To Play the Fool

Chapter Four

In the two weeks since the Red Triangle's shipment arrived, it had passed through several hands and traveled extensively through Gotham. Whoever was in charge of it wanted to make sure that anyone tracking it would lose it within a couple days and that its true location would stay hidden. They were, of course, thinking of the Batman.

As much as the nameless members of Red Triangle overestimated him, they managed to underestimate his tenacity, especially when it came to tracking something he had failed to stop once. In order to finally get rid of the shipment and get Batman off their tail, they arranged a meeting with another street gang to sell their product. That meeting was to take place in an abandoned factory, which wasn't surprising. Ever since the depression struck Gotham, there was a surplus of closed stores, deserted warehouses, and defunct factories. This particular factory used to make engine parts for cars and buses, but the only sign of that left were stacks of rusted scrap metal.

Batman was waiting in the rafters. That position alone was dangerous for several reasons, the first being that he wasn't as well hidden in the shadows as he could have been. As long as no one looked up, he would be fine. The reason he was in that particular spot was because of the second reason. Most of the other rafters weren't in the best condition, and the one he was using didn't exactly look like it could hold his weight. Still it was the safest of all of them. And if his perch didn't suddenly give way, the rest of the building probably could. One side of the building had been attacked by vandals with spray paint and sledgehammers, and that was the most secure wall. Batman swore he could feel the whole place sway.

Right at midnight, a white, windowless van arrived. They came through a gaping hole in the north wall rather than use the doors to their left that would have been wide enough. They stopped towards the center of the biggest open space in the building, but left the engine running. Five men exited the vehicle, each one armed. One had a duffel bag slung over his shoulder, probably filled with money. These were the buyers. If Batman took care of them now, he would lose the Red Triangle, so he waited.

Within two minutes, two other vehicles arrived. One was a bright red pickup with a crate in the bed covered by a tarp. The other was a black SUV with a couple more boxes in the trunk. They stopped facing the van and shut off both their engines. Four people got out of the SUV, two of which went to the pickup to untie the tarp. Three others got out of the pickup to help unload the cargo. The two men that weren't helping approached the buyers to negotiate a price.

The Red Triangle set the largest crate down in between the two groups and pried off the lid. Inside were several rows of sub-machine guns. The first negotiator took one out and showed it to the buyers. Powerful, deadly, and untraceable, these guns would be untraceable and could kill any cop wearing Kevlar. "These babies will give the police a run for their money, easy. You'll be unrivaled in no time."

"How much?" one of the buyers asked.

"$1,000," said the second negotiator.

"For all of them?" he said incredulously.

"Each."

The price was high, but they wouldn't be able to find weapons like these anywhere else. The buyers discussed the price amongst themselves while the rest of the Red Triangle crew unloaded the other boxes from the SUV. While they were arguing, Batman took a few quick pictures to provide evidence for the police should they go to court. Finally, the buyers came to a consensus. "We'll give you $500," one of the men said.

"It's $1000, or nothing."

"$750."

"$1000. And we're even throwing in the ammunition for free." The first negotiator opened up one of the smaller boxes and took out a bullet. "These will go through any body armor, and even break bulletproof glass."

"The last guns you sold us were missing the firing pins. You're just ripping us off again," said one of the other members of the street gang.

"Don't insult our intelligence. They didn't work because you didn't care for them properly. We don't sell any shoddy merchandise. Last chance." The Red Triangle formed a tight semi-circle behind the weapons.

After holding out a moment longer, the head of the buyers ordered the one holding the duffel-bag of cash to hand over the money. "We'll take them all."

"Excellent!" He replaced the gun and had the lid nailed back on as he shook the buyers' hands.

The money exchanged hands, as did the weapons. Batman took a few more incriminating photos, making sure to catch their faces, before he decided that it was time to put this to an end. Then he caught the movement of someone who hadn't been there a moment before. Tex fell out of the air and landed on the crate of weapons with an audible thump! Her eyes flashed and she gave a metallic growl before leaping off the crate directly at the man with the money.

Tex swung the duffel-bag of cash around and knocked over a couple men, then put it over her shoulder so she could fight with her bare hands. If they wanted it back, they would have to get through her.

And she was not one that could be taken down easily. Watching her fight was like watching a dancer in action. Her moves weren't fueled by brute force. They were graceful and fluid, like a choreographed fight. She didn't react to any attacks from the men because she was already prepared to block them.

