Ernestina, Eris, Aequitas: to obtain that which is just we must ask that which is unjust.
WARNING: This chapter is NOT for the faint of heart. Rated M for a grisly crime scene, violence and attempted rape.
AN: Big thanks to J-Horror Girl as always, for her kind reviews and excellent criticism.
Ladies and Gentleman, we interrupt this broadcast to bring you the Best. Joker. Origin. Story. Ever: And The Rest Is Ancient History. By Grace Dark. You. Must. Read. Now.
…and now back to our regularly scheduled programming!
7:45 EST
Highway 47
There were a lot of unspoken things in that kiss.
"Someone got laid last night." I say quietly.
There is a long, long pause as Lawless makes to nonchalantly put down his mug. "None of your 'fucking business,' oh Hell-" Lawless says, not able to keep a straight face and spilling scalding coffee down his lap. The light turns red. He stomps the brakes, grimacing. "And it's a good thing, too. Oh, Damn."
"Sorry."
But that smiling grimace dies on his face, sad eyes sobering as fumes fill the car. "It had to be hazelnut." He whispers to himself.
"I'm glad you guys made up," I state. Fucking relieved is more like it.
"Yeah." Lawless grunts. "Yeah, me too." It's been a long time coming. Between Stop the Violence and her night hours they have hardly seen each other all summer. Lawless is strong, perhaps the strongest man I've ever met, but every man has his breaking point. He lost a wife once, and it nearly destroyed him. He wouldn't survive a second.
"She's pregnant." He says all at once. I couldn't have heard it right-
"What?" I turn.
"She's pregnant. About three months in. She didn't tell me til last night." The way he says it. Giddy. Weeping. Excited yet emotionless, as though dreading my reply. I am torn with envy and jealousy, with the sickening thought that he can have another son to replace the one he lost, yet I never can, that he could forget Angel so fast like Ian and that fucking puppy-
But those feelings are shallow and weak, and just as I know he loved my Angel as I did I know I would be less of a man-less of a woman-to make him mask his joy for my sake. I force a slow smile and shrug. "One hell of a time."
The light turns green.
"Yeah," He says. "Yeah." Then his eyes catch mine in the rear-view mirror, and his face splits into a relieved and genuine grin. "That's what she said."
8:21 EST
Washington Avenue
We trundle through traffic as though nothing were wrong. As though we have all the time in the fucking world. For a moment it is two years ago, before a man named the Joker changed everything we knew about the world, when that name was no more than a playing card and it was the mob we dealt with on the daily grind. Dent is alive. Dawes is alive. We pass City Hall, its arched dome white in the morning sun, and I nearly expect to see her, harried and yet oh-so-pristine and petite, following demurely in his wake. It is almost as if a young man named Jimmy Connolly never received his badge, never came to work for GCPD, never came to mean the world to both of us and it's just another morning, just another fucking morning in the Sleepless City…
…then we round the block down Harvey S. Dent Memorial Parkway, and the shocking scab of the Legacy's destruction destroys every illusion of normalcy. There is no going back.
I ask about the arms drop. Lawless relates the tale, how Gordon organized with Miller to catch the motherfucker with National Guardsmen instead of SWAT. Good man. Good decision. It tells me Lawless believed me. It tells me Gordon believed Lawless…and it tells me there is a traitor in our midst. Gordon can't trust his own men, and now they know it too.
So much for WATCHDOG, Harvey Dent and Loeb's brainchild. Officers like me…like I was. Officers like Lawless. Ramirez. The thought that the dog who has been rescued from the streets, has been rejected by all else is less likely to bite the hand that feeds it. No, Stalton was right. The feral cat makes the best mouser. Which makes it doubly dangerous. If it's someone in WATCHDOG…well, Surillo, Dawes and Loeb didn't die because they were fucking stupid. This mother is clever. There's a wolf in sheep's clothing and it's in the fold…
…and the lambs are already bleating.
Lawless takes a swig of coffee. Keeps his face towards the road but his eyes find mine in the mirror. And here it comes: "How'd you know?"
I have my answer ready. "Do you really want to know?" I ask lightly, the final words of that midnight confession hanging pregnant in the air:
What did he mean to you?
It was Lawless who came for him. Lawless who risked his life, climbed through the horror of the Legacy when it meant leaving a wife and a son behind, Lawless who did anything and everything in his power to keep Connolly alive and damn the consequences. Lawless who chose to act, chose to act whatever the cost…
Nothing. Everything.
