Suicide Squad (3 page)

* * *

The steel door to the medical wing was bolted shut from inside. Five pouches of C-4 plastic explosives removed the obstacle. Jonny Frost, easily six-foot-four, emerged from the chaos and effortlessly held up his find.

“Got her, boss,” he said to a tall, muscular figure standing in the shadows. “Just where you said she’d be.”

The Joker stepped out from the dark. He was tall and lean, with bright green hair, and ripped like a mixed-martial-arts fighter. Metal-capped teeth glinted in the light. He studied the beautiful young psychiatrist.

“Doctor Quinzel,” he said, “how nice of you to join us. You’re looking… good enough to eat. Figuratively speaking, of course. I’m strictly vegan. At least today.”

Quinzel squirmed in Frost’s grip, but he held firmly onto her. “Time for a little electroshock therapy,” Joker said, then added, “Frost, do me a favor, will you? Dump our pretty lady on the table.”

The mercenary threw Quinzel onto the exam table then strapped her into place. Joker removed his prison shirt, carefully folded it, then placed it to the side.

His extraordinarily pale skin was covered over with dozens—maybe hundreds—of insane tattoos, showing from head to foot. An eerie wide grin was inked on his right forearm while a parade of laughing “HA-HA-HA”s crept up his chest to his left arm and under his tangle of emerald hair. Dozens more were carefully placed along his side, back, and legs, filling nearly every open space.

He saw Quinzel staring at him, confused. He gestured toward the shirt.

“The government spent a helluva lot of money buying us thrift store rejects, so I’m not going to potentially dirty it with your blood. Come on. Do I look like a barbarian?”

Harleen Quinzel’s eyes reflected her fear. “Please don’t. Please. I did what you said. I helped you.” She tried to struggle free, but the straps were designed to hold a 400-pound madman.

The Joker fell back. His eyes rolled into his head as if he simply couldn’t believe what he had just heard. He shook his head to clear away his confusion, then stuck his face inches from Quinzel’s own.

“You helped me?” he repeated. “You helped me? By scorching what few dead, faded memories I had into a sizzling knot?”

“That was prescribed,” she pleaded. “Everything said it was the best possible cure for you.”

“For my what, girl? A cure for my genius? My insanity? My ability to do bird calls? Or maybe you mean it was to help cure my bad back? You know I got that digging graves for that basketball team I kidnapped, way back when.”

She stared at him, obviously confused. He leaned closer to her.

“Doctor Quinzel, do you know that for years and years they kept playing against this one other team. Only this one other team, and guess what? They lost every single game. Every. Single. Game.”

The Joker sighed at the thought.

“Anyway, where was I? Oh. Right. At some point don’t you think even a total idiot would say, ‘Maybe we should play a different team,’ or better, that ‘God’s telling us we should quit basketball and go into business selling, I don’t know, aluminum siding, maybe?’ What do you think?”

“I don’t know what to say,” she responded. “Please don’t make me. Please let me go.”

“Let you go?” Joker said. He scratched his chin as if he was thinking deeply, then he gave her a huge smile. “Let you go? That is an idea, but when it was my turn to get my brains scrambled, you didn’t let me go, did you?”

“I’m sorry. I was only trying to help.”

Joker understood. “I know. I’m sure you thought electrifying my brains was the best way to fix all my many problems. But I’ve got to ask you a question, Doctor. Did it ever cross your itty-bitty brain that maybe you could spend just a little extra time and come up with a better solution than churning my gray matter into instant pudding? What do you think, dearie? Would taking a little more time have proven a better way to go?”

“Maybe. Sure. Why not?” Quinzel stammered, more than willing to agree with anything he said. “I mean, if that’s what you think. I was just trying to do the right thing.”

He flailed his arms, his hands waving back and forth, puppet-like, uncontrolled, as if the hinges that held them to his wrists had broken.

“Doing the right thing, huh? You tossed me into a black hole of rage and confusion. Is that the medicine you practice, Dr. Quinzel? Is that ‘doing the right thing’ for all your special patients?”

He held a leather strap in one hand, and with the other traced a long, sharp pinky nail along her lips.

