CHAPTER 3: DINNER GUEST
Time does not exist in the meat locker. Martha sees no clocks on the wall, and her watch is behind her, covered in silver duct tape. She cannot tell when last the man in the make-up, the man with the scars left her, if only an hour or so has passed from then or if it has been longer. It feels like he's been gone for an eternity, but even so, she has some vague concept of the time thanks to the music echoing through the walls. Beethoven. But even that seems to flow on forever in this place. If she could hear her watch she might try to count the ticking, but she knows even this attempt at configuring the time would fail. She would not be able to focus on the numbers. Her mind is plagued by paranoia and fear. These feelings become thoughts, and these thoughts distract and unsettle her deeply. It's not what she knows, it's what she doesn't know that's wrecking her up inside. All the little questions. Will he kill me? Will he come back? Will he starve me? Will he rape me? How long will I stay here? Will he let me go? When will he let me go? Why? Why am I here?
She has given up on struggling to get loose. She knows the man in the make-up is clever and dangerous. That she could sense right when she first laid eyes on him. She has given up on the thought of escape and all that's left to eat away at her mind are the bad thoughts, the paranoid thoughts, the thoughts of dismay and apprehension. Slowly, she is loosing hope. She knows, as should any smart woman like herself, that her phone call to Mr. Dominick ultimately sealed her doom. It has made it so that her absence in the outside world is explainable, and therefore she recognizes the high chance that nobody will come looking for her out of curiosity. At least nobody from work. As for her family, all she has to count on is her mother. Perhaps, she thinks, perhaps there is a chance she will come looking for me. Perhaps there is a chance she will get worried and send the police to my home, and they'll see that there was a definite struggle—unless he had the men in masks clean up afterward. He probably did. But even so, perhaps there is still a chance; a slim ray of hope that I will get through this, get out of this alive.
This semi uplifting thought is lost on her when the door behind her opens abruptly with a loud crash. She jumps again, and being un-gagged from their previous encounter, this time the man in make-up hears her tiny yelp. He rounds her and she can see he has re-applied his make-up, she can tell from its brighter appearance in comparison with the skin just under his jaw-line. His expression denotes a kind of energetic glee. He too sees a change in her face. Her mascara has run down the outside of her nose and inside of her cheeks, dried after her breakdown from before. He can tell she's been bawling like a little girl. He can see he's made a lasting impression on her—or at least the situation has.
Without a word he bends over and begins to untie her ankles from the chair. At one point he withdraws a kind of pocketknife from the inside of his vest and starts to cut at the tape. He says nothing, and she says nothing. She only looks down blankly, curious. Afterward he backs quickly away, expecting her to kick at him. She doesn't. She only stares up at him like a dumb dog and watches as he rounds her again.
He bends down to face her hands and speaks to her from behind.
"I'll do your hands now, Miss Aiken. You try to run—" suddenly she feels the barrel of the gun again, this time wedged between her shoulder blades, "—and kablamo. Got it?"
She gives a small nod and waits until her hands are free. Slowly, she brings them around to rest in her lap, feeling the ache of the muscles and hearing the cracks of the swollen joints. They were in the wrong position for too long, and now her arms feel terribly heavy and sore.
He rounds her yet again, and then his grinning yellow teeth are inches from her nose. His breath, strangely, is not as stale as she expected it to be.
"How about some dinner?" He chimes with a twitch of his left eye.
And without another word he hauls her to her feet in one grand yanking motion. For a moment she's a wobbly toddler just learning how to walk. Her feet are bare and there are rips in her stockings. Her knees tingle. She falls into him, groggy from having been in a sitting position for so long. Her face comes up against his chest and she sniffs at his cologne. She is close to his face—out of habit his tongue darts out to lick the chapped edge of his mouth, prodding the scar tissue. She shivers. He holds her to him, neither annoyed nor pleased, until finally she is able to regain her balance. She gives him an apologetic look and he leads her out of the meat locker. At one point she opens her mouth to speak but stops, lips parted halfway, and decides against it. She feels like a lamb being lead to the slaughter, and she notices now that, as she's standing beside him comparatively, he isn't as big as she originally through he was. He somehow seemed taller, more intimidating when she was tied to the chair and he was looming over her, but now she sees that he is a rather pathetic looking specimen overall. Skinny, moderate height, fidgety—crawling in his own skin. But still, he gives off an air of supremacy, of slight intimidation. Still that insane postal-worker feel.