"No." Lawless says with a shake of his auburn head, his hazel eyes boring into mine through the rear-view mirror. "No, I don't." I recline back into the seat with a silent nod. It will be an anonymous tipper that led the GCPD to the arrest of former US Army General Lazarus McCoy, and one of the largest weapon busts on the East Coast in fifteen years. It'll look good for the department's image. Might even raise some hope that something was being done to Stop the Violence…
Stop the Violence? I ask as we cross the toll bridge to the Narrows, the Narrows where Angel was murdered, where a distant billboard fills the morning sky with Trisha Tanaka's and Chris Holden's cheerful faces advertise for Good Morning Gotham.
…No. No, the violence hasn't yet begun.
Arimathea Apartments and Leasing
9:15 EST
Police Line Do Not Cross.
No shit. I climb over the tape, my long legs sliding over with ease. My right knee nearly buckles, and Lawless' strong arm supports me. CSI waits inside the perimeter in their eerie suits, equipment in hand. The outside of the abandoned apartment building has already been photographed. No one has entered-
-no one but the junkies who used the place to get a fix…and got more than what they'd bargained for.
"We woke up man, and man…we saw this shit-"
It is a mark of how horrendous the crime that they would call it in. Or perhaps, a mark of how high they still are.
"Fuck man, you know, you know I done some bad shit in my life but fuck man, this is, this is…" The mixed race teenager continues, jittering and writhing, his fix wearing off, unwashed body screaming out for another tab of acid. "The other guys…the other guys they don't want nothin' to do with it, you know? You know? Like, like they think it's the Joker, man, a-an-and that motherfucker he scare the shit out of everybody, yeah?"
Through the broken panes, jagged teeth of glass and greying grout, the dim outline of an ambulance can barely be seen, hidden behind the receiving bay.
Sick, spindly spiders go pouring down my back, silky and chill, like raw, dripping eggs. This is where they brought him. This is where he died…
Nora Fields stands ready and waiting, digital camera slung around her neck. She turns, and in the ensuing silence I hear the roar of raging flies…
She grimaces. Looks to Lawless. "It ain't a pretty sight."
9:18 EST
Arimathea Apartments and Leasing
Sunken grey flesh quivering, quivering under a coat of lime-green maggots, the only brightness in this horrible hell, their tiny squeals like the echo of dying screams…
The smell is indescribable.
"Our missing paramedics." Lawless says soberly, pulling his shirt over his mouth and nose, leaning in for a closer look. I join him. The facial features are gone entirely, sockets pouring with maggots, mouth dripping with egg cases, sticky, slimy flies crawling, swarming, biting my arms and face…
Unrecognizable. Inhuman. I shut my eyes. Steel myself. I need to see this. Need to know. Need to be reminded of Pakistan, dead corpses, bodies bloated and sickly in the hideous heat, flesh melted, fat bubbling like hot wax…
Ten days. Ten days in the stifling heat of the August sun. I will not know my Angel when I see him.
9:23 EST
Arimathea Apartments and Leasing
"Cause of death, cervical spine lesions." Nora says expertly, putting down her Canon and cradling each head in her gloved hands. "They died quick. Well…God, can you imagine how strong you'd have to be to do that? Not once, but three times?"
"Not really." I state emotionlessly. "It's just a matter of leverage and force. If you know what you're doing it's not all that hard-"
...Oh, fuck.
She gags. Drops the head, and it falls stiffly, bobbing once on what is left of the neck. "Christ, Paltron." Lawless breathes. "I didn't need to know that." Stupid bitch. The hell were you thinking? But truth be told I wasn't. Too engrossed with the bodies, numbed, dreading what was to come…I try to shrug it off, but the weight of that statement and of those deaths is again on my shoulders. "Marine hand to hand combat. Silent kill."
...and a Dyke cellmate at Memorial. But that is something I will never share. Not even with Lawless.
Nora still can't look at me. Lawless clears his throat. Blinks. "Yeah, but what's…what's the Joker doing using that? You think he's ex-military?"
That son of a bitch? Section 8. He'd never make it in…and I've seen some sorry shit excuses for soldiers in my time. "We'd have gotten prints. DNA. You don't have to be special forces to break someone's neck, Lawless." I remind him.
"Yeah," Lawless says, still staring at me strangely. "Yeah, You're right. It just seems…so unlike him."
