To Play the Fool
Chapter Eight
Crashing Bruce Wayne's party is one thing. Trying to blow up Wayne Tower is another. However, both will ensure that the culprit receives the full wrath Batman. First things first, though. He needed to get rid of his muscle.
Ever since Solomon Grundy arrived, the Red Triangle gang hadn't become particularly brave or foolhardy, meaning they were saving him for when it really mattered. Robbing American National Bank would be a job he was needed for. It was a long shot, but it was the only lead Batman was able to get from the Cobblepot residence apart from the list of names and the chemical formulas. The Penguin was smart enough to abandon his plans when he noticed anything was compromised, and there was no way he didn't notice an empty safe and a fireplace full of ashes. That and the fact that Grundy, Batman and Tex destroyed his house and upset his birds.
Still, Grundy's addition to the team could have made Penguin arrogant, and after the attack on his home, he would be extremely angry. He wouldn't be thinking clearly, so the police had been alerted. They watched the bank all week. Nothing happened Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and most of Sunday. Then on Sunday evening, eight armored trucks pulled up and surrounded the building. For a few moments, the street was silent as the police waited for them to make a move.
Right at eight o'clock, the Red Triangle gang spilled out of the vehicles and ran into the bank. Each of them were dressed in black coats and sweaters, and wore white plastic masks with a red triangle painted somewhere on the face. Grundy himself stepped out of the largest one, nearly tipping it off balance. A mask would have been useless to disguise his identity. It only took the gang a moment to break open the doors and swarm inside. The police outside waited for the armored vehicles to be sparsely guarded and for the signal to come from the team inside the bank.
Batman waited inside for Penguin's men to fill the bank before he would make his move. One of their specialized members immediately went to the vault to pry it open. They had the best code-cracker Gotham had ever known. He had to lift his mask up a bit to work on the security, and Batman immediately recognized him. Matthew DeLaney had been jailed twice, but had always managed to break out. This time, the police swore to weld the locks shut. He got to work on the locks while the others shut off the alarms. Not that turning off the alarms would do them any good. Grundy approached DeLaney a few moments after he started. "How much longer?" he said impatiently.
"Just give me a couple minutes," DeLaney replied.
"We don't have a couple minutes."
DeLaney's code went through and the vault unlocked audibly. "And done," he declared.
Grundy swung the massive door open with barely any effort and stepped inside to collect the cash. He was followed by DeLaney, an extra goon to help with lifting, and Batman who dropped a smoke bomb and pulled the vault door closed. Delaney and his assistant immediately panicked and drew their guns. "This wasn't in the plans."
"No," Grundy growled. "He's here."
The smoke was getting so thick, the three men were practically swimming in it. They could barely see their hands in front of their faces, nor could they see each other. Unconsciously, they bumped into each other and stayed together, watching the other's back as if that was going to make a difference. Grundy had the best advantage since he could see over the smoke, but even that was filling up in the small room, and he had no idea where anyone was, whether they were his allies or Batman.
After a few moments of wandering around, Grundy couldn't even see the walls anymore. His arms swung out wildly, blindly trying to find his way around the room while he choked on the acrid smoke. Batman moved slowly and crouched down, careful to keep the smoke from giving his location away. Not that Grundy could have seen any distinct disturbances in the smoke's path since it was stinging his eyes. He was starting to get more frantic when he couldn't find his companions. "Come out, come out wherever you are," he growled at the Bat.
But Batman had no intentions of revealing his location. Instead, he took a tranquilizer dart off his utility belt, crept up between the two smaller men, and eased them apart, each still thinking they were next to their partner. A hand over one mans mouth, a needle in his neck, and the man fell to the ground without a sound. He dragged the man to the corner of the room so no one would trip over him. Then he did the same to DeLaney, keeping his flailing arms away as he panicked and then subsided into a drug induced sleep.
Somehow, Grundy could sense that his compatriots were out of the game. His movements became more erratic and panicked as he tried to wave the smoke away and sniff at the air for any strange scents. Batman fell in time with his steps, following him as he spun around and staying only a breath away. As he kept up, he took a syringe off of his belt with a tranquilizer three times as strong as the other darts. Hopefully it would be enough to take down the behemoth, but not too much so he wouldn't be killed. The right moment came when Grundy paused long enough for Batman to grab his shoulder and plunge the needle into his neck. Unfortunately, this, he noticed.