They walk a ways, down a darkened corridor where the wallpaper is ripped and the ceiling holds wet mold spots from the leaky pipes behind it. Past locked doors, past open ones, although she can't see what's in them (they're walking by too quickly). He brings her into the dinning area of what appears to have once been a delicatessen. She looks around, surprised, and sees the cobwebs, the windows covered up with plywood. The two big doors are padded with red satin, and locked at the center with a deadbolt. She sniffs at the air and the smell of old cigarette smoke fills her nostrils. The place is rotting, decrepit, yet owning a kind of dark and sinister charm. Rather similar to the scarred man's own strange physique.
The room is filled with music. Not Beethoven now, but the calmer, more waltz-oriented Strauss. Relaxing dinner music. There are small wooden tables set up around the room, and booths next to the plywood windows. And sitting all around are the men, maybe eighteen in all, wearing clown masks, ski masks, some with no masks whatsoever. Some of them are playing card games, others are reading old newspaper pages.
"Gentlemen," He calls out gleefully over the music, and again the men halt in their activity and direct their attention to him. "Gentlemen, this is Miss Aiken. She'll be joining us for dinner tonight."
The men grunt their replies and return to their own little world.
She looks around again, trying to see an uncovered window. Is it still night out? It doesn't feel like night. She stands silent and confused. Is it the same night she was kidnapped, or is this farther on, tomorrow night, the night after? Time does not exist in this place. Briefly, she shuts her eyes. She is weary.
He leads her over to a booth by the wall and sits her on the left side, afterward taking a seat across from her, gun now pointed at her chest.
A moment of silence.
"Well," He begins, smirking proudly. "This is my, eh, this is my pad. Whadduya think?"
She looks around again, looks at him, tries to force a smile. It's small and fleeting. He shrugs.
"Yeah, well, it suits the purpose. I'm thinking of upgrading, though. Remodeling, as it were. Ought to have a lot of cash coming to me soon. Me and the boys here." He explains, gesturing to the men in masks. "Not that all the money will go to remodeling. As you can tell from my face, I'm not that vain over that which, uh, describes me visually. I don't ask for a lot. Simplicity, that's the key. Simplicity and necessity, really. And besides, money is the route of all evil, isn't that right, Miss Aiken?"
She says nothing. It's all nonsense to her. He leans back, stretches.
"You look hungry." He says offhandedly, and it's true—she is becoming aware of her stomach's emptiness. She can not remember when last she ate. "Food's coming. Don't worry. But in the meantime, we might as well get down to business."
She feels little in the cushioned seat of the booth. The table's been raised too high. It dwarfs her.
"You're probably wondering why you're here." He begins stiffly.
She gives no reply.
"Well, Miss Aiken, Martha—might as well drop the formalities, I'm a pretty informal guy, as you can see." He says, leaning in toward her, "The fact of the matter is, I've been wanting to open up an account at Gotham 1st National, your work place isn't it, for some time. Several accounts, as a matter of fact."
Some of the men, listening in on what he's been saying, chuckle quietly at the hidden meaning behind their boss's comment.
"I need you to tell me everything that you can about how the place works, Martha. My men and I, we're real curious about Gotham 1st National." He mimics an excited child. "We think banks are just neat-o, don't we fellows!"
He laughs openly, as do some of the other men. She doesn't. Her tongue feels heavy, dry, a dead thing taking up space in her mouth. All of this, this conversation, this situation, feels so unreal to her. It makes her question her own sanity. Am I still unconscious? Is this all a dream? Are we really talking here now, he and I? It doesn't seem real.
