Batman no mans land, p.35
Batman: No Man's Land, page 35
“I just don’t know what to do to get your attention, I just don’t know what to do, Bats. You don’t come out to play, you’re not around, it’s like… it’s like you’re ignoring me. All I ever see are your brats, the second-stringers, the wannabes. Ratgirl and the Boy Blunder and that other one that no one knows the name of.”
“Nightwing,” Harley offered.
Joker kicked her in the shins without looking, still speaking to the imagined Batman. “I’m starting to take it personally, I really am, and I know I shouldn’t because I know that personally you just wouldn’t take anything anyway, not even from me, but, really, just look at the situation here. What am I supposed to think?”
The dummy remained strangely silent.
“You’re useless, you know that?” Joker told the dummy, turning and brandishing the scythe at his gathered boys. “I ask you, what do I have to do to get some attention in this burg?”
Now his boys were really interested in the floor.
“Well?” he demanded. “Criminy jeepers here, kids, gimme something!”
The boys were as silent as the decapitated dummy.
Joker turned away in disgust, tossing the scythe over his shoulder, and he was strangely vindicated to hear that one of his boys was now making very wet and bubbly sounds. Harley was looking at him adoringly, and the last thing he wanted right then was to be adored by her, so he grabbed her by the fluffy white ruff around her neck and used it to see if he could get her face to turn red, even under all that white makeup she insisted on wearing.
“I don’t get no respect, that’s the problem,” he told Harley. “Geez, listen to me, I sound like that fatso, that comedian, what’s-his-name…”
“Dangerfield?” Harley croaked.
“No, you idiot!” he screamed. “The other one, the fat one… Bullock! That’s it! Bullock!”
He dropped Harley as quickly as he’d grabbed her, staring mournfully at the decapitated dummy of Batman.
“It’s just not fair,” he said petulantly.
“Aw, Mr. J, don’t talk like that,” Harley said hoarsely. “You’re the best, Puddin’, and you know it! You rock! And… and if they can’t see that themselves, well, then … we just got to make ‘em see, that’s what we got to do! We got to make ‘em see!”
Joker wiped at his nose with the edge of his jacket, sniffling. “Really?”
“Oh, yeah, of course! Absolutely! Isn’t that right, boys? Boys?”
The boys agreed that, in fact, it was right and true. They did this quietly, trying not to be noticed, but Joker saw the reactions and it perked him up instantly.
“The problem, Puddin’,” Harley went on, “is that you’ve been out of the spotlight for too long, that’s the trouble. We got to get you back in the spotlight.”
Joker grinned, reaching for Harley. He twisted her ear painfully until she made a noise like a cat falling into a garbage disposal. Then he let go, thinking about something she’d said. Something about his back-.—no, no, not his back, but about…
“Spotlights!” Joker exclaimed.
He knew where he could find some of those, yes indeedy.
* * * * *
“Mercy, let’s hear it.”
“It happened again last night, Lex. Around oh three-thirty at the Taylor Street site, where the crews were clearing the ground for a new foundation.”
Luthor scowled.
“Joker showed up,” Mercy continued. “Everyone ran—”
“That site was guarded!”
“The guards panicked, Lex. By the time I was on-site Joker had left.”
Luthor’s scowl deepened. “Continue.”
“Our equipment was destroyed. No fatalities.”
She watched as her employer rose from the table, crossing to the entrance of the hut, looking out. A light snow was falling, and outside, across the compound, in the mess tent, Mercy could see LexCorp employees gathering for dinner. Without turning around, Luthor said, “That makes it every night this week. He’s out of control and he’s costing us time and money. Take care of the problem, Mercy.”
She smiled. “Already on it, Lex.”
* * * * *
Robin was being snowed upon, which he wouldn’t have normally minded if he could move. But he had been told by Batman to maintain a static surveillance post over five days ago, and so he had to stay still, or at least, relatively still, which to him was practically the same thing. Batman was good at staying still. Even Nightwing could do it if he really needed to. But Tim Drake liked to move, and he liked to talk, and he liked to be with people.
