Batman no mans land, p.32
Batman: No Man's Land, page 32
Batman had let him down. Batman had betrayed his trust.
He put his glasses back on, sighing without meaning to, saying, “It’s been a long year.”
“It has,” Batman agreed.
There was another silence.
“Jim,” Batman began, but stopped when Gordon cut him off.
“Are we friends?” Gordon asked, looking at him. Where Batman stood beyond the barrel, the light made the ears on the cowl look as they were designed to look, like the horns of a winged demon. Even the lower part of the vigilante’s face looked supernatural.
“Yes,” Batman said. “We’re friends.”
Gordon thought about that. “Damn odd. I don’t… I don’t have many friends. I don’t have many people I trust. But I trusted you.”
Batman didn’t move. Nothing on his face changed but the firelight.
“I trusted you,” Gordon repeated, louder, getting to his feet. The chill had caught him, and the fire was warm, and he moved closer to it for the heat. “You saved my wife and protected my people. I’m grateful for that, don’t think that I’m not.”
He thought he saw Batman nod, just barely.
“But that’s not enough,” Gordon said. “You say you’re my friend. But I don’t think you really have friends.”
Again, there was no answer. Gordon could feel the gaze on him, though, knew he had his attention, that Batman was listening, and would continue to listen. He looked down at the fire, used it to warm his hands. He’d scraped his palm when he’d fallen, and the heat felt surprisingly good.
“When the NML was announced, Sarah and I tried to leave,” Gordon said softly. “A moment of weakness, of fear. I wanted to run away, find a job in some other town where I could do what I do best, where my wife and perhaps my daughter, too, could be a little safer. I tried to abandon the sinking ship.”
He looked up from his hands. “Everywhere I applied I was turned down. It wasn’t that I was asking for much, mind you. Not like I expected to be Chief of Police in Dallas or Commissioner in Central City, nothing like that. I’d have taken a detective job if it’d been offered. I was that scared. That desperate.
“No one would hire me. They didn’t want a cop who needed an urban legend to do his policing for him.”
He looked back at his hands, almost smiling at the memory. Batman remained still.
“They laughed at me. Some of them were kind enough to do it to my face. Most did it behind my back. And I started to wonder, after a while, if maybe you were laughing at me, too.”
“No,” Batman said.
“Really?” Gordon leveled a finger at him. “You use me. You’ve been using me for ten years.”
Batman’s voice was tight. “Or vice versa.”
Gordon grinned. “Absolutely. Because I thought we wanted the same thing. I thought we wanted our city—this city—to be safe. That’s what I thought, Batman. I thought we were in this together.”
Again, there was no response.
Gordon suddenly felt the anger erupting, and he almost shouted it, demanding, “Where the hell were you?”
No answer, no response. Not even the slightest change in his features but those caused by tricks of the light.
After a minute, Gordon said, “That’s why I don’t believe we’re friends. You don’t respect me. You don’t trust me. That whole fiasco a couple years back, after Bane had been to town and all those rumors were circulating that you’d been defeated, broken. And you vanished, and I had to deal with that parade of pretenders under that cowl, what was it, two of them? Did you think I wouldn’t notice? Did you really think I was that stupid?”
“No,” Batman said.
Gordon came around the barrel, moving his face in close. The firelight reflected in his lenses. Batman met his gaze without hesitation.
“You have your secrets,” Gordon said. “I’ve never pressed you for them, never. Maybe I should have, instead of letting you turn me into your… your… whatever it is you see me as.”
The edge of Batman’s mouth turned down, and Gordon realized that he’d hurt him, finally, without meaning to, and for a moment he didn’t know what to think, what to feel.
“You’re my partner,” Batman said.
Gordon started to laugh, turning away and putting the distance between them once more, feeling the heat from the fire fading. The breeze bit at him through his shirt.
“Don’t blow smoke at me,” he said.
“It’s true.”
“It’s what you’d like to think, I’ll accept that. But that doesn’t make it true.” Gordon spun back, suddenly furious. “Partners are equals, Batman! When have you ever treated me as your equal? Partners tell one another their plans. Partners keep each other informed. And they sure as hell don’t walk out on you in the middle of a sentence!”
Batman’s head turned away, slightly, as if he was looking into the fire. Gordon caught his breath again, feeling his lungs stinging once more from the day’s exertion. The scent of the smoke was sticking in the back of his throat.
Then something in Batman’s posture shifted, and Gordon saw it and for a moment couldn’t think of a way to explain it or define it or even name it. It was as if the vigilante, the demon at the fire, had suddenly shrunk, and for a clear moment then James Gordon saw absolutely the man beneath the cape and the cowl, the man who had fought on Gotham’s streets, every night it seemed, for over ten years. Gordon saw the pain that drove him, and he saw the loss.
“I’ve…” Batman began. “I’ve never been good at saying good-bye.”
Gordon found himself without words.
Batman kept looking into the fire. “You’re the best cop I’ve ever known. And I’ve known a lot of cops, Jim. There’s no man or woman living that I respect more than you.”
He turned once more to face him, and Gordon saw the posture shifting again, the man resolved to action.
