"..none of us will rest until he is behind bars!" Gordon shouted.
"Gordon, you have a call-"
"Tell the press what I told you. We will not release the names of the deceased until we notify next of kin!" Gordon said.
"It's actually from Arkham Asylum sir-"
"Yes?" Gordon said after snatching the phone. "No, no one was sent to Arkham to investigate..I'm sure. Can I have the name please?...Navarro. Ah, okay. That's fine. Navarro is with us...Will you notify that she must to call me when she is done there?...Thanks."
"It was C4, Gordon," and officer came up and informed Gordon. "Set up two different locations in the building. Must have gone off at the same time-"
"How the hell is this even possible? How did he get that into the building? Where are they with securing the surveillance footage?! Who the hell allowed him in-"
"We are working on it, Gordon," another voice chimed in.
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.
.
"Keep your hands to yourself," a guard ordered the tall lanky young man who had been brought into the room. The man, called Snafoo, looked very young, barely twenty.
He simply smiled and nodded and sat on one of the beds.
"Ma'am, I'll be right outside," the guard said. "He moves at all, let me know."
"Of course," Adriana said. "Thank you."
After the guard was gone, Sanfoo moved back on the bed so that his head could rest on the wall.
"Hi..I'm Adriana Navarro," Adriana introduced herself with no response from Snafoo. His eyes were dark and blank, and she could tell that he had been heavily medicated.
He rocked back and forth a bit and looked everywhere in the room but at her. He then reached over to his pillow and pulled a lollipop from under it. It looked half eaten and had halfway stuck to the pillowcase but he didn't seem to mind as he stuck in into his mouth. After a few moments, she decided to take the plunge into his thoughts.
He was hearing voices..
They are rubies. You don't have any rubies. Rubies...ruby red. If you took them, she wouldn't mind. She would love for you to have rubies of your own. Just take one. Take one and I won't say anything else, ever again. I promise.
The voice in his head was a woman's. He then turned at looked at Adriana's earrings.
"They are rubies," Adriana said and she watched him seem to wake a bit from a stupor. "My earrings. I would mind if you took one. My grandmother gave them to me."
He looked at her with his lips slightly parted.
"You can hear her?" he said, his voice extremely deep and shaky.
"Yes," Adriana said and sat on the other bed, presumably the Joker's.
"You've been here before," he said.
"No, I've never been here," Adriana replied.
"You've been..somewhere like this," he said and looked down at her feet. "Are you crazy too?"
"I'm not.." she started to say. "I've been in many places like this but I was given great medications and now I'm better."
She could see in his mind, he was observing how she sat with her feet tucked under the bed. She didn't notice it herself, but this was how she was instructed to sit in most asylums she had been in to prevent accidentally tripping the guards and staff as they rushed through.
He was quiet and was again looking at her earrings.
"Where are they from?" he asked.
"My grandmother," Adriana told him again.
"Where?" he asked again.
"Where?" Adriana was a bit confused for a moment. "Oh..they're from Somalia. Somalian rubies."
"I've never seen an African ruby," he smiled. "Can I touch them?"
"I don't know," Adriana said. "Maybe, if you help me, I will let you touch them."
"Okay!" he agreed immediately.
"Can we talk about your old roommate?"
"Mr. J?" Snafoo asked, still smiling.
"The Joker."
"That's his name."
"Yes...I'm trying to find out more about him," Adriana said.
"I don't know anything. He didn't talk to me. Can I touch them now?" he told her.
"Wait," Adriana said. "Did you take anything of his while he was here?"
"Uhhh..." Snafoo thought for several seconds. "Maybe."
"Okay...Is maybe a yes?"
"I tried to. But he kept catching me. He told me he would cut off my fingers if I tried again. I took his toothbrush though and he never noticed. He never used it."
"Mhm," Adriana said, beginning to think this was a dead end.
"Later on I took a card," Snafoo said.
"A card?" Adriana sat up straighter. "What card?"
"It's in the window," Snafoo said and pointed to the bars.
"What?" Adriana stood up and walked over, not seeing anything. She looked outside and down the wall and saw what looked like a business card crammed tightly between the edge of one of the bars and the wall. It looked like it had been soaked from rain and nothing on it was legible.
"There it is," Snafoo said and bit into the lollipop.
"Can I keep this?" Adriana asked.
"I don't care," Snafoo said.
"So...this is all you have of his?"
"Well...no," Snafoo sat up and bent the stick of the lollipop back and forth.
"Okay..what else?"
"He left his phone," Snafoo said. "I didn't steal it, he left it."
"Really? Where is it? The police didn't collect it?"
"No," Snafoo said. "I hid it."
"Where did you hide it?"
"It doesn't work. There's no battery."
"That's okay..just tell me where it is?"
"Can I touch your hair? And the rubies?"
Adriana sighed. "Fine. Tell me where?" It was then she realized he was thinking of the location and she didn't really need him to tell her.
"In the cafeteria..under the vending machine..with the healthy drinks," Snafoo said as he stood up and quickly reached for Adriana's earrings.
"Don't try to take them, I will know," she said as he touched the ruby in her left eat.
"Your hair is soft," he laughed.
"Thanks," she said and gently moved his hands from her ears and hair. "You should sit back down. You don't want to get into trouble with the guard."
Snafoo sat, again hearing the voices in his head about her earrings.
"Are you going to take the phone?" he asked.
"Yes..I think so," she said.
"But..I need it! It's mine!" he said.
"No, it's the Joker's and now it will belong to the police. Why do you need a phone with no battery?"
He didn't answer.
"It was nice meeting you, Snafoo. I have to go now."
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.
.
"Thank you this is perfect," Adriana thanked the guard for taking her to the cafeteria for a cold drink.
She walked over to a machine filled with green drinks and smoothies and assumed this was what Snafoo was referring to. The guard had gone from the empty cafeteria when Adriana got down on the floor and saw several things on the floor underneath of the machine that she could not reach. She pushed the machine to the side a few inches and grabbed the very old looking cell phone from the dusty wedge. She also saw a ring and a Rolex watch.
"Miss Navarro, you can sign out here," the woman at the front desk told Adriana as she walked over.
"Is this yours?" Adriana held out the ring.
"Yes! What?! He gave this to you?"
"No, he told me where he hid it. Under the green drinks machine..this watch was under there too and probably some other stuff."
"How did you even get him to?" the woman laughed and wiped the dust and dirt off of the ring. "Poor child. Hiding valuables under a machine."
"How old is he?" Adriana asked out of curiosity.
"Nineteen," the woman said as Adriana signed the sheet.
"So young," Adriana replied.
"We called Commissioner Gordon," the woman said. "Just to verify. He wants you to call him."
"Got it," Adriana said. "I will."