To Play the Fool
Chapter Seven
It was a Tuesday, less than a week after that little disaster of a party. The last thing I wanted to think about was Oswald Cobblepot. And yet there on my desk amidst the stack of mail was a package wrapped in brown paper and twine addressed to Mr. Bruce Wayne from Oswald Cobblepot. The address lable was handwritten in ink from a fountain pen that splattered twice and smudged a bit with blotting paper.
Why? Why do you do this to me? I cursed as I cut the twine and tore open the paper. I opened the box inside and pulled out a small white card.
Dear Mr. Wayne,
It's a pity we weren't able to come to an agreement. I should like to have done business with you. Our companies would have been very successful together. Perhaps with a bit of change on both our parts.
Please accept this gift with my best wishes.
Sincerely,
Oswald Cobblepot.
The note was written with the same fountain pen, but not as hastily as the address label. No splatters and the lines at the beginning were dried before they could be blotted. The words themselves were meaningless, but the intent behind them unsettled me. There was no way Cobblepot would give up this easily.
I dug through the tissue paper and pulled out the contents. It was a crystal sculpture of an emperor penguin on a black granite pedestal. It was about a foot to 15 inches tall and weighed about five pounds. An odd gift, but the man did like birds.
It may have been my woman's intuition or honed scientific senses that weren't quite sure what they had picked up on, but a second reading of the note made me put the penguin back in the box, collect all the wrappings and the note, and march quickly to the elevator.
"Mrs. Miller, what floor is the security office on?" I asked as I walked.
"First floor," she replied, coming after me. "But take Mr. Wayne's elevator. It will take you directly there."
"He has his own elevator?"
She redirected me to the elevator concealed behind a bookcase in his office. "Do I need to evacuate the floor?" she asked me.
"No. It's probably nothing, but I wouldn't put it past Mr. Cobblepot to have put something nasty in here." The doors closed on her face and I was hurtled down to the security offices.
20 seconds later, I stepped out of the elevator feeling just slightly queasy. Fast elevators make me sick. I ignored my churning stomach and hurried to the first security officer I saw. "Mr. Wayne just received this penguin and I don't like the looks of it," I said, slamming the package down on the desk.
The security officer gave me an odd look between the package and me. "Just because it's ugly does not mean it's a security risk."
I rolled my eyes. "It's from Oswald Cobblepot. Please just take a look at it."
That name did the trick. "Alright, we'll check for threats. The post office does scan for explosives and biological weapons."
"So you'll do one better than the post office!" I replied, just a tad exasperated. I turned and stalked out of the office, intending to use the regular elevators now that I had delivered the threat. Unfortunately, I didn't get that far.
There was a massive BANG! and a surge of heat. Then I flew.
When I came to, my ears were ringing. My first breath drew in a lung-full of plaster dust and I choked. I pushed myself away from the dust on the floor, but it was everywhere. I looked around, but that simple act gave me a huge headache. There was broken wood, sheetrock, and marble thrown everywhere around me. It felt warm. Too warm. I looked behind me and the security office I just left was in flames.
Apart from the ringing, it was silent. Absolutely, deathly silent. No crackle from the flames, no alarms going off, no screams of pain from survivors. The blast had completely deafened me.
I struggled to my feet and used a fallen beam from the ceiling to support me. My shoes had stayed on my feet, but my pumps weren't great for walking over debris. Still, I kept them on and walked towards the destroyed security office. I felt a wave of heat wash over me as I stepped through what should have been the door.
I spotted an oddly shaped pile of debris burning. On closer inspection, it was an unconscious man on fire. I shrugged off my blazer and used it to beat the flames until they died, then turned him over onto his back to check his pulse. I couldn't look at his face. It was half burned away and blackened, and the other half was crushed. His neck wasn't damaged nearly as bad, but it was raw. There was no pulse.
I reeled away from the corpse. I'd never been so close to death before and just the thought of this security guard never breathing again ... I had to move on. I left my blazer covering his face, or what was left of it.
The heat was still unbearable and the flames seemed to bite my bare arms. I stepped carefully past more debris, keeping my eyes peeled for any more security guards – survivors preferably. There was a shattered desk to avoid here, broken glass from a smashed computer screen there, and fallen cubicle walls thrown every which way. I stopped to lift up one wall that wasn't on fire, but no one was there. I couldn't waste time on each piece of wall, so I continued looking.
There was a crater where the crystal penguin should have been. For twenty feet, the blast cleared away everything in its path. Did I do this? Did I kill that man?
No. Oswald Cobblepot did all this. And if I had left the package on Mr. Wayne's desk, he would have been killed too, along with everyone else upstairs.
A hand shot out and grabbed my ankle. I nearly tripped in surprise. It was black with soot and its owner was hidden by a cubicle wall, a pile of debris, and a support beam from the ceiling. I grabbed the heaviest piece and dragged it away since it was pinning him down. He pushed some debris off his head, but was incapable of moving any more.