He did not like spying. He especially did not like spying on people he was kinda fond of, and he had to include Huntress in that list. He understood why Batman felt the way he did about her. She was pretty dangerous, he knew that. She had killed people, after all. Not like the Arkham crowd, not like the criminals who used to run the Gotham streets, but yes, she’d put on a costume and then she’d taken lives while wearing it.
That was a hard thing to get past, even for Tim.
But he kinda liked her, and now, after watching her and Billy Pettit’s Strong Men for five days, he’d reached a couple of conclusions. One of them was that she deserved better than this. She shouldn’t have to baby-sit Billy Pettit and not even know that was exactly what Batman had wanted her to do way back when he’d stripped her of the Batgirl mask.
Robin rubbed his gloved hands together, then checked the receiver and headphones, making certain the bugs were still functioning. The levels looked good. Across the street, in the building Pettit used as his headquarters, he saw lamps being lit in one of the rooms. He put the headphones on and brought the binoculars up, saw Huntress pacing back and forth like an animal in a cage.
He lowered the binoculars to turn up the volume, and saw that Batman was standing beside him.
“Wondered if you’d come by,” Robin said.
“Anything today?”
“I placed all the microphones as you ordered and they’ve all checked out okay. Reading loud and clear. Other than that, nothing.”
“And Huntress?”
Robin glanced back at the window, trying to think of the best way to speak his mind. “She went outside a couple times today, patrolling the perimeter. I stayed out of sight, she didn’t see me.”
“Not what I meant.”
“I know what you meant. Best that I can tell, she’s not a happy camper.”
Batman extended his hand for the binoculars, and Robin handed them over. Batman spent almost a minute scanning the building, and Robin saw that in the room where Huntress was, another figure had joined her. The light was bad, and even using NVG he wouldn’t be able to make out the features, not without the optics, but he thought it looked like Pettit.
“Receiver on,” Batman said. “I want to hear them.”
Robin pulled the headphone jack out of the unit, then flipped the speakers on, keeping the volume low. The voices came through with slight distortion and a little static, but it was easy to make out the words and who was speaking them.
“—aren’t prisoners, Pettit! They should be free to come and go if they like!”
“They’re my people! Every time they leave this sector they leave us weakened! That’s a tactical risk I cannot and will not allow, Huntress. I want checkpoints from now on, nobody comes in or out of here without my permission!”
“Are you mad? We’re not the bad guys here! We’ve got an obligation to protect the people in this sector, that’s it, that’s all we set out to do!”
“You don’t like ii you can leave. . . maybe Batman will take you back. . . if you beg him. . . but maybe it’s time you faced facts, sweetheart. You’ve got nowhere else to go.”
There was the sound of a door slamming, and Robin could see that Huntress was alone in the room once more. Beside him, the binoculars still up, Batman hadn’t moved.
“Dammit.”
Her voice sounded very small over the speaker.
Batman lowered the binoculars, handing them back and then switching the speaker off. “She’ll make it,” he told Robin. “She’s strong.”
“I hope you’re right.”
Batman’s expression tightened, but he didn’t respond directly, saying, “What are the numbers on Pettit’s men?”
“Fourteen as of now, all trained by him. They’re like some sort of Special Forces wannabe unit. Most of them were GCPD, I think.”
“If she tries a coup…?”
“She can’t take them all out, and the only person who might consider helping her is Foley. Even that’s a maybe.” Robin glanced back at the building, where Huntress was still in silhouette by the window, her head down. He thought maybe that she was praying. “Pettit will kill her if she challenges him. That’s my assessment.”
“Understood. You should get out of the snow, head to the Clock Tower and get some rest. This will keep for the night.”
“Where are you going?”
“I have some baby-sitting of my own to do,” Batman said.
Then he was gone, leaving Robin to wonder if his mind was truly that easy to read.