He wouldn't have taken on a group that big without taking out their strongest men secretly, or at least trying to scare them first. Tex just burst onto the scene and took them all on at once, and as impressive as that sounds, it was also the most likely way to get herself killed. In the interests of keeping her alive, he'd have to intervene. Amateurs. More trouble than they were worth.

He leaped to the ground and rushed to join the fight, but by the time he reached the white van, the only men conscious were one man in a knife fight with Tex, another one taking aim at the back of her head with a handgun, and a third writhing in pain on the ground. The second man fired before he could stop him. Tex's head snapped forward and head-butted the first man, effectively ending the fight. She stumbled for a moment like she was about to keel over, but regained her balance and turned around slowly.

"Ouch," she growled.

The man's eyes grew wide. He dropped his gun and booked it to the nearest exit. Or he would have if he hadn't been clotheslined by the Batman.

"What are you doing?" she demanded. "I needed him to talk!"

"He's still conscious," he calmly replied, picking him up by his coat lapels.

"With paralyzed vocal chords."

He took another look. The man was struggling to breathe, let alone scream. He was in no condition to talk, and hence, useless. Gordon would still appreciate having him off the streets. He dropped the man and retrieved his handcuffs from his belt. "There's still one who can talk," he said, indicating the conscious man in pain on the ground.

"But he doesn't know anything. I needed that one. I'll have to wait for him to recover."

"So help me get the rest of them into the van." He handcuffed the mute one to the SUV and got to work on the rest.

The two of them worked together to handcuff each man, and then throw them in a pile in the van, although Tex did most of the handcuffing and searching them for weapons, and Batman did most of the - make that all - of the heavy lifting. As soon as all of them were inside, they switched on the childproof locks and slammed the doors. Then they both turned to the crook, Tex's eyes glowing bright red and Batman giving him the glare of a lifetime.

"Now," said Batman. "I have some questions."

The man's eyes dilated and he went deathly pale, but barely a sound came from his mouth. Tex sighed. "Give him a few more minutes. I can wait."

Batman took a threatening stance with his arms crossed and stared the man down until he couldn't bear to look him in the eye any longer. Tex, on the other hand, needed something to keep her busy, so she opened up the crate of guns and took one of them out. After checking that it was unloaded, she held it with both hands, one hand on the muzzle, the other just above the handle, and squeezed. Her fingers seemed to go through the metal like it had been softened, but that was highly unlikely. Not wanting to let his suspect know that he was just as confused at Tex's antics as he was, he turned away from her and resumed his watchful eye on the crook, pretending that he knew exactly what was going on.

Four minutes passed, and Batman was growing tired of waiting. His agitation was apparent and making the suspect even more nervous. Tex had finished whatever she was doing with the guns and joined the Batman in his watch, although she was visibly more relaxed as she casually crossed her arms and chewed on a thumbnail. At four minutes and thirty-two seconds, Batman had had enough, declaring, "I think he's ready."

"So ask him."

"What happened to the rest of the shipment from a week ago?"

The man shrugged, although it was difficult to interpret the movement due to his shaking.

"You're lying. Things get painful for you when you lie."

"I'm not!" he gasped, barely audible. "No one but Penguin knows what happened to it!"

"Where's Penguin?"

"I don't know! He changes our meeting locations on a daily basis."

"Where was the location tonight?"

"What are you supposed to do with the money?" Tex interrupted. She was standing away from the interrogation, avoiding the conflict. She did not want to be involved, but had no choice.

"I wasn't in charge of delivering the money."

That was a lie. He was the only person that touched the duffel bag of money after it had changed hands, which meant he knew what to do with it. Batman picked him up and gave him a solid punch to the jaw. "That's for lying."

"I don't know where I was supposed to take it!" he clarified.

"Which means you were going to be told as soon as you had it."

"Were you going to call it in?" Batman demanded.

"No."

"Someone calls you."

The man buttoned his lips and looked away. Batman got ready to give him another blow, but Tex stopped him. "He's not lying. He's just not answering."

"It's exactly the same."

"Not quite." Tex quickly went through his pockets and found his cell phone. "Now we know to wait for a call."

"If you don't know the password, you won't get a thing!"

"So what is it?"

"Ten bucks says it's Swordfish," she muttered.

"It is! It is Swordfish!"

"Okay, now you can hurt him."

"Wait! You just have to ask if this is the Emperor, and when he says yes, you respond with -"

Just then, the phone in Tex's hand rang. "Better idea," said Batman. "You answer it," he told him.

He took it from Tex, turned on the speakerphone and held it out for the crook to speak. "Reggie, is that you?" said the person on the other end of the line.

"Yeah. Is this the Emperor?"