She starts to feel a slight twinge of anger.
This? THIS is what I'm hear for? The fucking BANK?
"Any who," He continues, "I'm just wanting to know some things about the place. And seeing how you're next in line to be assistant manager there, I'm guessing you know just about everything. Of course, it's not the little things I'm interested in. It's the big things that concern me, Martha. I'm a meticulous man. Not a planner, per say, but cautious. Caution is a sign of intelligence, wouldn't you say? Organization is a sign of intelligence."
Her brow furrows again. She's terribly perplexed by all of this.
"How many security guards, Martha? I need to know what their shifts are, and I need to know how many tellers there are, too. And what their shifts are, where all the emergency fire exits are, the fire alarms, the sprinkler system, how to activate—or deactivate—the silent alarm, not to mention the combination to the vault, all that technical jazz." he finishes, licking the inside corner of his mouth.
A beat.
"Who are you?" She says, monotone.
He smiles furtively, pulls something out of his inner breast pocket, flings it across the table at her. She flinches back only to see that he's tossed her a simple playing card.
"My card." He announces.
She looks down at it. On the surface of the card is the printed picture of a juggling jester, grinning merrily. Her brow wrinkles in confusion. A joker card?
"A – what? A card? You're a—"
He waves his hand, silencing her.
"They call me The Joker." And he grins, Chelsea-scars stretching hideous.
"And you're a . . . You're a . . . a bank robber?" She finally blurts.
"No." He says, eyes flashing dangerously. "I am not just a bank robber."
She shakes her head quickly.
"I'm sorry. I-I didn't mean—"
Before she can say anything more somebody's at the front of the delicatessen, rapping on the doors quite loudly.
"Ah, food's here. Excellent." He whispers, winking at her. "I'll give ya dinner and a show, how 'bout that, eh Martha?"
He snaps his fingers once (glove-less and naked from the ritual of the make-up), and without hesitation two of the goons sitting nearest to the door rise and unlock the deadbolt. Martha watches as a third goon, holding three or four large pizza boxes, struts in casually. Right away the goon with the pizzas comes quickly to the table where she and The Joker are sitting, and sets the food down in front of him like a man offering gold to a God. The Joker sniffs, looks at his watch, and grimaces.
"Hmmm . . ." He grumbles, eyes sly and dangerous. "You—You are late, my friend. That's what you are. You're a late lilly, yuhumn."
The goon watches nervously as he opens one of the boxes, removes a slice (pepperoni with anchovies) and bites into it. Martha wants to gag, watching his attempts to chew with the scars—such disgusting smacking noises. After a moment he spits the pizza back out of his mouth, exclaiming "Aw, that's too bad! It's cold."
And she watches, horror-struck, as he shoots the goon through the heart, making her scream openly. She sees the goon land on the floor in a dead heap. It happens in slow motion, and she takes all of the intensity of the act in, and then she's backing away, scrambling madly away out of instinct, balling herself up at the farthest interior of the cushioned seat, clawing at the wall, shaking her head, trying not to let herself look at the blood. It isn't even the blood that bothers her. It isn't that she's seen the goon die, necessarily. Martha has seen a man die before—die in a much more sinister fashion. And she works for Gotham's scum, so it isn't, for her, that she is unaccustomed to the idea of witnessing such acts of violence. It is not seeing the goon die that does it for Martha. Rather, it is the unexpectedness with which the goon's life is suddenly and senselessly cut short that throws her into a wild tantrum of short, piercing screams.
It is the unexpectedness combined with the sudden realization—the confirmation that, yes, her situation is indeed very serious and, yes, the man she is sitting with is indeed a very sick, mad man.
With one sudden explosion of gunfire the awareness of these facts, the ones over which she has been unsure and pondering — worrying — over hit her, and she is unable to contain herself. All of the emotions that have been building up within her mind these last however many hours, contained throughout the majority of them, are now spilling out unchecked. And despite her fear and concern over what this mad man with his gun and his posse will do to her for screaming like this, she simply cannot help it. She lets go with her harsh, boisterous screams, one after another, in between huge panic breaths.