Killer. Gordon's voice rings out of the past. I've killed. He's killed. We all have. We are soldiers in a different sort of civilian war…and yes, if he knew the truth, he would shudder. But he does not. He has merely fallen prey to the erroneous belief that shooting a man with a service pistol is different than killing him with hand, blade, or blunt force trauma. But it is no different…just less personal.
"He was in a hurry." Nora finishes. "Tried the same thing with Hanson-we found stress fractures in the transverse processes of her cervical vertebra-muscle tearing. When that didn't work, he strangled her."
"Manually?" Lawless asks suddenly.
The squat woman nods. "He did a sloppy job of it, too."
"Sloppy?" I cut in, confused.
"Broke the hyoid bone. Means he let her struggle. If you mean to strangle someone you go for the carotid first, pinch off the blood supply, Darth Vader death grip sort of shit." He muses aloud. "It's significant. But I'll be damned if I know what or why."
"Might have just wanted to carry on a bit." Nora says squeamishly. "I'm not the psych consult, alright? This bastard scares the shit out of me."
"Nah." Lawless says, raking fingers through his short cropped hair-much to Nora's disgust.
"Might I remind you to consider de-gloving?" She chides motherly.
"She was a woman." I say without thinking, the words come tumbling from my lips like a dark confession. "A woman. The first one he's ever killed by hand. He tried to break her neck but she was too strong-it surprised him. And having to strangle her didn't sit well at all-"
The words sink in, heavy and silent. About us, the flies buzz still. Instinct? Gut feeling? Personal experience? I think back to three months in Memorial, long nights alone in the dark, hearing whispers, shouts, screams of fear, in terror learning for the first time that rape wasn't a crime imposed on women solely by men…
I look to the corpse, its rotted, blackened skin, slack jaw, empty sockets…and I for the second time today I think inexplicably of Dent.
Jane C. Arkham Memorial Women's Correctional Facility. Cell block 32. Entombed haunt of the East Coast's most violent female sex offenders.
…If you want to survive, you don't let them see you cry.
My hands are cuffed to the table. Isolation. Interrogation room. I am beaten. Abused. By both inmate and security alike. The only difference is in where they leave their bruises: those on the government payroll know you can't get caught if you only leave welts under the jumpsuit…
On my first night in Memorial, I have become queen of ward 32.
...and I want to die.
But I can't cry. Can't tremble. Not even here, not even now. I can show no signs of femininity or weakness. So in silence I sob, dry eyes burning slick blood scabbing on smooth skin my sins are ever before me and I want to wretch scream cry sob die let it end let it all end but I can't be weak, can't be weak have to live live get out find my Angel again-
And with that thought the warm whisper of consoling breath pants across the flash of my throat, his heavy head, silken curls, sleeping face pressed against me…I gasp. My Angel is here. I close my eyes, washed in waves of agony and ecstasy, and it is enough. Enough. Enough to know he lives, breathes, absolves all my sins for his sake-
The door opens. Harvey Dent. My attorney. Fat lot of fucking good he'll do me.
He is silent. He red rimmed eyes are shot with sleep and repressed tears. They stare at me, uncomposed, with perhaps a bit of fear as the door is shut behind him. There is no Security now, nothing but a pair of stainless steel handcuffs chaining me to a post.
Respect and resentment well up in my heart. He's no fool. Not an arrogant, piece of shit attorney who finds himself god with nothing to fear…no, he holds a file in his hand, images seared in his eyes, and knows very well what a criminal is capable of.
Tears. What I am capable of…
The catcalls, wolf whistles, heybabies and I'll fuck you like you fucked that kid-! have long since ceased. It is the eerie calm, the eye of the storm. The guard walks by again, and the lights overhead turn down, bright, wavering blue lamps high above, too weak even for shadows. And in this darkness, the demons wake.
One lonely, abandoned Angel will not keep them at bay. Those lights, like my hopes, snuffed suddenly out.
I am chilled yet sweating, slimed and disgusting with neither underwear nor bra, sagging breasts sticking to the inside of the jumpsuit. My sheets are thin, the air artificially cooled, back pressed against the bare iron bars. My bloodshot eyes are open, staring into the empty pit of the cell. I am a cop on her first night in prison. I cannot afford to fall asleep…
The night churns on. There are no whispers. Whimpers. Screams of fear. They are waiting, all waiting, bated breath to watch me break. The seconds tick by, my blinks growing longer, corneas dull and dry with the effort. But I am exhausted. Drained. Distraught. My weary body cries out for sleep, for rest-!
