To Play the Fool
Chapter Six
Right after Jenny left, Star was starting to feel tired, so Bruce kindly offered to drive her home, which gave Bruce the perfect alibi for the night. Leaving what was left of the party to Alfred, he donned the Batman mantle and took off on his Batpod.
The address on Oswald Cobblepot's driver's license was wrong, so he had no choice but to follow him home. Cobblepot had ranted and raged outside Wayne Manor for several minutes before getting in his Rolls Royce and driving away. A strategically placed tracker planted in the bumper by Alfred gave him the advantage. Penguin had a nasty habit of changing cars to avoid being tracked like that, but tonight he didn't expect Batman to be within miles of Wayne Manor.
Penguin lived in Old Gotham Town, a place that seemed trapped in another era. The homes had been moderately wealthy back in the 1800s when the city was founded, but had fallen into dismal disrepair, even though they were protected by the Gotham Historical Society. There was a dead, rotting oak in the center of the brown lawn with a fence around the trunk. The siding was falling off with a few patches and the roof need to be replaced immediately. He didn't trust the porch to hold his weight, although apparently it could hold the Penguin.
Why in the world, if he could afford a mansion in the palisades, would he live here? Then he noticed a piece of wood with rusted iron letters hanging above the door. Cobblepot. It was his family's home, a place he would be reluctant to leave or abandon like his Victorian suits.
Batman hid his Batpod in some dangerously overgrown bushes three doors down the street. From the looks of things, the house had been empty for some time. That was one thing he liked about this neighborhood. Most others had nosy neighbors. This one kept to itself, if there was anyone inhabiting the houses at all anymore.
Penguin was furious, and his house suffered for it. Dishes and bric-a-brac were shattered, knick-knacks were thrown against the walls, and a multitude of birds were upset over the noise. That alone seemed to calm him down for a bit. The walls were thin enough that Batman could hear him talking to his birds until they settled down. Finally, Penguin stormed out of the house, slammed the door, and left in his car to go take care of some business.
The house was silent except for a few birds, but Batman still waited ten minutes just in case anyone was still inside or Penguin decided to come back. When he was certain no one was home, he shot a grappling cable into the roof and climbed into an unlocked second floor window. He entered a forgotten storage room filled with cedar chests, cardboard boxes, trunks and enough dust and cobwebs to knit a coat. His landing stirred it up and nearly suffocated him. Batman got out of there quickly before he started coughing up a storm.
In the hall were one or two closed doors on one side of the hall. The other side had several windows, each with a dead houseplant on the ledge. On the opposite end of the hall was a dark staircase and a door cracked open. There was a wedge of orange light on the floor that disappeared for a second. Someone was in there.
Luckily, the door didn't creak as it opened. This room was a study with bookcases on two adjoining walls. They were completely filled with books, binders, and papers. There was a leather armchair in that corner with a stack of books on the seat. There was a spotless desk against the other wall with a set of fountain pens and a lamp, which is where the light was coming from. The desk was missing its chair. On the fourth wall was a fireplace. Two painted portraits hung on either side, and several small photographs stood on the mantle.
The most notable aspect of the room was the rolling office chair at the bookshelves, and Tex balancing precariously on it, trying to reach a book. "Breaking and entering now?"
The chair flew out from under her feet and she barely managed to hang on to a shelf. "Don't DO that!" she growled.
"Sorry," he muttered.
"Shut up and help me down."
He took her by the waist and helped her put her feet back on the floor. "What are you doing here?"
"Same thing you are." She handed him a binder from a shelf at eye level. "Looking for evidence."
The binder was full of original blueprints for a bank that hadn't been hit by the Red Triangle Gang yet. "What else have you found?"
"This." Tex pulled out five books one inch on four different shelves, and the spines of a tall series of books popped out like a door on the bottom shelf. The spines were fake, and made of good leather, but what was behind them was more interesting. A safe cleverly disguised as books. "Cool, isn't it? I was doing this for about ten minutes." She shut the façade and the books slid back into place. Then she pulled the books back out.
Batman stopped her before she could close the door again. "Let's see what's in here first."
"I already tried his birthday. Then I got bored and started looking for some Harry Potter books."
"You're a terrible burglar," he teased.
"That's a good thing."
He tore his gloves off with his teeth so he could get to work on cracking the safe. The idea of cleaning up his fingerprints didn't appeal to him in the slightest, but this was something that required all of his sense of touch. He had to feel for the tumblers falling into place, not just listen to them. "This could take a while," he warned.
"Longer than fifteen minutes?" She sounded apprehensive.
"A lot longer, so I'll need you to be quiet." He threw her a nearby book. "Here. Read this."
"I hate Candide."
"Then go look through his desk. See if he wrote it down."