Everything in the dinning room is dead silent except for her wailing. She's got her shaking hand held half over her mouth as she starts dry heaving, and her eyes are shut so tight, and the tears are streaming down her cheeks in a constant torrent.
And suddenly the scarred man is laughing. He's staring down at the body of the goon and he's having a giggle fit. A reaction that is, respectfully, the complete opposite of Martha's.
He turns to Martha. He's laughing so hard he is barely able to address her.
"H-He—ah ha—I lied. I—pffft—I lied."
He holds a slice of pizza up to her, still laughing.
"I lied. It isn't really—It isn't really c-cold!" And he bursts out laughing again. "Pffwhahahahah!"
Martha doesn't want to be here. She sits crumpled up into herself, hugging her knees to her chest, cradling her head in her hands, rocking back and forth, thinking This isn't happening, this isn't happening, this isn't happening . . .
"What's the matter?" Asks The Joker, calming down slightly. "Don't you want any dinner?"
He pushes the slice of pizza out toward her face.
Martha, sniffling, tries to speak but finds she can only burble a few incoherent word fragments.
"Oh." He says, suddenly disappointed. "Well fine then." And he throws the slice to the floor, whereas the men begin to rise around them and approach the table like hungry dogs. Only after the alpha has eaten are the other pack members ever allowed to eat, and so they do, taking the boxes with them as they go and serving off another table—talking amongst themselves with awkward quietness, making sure not to bother their boss and the crazy woman he's brought into the dinning room as his dinner guest.
And Martha is still crying. Nearer to hyperventilating now.
Suddenly he's on the other side of the table, invading her space, making her feel trapped. She lashes out, trying to kick at him, no longer caring that he's armed and insane and willing to kill over food that isn't even cold. All she cares about is bruising that ugly, hideous face. If she's going to die, she figures she might as well give him something to remember her by. It takes some time and some strength, but ultimately (being that he is both bigger, stronger, and at the moment, slightly more level-headed—although not by much—then she is) he is able to restrain her and quiet her down.
He grabs hold of her wrists to stop her from trying to strike him.
"Hey, hey, hey," He growls, and then she's staring into those eyes again, lost in the void of blackness, and the hypnotism of his glare overtakes her and she becomes still. "Come on, come on. Adda girl, there we go." He whispers, leaning in close to her, wrapping his arms around her in a half-constricting, half-comforting hug. "I know. I know this is difficult, but, hey, hey, listen to me—listen—look at me. Hey."
She's trying to look away, trying to release herself from the grip of his eyes. He grasps her chin hard, pulling her face close to his. They are mere centimeters away from one another now, and she feels so distant from the rest of the world.
"Listen to me. Look at me. Look—Look. At. Me. There now. That's better." He says in a soft, reassuring tone of voice. "Now, I know this is difficult, but trust me, if you just cooperate I promise, all of this, it will all be over with nice and quick and easy. Just like a—a shot at the doctor's. It'll be over with before you know it. I'm a man of my word, Martha. You can trust me. Now take a deep breath—that's it—in . . . and out . . ."
She exhales shakily and asks with a quivering voice, "A-Are you going to k-k-kill me?"
"That would be a stupid thing to do. Kill you now. I need you, Martha." He replies. "I mean, sure, I could kill you. I could go through the trouble of tracking down another bank official, kidnapping them, tying them up in the back room, and shooting one of my men in front of them to prove the severity of the situation. But frankly, I'm feeling lazy, and so I'd rather not have to go through all that again."
She shudders.
"I think you're making a mountain out of mole-hill here, Martha. I think it's a little rude to just assume that, because I like to blast a couple holes in the pizza delivery freak, and that because I look a little less normal than usual, I'm going to eventually tear you to pieces too. I'm not some rabid thing, Martha. I'm actually a pretty sensible guy. And when you assume things like that, Martha, you gotta understand it hurts my feelings. You know what they say? Never assume things because you make an ass out of u and me both. Get it?"