Grundy panicked and swatted Batman across the room into the wall of safe deposit boxes. Thankfully, he managed to brace himself for impact and kick himself off the wall before Grundy's fist destroyed several of the drawers where Batman's head used to be.
Grundy's strength was in his height and far reach. (And in his massive muscles, but that was needless to say.) So long as Batman kept to the ground, below his standard grab area, he would be able to avoid getting caught. Bending down would put him at a disadvantage. That, and the room was still filled with acrid smoke. Grundy tried sweeping through the mist, but he just kept missing the elusive shadow, even in a room as small as this one. Batman didn't have to win this fight. He just had to get away.
Batman slipped out the vault door after dropping another gas bomb designed to knock out three large men, and pushed it closed. He almost didn't notice the fight going on behind him until a white-masked man was thrown into the door as he was desperately trying to lock it. The person responsible for the man's introduction to flight was none other than Tex, who only paused long enough to wave before she dropped to the ground and kicked another thief's feet out from under him.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded.
"What are you doing here?" she countered. "I don't see you helping."
Grundy rammed into the door, pushing it open six inches. Batman managed to shut it again before Grundy gave it another go. "You should go."
Tex threw an elbow into a man's face, cracking his mask and breaking his nose. Then she threw him over her shoulder into a nearby wall. "Can't right now."
Another blow echoed through the building. "I can't hold him in here for much longer.
Tex stopped fighting to briefly examine the situation. "Let him out. He'll only get worse."
"Then start running."
"Why? He's not after me... Right. Because you say so." Even Tex couldn't withstand the wrath of Batman's glare. She took off running. Batman tossed her a grenade so she could make an impromptu back door should the need arise. She caught it deftly, and a moment later she was gone.
Grundy gave the door one last try, and it flew open. He spotted a black cape disappearing around a corner. "Get back here! I'm not done with you!" he snarled as he charged after the vigilante. The police that had flooded the building may have tried to stop him, but Grundy swept them away and they couldn't afford to go after him.
Batman found the door Tex used: an employee side door with a broken lock. Unfortunately, she had chosen the path of worst-escape-route, straight through the police line of defense. How had they not noticed her running right past them? The answer came to him in the form of a pillar collapsing behind him as Grundy threw open front door, then burst through the frame when it wasn't big enough. They had more important things to worry about than a couple annoying vigilantes.
He shot his grappling hook at the building next door and flew over the crowd of policemen and Red Triangle members being hauled into police cars. Most everyone below didn't notice him at all. Grundy, however, did. Within moments, he was tearing through the mass of cars and the small group of bystanders that had gathered behind the police tape, literally throwing people out of his way. The crowd was quick to scatter.
Even though Tex had a head start and was a surprisingly fast sprinter, she was having a hard time keeping up with Batman and Grundy's pace, and Batman soon overtook her. Then Grundy passed Tex, who stopped in her tracks to catch her breath, and probably thought: Why am I running? Batman continued on foot to keep Grundy distracted, or at least focused on him instead of Tex. No doubt he would have some karmic rage pent up for her. The plan, whatever it was, seemed to being going well.
Until Batman realized that they were headed for a particularly crowded part of town, specifically, a movie theatre. It wasn't opening night for any blockbusters, but people still wanted to see the shows. He stopped to see where Grundy was at, only to realize the both of them were in the middle of traffic. The cars avoided Batman well enough for the most part. Not so much for Grundy. He seemed to be slowing down, and the cars were piling up around him. So instead of walking around them, he picked up one car by the bumper and moved it aside like a life-size cardboard replica. Then he punched his fist through the engine of another one that failed to slow down enough for him, and his elbow clipped a passing scooter, sending it spinning into the sidewalk.
"Hey Grundy!" Tex's voice was amplified ten times over the sound of the traffic. She was also standing on the hood of a car several yards behind him, and waving at him. "Remember me?"
Grundy's attention shifted from Batman to the figure behind him. His face twitched where she had burned him with the log, and he turned to face her. "Little Sparrow," he snarled. "I'll crush your bones between my teeth!" His feet picked up speed, but at a slower pace than before. Maybe the tranquilizer was finally taking effect.
"You'll have to catch me first." Tex darted into an alley that was still slightly populated, but small enough that Grundy had to slow down. Batman shot his grappling cable onto a roof and followed them above the alley. Fewer obstructions that way.