Tex carefully pawed through Penguin's things while Batman worked on the safe. It didn't look like he was doing much, but carefully listening and feeling for the tumblers is mind-numbingly exhaustive work, especially after nearly forty-five minutes of it. After finding nothing useful, Tex was starting to hover over him, and it was getting annoying.
He had the first two numbers. It was just the last one, and Tex was figuratively breathing down his neck. Then, the last tumbler fell into place. They held their breath as Batman pulled the lever …
The door opened silently and effortlessly and revealed the safe's bounty – a large stack of papers, manila envelopes, and folders. Batman stood up, put his gloves back on, and paced for a minute to get the feeling back in his legs. Tex immediately grabbed a handful of papers and started looking through it. "Good job," she said. "I wouldn't have been able to do that."
"Thank you." He found a nearby handkerchief on Penguin's desk and started wiping down the safe for his fingerprints.
"This looks like photographs, love letters, arrest records, this is supposed to be a sealed juvie record, newspaper clippings …"
Batman started going through the stack himself. It was organized alphabetically by name. "This is all blackmail material."
Tex wandered over to the fireplace while reading something in her stack. "This is horrible. He's Charles Augustus Milverton embodied."
His head snapped up at that name. "Say that again."
"He's Charles Augustus Milverton."
"Who is that?"
"A particularly nasty blackmailer." She pressed a button next to the fireplace that lit it. Within a few moments, there was a roaring fire. He could see exactly where this was going. "The public doesn't need to know about any of this."
"Tex, this is evidence," he warned.
"I know." She threw her stack into the fire and watched it to make sure it burned. Her unspoken statement was clear. This man could ruin lives, and she refused to let him hurt anyone else. When she went back to the safe to get more of the papers, Batman handed her his stack.
So began the work of taking armfuls of the blackmail to the fireplace. They would each grab a handful of papers, carry them to the fireplace, and spread them around the fire to make sure they all burned quickly. Batman found a few papers that he thought should be kept: a list of chemical formulas in a binder, a log book of payments received, and a list of 20 names, at the bottom of which was Bruce Wayne.
"You didn't happen to bring any marshmallows, did you?"
"What do you make of this?" He handed her the stack of chemical formulas.
"Crystalline explosives," she declared, and handed them back so she could stir the fire with the poker.
It sounded familiar, like Wayne Enterprises had been working on it at one point. "What is it exactly?"
"It's a type of explosive that looks like crystal or glass when it dries. It's not easily detonated, but terror groups are interested in it because it's undetectable to most bomb-detecting measures. It's dangerous to make because it's so unstable when it's wet."
"Then why would the Penguin be interested in this?"
"Mass production?"
"Unlikely. Too expensive, and like you said, too unstable." As he mulled over why Penguin would try to produce this steroid, Batman heard a creak on the stairs. He looked to Tex who also had her head up. "Hear that?"
Tex touched her temple and seemed to stare through the wall at the stairs. "Solomon Grundy."
She threw the last of the blackmail into the fireplace and Batman slammed the safe shut right before the door burst open. Grundy completely filled the doorway, so much so that he could barely squeeze through the doorframe. It took him a few moments to size up the situation, squinting to adjust his eyes in the darkness and sniffing at the foreign smells. His stark yellow eyes locked on the two intruders. "Batman," he growled, "and his little sparrow."
"It's Tex," she corrected, much to the annoyance of Batman.
Grundy swung one fist at Tex, and she flew backwards into the fireplace. Batman dodged the next three punches, expertly gliding away from him like a shadow, and returned with his own blows in his solar plexus. The man was harder than a brick wall, but he still gave a bit. The overall effect, however, was minimal. Grundy threw out several more punches until one finally connected. It barely glanced his shoulder, but it was enough to throw him off balance and make him vulnerable for the next one that hit him in the jaw.
Batman fell back into the bookshelves. Grundy's fist destroyed the shelf just above his head, and pulled back to deliver another blow. Batman got ready to dodge him again, when a burning log hit Grundy's head. The two of them turned to see Tex standing up from the fireplace holding a log in each of her hands. She was casually flipping a log in her hand, then juggling it between the two before she threw each one right at Grundy's head.
Enraged and slightly burnt, Grundy charged Tex, who darted out of the room and nearly tripped going down the staircase. Grundy chased her downstairs while Batman pulled himself out of the wreckage of bookshelves, snatched the pile of chemical formulas, and followed the two before Tex could get herself killed.
They left the staircase barely useable in their wake. Tex ran into the kitchen and intended to use the table as a barrier between her and Grundy, or at least keep him running in circles for a bit. Instead, Grundy removed it completely by smashing it to smithereens with his fists. Tex looked between him and the pile of splinters. "I was not expecting that."