FORTY-THREE
THEY’D SEEN DOING IT FOR LONG ENOUGH that everyone knew their parts and was pretty good about sticking to them, except for Harley, who, Joker had noticed, had an irritating tendency to ad-lib. He’d talked to her about it twice already, and he really hoped it would stick this time.
The guards went down easily, all of them blinded by the lights that surrounded the construction site, and so it was easy to get in close and bash them over the head with one of the many blunt and heavy objects lying around. The boys did this quietly, which Joker appreciated, because it kept the workers from noticing. Whenever the workers noticed, they’d run and scream and then Joker would have to content himself with simple property damage.
He’d been doing this for eight nights now, and what he really wanted was an innocent victim. More than that, of course, he wanted Bats, but in lieu of Bats he’d take some poor schmuck who’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
That was the essence of humor, after all. Timing.
Once all the guards were down, Joker gave Harley a shove out into the light, following closely behind. He’d been working with props a lot lately, but was trying to keep it simple tonight. Just Boo-Boo the Rubber Chicken Surprise, that was it.
Harley recovered her balance and did a couple of cartwheels up to the edge of the pit where the workers were busy working. Joker thought they were digging a foundation, but foundations were boring, so maybe it was a mass grave. That would be good, a mass grave, he thought.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” Harley was shouting. “Back by popular demand for his eighth consecutive night, the one… the only . . .Joker!!”
Joker bounded out of the shadows, making certain the lights caught his good side, his arms up, waving Boo-Boo the Rubber Chicken Surprise. “Thank you, thank you so much for coming!”
“…and his lovely and talented assistant, Harley Quinn,” Harley added.
Joker hit her in the nose with Boo-Boo, saying, “No adlibs!”
The workers, of course, were now screaming for him. Or because of him. He was never certain which it was these days. The boys were moving in to exercise some crowd control, which was good, because certain members of the audience were trying to get away. Of course, those were the ones that caught his notice, in particular a female one, in dirty blue coveralls and a yellow hard hat, and he thought, hey, she has red hair! And so he jumped into the ditch in front of her, blocking her way and then showing her Boo-Boo.
The woman backed into the side of the ditch, and Joker knew a captive audience when he saw one, so leaned in and said, “Hey, great to be here tonight, and what’s your name, doll?”
She had trouble getting her tongue to work, it seemed. She said, “L-l-l-lo—lor-lori…”
“Lori!” Joker exclaimed, then stage-whispered to her, “You ought to see someone about that stammer, kid.”
Above, Harley giggled.
Joker showed Lori Boo—Boo the Rubber Chicken Surprise, and she tried to back farther away but now, since she was trapped, all she could do was move her head back farther and farther until her hard hat came off and she was pressed against the freshly cleared earth.
“It just so happens,” Joker said, “that I can help you with that st-st-stammer of yours.”
“No… no, please …” Lori said
“No trouble at all.” He showed her Boo-Boo’s surprise:
inside the rubber chicken’s mouth was a pair of really nasty old scissors. Joker snipped at her a couple times, not yet cutting, hoping she’d pick up her cue.
“Please,” she said. “Please, please don’t do this to me, please. .
“Louder,” Joker said. “Like you mean it. Scream, too.”
Her eyes were frantic and almost dumb and she clearly didn’t get it, so he put his mouth to her ear, still holding the scissors over her face.
“Between you and me, Lori,” Joker whispered. “This has nothing to do with you, you seem like a sweet kid, the kind of girl I’d take home and feed to Mother. But, you see, I’ve got to get his attention somehow, and I’m pretty much out of ideas.”
“God oh God please don’t I’m begging you please…”
And then he saw the shadow falling over him and he immediately forgot about Lori, straightening up and turning and saying, “Finally! I was beginning to think that you didn’t love me…”
It wasn’t him.
It was Bane.
“… anymore?” Joker finished. “Oh, this is gonna hurt, isn’t it?” :
Bane lifted him by the collar, cocking his right fist back.