Stay awake, bitch. I beg. Just stay awake…
Swift shuffling of feet they move like shadows and dust five pairs of hands groping in the darkness twist pull Nonono! Sweaty, mannish arms around my head I cannot cry out flailing helplessly kicking scratching biting they take my arms take my legs break my nose break my fingers I am sobbing in pain twisting twisting have to get away shanks out bone scrap metal hollow ballpoint pen they cut away my clothes cut away my clothes at the waist pull the pants down over my feet grab my legs they have my legs spread them apart I am screaming I am sobbing AngelAngelAngel-!
But Dent's voice jars me from this harsh reverie: "Hernandez. Rosario 45. Cause of death: Cerebral hemorrhage/edema, blunt force trauma to the base of the skull. Smith, Marny, 33, Cause of death: hypovolemic shock due to carotid hemorrhage. Deshawn, Shakira, 27. Cause of death: Indeterminable due to pos…postmor…postmortem d-decapitation-"
His trembling voice can go no further. He throws the file down with disgust. Pictures scatter across the table's smooth surface, glossy and unfeeling in their inglorious brutality. I shut my eyes. Try to shut my ears. But even then the corpses cry out Killer Killer Killer…
Dent cuts across my thoughts again. Both his voice and hands are shaking. "Triple homicide. Cold, cut, and dry. About the bloodiest one I've ever heard of…with over fifty eyewitnesses. You're looking at life." He states. Shuts the file, and those accusatory evidence is mercifully hidden from my view.
"I need your help." I whisper.
"Oh," Dent throws his hands up in exasperation. "Now she talks!" Our countless interviews began a month ago. My trial ended two days ago. And now the still room temperature remains of three women lie broken and bloody in Memorial's Morgue. It is-it has always been, it will always be-too late. "That skill would have been helpful…say, at your trial?"
"I need help." I am pleading now.
"Yeah." The young man says, face white and lips tight. He is court appointed, the only on my case, here against his body's need for sleep and his own moral judgment. I can see it in his eyes: I deserve every ounce of vengeance and punishment I reap. "Yeah, I'll bet you do. And here's the thing: I don't know if I can…and I don't know if I care."
Piteous moan. But you knew it, Bitch. Knew it the moment you gave him up, saved his life, knew this was the price, the only price, the one you would have to pay-
Yet now I know: I'm not a Killer. Looking into the accusing eyes of this young man I know there isn't a man or woman who sat my jury and sentenced me here who wouldn't have wished the same upon Angel's father and his friends…I am vengeance. I am fury…and for the first time since that God-awful night I know I am not alone, not the only to play judge and jury.
"You think you're better than me, but you're not." I hiccup. "You ever wonder Dent, wonder why it is sex offenders are housed with each other? It's because you think we deserve it. People like you-people like that jury, people like the security working here-think we deserve every ounce of punishment and ass fucking we get. Oh, sure, you'd never do it yourself, never say it, never come out and condone it but you know it happens, you all fucking know and you let it happen right under your nose…"
Blue eyes blink. The words are hard for him to take. The truth almost always is. He is shaking now, shaking, and I see the restraint required not to slap me for being so bold, so arrogant, so self-righteous-
"Yeah." He finally whispers, leaning back into his chair, a screeching sound as he scoots it back against the wall as to remove the temptation. He redeems himself. Perhaps only slightly. Subconsciously. But he is a far, far better man than the Warden or guards…
"'Yeah, I think I'm better than you. And what you say might be true but at least I've never killed someone. Least I've never ass-fucked a little kid-"
Blink. Hot tears. I bow my head.
"You've only got one way out of this, but you already know what that is, don't you?" He demands harshly.
Arkham. Psychological Services. I could be labeled pathologically homicidal. Criminally Insane. His words sink into the silence, heavy and pregnant. But they won't. Never will. I'm a cop. A fucking dirty cop and a convicted sex offender, accused of child molestation. Even psychiatrists have biases, have humanity, have that brutal, societal sense of innocence and justice about throwing those 'deserving' to the dogs…
…even that cunt Quinzel would rather purposefully misdiagnose me than let me leave this Hell.