Before Grundy could pummel her, Batman leaped onto his back and attempted to put him in a chokehold. And like the first time, Grundy fought back by ramming him into the walls. Not that he was an expert on this sort of thing, but at least cabinets and refrigerator doors were considerably softer than shipping containers, especially since they could dent and collapse under their combined weight.
Tex seemed to be getting ready to attack in some way. "Get out of here!" Batman shouted at her between blows.
"This didn't work out so well for you last time," she replied.
"I know." Grundy crushed another one of Penguin's cabinets with Batman taking the brunt of the blow. "Go!"
But Tex had no intention of listening. She climbed onto a counter to get a couple feet of height, grabbed Grundy by his clammy shoulders, and solidly head-butted him three times. This dazed him enough that Batman could make an escape. He grabbed Tex's arm and pulled her off the counter before she could swing a frying pan at him. They made a break for the sitting room, Batman pushing Tex ahead of him.
They were just about to make it to the door when Grundy, having recovered unnaturally quickly, tackled Batman. Tex had a hand on the doorknob, but spun around to help him. "Just go!" he ordered as he kicked Grundy in the face and broke his front teeth.
"Not likely." She swung her frying pan at his face. It rang comically with the force of the impact. She attempted another blow, but Grundy caught her arm, stopping her in her tracks.
He glared at her, blood streaming down his chin. "For such a small mouse, you are very annoying." With a short heave, he threw her like a rag doll into the far wall by her arm. Tex hit the drywall and bounced off onto the floor, paint and plaster dust following her. In attempting to run to her, Batman was caught by his cape and swung into the same wall. Tex was trying sit up with just one arm to support her, but couldn't manage to put enough effort into it.
Grundy picked up a solid oak coffee table, lifted it over his head, and slowly approached the pair of vigilantes. Not one to be outdone by brute force, Batman retrieved a couple Batarangs from his utility belt and threw them into Grundy's right bicep. His arm buckled and the table came crashing down on his head, knocking him out cold.
"Can you walk?"
She grabbed his cape to help her stand up, keeping one arm curled against her. "He hurt my arm, not my legs. You don't need to be so worried about me."
They made for the back door, and when they found there was none, Batman made one with a small grenade. Tex was slow climbing out the hole in the wall, and when Batman followed, she stopped to catch her breath. "Let's get out of here." He touched her arm to lead her away from the house, and she snatched it back in pain.
"Ow! Just give me a second." She rotated her shoulder a couple times. "Think I strained a muscle."
She had probably taken the worst of the injuries trying to distract Grundy from Batman. Things could have been worse for both of them without the other. He took both her hands in each of his and turned them palm up. "How did you do that?"
"Do what?"
"You weren't wearing any gloves when you held those logs. How are you not burned?"
"It's a long and painful story."
"Shorten it."
"No." When Batman continued to give her a questioning glare, she pulled her hands back, but he held tight. "Let go."
"Not until you tell me the truth."
"The truth? The truth is that it doesn't matter. My hands are fine. Leave it at that."
Something rumbled inside the house. Grundy was coming to. They dropped everything and tore off through the yard and onto the street. "How's your head?"
"It's fine!"
They split up, Batman to his Batpod, and Tex to … wherever Tex disappeared to. As soon as he uncovered his bike, he took off down the street directly towards downtown Gotham. A few moments later, a black and red Ducati fell into place behind him.
There was something slightly off about that girl. Last night, after Commissioner Gordon had wrapped things up with the Red Triangle and the gun buy that went wrong, he gave Batman a call, something he very rarely did. "We just pulled the security tapes for the warehouse," he said with no pretense of pleasantries.
"It's been abandoned for years. They shouldn't have been recording."
"We've been watching it for a while. You didn't mention you have a partner."
"That's not my partner. I work alone."
"Then who is he? Can he be trusted?"
"She. Her name is Tex, and I'm working on that second part."
"You don't know?" Gordon sounded incredulous. Batman may be someone that exuded an omnipotent air, but he was still human after all. Gordon failed to grasp this concept sometimes, especially when he needed information.
"I'm inclined to believe she's trustworthy."
"Then I'll take your word for it. For now. I need to know what happened to these guns."
Right. The guns. He had nearly forgotten about them. "What about them?"
"Your friend completely destroyed them. The tapes show her crushing each one in her bare hands. Do you think she's related to … a certain man in Metropolis?"
"No," he said definitively. "She's human with human strength, nothing more. I've used a hydraulics system with my suit to crush guns by hand before. She has a similar machine hidden in her sleeves. Don't worry about Tex, Commissioner. I'll take care of her." He cut the connection before Gordon could argue.
This was an uncomfortable position he was in. One of being out of the loop, of not knowing enough. But of everything he was concerned about, only one thought he voiced aloud: "How did she do that?"