“But as you said, saying so isn’t enough. The words don’t mean anything. They don’t fix the damage. They don’t rebuild the trust. Actions speak louder than words, and my actions haven’t spoken to you at all. That’s my fault.”
Gordon realized what Batman was doing a second after the motion started, saw the vigilante’s hands coming up to his cowl, the fingers slipping beneath the edge of the mask. He knew the rest of the action then, he knew what would happen next, and he turned away, and put his back to the other man.
There was just the sound of the fire. And then Batman’s voice, and it was different, softer. “Jim.”
Gordon shook his head, saying, “Put it… put it back on.”
“It’s the only thing I can give you other than my word,” Batman said softly. “When the world abandoned Gotham I had to find my reason again, my purpose.”
Gordon shut his eyes.
“I need our partnership,” Batman continued. “We can save Gotham. We’re so close, Jim. We can bring it back from the edge. This is the only thing I can give you. Me, my identity.”
“I don’t want it, dammit!” Gordon said. “If I wanted to know who you were, I could have discovered it ten years ago. And for all you know, maybe I did. Maybe I do know. But that’s not the point.
“Put it back on.”
He heard nothing from behind him, just the crackling of burning wood. He opened his eyes, looking at the back door of his house, the reflection of the fire in the glass.
Gordon turned around, taking his time, and when he saw Batman, it was with the cowl back in place and the man he knew and had known for over a decade again standing before him. The relief replaced the remnants of the anger.
“You need my help, huh?” he asked.
“You and your people’s.”
“Figured it wouldn’t be just me alone. We should plan.”
“Tomorrow. Sunset?”
“Here?”
“Agreed.”
“I’ll be waiting,” Gordon said.
Batman nodded and headed for the rear wall, Gordon watching him go. But Batman stopped before ascending, turning to look back.
Gordon thought he might even be smiling.
“Have a good night, Commissioner,” Batman said.
“You, too, Batman.”
Then he was over the fence, and Gordon was alone again in his garden, warmed by the fire.
PART FOUR
ORACLE
PERSONAL
Entry #631—NML Day 310
1953 Zulu
Italics indicating entry amended on #141 Day 364—2333 Zulu
Dear Dad—
The end of No Man’s Land
I’m still not certain when Batman saw it, when the pieces locked together in his mind and the plan took its final shape. He must have had doubts, he must have wondered if it was going to work at all, but you could never tell it from looking at him, you could never tell it from what he said. Even when events began accelerating, even when the media descended and the construction started and Gotham burst to frenetic, crazed life, he remained as staid and steady as before.
It was as if he had known all along as if there had never been the slightest doubt
And maybe he did see it all.
All of it save for one thing. The one thing none of us could have anticipated.
We didn’t know what it would cost us.
* * * * *
Dear Dad—
It started with a phone call, Lucius Fox trying to reach Bruce Wayne and dialing the number for Bruce’s personal assistant, Melinda. The call originated in D.C., and Fox thought he was calling Melinda in Kingston, Jamaica, and the signal bounced back into the States, through another three routers, before it even reached the Clock Tower I was finishing the file upload with Tim when the phone started ringing, and for a moment we both just sat there, trying to figure out what that damn noise was.
Then it hit Tim, and he shouted, “Phone!”
I whipped the chair around, checked the incoming signal, then booted my program for Melinda’s voice. When I answered, Lucius came over the speakers, loud and clear.
“Melinda Beaumont.” I said.
“Melinda, Lucius.” He was in a hurry, nearly breathless. “Is Bruce there?”
“You know better than to ask that, Mr. Fox,” I said. “I’m really not sure where he is right now. He had a one o’clock tee-time, so I assume he’s on the green now.”
“Can you page him?”
I laughed.
“Right,” Lucius said. “What was I thinking? All right, tell him that I’ve got news, big news. It’s not over yet, not by a long shot, but we won our suit in Federal Court. He’ll want that explained, but the quick version is—”
“The No Man’s Land has been found unconstitutional,” I finished. “Took them long enough.”
“That’s it that’s right. And yes it did. The government is, of course, appealing the decision, planning to take it to the Supreme Court, but that’s really not important because what I’m holding in my hand right now is a message asking me to be at the White House in twenty minutes. The President wants to meet with the coalition leaders to talk about an exit strategy for the NML.”
I tried not to cheer.
“Can you get the message to him, Melinda?” Lucius asked. “I know Bruce will be overjoyed. If all goes well, he’ll be back home by Christmas.”
“I’ll send someone out for him now,” I said. “Thanks, Mr. Fox, that’s great news.”
His sigh made the speakers crackle. “Not over yet,” he repeated. “But we’re close.”
I hung up, turned to Tim, who was grinning ear to ear. He gave me five and did a little dance in the Control Room, ending with a whoop, fist in the air.
“What are you celebrating?” I asked. “We’ve still got work to do.” So we went back to it.
That was the start.
Like I said we didn’t know how it would end.
And I can’t stop crying, Dad. Typing this now, and I can’t stop crying.
FORTY
JOKER WASW CERTAIN WHEN AND WHERE he had acquired Rupert, but he was glad he had. The young man had fillings like you wouldn’t believe, and that was what he needed at the moment.