He caught up with Tex, so to speak, and scouted ahead for any escape. "Construction yard ahead." She gave him a signal that said she understood, and he went on past her. At the sight of the Batman, most people in the alley cleared out for fear of getting caught and/or killed. Their guilty consciences also may have been to blame. This left Tex with far fewer people to trip over or run into, and Grundy with nearly no one to throw into walls and kill. However, it made it easier for Grundy to catch up.
The alley ended at a street, and across the road was the construction yard that had cleared out for the weekend. Batman swung over the road, cleared the fence, and landed on a pile of steel I beams. Tex managed to run across the street without getting hit and climbed the fence. Climbing up was easy enough. Trying to jump down resulted in an unintentional somersault and landing on her face. Batman nearly hid his face in embarrassment. This was what he had to work with. A clumsy vigilante.
Tex scrambled to her feet and caught up with Batman again. She must have caught his previous look of shame. "Dude," she said in her usual volume. "It happens."
Tire squealed, a couple cars honked, and metal crashed against brick and glass. Grundy was crossing the street and he did not bother to look both ways. And he was moments away from tearing the fence to pieces and coming after Tex and Batman.
"Now what?"
"We climb."
The building they were about to conquer was a steel skeleton of a six story building. The top two floors hung over the edge and were supported by three I beams partially covered in concrete casing which would become future pillars. The rest of the building, although bare wall-wise, was filled with various construction equipment. "Okay," said Tex, rolling her shoulders, getting ready to make the climb. "I can do this."
Instead, Batman wrapped an arm around her waist and aimed his grappling gun at the top floor. "Hold on." She was quick to put her arms around his neck before he shot the gun and they flew up.
"Cheater," she mock chided.
"Pragmatist," he corrected.
They stopped at the fifth floor. The wind ran through the structure, threatening to knock them off. Grundy made it through the yard and shouted curses at the pair in the building that he could not reach. "So, are the police coming?"
"Eventually."
"That's comforting. Do you think he can climb?"
"Normally." They watched Grundy attempt to scale a ladder, but it collapsed under his weight. Then he tried the iron bar that constituted the second floor, but could not pull himself up. "Not tonight."
Tex took a seat on the beam they were standing on, letting her feet dangle. "This is entertaining."
Batman crouched next to her, letting his cape hang free and flutter and snap in the wind. "In a cruel way."
"What did you do to him, exactly?"
"I drugged him. Quite a bit."
"Huh? Oh, hang on. I'm deaf on that side." Tex stood up and carefully stepped around Batman and seated herself on his left side. He was surprised she managed to survive. "What did you say?"
"How did you lose your hearing?"
"A bomb went off and I was too close. I used to be deaf in both. Now it's just the one."
"I see," he replied neutrally. Not too many people can say they were deafened by an explosion.
"So, Grundy. Why's he gone nuts?"
"I gave him a strong tranquilizer, but it doesn't seem to have kicked in yet. I'm surprised he's made it this far."
"He is a strong guy, I'll give him that. But he's not too bright. What do we actually know about him?"
The files he had researched earlier popped into memory like he was opening a document on a computer. "Solomon Grundy came into existence about twenty years ago when he was arrested for vagrancy. He claims not to have any memory before that, except that he was born on Monday. Since then, he's been in and out of prison for violent crimes, burglary, and a possible connection to a murder. He's a known hired hand for any number of gangs and mobs."
"He kind of reminds me of Lennie." She saw the glance he gave her out of the corner of his eye. "Yes, I went to high school. I read Of Mice and Men just like everyone else. I don't know if Grundy's autistic, but I don't think he knows exactly how strong he is sometimes. And with the Penguin, he's been given an outlet where being violent is acceptable."
"If that's the case, he still has to be taken to jail. It's probably the only place he can get the help he needs."
"What, like all the other times before? What will make Blackgate prison any different?"
"If Grundy's mentally unfit, then he'll go to Arkham Asylum. And he will be helped, but not before the police take him. The tranquilizer isn't working as fast as I had anticipated. I was hoping his run through town would exacerbate his condition, but if this continues, I'll have to give him another dose."
"Don't risk it. You could kill him. I can wear him out some more if you want."
He shook his head. "Give him a few more minutes."
Grundy attempted to shimmy up a diagonal cross-beam, and earned a sore head as a result. His steps seemed to be taking zig-zag directions instead of a straight line and his eyes were having a hard time staying open. "This still amusing?"
"Possibly. You?"
She nodded. "We are terrible people."
"He threw us through a wall. I don't feel that guilty."