“Yes,” Bane said. “It is.”
And Joker felt the familiar hot sensation of a fist colliding with his face, and the world went all silly for a little bit, and then he was on his back looking up at the stars, and Bane was coming out of the ditch after him. Joker still had Boo-Boo in his hand, and he tried to readjust his grip so he could stab or snip with it, but Bane was already lifting him up again.
“I don’t think you’re very funny,” Bane said.
“Well, you know, comedy’s tricky that way—”
He was in the air again, then on the ground, and this time it took longer to get the world sorted out again. He’d lost Boo-Boo.
He was looking up a woman’s skirt at her nasties, her knickers, her underthings, her unmentionables.
He giggled.
“I see London, I see France…” Joker began, then stopped when the woman pointed a gun directly at his face.
Bane yanked him back to his feet, turning him to face the woman. She was blond and big and wearing a lot of black, and she was pointing the gun right at his face. Joker felt blood swimming in his mouth, and he swallowed it, savoring the taste.
“You stand when you speak to a lady,” Bane told him.
“Of course, of course. And the lady might be?”
The woman smiled at him. “All you need to know is mine is the last face you’re ever going to see. No one messes with Mr. Luthor’s business—”
“That’s enough of that, toots,” Harley said, and Joker saw that his harlequin had a great big gun of her own pointed at the mean woman’s head. “You let him go or I’ll put a whole new breeze through that airhead of yours.”
Joker giggled. “Ain’t she a pip?”
The woman with the pistol and the unmentionables frowned, then lowered the gun. “Let him go, Bane,” she said.
Bane let him go.
Joker dusted himself off, retrieved Boo-Boo, and headed for the shadows, stopping to check that Harley was following him.
“Been fun!” he said with a wave, and then he and Harley disappeared into the darkness.
* * * * *
Bane returned to Camp Lex with Mercy, but they parted company at Luthor’s hut. He had yet to speak with the man in person, and each time he’d gotten dose, Mercy had prevented it, restricting access. Bane understood this, but it was both annoying and insulting. Here he had given Lex Luthor some of his best work—at least, to Luthor’s knowledge—and still he was being treated like a costumed lunatic, a tool to be discarded.
There was a distinct lack of respect there, Bane felt.
He went to the trailer that had been supplied for him, away from the main camp and out of the eyes of the media. He was cold and looking forward to having a brandy and going to sleep, and he was thinking of just those things when he closed the door behind him and switched on the light to see Batman waiting for him.
“An unexpected surprise,” Bane said. “To what do I owe the pleasure? Are you here for our rematch?”
“No.”
“No, I did not think so. You were watching tonight when the clown gave his performance?”
“Yes.”
“Yes. Of course.” Bane reached past him and took the bottle of brandy on the counter and a glass, then moved to the couch. He sat and poured himself a drink. “I would offer you one, but you would decline it, I have no doubt.”
“I appreciate the gesture.”
Bane chuckled and took a sip, feeling the alcohol burn in his sinuses and mouth. Batman, it seemed to him, looked almost relaxed. That made Bane feel strangely good about himself. Here, at least, was a man who gave him respect.
“You know, it took me a while to figure out what you were up to,” Bane said conversationally. “After that whole fiasco at the Hall of Records. You could have just told me to set off the explosives; I was planning on doing so anyway.”
“I needed to get a look for myself. Had to get inside.”
“I understand, trust me. As I said, it took me a little while to figure it out.”
“But now?”
“Now I know. The fact that you’re here confirms it. I haven’t told Luthor, if that’s your concern.”
“I didn’t think you would have.”
Bane smirked into his snifter, then took another, larger sip. “You do me an honor, Batman.”
“I’ve come to repeat what I told you that night,” Batman said. “Leave while you can. You know what I’m planning. You must know that when I’m finished, Luthor won’t be honoring his deals with anyone, least of all you.”