Welcome to the first night of the rest of your miserable life, bitch. Welcome to Hell. Welcome to Memorial. You'll remember us, motherfucker, motherfucking Po you'll pay…
Sheen of metal. Flesh trembling in sick anticipation she leers over me dirty hands pawing says welcome to 32, snipper. Then-
"What the fuck what the hell never seen a pussy like that Gawd girl I be doin' you a favor I gonna be tearin' you a new hole-!"
Salty tears stream, burn my eyes. They said they could reconstruct it after Pakistan. Said with some corrective surgeries I could regain some sphincter control. Said in time, said in time they could make me a woman again. I'd never feel anything but could accommodate a man-
But my husband left me. Jon fucking left me the only man I ever loved or trusted. Gone. I told them to fuck it. A normal life? Intimacy? I'd been scarred in more ways than one, told sexual reconstructive surgeons it wasn't worth the goddamned effort I just didn't want to be pissing my pants…
My first night in Memorial I learned what all cops in prison must. There are only two choices: become the Bitch…or become a Butcher.
It's just begun just the beginning I'm a white woman child molester dirty cop…no rush of security no shouting no cries no lights turned on nothing but heavy, leering breath above, screams and chants jeering her on fuck the cop fuck the fucking cop-! salty eyes streaming, burning, I look up into her dark face and there is no pity, no mercy, nothing I can do to stay her hand-there is nothing, nothing for me here but night after night of rape and abuse. No one is coming to save me. Security knew. Knows. I serve a twenty year sentence without parole. Twenty years…and no one will ever come to rescue me.
Trembling, panting, nearly naked here in the Valley of the Shadows in Sodom in Gomorrah I am not Tamar, not Dinah, not Ester or Hagar...
...I am Judith. I am Jael. And with their strength I twist that shank from her clenched fist and with a shrill shriek my predators become my prey.
"Cop in prison has the right to defend herself." I state emotionlessly, cuffed hands tugging at the sharp seams of the zipper.
I am sweaty. Bra-less. Bruised and covered in blood. His eyes go wide-his eyes go huge-as I pull the bloodied shank from its hiding place under my breast and set it on the table-
He jumps back. Wide-eyed, pale, adrenaline rushing to his skull screaming run the fuck away-
"They tried to rape me." Tears prick my eyes. I sniff. "With this. Run the prints. Mine aren't the only on it."
Dent remembers my cuffs. Chains. He flushes, stammers, embarrassed more by my immodesty or his own foolishness only he could say.
"Wh-, how-? Where-? Paltron, how the hell did you get this past security?"
I look up at him with a bitter laugh. "Full strip and cavities search on entrance. I've been here a day, Dent. One fucking day. You think I had time to make this?"
It's bone. Probably turkey. Sharpened to a deadly point. At least it was. Now it's bloodied. Dented. Dull. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust…
He sighs. Concedes. Stands. Heads for the door. "I'll get gloves. A bag. We'll get the security films and provided you're telling the truth, we'll nail them on negligence and get you off on self-defense."
Long, long, shuddering sigh. Twin, trickling tears. "Thank you." I whisper.
But Harvey Dent stops. Chews his tongue. "Don't thank me. I'm only doing my job because I have to."
Bullshit. He's doing his job because conscience compels him.
Conscience. If conscience and justice had anything to do with the US prison system inmates wouldn't OD. Get pregnant. Lose sphincter control…Jane C. Arkham Memorial Women's Correctional Facility is Hell, and everyone inside becomes a devil.
I heave a bitter laugh. Call to his retreating back. "There's something you should know, Harvey, since you're going to be sending people here for the rest of your life, and it's this: there's only one difference between the people who live here and the people who work here, and it's the fucking uniforms. Nothing else."
Silence. "I guess you'd know." He finally says. "Since you're a bit of both."
"Yeah." My hoarse voice breaks. "I suppose I am."
"Why'd you do it?" He suddenly asks. "You knew it would be like this. You kidnapped him. You raped him. Then you took him to the goddamned pediatric hospital-"He sighs. Shakes his head. Wonders if he even wants to understand the gruesome rationale, the logic of a sexual criminal…wonders why his curiosity, his hate, his pity will not let him simply walk away. "Didn't have the heart? The guts? What was it? Because you can kill. Hell, woman, can you kill." He gestures to the closed file, a sinister, manilla crypt.
Tears spill. I try to wipe them. Blink them. Shrug them away. But Dent is shrewd. So shrewd.
