera silently made her way up the stairs and into his bedroom. She nabbed his pistol and hurried to grab the Joker's jacket, which she pulled on quickly. She placed the gun into the inside pocket of the jacket and hurried down the stairs. As she made her way to the door, she grabbed William's keys and forgotten cell phone.
Bagheera slipped into his car and hurried away from the suburban home and back into the panicked city.
...
"Beautiful isn't it," Batman said as he stood in front of tons of screens with Luscious Fox beside him gazing at the screens in fear.
"Beautiful," he said as he looked at each screen individually, "Unethical. Dangerous."
Batman lowered his head as he moved away from the screens.
"You've turned every cell phone in Gotham into a microphone," Luscious explained as he couldn't take his eyes off of what the billionaire playboy had accomplished. Blue images of Gothamites went along with their lives as they unknowingly were being watched by the two.
"It's a high frequency generated receiver," he answered in his own defense.
"You took my sonar concept and applied it to every phone in the city," Fox responded in slight disappointment, "with half the city feeding you sonar, you can watch all of Gotham," he paused and shook his head, "This is wrong."
"I've got to find this man," Bruce Wayne explained to his longtime employee and confidant.
Fox turned to him with wide eyes of disbelief and replied in disappointment, "At what cost?"
"The database is key encrypted," he informed his friend, "It can only be accessed by one person."
"This is too much power for one person," Luscious Fox explained once again.
"That's why I gave it to you," the billionaire said as Luscious turned to look at him in surprise, "Only you."
"Spying on thirty million people isn't my job description," he informed his boss.
"This is an audio sample," Batman explained, "He talks within the city, you can triangulate his position."
"I'll help you this one time," Fox informed him, disappointment still filled his tone, "but consider this my resignation. As long as this machine is at Wayne Enterprises, I won't be."
"When you're finished," he said in the Batman's husky voice, "Type in your name."
Fox watched the vigilante known as the Batman, and his boss and friend, walked away from him to begin a suicide machine to bring down a man that just wanted to watch the world burn.
...
Commissioner Gordon sat in front of the mayor of Gotham as Gothamites rushed to get out of the city. The National Guard and Gotham PD examined every inch of the tunnels and bridges, but nothing had been found.
"All of my offices went over the tunnels and bridges," Gordon briefed the mayor, "but with the Joker's threat, they're not an option to use."
"And land routes east," the mayor asked.
"It's too risky," Gordon answered, "The only thing left is the ferries, but with the ferries I wanted to use them to get some of those prisoners off the island."
"The men you and Dent put away," the mayor asked in slight confusion, "Those aren't people I'm worried about."
"You should be," Gordon said in a matter of fact tone, "Whatever the Joker's planning, it's a good bet that Harvey's might be involved. I want to get 'em out of here."
The mayor allowed the commissioner's words of warning to sink into his brain before asking carefully, "So where is Harvey?"
Gordon looked down to his lap as he thought of Bagheera's warning; he didn't want to share those beliefs with the mayor so he said simply, "We haven't found him."
A look of defeat and grief came over the mayor's already stressed features as he took in the news of the lost district attorney.
"Jesus," the mayor whispered under his breath then looked to the commissioner, "How long can you keep this quit?"
"Only my close team knows," Gordon informed him hesitantly.
...
Bagheera watched as cars scrambled passed her to find a way out of the city while she was braving her way into the city. She was the only car on the road and Barba's black town car was very noticeable on the empty road. The radio news repeated the Joker's message to Gotham over and over again. People called in with ideas on what to do and to tell stories of what they had seen.
She looked down to the gas dial and sighed as the red fuel light came on and dinged over and over in an attempt to inform her that she was running out of gas.
"Please be open," she whispered to herself as the lights of a small grocery store sign came into view. A small gas station sat across the parking lot in front of the store and she smiled as she saw the open sign blinking in bright neon lights. She pulled in quickly to the gas station and pulled herself out of the borrowed car. She looked to the small building where a cashier was supposed to sit but found not a soul sitting inside.
"What the hell," she hissed under her voice as she turned to look at the gas pump. It wouldn't take Barba's credit card without the authorization of the gas attendant. She looked towards the store and shook her head. Walking across the store and into the parking lot would shave time off of her trip to Gotham PD, but she had no choice.
The doors automatically opened as she walked inside the warm store. The lights were bright, but there was no customer inside. She felt as if she had woken up to a zombie apocalypse in Gotham.
"Hello," she asked of the empty store. Bagheera looked around the store with suspicious eyes as she made her way to the few cashier counters.
"Is someone here," she heard a female voice finally speak up from an office in the distant corner. Bagheera watched carefully as a young high school student with curly auburn hair walked cautiously towards her.
"I'm Detective Lewis," Bagheera began as the student moved to the register.
"Oh I know you," the girl answered with a bright smile, "You're like," she shook her head, "my idol."
"That's great," Bagheera said in disinterest, but her eyes stopped on the magazine that stood on the top shelf. A photograph of the Joker and one of herself made the top story with the headline suggesting that she was in a relationship with the mass murdering clown.
"You're why I am trying so hard to get into GU," the girl said happily.
"Listen kid," Bagheera started, but stopped as the girl's words registered in her mind, she forced a kind smile upon her tired features and asked, "What's your name?"
"Ashley," the teen answered, "Ashley Davies."
The name sounded familiar to Bagheera, but in her current frenzied state she could not recall why it had.
"Where is everyone, Ashley," Bagheera asked as she pulled the credit card and the cell phone from the pocket of the Joker's jacket. Hard paper rubbed against her fingers from inside the pocket and she pulled them out to see the Joker card and the Queen of Hearts card looking back at her. The Joker had placed them there for her to find. He wanted her to remember what he had told her. She laid the phone and the two playing cards onto the counter and looked at the worried teenager.
"On their way out of here," she answered, "My boss wouldn't let me leave. Plus my dad is stuck in town. I can't just leave him."
Bagheera nodded and replied, "I'm going to need some gas. The attendant isn't out there and all I have is this card."
Ashley nodded and charged her for the gas and replied as she handed her idol the card back, "I hope you catch that son of a bitch."
"I do too," Bagheera answered as she placed the card back into her pocket, forgetting the cell phone and playing cards on the counter, and walked out of the store.
As she walked across the mostly empty parking lot, the cool wind blew around her causing the Joker's jacket tails to dance along with her borrowed skirt. Her hair billowed in the air as the smell of sewage and garbage wafted in the air. The faint smell of gas moved about on the wind as she approached the gas station. Another car had joined her to get some last minute gas before trying to flee the city. She examined them closely to see a clean cut African American woman pumping the gas with what seemed to be either her boyfriend or her brother in the passenger seat.
Bagheera ignored them and continued on towards her car to pump the gas into Barba's town car. She closed her eyes as the gas slowly entered the car's gas tank. Her head ached from the tension of the day. She had survived another encounter with the Joker and the blowing up of the hospital that she had resided in. She clung to the hope that the Joker wouldn't come after her again.
A click sounded behind her head and she slowly opened her eyes. Her hope dashed as she registered that it was a click of a gun. She slowly turned to see the Joker standing behind her with a large smile and a shotgun pointed at her head. She raised her hands slowly as she looked down the barrel of the sawed off shotgun.
"God damn it," Bagheera said in anger and annoyance as she glared at the smiling clown in front of her.
And there you have the 11th chapter. I'm predicting 3 more chapters and this story should be finished :)