"How long until he figures out he can use the stairs?"
"What stairs?" He scanned the construction site again, looking for ways up.
"Stairs, scaffolding. There's always something."
"Hopefully longer than it takes the police to get here."
But this was not to be. Right then, Grundy noticed some temporary stairs that led up to the roof. Batman's plan was to wait until he got to the fifth floor and then they would ride the grapple down to the ground. Not a bad plan. They stood up and balanced on a beam to wait for the right moment. Except they forgot to take into account the building wasn't structurally sound just yet. They could feel the vibrations of Grundy's steps on the stairs. When Grundy finally got to the fourth floor, he stopped, found a metal pipe laying around, and swung it at one of the building's supports.
Batman managed to maintain his balance, but Tex wasn't so lucky. He tried to catch her hand, but missed and Tex fell to the third floor where she managed to grab hold of one of the beams. Grundy leaped down to the floor below, shaking it so bad that she nearly let go. There was scratching like metal on metal as she scrambled to keep her grip. "Batman? Help?" she said calmly as she watched Grundy approach her with his pipe brandished. Grundy swung and hit her fingers with a few resounding thwacks, but she refused to let go. It wasn't until he started pushing her hands off with one massive booted foot that her hold started to slip.
It also helped that Batman swung in from behind and kicked Grundy in the back of the head, sending him plummeting down three stories into a pile of orange traffic cones. He rolled out of the pile with his eyes closed and muttering something about falling ill on Thursday. As Tex and Batman readied for another go with Grundy, the construction yard filled with sirens and red and blue flashing lights. "Right on time," Batman said appreciatively.
"Why is there always a big, heavy metal pipe laying around?" she whined as he grabbed her wrists and lifted her back onto the beam. She bent backwards and forwards with her arms stuck out awkwardly as she found her balance again.
Batman bit back a reply about how metal beams and pipes were to be expected in construction sites when he noticed the scratches and gouges in the beam at his feet. "Let me see your hands."
"I think we need to get out of here now," she replied, trying to change the subject.
"Tex. Hands. Now." She again received the wrath of Batman's full glare and meekly held out her hands for him to examine. He took both of them and looked them over thoroughly. Not a cut, not a scratch, not a bruise, not a single burst knuckle or broken nail. Her silver nail polish wasn't even chipped. In fact, there were metal shavings under her nails. "Your fingers aren't broken," he concluded.
"That's good news. Can we go?"
"But they should be. How do you do it?"
Tex turned her head to the ever growing crowd of policemen. "Tell you what. If we leave now, I swear to tell you later."
"I will hold you to that."
Just so he wouldn't lose her, he took her by the wrist and led her through the building and carried her down to the ground level. They escaped through the back of the construction yard and over the fence. Tex, again - "Ouch!" As was to be expected. Batman stopped to help her to her feet, but when he turned, she had vanished into the night.
Alfred found Bruce working on a project on the computers in the cave below his mansion. It seemed to consist of a preponderance of squiggly lines and miniature recording equipment. "Any success tonight?" he asked as he set down the morning's newspaper.
"Grundy was taken into police custody."
"That's good."
"Penguin will probably have him broken out or have the charges dropped by morning."
"Not so good."
"But now Penguin knows his biggest weapon is an exploitable weak spot and probably won't use him as much."
"I assume that's a good thing."
Bruce shrugged and went back to what he was working on. "What like all the other times before - What like all the other times - What like all the other times before -" The voice from the computer went higher and lower, fluctuating between a tenor and a base speaking male. Bruce sighed in frustration. So much work, and this was the comical result.
"What's this?"
"A recording I took of Tex," Bruce explained. "I'm hoping it will confirm a suspicion I have of her."
"That she's secretly a male?"
"We are terrible people..." The voice shot up several octaves, too far to be recognizable.
"They were both deafened by a bomb blast, they both compared Penguin to Charles Augustus Milverton, a somewhat obscure reference, and both knew about the blackmail."
He made a few more adjustments and played the result. "A bomb went off and I was too close," a woman's voice said from the computer.
"I know that voice," said Alfred. "I've heard it before, but I'm not sure where."
"You talked to her at the housewarming party right before you kicked Cobblepot out."
"We are terrible people," the voice continued.
"That's … Jenny Harkness," Alfred said incredulously.
"Or sounds a lot like her. It's not a perfect science. And I have to keep in mind that I'm slightly biased towards the outcome. Still."
"Very convincing, though."