“Too many sweets when you were a kid, eh, Rupert?” Joker said.
Rupert nodded and made a gurgling noise. Joker grinned and put the tinfoil antenna in his mouth, then walked around the man, positioning his head and arms for the best reception. Harley had found the pocket television who knew where, and they’d taken the batteries from some kid’s Game Boy. The television worked, but finding a signal was proving to be a real pain.
It was, in fact, Harley who had suggested that they make an antenna, but it had been Joker’s idea to use Rupert.
Satisfied with the work, Joker went back to his La-Z-Boy and sat down, motioning for Rupert to raise his right palm, where the television was now resting. Joker grunted and sank back in the chair, scratching his nether regions, feeling that the gesture was appropriate. Yes, he was surrounded by a group of violent and antisocial thugs who would do his bidding with but a word, and yes, this was no living room he was in but rather an abandoned slaughterhouse, and yes, Harley was a far cry from Donna Reed. But there was nothing more satisfying in Joker’s mind than sitting back in a comfy chair to watch the television after a long day’s work looking for people who needed a good killing.
The reception, however, wasn’t all he had hoped for. “Harley,” Joker said. “Change the channel.”
She bounded out from the area she had claimed as the kitchen, still in her harlequin costume but now wearing a yellow and pink floral-print apron. “Anything you need, Puddin’,” she said, bending in front of the television and turning the tiny dial. She waggled her rear at Joker as she did so.
“Stop there, on the news,” Joker said.
Harley did as asked and backed away, beaming. Then she slid around to behind the chair and began running her fingers through his hair. Joker thought that ignoring her for the time being was the funniest response, and so he focused on the small screen.
They’d picked up NewsChannel, in the middle of a broadcast from Washington, D.C., and on the screen a thirty-something black woman was speaking to the camera while standing outside of the Capitol. A caption on the screen said that her name was Laila Illes, and that she was “live.”
Joker thought that was a riot, and started laughing so hard he almost missed the good bit.
“Word tonight in a shift on the government’s No Man’s Land policy,” Illes was saying. “Seen by detractors far and wide as a dramatic failing of American domestic policy, the decision to create a federal No Man’s Land around the remains of Gotham City over ten months ago has been called everything from misguided to downright unconstitutional. In the wake of the ruling by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, a new groundswell of support has arisen, with congressional leaders and members of both houses suddenly inundated with calls, E-mails, and letters demanding swift action.”
The signal started to fade, and Joker nearly lost the last part of what Illes was saying. He motioned Harley forward again, to stand by Rupert and adjust the cant of his head. The signal got somewhat better, but not much.
“… closed-door sessions at the Capitol tonight and rumors of meetings at the White House. We’ll be following this story …”
The signal went out again, but Joker no longer cared. News was, for the most part, not funny and quite boring, unless it was about ethnic cleansing or people acquiring anthrax. He sprang up from, the chair, looking at the gathering of his boys, almost all of whom were ugly as sin and bright as mud.
“Who wants to watch The Punkmatics?” he asked.
Harley squealed in delight and began jumping up and down, saying, “Me! Me! Meee!!!”
He turned to give her a punchline, but Rupert then dropped the television, setting up a much better joke.
Joker looked at the man, the tinfoil antenna still in his mouth, his neck tilted back, his arms still extended. The tiny television was shattered at his feet.
All of his boys were dead silent.
Joker grinned at Rupert. “Hey,” he said, crouching to begin cleaning up the mess. “Accidents happen, right?”
Rupert nodded, still afraid to take the now-useless antenna from his mouth.
Joker picked through the broken television until he found what he wanted, a nice sliver of the broken screen, almost an inch and a half long. He picked it up gingerly, clapping Rupert on the back with his other hand, then waggling his eyebrows in a Groucho Marx fashion at his boys. They were his audience, after all, and even though it was a small turnout for such a good show, they deserved his best efforts.
You had to treat the audience with respect, Joker knew.
“We were watching that, you know, Rupert. And poor Harley, she was really looking forward to The Punkmatics and everything.” Joker pushed Rupert’s head level with his empty hand, forcing him to look at where Harley was sobbing uncontrollably, using the corner of her filthy apron to wipe her eyes.
Rupert made a noise around the antenna in his mouth that Joker took to mean he was sorry.
“Oh, I am, too, Rupert, I am, too. But the problem is, now we have no entertainment for the evening, and after Harley went to such trouble to make dinner.” Joker gestured to the food that Quinn had spent the last two hours carefully burning to an absolutely inedibly charred state. “And you know how girls get.”
Rupert barely nodded, eyes wide with fear.
“So now we have to come up with another show. Any suggestions?”
Rupert made a muffled sound, one syllable and pathetic.
“Kill you?” Joker exclaimed. “That’s a great idea!”
And so he did.
* * * * *
“You assured me there would be no mishaps,” Miss Graves said coldly.
“You had my assurances, indeed,” the Penguin answered smoothly. “But a woman such as yourself knows that there are no guarantees in life. Even less so when there is a Batman lurking in our midst.”