“Now I’m throwing you into the same black hole,” he said as he stroked her face with the leather strap then rested it over her closed mouth. “Open up, doll,” Joker said as he pushed the strap between her lips. “And bite hard. This is so you don’t break those perfect porcelain-capped teeth when the juice hits your brain. You’ll thank me later.”

“You say you didn’t want to hurt me,” he continued as she complied, “yet you did. And I insist I don’t intend to hurt you, but you know what? Sometimes hurt happens.” He stepped back, then gave a wide smile and laughed his approval. “You are so going to be my Mona Lisa, and I, for one, could not be more proud.”

* * *

Frost handed him the two paddles that had been sitting on the small steel instrument table. He made a show of smearing them with conductive jelly then placed them on her temples.

Quinzel knew what was coming, and his slow, deliberate moves only prolonged her horror. When he smiled at her… with that awful, gleaming, murdering smile… she screamed through the ball and leather strap.

“Forget you ever met me,” he giggled, but she knew she never could.

Harleen Quinzel was in love with the man.

She convulsed as 450 volts seared through her brain. Her face contorted in impossible agony. Her teeth ground into the rubber. Joker was right—if he hadn’t stuffed the ball into her mouth, her teeth would have cracked as she smashed them together.

The psychiatrist writhed in agony. She was mewling with pain, yet somehow asked for more. Pain and pleasure. More pain than pleasure. More pleasure than pain.

Until she heard the machine suddenly go dead. Her teeth stopped chewing the rubber ball, which was almost completely shredded into ragged strings, and then her body went slack. A single tear fell from her open eyes.

Goodbye, sanity.

Hello, madness, my old friend.

* * *

Joker let the last remains of her tears get sopped up in her laboratory smock then exhaled a long, satisfied sigh. He set aside the paddles and took a set of street clothes from Frost.

“Good lookin’ lady, boss,” his aide-de-camp said. “She really liked you.”

Joker slipped on the newly pressed shirt, buttoned it then checked himself out in the med-unit mirror.

“It would never have worked,” Joker replied. “She kept trying to fix me.”

Frost took his Glock and screwed it into Quinzel’s ear.

“Who said you were broken?”

Joker slipped on his diamond-shaped ‘J’ pinky ring, then he smiled… Not an ordinary smile. Not a smile to make someone laugh with him. No. This was “The Smile.” The corners of his mouth slid up his face into a vast, deadly rictus, metal teeth flashing. This was a hyena’s smile.

A smile that could kill.

It was a smile Frost had seen before. One that frightened the hell out of him. He holstered the Glock, then the two of them left the med lab.

Outside, the commander of Joker’s paramilitary force stared down at the asylum’s warden, lying on the floor, rolled up in an embarrassing fetal position, knowing full well that at any moment he was going to be killed. The force were all dressed in costumes. Weird. Bizarre. Twisted costumes. The better to frighten you with.

Panda Man, wearing a panda face mask, sported a large heart on his chest with the words “Friends forever” on it. Goat Head Priest sported an actual preserved goat’s head which he wore over his black priest robes and rosary.

Crying Baby Man was dressed in a security man uniform while wearing a crying baby mask over his face. Eyeball Man was in a red janitor’s outfit—almost normal except for the large eyeball mask that covered his entire head.

Finally there were Shark Heads one and two—two linebacker-sized bruisers wearing black and white shark head masks, also dressed in full black suits, with ties over white dress shirts.

Weird. Bizarre. Twisted costumes.
The better to frighten you with.

The commander put his gun to the warden’s temple.

“Bang!” he said.

He laughed as he gestured to his men that they were done. Then they all walked away, taking with them the inert form of Dr. Harleen Quinzel, leaving the warden alone and lost, whimpering on his office floor.

Floyd Lawton, dressed in coveralls and carrying a toolbox, happily hummed his favorite television theme songs as he turned right on Kanigher Avenue, then sauntered down Courthouse Alley, past the ever-present gauntlet of Gotham City’s homeless.

He gave them each a sympathetic smile, one that seemed to say “I’ve been there,” as he tossed out fast-food coupons that promised the hungry recipients a warm meal.

They cost him nothing. He’d stolen them, and they would help thin out the crowd as the hungry hurried to get their hot but not quite so tasty Tex-Mex burritos. His generosity wasn’t so much a good deed as a necessity. The fewer people watching him during his setup stage, the better it was.