He chuckles, she doesn't. He continues.
"Now, I know you're anxious about what's going to happen, but as I said, I'm a man of my word. I won't hurt you unless, or until, I have to." He says, voice low. "It would put my mind at ease, don't ya know it, if you would just stop worrying so much. It would really cool me down inside if I knew there would be no more of these little panic attacks. I would like to count on your cooperation. Really, that's all I'm asking for, Martha. Just a little cooperation. A little trust. Not a huge request, is it?"
Somehow, his words are calming her down.
"Oh, and another thing, Martha. I can understand you being anxious about the possibilities of this little scenario. It's pretty understandable. Hell, who wouldn't be concerned over the fact that they're being held captive by somebody like me? However, it's still a little impolite. To me, anyway, it seems impolite. So my advice to you is this—stop focusing on what might occur." He tells her coolly, waving the gun in front of her face. "Better to live in the present during an, uh, situation like this. Besides, judging from the scars on your arms, I doubt the prospect of death is what you're really afraid of. I think it's the prospect of not knowing that's really getting you down. So you're just going to have to trust in me, as, mmmmm, hard as that might sound . . ."
She gawks at him, unbelieving of his callousness.
"Oh yes, I saw your scars, Martha." He remarks casually. "Did you think I wouldn't notice? I was actually a little pleased to find out that that was the kind of woman I was going to get to interact with. Somebody who's well aware of the darkness in this world. Somebody who's been touched by it, like me." And he grins wide, cracked, red lips stretching across his face.
His words echo in her head. They seem hollow.
"Anyway . . ." He finishes, releasing her from his hug and leaning away gingerly, "What I'm trying to say is this; until I can organize a heist on Gotham 1st National, one that can be well executed by a total of five men, and one that will lead to a successful outcome, you'll stay alive. Does that bring you any relief?"
"That's suicide." She squeaks, petrified. He looks at her quickly, seemingly both surprised to here her speak and annoyed by what's she's said.
"Don't you know who you're stealing from?" She continues. "Gotham 1st National has over fifty different illegal accounts. The police will find you at the bottom of the river if you try to pull a stunt like that. It's insane."
"Exactly." He says, grinning again.
"It's –" She gropes for a better word, "It's crazy." She finally whispers, on the verge of crying again.
"Crazy is as crazy does, ma'am."
"But—But you'll never be able to do it!"
"Optimism, Martha. Keep a positive prospective on life. I'll be able to do it because you will have given me your complete cooperation. Yes?"
"Please just let me go." She pleads, starting to cry again. "You can do another bank, an easier one. I won't tell anybody, I promise. Only p-please let me go."
"No can do, Martha." He says, stretching his arms over his head, yawning. "Hitting Gotham 1st National, it's an essential part of my overall plan, as a matter of fact. So, yeah, can't let you go quite yet."
"Fine! I'll help you, I swear—I'll be cooperative and everything! Only please don't k-kill me afterward. Please. I know you're going to. You said for me to t-tell them I would only be gone for a little while, but I j-j-just know you're—you're going to kill me!" She sobs hysterically. "Please tell me that you're not going to kill me. B-Because I know it. I know you will!"
"Now—Now did I say that? Is that what I said? Come on, Martha." He chides. "Really. I mean it now. Stop being such a worry-wart. It's annoying. You should try to be a little less . . . serious." And he says this last word in a deep, darkening tone.
"But I know you'll kill me afterward." She tells him quietly, trying her best to calm down. "I know it because it's what I deserve. Don't you get it? It's what I deserve!" And she starts bawling even harder then.
He rolls his eyes and there is a moment where their conversation drops. Meanwhile the goons in the dinning area are finishing off what's left of the pizza.
"Say!" He chirps abruptly, pointing the gun at the side of his cheek. "I don't suppose you'd like to know how I got these scars, would you?"
She says nothing, shakes her head. She wants this all to go away now.