I dropped my piece and grabbed the wall to lift it off him. It was weighted down with wood and the plaster and the like, but I'm not complaining. This was probably the wall that saved his life. The man I found underneath was lying face-down. He seemed uninjured, or at least not bleeding profusely and had all his limbs intact. He rolled over, away from the wall, and kept rolling until I could safely set the wall down.
In the flickering light, I could see his face, but my eyes couldn't focus on details. I could tell he was between 25 and 30 years old, Asian – possibly Korean – and he was talking. He didn't seem like he could walk on his own, and he was dazed, so I took one of his arms over my shoulders and pulled him to his feet. Then we started to slowly make our way back to the lobby.
Several feet from the safety of the lobby, I noticed that a few men were flying past me. They were massive and intent on fighting the flames. It wasn't until one of them stopped me and took the man I was carrying that I realized they were firefighters. He talked to my injured security guard and looked back the way we came before sending one of his men in that direction. He had been trying to tell me that there was someone else.
I followed the firefighter back into the lobby where everyone was running through to get out. It was an organized panic. The fire alarm had been set off, evidenced by the sprinklers running and adding to the mess. I tried to stop for a moment at the reception desk, but someone grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet, then the crowd dragged me along to the doors and into the plaza. There the crowd let me go and I could sit on the cement ledge of a fountain that was still running.
From my prime spot, I could watch the officials take control of the situation. The police were questioning witnesses that escaped the building alive, the paramedics were loading the wounded and injured into ambulances, and the firefighters organized search efforts and firefighting in general. There were police barriers around the plaza keeping the spectators out and witnesses in. A crowd was starting to form around Wayne Enterprises, trying to see what was going on. There were even a couple news vans that arrived after about 15 minutes. I have no idea how they would have heard about it. Probably police scanners.
It took me a while to process the fact that the man I work for had been attacked. And in turn, I had been put in the direct line of fire. This was probably a one time only thing, but catching bombs was not part of the job description. Could I afford to keep coming back here to work?
Someone waved a hand in front of my face to get my attention. It was Mr. Wayne looking very worried, accompanied by his butler, Alfred, and Police Commissioner Gordon. I could tell he was saying, "Jenny," but I couldn't even hear the ringing anymore.
"I'm sorry, the blast deafened me and I can't lip-read. Communication is going to be difficult." I was careful to speak normally because I couldn't hear myself speak. That statement alone made Gordon very interested and Mr. Wayne even more shocked. I might as well have told them that I had been right next to the bomb.
The two of them discussed something for a few moments before Commissioner Gordon gave up and Mr. Wayne gave him a phone number and some information from his phone. Then the Commissioner started to leave. He was not going to question me just yet. This could not happen.
"Where are you going?" I shouted. "I know who did this!"
He stopped and turned around, giving me a look that said, "By all means, tell me."
"Mr. Wayne got a package from Oswald Cobblepot this morning and the note that came with it sounded suspicious, so I took it downstairs to security. When I left …" I gestured to the mess of a building.
Gordon wrote something on his notepad and turned it to me. What did the note say?
"I don't know exactly. It just … had this threatening undertone to it. I can't explain it."
Where is the note now?
"With the package," I said through gritted teeth. "It was a crystal penguin on a black stone base," I said before he could ask. "It was about so high," I showed him with my hands, "and it completely filled the box. Nothing else could have fit in there."
Thank you. He handed me a card with his contact information. If you have any questions, he had written on it, or remember anything else.
"Will do," I replied. "Thank you, Commissioner."
Mr. Wayne and his butler had a few words, taking advantage of my deafness, and the Commissioner went back to his radio and whatever else needed to be taken care of. I resumed my seat and put my head in my hands, suddenly exhausted. There was absolutely nothing left I could do or so, no more responsibilities on my shoulders, and my body gave into that comfort.
"Master Bruce!" said Alfred, throwing open the curtains. "You're needed at Wayne Tower!"
"It's not even noon," he moaned, burying his head in the pillows.
"There's an emergency, big enough to evacuate the entire building." He threw a pair of pants at him.
Bruce was already out of bed fast enough to catch them. "How bad is it?"
"That's what we're going to find out. Breakfast will be in the car."
Somehow Bruce managed to get dressed on his way downstairs and to the car, leaving the smaller things like tying his tie and combing his hair for the ride over. Eating was the last thing on his mind. "What kind of emergency is it?" he asked as Alfred started the car and peeled out of the driveway.
"Can't say for sure, but the fire brigade is apparently on the scene."
Several possible kinds of attacks were scratched off his mental list. "Ambulances?"
"Oh, yes."
"Who did you hear this from?"
"Mrs. Miller. All I got from her was that there was a fire, smoke was filling the building, and there are ambulances all over the place. Oh, and she's pretty sure the police are there too."
"They've gotten faster since the Joker." He straightened the haphazard knot in his tie, then gave up on it completely and pulled it off. He was nearly knocked over when Alfred took an especially tight turn. They shaved off more than a few minutes of their usual time and broke nearly as many traffic laws to get to the plaza at Wayne Tower.