For them.

He watched them scramble for the coupons. One or two managed to grab a couple. A veritable feast was in store for them. He saw a woman with a baby in one of those sling carriers try to pick up a coupon, but some guy pushed her aside and took it instead. Lawton flashed on his own daughter, Zoe, as a baby… then moved on.

Nobody said life was fair.

He had a job to do and no time to waste.

Yet he flashed on Zoe again. Damn. He reached into his pocket and took out his last two coupons and tossed them to the woman.

“Lose these, you’re screwed,” he said as he walked off. She grabbed them and rushed for her dinner.

Halfway up the block he stopped at the stone ledge he had scouted the day he took the job. He looked up to see the once-grand courthouse at the end of the street, then fit a thick steel plate into its pre-sized niche as planned. He tapped the “on” switch to the small camera drilled into the plate and grinned as its green light flashed.

Perfect.

Taking a monocle lens from his pocket, he propped it over one eye and checked to see if the video feed was working.

Almost perfect.

Lawton shifted the plate with a fingertip, and kept nudging it until the video feed was lined up just right. A fraction of an inch off could cost him millions.

He grinned, checked to see if anyone was watching, but as expected, the Courthouse Alley tenants were all at the fast-food place, gorging on their burritos.

Once again, perfect.

He pocketed the monocle, walked off, and resumed humming his beloved theme song playlist as he turned onto Broome Street and went into the Gardener building. As he entered, he saw a pair of U.S. marshals standing by the front desk. They gestured for him to approach. One patted him down while the other inspected his toolbox.

“What’s up?” Lawton asked. “This is new.”

One of the marshals checked his name against the approved list, found it, and marked it off. “Big Mafia trial. Half’a downtown’s sewn up. Okay. You’re good.” Lawton thanked the marshal and headed for the elevator.

Fifty-two seconds later he got off at the top floor and took the stairs to the roof. He’d been worried they might have bolted shut the door, so he was prepared for that contingency, but it swung open with a push.

That’s why they’re civil servants, and not rich
, he mused, and he chuckled.

Walking across the roof to the air-conditioning unit, he crouched next to it and removed the thin metal sheet covering its mechanism, revealing a scoped and silenced rifle wrapped in a clear plastic bag. He’d hidden it there earlier in the week, before the extra security.

Be prepared
. That might have been the only thing that stayed with him from his days in the Boy Scouts.

Lawton took out his Deadshot headpiece, pulled it on, then snapped the monocle into place, giving him access to the video feed. He then removed his overalls, revealing his uniform. It wasn’t necessary, but he felt more professional being properly dressed for work.

Deadshot reached into the back of the air-conditioning unit and took out a small case. A single homemade match-grade bullet rested inside. He rolled it between his fingers, loaded it into his rifle, then held the weapon as if he was born behind it.

It felt that natural.

He took his smart phone, and logged into his bank account. The balance was currently zero.

“Bastard,” he growled. “Always playing games, aren’t you?” He then slipped the phone into a clip on the rifle barrel and hit dial.

“Yeah?” The voice was thick and accented.

“Angelo, it’s the guy you hired for your rat problem. My account’s kinda thin, know what I mean? Don’t wanna bounce no checks.” As he spoke, Deadshot watched the street far below him. U.S. marshals were in place, screening the area.
Good luck with that, you idiots.

Angelo’s voice was light-hearted.

“No one gets paid until what needs to get done gets done.”

If Deadshot felt at a disadvantage, it didn’t show in his voice.

“You know the rules,” he replied. “No money, no honey. Should I pack up?” The marshals turned as an armored SUV pulled onto the street. “Ah. Here’s your boy now, with twenty of his new best friends. Dude is about to get a sore throat from all the singing he’s gonna do.”

The SUV stopped. Deadshot turned to check his smart phone then shook his head, disappointed.

“Hey. You there, Angelo? I’m still seeing only zeroes.”

This time there was an edge to Angelo’s reply.

“Stop being cute, man. Do your job.” Below, the marshals opened the door, revealing the target—this month’s mafia snitch.

Deadshot’s monocle showed range, wind, ballistic curves. The camera he put in the alley was doing its job. Like always.