"Stop messing around. It's the Penguin, you dunce. Do you have the money?"

"Yes, but -"

"Meet us at the bar on 7th and 7th in twenty minutes."

Batman hung up and started for the door. "Lock him up with the others," he ordered.

Tex chased after him, ignoring their suspect. "You're not leaving me behind that easily."

She followed him outside where he recovered his Batpod, cleverly disguised as a pile of garbage. "I don't have time for you to tag along."

Tex ducked behind a nearby dumpster and pulled out her own bike. It was a black and red Ducati straight from Italy. "The question isn't whether I can keep up with you. It's whether you can keep up with me."

Not that he wasn't up for a challenge, but he really didn't like dealing with amateurs, and she was definitely inexperienced. So he took off for the drop point before she could even get her engine started.

In fifteen minutes, he made it to the bar, a nightclub known as Rush that was only frequented by those whose money was made by illegal means. He had gone through the back streets of Gotham and some less than pleasant alley ways to get there and really had managed to make some good time. But in the alley, carefully hidden and watching the nightclub, was Tex sitting on her bike, her head and arms resting on the handlebars. The one thing he hadn't taken into account was Tex's ability to blend in with the general populace. No wonder she had gotten here faster.

"Took you long enough," she teased when he pulled up just in front of her.

"Had to take the scenic route. What's happened so far?"

"Nothing. No one's gone in or out. There is a man on the roof across the street with a nice view of the door, but that's the only sign of an ambush I can see."

"What makes you think it's an ambush?"

"The password. He was telling the Penguin he was compromised by the Batman. Are you asking because you don't know or because you're testing me?"

"Which do you think?"

"I'm going to go with the second one because it makes me feel better."

"Have you ever been on a stakeout before?"

"If I say yes, will you promise not to lecture me?"

"Stay quiet, stay put, keep your eyes open and do exactly as I say. Got it?"

If she could have rolled her eyes, she probably would have.

In the next five minutes, the two of them watched several people unaffiliated with the Red Triangle go in and out of the back door of the nightclub. A couple were armed, but they didn't look like they were planning on attacking anyone tonight. Finally, at the appointed time, three men left the nightclub. Two of them Batman recognized from the night of the botched shipment interception, one he singled out and disarmed and the other who had held his own for a bit in a one on one fight. The third he recognized for a completely different reason. It was the same man who had been in Bruce Wayne's office for less than ten minutes and managed to insult nearly everyone in the building. Oswald Cobblepot.

The rather rotund man was dressed in his signature Victorian wear, looking out of place in a dive like this. He quickly surveyed the street and the nearby alleys looking for anyone out of place. "I don't see anyone," he said. "Are you sure that they were compromised?"

"Reggie's an idiot," the first man replied, "but he knows which code is which. He was in trouble."

"How the hell did Batman figure out where we were setting up shop?"

"It wasn't Batman. He used the other panic code."

"The police? Or someone new?"

"I don't know."

Penguin lashed out and backhanded him across the face. The man fell backwards, blood spurting out of his mouth. Those fat rings on his fingers weren't meant to be pretty. "I pay you to figure these things out! Useless!"

"He hung up before I could get anything else out of him!"

"Then why did you give him the address so quickly?" Penguin resumed his attack, growing more and more violent in his kicking and punching. For some reason, the man just took it while his partner looked on. These temper tantrums were probably commonplace when dealing with him.

"I'm sorry, Boss! It won't happen again!"

"No, it won't!"

Someone flew past the Batman down the alley and towards the scuffle. He looked back to Tex's bike and found it absent of a rider. She was sprinting directly for the Penguin, set to ruin any surveillance for the night in 4 ... 3 ... 2 ...

Tex slammed into the Penguin and his victim with surprising speed and force, knocking all three of them down. Penguin had been reaching for something in his pocket, but whatever it was went flying into the night when she hit him. Since she had the upper hand for the moment, Tex used the opportunity to attempt to knock him out with her fists.

"I think I know who Reggie was talking about," said the second man, who didn't bother to stick around after his witty remark. His co-worker quickly followed suit, the two of them running back into the bar to call for some help.

But Penguin was having none of it. With an astounding reserve of strength and agility no one would have assumed him capable of, Penguin threw his attacker off him and pounded her skull on the pavement two or three times, completely disorienting her. He scrambled to his feet, but did not let up, continuing to kick her in the ribs and face. It only took a few of these blows before Tex gave up on fighting back and curled into a protective ball as he beat the ever living crap out of her.