I am silent. As I should have always been. Again my silence condemns me…only this time it screams the truth. Harvey S. Dent, court appointed, unwilling, belligerent and borderline contempt fresh from law school night court attorney guesses. Makes a wild shot in the dark and hits dead fucking center. My knotted lie unravels like a string. In seconds, he knows…
He pales. Blinks. Looks at me with pity, pity and disgust, with anger and rage, with newfound respect, with a searing, utter thirst for the Truth-All the Truth. Nothing but the Truth. And he will never be satiated with anything less.
"Who was it?" He suddenly snarls. "Who was it, Paltron? Damnit, who did it? Was it your boyfriend? Did you have a boyfriend-? A lover-? Were you forced into this? Were you paid-?"
"N-n-no…" I am sobbing, sobbing he grabs my jumpsuit grabs the front of my open jumpsuit shakes me, breasts flopping head lolling hair falling he shakes me like a rag doll-
"Was it Gordon?" He hisses. "Answer me! Tell. Me. Now." He is shaking me, shaking me my head will fall from my shoulders, fall from my shoulders like the hideous Dyke's dripping and wet-
"WAS IT GORDON!"
But I am silent. My eyes leak tears but my bleeding lips are forever locked. It is Angel's secret, and I will take it to my grave-
The door slams. He drops me. But I am shaking, shaking still, cold, exposed, whimpering like a fucking baby so fucking frightened-
The Warden. Dent's eyes narrow. His rage disappears instantly.
"My client is injured." Dent states succinctly. "She needs to get to the infirmary and I want her there under constant video surveillance, you understand? And then you take her back to her cell and I want a tape from every video recorder over cell block 32 from tonight, and indefinitely, with the names and ID numbers of every officer on watch tonight and every officer who will be charged with my client's care, with full access to their personnel files."
"Very well." The Warden says, not bothering to stifle his boredom. "Will there be anything else?"
But I was wrong. Dent's rage hasn't disappeared-it has merely been deflected.
"Yeah. I'm charging your ass for negligence. Negligence and abuse of a dependent of the state and accessory to murder. That's what else. And that's just the fun part. Cause then I'm going to go through and I'll personally interview every other woman in this damn place and I'll charge your ass again, and where you and your men are going they'll tear it so many holes they can use you as a fucking colander."
"I-that is to say, I, we--Mr. Dent, where are you going?" The Warden yelps desperately.
He stops. Wheels. Ignores sputtering protests and promises of bribes to stare directly at me. I am speechless in dread. Pinned. Frozen. I know the answer, and I cannot breathe-
"After Surillo. After a subpoema. After that little boy."
…and everything, everything that I ever am comes crashing down will all my hopes and fears.
The door slams. Dent disappears. Gust of wind blows the file open, pages streaming, pictures whirring. I sit weeping in the dank basements of Memorial with sanguine-smeared sweat dripping down my body, staining my skin, scabbing my hands, surrounded by the inescapable evidences of all my seven deadly sins. Seven lives. Seven souls. Seven secrets.
All for promises. All for Angel. All…for nothing.
I shudder.
It is different to kill a woman. Even in self-defense. Even when necessary. The texture of the skin, the feel of the hair, the strength of mind required, it's all so wrong…rape-homicide, no. Those motherfuckers-like Nabokov-know exactly what they're doing. And domestic violence? Those bastards are out of control. Lash out in anger one time too many, with just enough strength…but many phone in out of guilt. Or to try to cover their tracks…
But for a simple homicide? Most use guns. Shot to the head. Steal purse, wallet, jewelry. Even fucking Joe Chill shot Martha Wayne. His bare hands never even so much as touched her…There is some truth to the fact if guns were gone, the crime rate would theoretically be less...but good fucking luck rounding up all the illegal weapons out there. Stalton and that weapons bust proves against it. And true killers, the ones who really don't give a shit-I stare back to the rotting bodies, don't need weapons to spread violence and terror.
"I dunno." Lawless says. "I just…but yeah. Yeah, he wouldn't be toying around. He had to get out of there. The guy's a serious sociopath and a damn good one…he's not psychotic. Not delusional. He knew what he was doing…so why do it?"
For a long second we stare, minds churning, but hands coming up empty. Mine are stained in blood. "Maybe we're reading too much into it." I finally concede.
He shakes his head. Goes to bite his nails but Nora slaps him. "Take off your gloves before you get Hep C? HIV? Please?" She pleads.