"You don't care?" He says, pretending to well up. "Oh! I'm hurt, Martha. I'm—I mean really. That's just rude. Somebody ought to teach you some manners."
"I j-just wanna go back to my room now." She whimpers, beaten. "Please. Please, let me go b-back to my . . . to m-my room."
"Your room." He repeats, giggling. "You mean the meat locker?"
"Yes. Y-Yes. Please." She begs.
"What's the matter? Don't you like my company?" He asks, eyes narrowing.
"I—I—I'm just tired. I'm just t-tired, please."
"Well then you'll want a bed, not a chair. Am I wrong?"
She gurgles something inaudible.
"I think we can do a little better than that. Tell you what, Martha. You want confirmation, yes? I can tell."
He's very close to her now.
He hisses "I . . . just . . . hate people who want confirmation, Martha. I hate 'em. Just. Hate. Them . . . Planners. That's what they are, and I hate planners. I hate the way they function. They need to know everything in advance—which isn't to say I'm against being organized. There's a difference. People who are organized, prepared, most of the time, can at least accept the possibility that something might go wrong." He explains. "But planners—planners are weaklings. They think they were born un-gifted psychics. Always wanting to know exactly how things will turn out. Always wanting confirmation, affirmation. I ask you—where's the fun in that? Where's the surprise?"
"I—I w-want—" She tries.
"To go back to your room!" He snaps cheerfully. "Well then confirm! Will you cooperate for me, even not knowing what will happen to you once I've gotten everything I need out of you?"
She nods hastily. She can't take much more of this.
"Ah, so you are going to keep being cooperative, are you? Yes. Yes you are. For your own sake, you had better, Martha." He hisses. "That's good. Confirmation! There it is, out in the open. And I'll confirm that, for the time being, so long as you cooperate, you'll be treated with respect."
This last word was accompanied by a pair of air quotations that make Martha's heart sink.
"Oh! Duya know what?" He adds with absurdly phony excitement. "I know, I know, I've got it. You can stay with me—in my office from now on. Got a nice big fold-out couch, Martha. Perfect for a tired woman like yourself."
Her eyes grow wide with terror. He's enjoying every minuet of this torture.
"And you can tell me all about the bank. How 'bout that, Martha? Sound good to you?"
She shuts her eyes, shakes her head, trying to keep control over herself. She wants to run screaming from the room but she's well aware of the fact that she can't.
And he says in a low whisper, "Maybe you'll change your mind, hummm. About wanting to hear about my scars, too. And who knows. Maybe we can swap stories. I tell you about my scars, you tell me about yours. And in the end, you'll learn to be a little stronger when the realization dawns on you—that, even though you'd like to, you can't control everything around you. No matter how much effort you put into planning, there's always going to be . . . something . . . you couldn't account for. Like me. I'm the one thing you didn't count on, Martha. I was the unexpected chaotic element in your equation, wasn't I?"
He leans in close again, looking like he could kiss her.
"Wasn't I?" He jeers, pushing the gun into her temple and then quickly removing it. He breaths in deeply, familiarizing himself with her scent, with her fear, like an animal. "I'm an agent of chaos, you know." He tells her ecstatically, eye twitching.
She cries, lost to fate, and gradually he gets up, starts laughing again, and walks away—leaving her sitting there to dwell on the terrible situation she is now totally sure she can not get out of, with the body of a dead man at the end of the table.
The lack of confirmation, it leaves her horrified. He leaves her horrified, alone in the booth, his words—all of them true, all of them sensible, reasonable, accurate—resounding like echoed gun fire in her head.
The man with the hideous scars was spot on about her.
Her life, even the evil deeds, had all been perfectly thought out so that she was certain of the outcome ahead of time. And this was the first instance where it wasn't happening that way. And it was killing her from the inside out, the fact that the control, for once in her life, belonged to somebody else.
To the man with the scars who named himself after a playing card, the monster who had seen through her from the beginning, and knowing this was the scariest thought of all for her.