"Just another Batman fan to annoy me," he growled, punctuating his frustration with blows to her back. "You're going to find out where all the other ones went."

To her credit, she didn't cry out. For a split second, Batman thought that she deserved it for acting like an absolute idiot and ignoring his specific instructions to stay put and do as he said. The next second, he decided that this kind of merciless beating, even if she had signed up for it by acting like a vigilante in the first place, was cruel and undeserved. So he started up the Batpod's engine and made sure to rev it up.

This, Penguin heard. His head snapped towards the incoming Dark Knight and he ran to the street. Right then, a Rolls Royce pulled over to the curb, stopped long enough for the Penguin to climb in, and sped off just as quickly as it came. Batman stopped by Tex, allowing Penguin to get away. Tex slowly uncurled from her ball and sat up. "Once again: ouch."

"What were you thinking?" he snapped in her face as he got off the Batpod. "I told you to stay put!"

Tex stood up, pausing to make sure she wouldn't fall over. She vaguely resembled a drunken robot. "One. You are not my boss." She calmly walked over to a pile of cardboard next to a dumpster. "Two. Penguin was about to kill someone. I had to stop him."

"You didn't say anything."

"You told me to shut up. Which is invalidated by reason number one." She lifted up a box or two and found something underneath them. She walked back to Batman and presented her treasure. "Three. Penguin's murder weapon of choice. With fingerprints." She held a small revolver by the barrel. He automatically put out his hand to take it, but she held it back. "Reason number one."

"I'll turn it over to the police. They might be able to get a match."

"Well of course they'll get a match. Did you think that was fun? Plus I have this to go with it. Four." She pulled a small black wallet out of her sleeve and opened it up. In the first credit card window was Oswald Cobblepot's driver's license. "Sometimes you have to be subtle."

"That was subtle?"

"Oh, and I'm fine, by the way." She knocked her helmet for emphasis. "I have a hard head. Useful for when men try to crush my skull in. Thanks for asking."

Batman held out his hand once again. "Tex, please. Let me give them to the police."

"Who's your contact?"

"I don't have one."

"Of course you have a contact. Every good vigilante has a contact in the police force, and you're the best. Who is it?"

"I can't tell you."

"Is it the Commissioner? Because he's the only trustworthy one on the force."

"He's not the only one."

"Really?"

"I'm not going to let anything fall into the wrong hands."

"Because you're the best?"

"I know them. I also know Gotham a lot better than you do."

She mulled over that for a moment. "That is a fact," she conceded. She placed the gun and the wallet in his hands. Batman quickly put the two vital pieces of evidence in separate pouches on his utility belt. "I hurt. A lot. Don't you make me regret this."

"I won't. I promise."

There was a beep beep! Beep beep! from her pocket, and she took out a phone. "Shoot, I'm late. Maybe I'll see you around." Tex waved and sprinted back to her motorcycle, started the engine, and disappeared into the streets of Gotham.

"Slow night?" said Alfred as Batman returned to the Batcave. He stood at the top of the stairs, closing the hidden door from the mansion behind him with one hand and carefully carrying a tray with dinner and coffee in the other.

"Actually, it was surprisingly violent for my not having done anything." After parking his Batpod, he sat down at his wall of computer screens and took off his hood, setting it down on the desk nearby. "You remember that new vigilante I told you about a couple weeks ago?"

"Tex?"

"She showed up again tonight and took care of everything." He took out the gun and the wallet from his pockets and set them on the desk next to his hood. "Eleven men at once."

"Eleven?" Alfred repeated incredulously. He set the tray down next to the Batman, or Master Bruce as he preferred to call him.

"No one that good just shows up in Gotham without a motive, and it seems that her only priority is to take down the Red Triangle gang." He opened up a web browser to a search engine to start researching the vigilante who had just decided to make Gotham her home.

"Perhaps she has a personal vendetta against the Penguin. We've seen that here before."

He shook his head. "She's not holding a grudge. Besides, she took a pretty solid beating just to get these out of his pockets," he said, gesturing to the evidence on the table.

"You let him beat up a girl?"

"It wasn't intentional," Bruce snapped, defending himself. "I thought she could take care of herself. She took a bullet to the back of the head and she seemed fine."

"Doesn't mean she doesn't have a concussion. You've come home with plenty of those yourself."

"At this point, there's nothing I can do about her." He returned to his online search, but the top hits were the same thing and overall useless.

"Freelancer Texas," Alfred read off the screen. "She seems to fit the profile."

Bruce shut down the computer in frustration. "A search engine isn't going to cut it."