Alfred parked as close to the police tape as he could get without running anyone over. Bruce didn't wait for him to open his door, and headed straight for the tower. He ducked under the police tape and stopped partly because the fire chief was yelling at him to get away, and partly because of the state of the building. Black smoke was billowing out of the shattered windows on the first floor and the main entrance where people were pouring out by the scattered handfuls. Some were being carried out on stretchers to the ambulances. Others were injured, but able to walk to help. Even more were just running to get away from the fire, but had no idea what to do once they were out. These the police were trying to clear out of the area.
Ignoring the fire chief, Bruce crossed the plaza to reach Commissioner Gordon who was talking to a few of his men. "What happened?" he demanded as soon as he was within earshot.
Gordon sent his men off before he would answer. "We're not sure. At this point, we know it's a fire. The fire department hasn't given us the go-ahead to investigate."
"It looks like a bomb went off," said Alfred, having just caught up.
"From what we've been able to gather," Gordon replied, "there was definitely a massive explosion, but it looks like the integrity of the building will hold."
"When will they let you in?"
He shook his head. "They just barely called in the second alarm, and they have to go through the entire place to make sure every fire is out. It will be a couple hours at least. Right now, I'm essentially crowd control."
Another fire truck arrived on the scene and nearly drowned everyone out with its siren until it shut off. Gordon spoke to someone on his radio, and Bruce surveyed the crowd for anyone he knew. Several were familiar, people he had passed every day, but no one he knew personally. Then he saw a woman with long blonde hair and dressed in a brown skirt and tan sleeveless blouse, stumble out of the main entrance. It was Jenny Harkness, covered in soot, cut and scraped all over, and her hair was a neat haystack on top her head, like it had been thrown around when a bomb went off. She had a hollow, confused look as she wobbled across the plaza and took a seat on the ledge of the fountain that was surprisingly still running.
Jenny worked upstairs on the top floors, or she would have been when the bomb went off. Which begged the question of what she was doing down here. "Jenny!" he called. "Jenny! Ms. Harkness!" She didn't respond, so he approached her, continuing to call her name. Even when he was five feet from her, she didn't react.
"It's no good; she's completely deaf," said Alfred.
"Or in shock," said Gordon, who had happened to follow them.
Bruce waved a hand in front of her face and she jumped in surprise. "Jenny, are you alright?" he asked.
"I'm sorry," she said, a little too loudly, "the blast deafened me and I can't lip read. Communication is going to be difficult."
"She must have been right there when it went off," Alfred said.
"Meaning she's the best eye-witness we've got," Gordon concluded. "I'll question her later after she's gotten some medical attention and gets her hearing back."
Bruce pulled out a notepad and his phone, copying Jenny's information down to give to Gordon. "I'll see that she gets to a hospital."
"Good." Gordon went back to his radio and was about to return to his men. At the sight of this, Jenny panicked.
"Where are you going?" she yelled. "I know who did this!"
He stopped and faced her. "If this was a deliberate attack, I need to know."
She took a breath and started quieter this time, but just as intense. "Mr. Wayne got a package from Oswald Cobblepot this morning and the note that came with it sounded suspicious, so I took it downstairs to security. When I left …" She gestured to the smoking, smoldering building.
"You're a lucky man, Mr. Wayne," Gordon said as he wrote something on his notepad and showed it to Jenny.
"I don't know exactly," she said. "It just … had this threatening undertone to it. I can't explain it." He wrote something else, and she clenched her jaw. "With the package. It was a crystal penguin on a black stone base. It was about so high," she said, gesturing its size with shaking hands, "and it completely filled the box. Nothing else could have fit in there."
"A crystal penguin," said Alfred. "That's an odd explosive."
"But not unheard of," Bruce replied. "Wayne Enterprises worked on something like it before, but abandoned the project because we couldn't find a way to make the material stable. Maybe someone else figured it out."
"Well now we'll know what to look for." Gordon handed Jenny his card with a couple notes on it.
"Will do," she said. "Thank you, Commissioner."
He finally went back to his men to discuss the new situation and Jenny relaxed visibly. "He's not even trying to hide it anymore," said Bruce. "Cobblepot might as well just tell the police he's the Penguin."
"Except the evidence was just destroyed," Alfred reminded him.
Jenny realized she wasn't needed anymore and resumed her seat, putting her head in her hands.
"But he left one witness alive. If only she had kept that note."
"She wasn't expecting it to blow up."
"Why would the Penguin be trying to kill me? Apart from my denying him a lucrative business opportunity."
"He might not be. He offered Ms. Harkness a job if she would dig up blackmail material, but she turned him down and turned him out of the house. She's the one who actually humiliated him the most."
"I'll have to keep an eye on her, then. Or even better, just take down the Penguin by the end of the week." Bruce stood Jenny up and led her away with one arm around her shoulders to the ambulances. She was about to become a difficult one to kill.
"Mr. Wayne," she said when the paramedics claimed her, "I think I'm going to take the rest of the week off."
"That's fi-"
"And since I can't hear you, I'm going to assume you said yes."