"Yeah." He grumbles, putting that begrimed hand back in his hair and waving her away. "You might be on to something there." He says, looking up at me from his squat before the bodies. "This guy…this fucker he likes to kill. Lot of people hypothesize that killers get something out of it, sexual gratification sort of shit. I dunno. But if that's true we can think of this bastard as a rapist."
I think of crime scene photographs…think of Chinatown and Angel. "He enjoys the power."
"Exactly." Lawless says, rubbing his hands together. "So he's a rapist. It's not so much about the death as it is about the fear. And if he can't have that fear, that foreplay-"
"He's got nothing." I say, face drawn in a twisted sneer. "He's like Nabokov."
"Pardon?" Nora asks, bewildered and disquieted.
"Russian serial killer. Goes after young girls, mostly prepubescent." Lawless informs her.
"He brands his victims." I finish. "Through the breast."
"Postmortem?" She asks, almost hopefully. But Lawless just shakes his head.
Her voice has gone very, very quiet. Again the maggots squeal. "Why?"
Lawless' teeth are bared in a snarl. "Rumor has it he can't get it on if they don't scream." She shudders. Lawless degloves, wipes his face with his now sweaty palms. I stoop beside him, eye to eye. My right leg is buckling, but I can hold it. Must hold it. There is something going on here, a thought that must be captured. It cannot be allowed to flit away…
"This guy," Lawless points to the bodies, "this guy likes the power. The fear. In essence he likes to rape, not kill." He kills, yes. Is more than willing to kill. Perhaps he needs it...
But at the heart, what he lusts, longs, thirsts for, is that power. "But not women." I say slowly. "Not women. All his 'rape' victims have been men." But is it homosexual tendencies...or something worse?
"Surillo?" Lawless counters. "Dawes? The ferries?"
"Political killings." I finally answer, heart racing in my chest. "Not personal. He sent Meroni's men to do it for him. He didn't rape them. He just killed them, or had them killed. In a way, his hands are clean…"
"And the ferries, too. Mass killing. Rapist doesn't get much out of that. It was purely political-"
But something isn't right. Our theory hits not a brick wall but a sheet of bullet proof plate glass. "He threw Dawes out the window. Wayne's high class party, remember?" I say lightly.
"God," Lawless breathes after a moment of intense frowning. "I hate thinking like this bastard."
So do I, Lawless. So do I. But at least you don't have to become him. "It fits." He finally says. "It has to fit somehow. We've got a pattern. A definite pattern No string of dead prostitutes. No gender biased increase in missing persons, violent or homicidal rapes in that time period that could be linked to him. He's a rapist, a homoerotic rapist, and his a political murderer. God...he's a terrorist, a murderer and a rapist."
"He was looking for Dent." I say after a moment of tight lipped silence. "Witnesses say he came asking for Dent."
Lawless' eyes are glowing eerily, like wolf's in the dark. "Then the Batman shows up."
My teeth are showing, face stretched, but not in a smile. "He needs more time-"
"And good bye, Miss Gotham." He finishes. "It wasn't 'rape'. He'd already had some fun with her…but it was to get to Dent. Once interrupted, he just threw her away. But he didn't 'rape' her."
"He knew the Batman would save her-or try. It wasn't killing her at all. Not killing in his eyes, at least. It was easy. Too easy. He barely touched her."
"No." Lawless concedes. "And it would be the Batman's fault-he gave the Batman a choice, do you see? He was still in control. Physically and emotionally, this fucker was in control."
"He went after Dawes to bleed out Dent. And when the Batman arrived-"
"The Joker responds in kind. Whatever it took. Whatever and whoever it took to get in charge. But Rachel wasn't the victim, she was merely the instrument-" He rushes, then stops.
"But why?"
That thought is birthing. Becoming substantial. We must say it quickly, quickly, before time and confusion snuff it out beyond recall…
Rapist. Killer. Power. Sexual Gratification. Sloppy. Can't even get it on if they don't scream…
Lawless looks me in the eyes, and they are smoldering. His words are like a cold, twisting knife. "This bastard. This purple bastard. Whoever the fuck he is…He really hates men." And from that look I know my Angel told him everything. Hollow, hollow, guilt and greif. I look away, and empty, egg-sodden sockets stare blankly back at me. I blanch.
Angel. I surrendured him not only to be abused by Gerald, but the Joker as well.