The Further Adventures of Batman (30 page)

Batman was a creature of the night, but the canyons of Gotham City afforded shadow by day. And where that shadow did not reach, the latest model Batmobile, with its chameleon paint and dark windows, afforded cover and concealment for stakeouts. So it was that Batman found it feasible to pick up and tail Foster Cavendish without arousing Cavendish’s suspicions.

The Foster Cavendishes lived in a high-rise condominium on fashionable Eden Avenue. At half past ten
A.M.
, Foster Cavendish emerged from the elegant front entrance and the doorman hailed a cab. Just before stepping in, Cavendish looked back and up, shifted his carry-on to his other hand, and waved. From a window near the top, a wide-sleeved arm returned the wave.

Batman followed the cab to Fitzgerald Airport and watched Cavendish pick up a ticket to Red Wing, Minnesota, then board the plane a good ten minutes before takeoff. Batman smiled.

The bird would be on the wing and away from danger at the hands of the Riddler, for the Riddler would want—as a matter of pride if not honor—to carry out his threats within the borders of Gotham City.

Then Batman thought again. A bomb set to go off while the plane was still in Gotham City’s airspace would fulfill the Riddler’s self-imposed guidelines.

Batman had no certain knowledge that the Riddler had planted a bomb on this flight—but then he had no certain knowledge that the Riddler had not planted a bomb.

Better to be safe than sorry, as his parents had been wont to tell him before their untimely deaths at the hands of a holdup man—his eyewitnessed event that had turned him into the fearsome Batman striking terror into hearts of criminals.

He darted to a pay phone, beating out a yellow-bonneted, green-gowned woman. She folded her Easter parasol and hammered his shoulders with it while he dialed 911, but when she heard the word “bomb” in his anonymous tip she shrieked—OOOOHHH!!!—and let up.

Batman, again in the Batmobile, watched the plane disgorge its passengers and crew, a pale and trembling Cavendish among them.

ULPULPULPULPULP!!! EEPWEEPWEEPWEEPWEEP!!! The bomb squad arrived in its ululating van and searched the plane with dogs and electronic sniffers.

No bomb.

But the nonevent had shaken Cavendish. After a few drinks at an airport lounge, he got himself and his carry-on into another cab and headed home.

Batman followed, weighed down with responsibility. The anonymous tip had backfired, putting Cavendish squarely back in danger of death at the Riddler’s hands. Now Batman would have to stay almost as close as Cavendish’s skin if he were to protect him from the Riddler.

While the doorman assisted Cavendish and his carry-on out of the cab and into the building, Batman scooted around to the back and let himself in through the basement door. He had counted the stories to the window Mrs. Cavendish had waved from, and knew what button to press. The freight elevator took Batman to Cavendish’s floor before the passenger elevator arrived.

With seconds to spare, Batman located the Cavendish nameplate, drew a lockpick from his belt, opened the door, and slipped inside.

He squeezed inside the hall closet, behind raincoats and boots. He had barely done so when the front door opened again, this time with the rattle of keys and a loud BANG! as it slammed shut and the THUMP! of the carry-on hitting the floor.

From a rear bedroom came a banshee wail. EEEEEE!!!

“It’s only me, honey,” Cavendish called out. “I just had a bad scare.”

“You had a bad scare? What do you think this was?”

Batman peered out cautiously and glimpsed a frizz of hennaed hair and a filmy peignoir.

“Wait till I tell you, Bathsheba. Mine was a bomb scare. I let the plane take off without me. Brrr. Boy, I could use a stiff one.”

Bathsheba’s voice turned concerned. “Poor baby. Go into the living room and I’ll pour you a tall glass.”

Batman waited until they had gone into the living room, then he stole out of the closet and prowled the apartment in search of a better hiding place, one that would allow him to keep a lookout for the Riddler.

As he stepped into the bedroom Bathsheba had come from, he stopped dead in his tracks. His senses told him of another presence.

He attuned himself and caught muffled breathing from beneath the king-size bed.

Moving softly, he drew near enough to the bed to grip the footboard, then with a sudden jerk and thrust he swung the bed in an arc. Then he pounced upon the form thus laid bare, before it could move.

“Got you, Riddler!” he gritted through clenched teeth as he tightened a chokehold on the man beneath him on the floor.

“Aarghh!” The man was trying to tell him something.

To deny being the Riddler.

Batman took his first good look at the man, eased his grip, and slowly got to his feet. The man was Housing Commissioner Sam Rubin.

Batman quickly recovered. Rubin was sitting up, gently massaging his throat where wheals showed. He looked around and started to croak something. Batman spotted a shirt and trousers on a chair. He shoved Rubin flat, tossed the clothes onto him, and swung the bed back into place.

He owed Rubin nothing, not the covering up of Rubin’s cuckolding of Foster Cavendish, not even the saving of Rubin’s life—it seemed clear now that the Riddler’s target was not Cavendish but Rubin. Batman would do whatever fell in with foiling the Riddler.

A buzzer sounded, and Batman listened to talk over the intercom. The doorman announced a postman with a special delivery package for Bathsheba Cavendish that she had to sign for, and Cavendish told the doorman to let the man in.

Batman’s heart pounded,
This was it!
The Riddler had signed his challenge “Billet-doux-ly”—and here came a letter carrier. It must indeed be a special delivery that brought a letter carrier on Easter Sunday.

The doorbell rang.

“I’ll get it, dear.” That was Bathsheba.

Batman debated with himself whether to act now or to hold off until the Riddler made his move. He decided to hold off.

The door opened.

“Why, what a lovely package!” Bathsheba called over her shoulder. “Thank you, dear. Here, you take it and open it.”

“Sign here, ma’am.”

“I didn’t send it. You must have an unknown admirer.”

“Sign here, ma’am.”

“And wouldn’t that be nice. Open it. I want to see what my secret lover sent me.”

“Sign here, ma’am.”

Before Batman could shout not to open the package, he heard paper rip.

“It’s a big chocolate Easter egg!”

“How sweet!”

He did not hear another “Sign here, ma’am.”

Evidently the Riddler had chosen not to wait.

Batman hurtled into the living room, grabbed the chocolate egg from Foster Cavendish, and dashed out of the apartment.

TICK-TICK-TICK-TICK-TICK

The egg was clutched close to his heart, which went
thumpthumpthumpthumpthump.

Foster Cavendish stared at Bathsheba Cavendish. “With
Batman?”

Bathsheba stood with folded arms and lifted her chin.

Oblivious to this byplay, Batman raced down the hall with the Easter egg as though heading for a touchdown. The Riddler, dressed as a letter carrier, was alone in the cage. Their eyes met as the door closed.

Batman skidded to a stop, and with one arm forced the sliding door open enough to drop the chocolate egg through; the egg fell toward the top of the descending elevator cab. Batman pulled quickly back and flattened against the wall. Even so, he found himself flung to the floor while splinters of wood and steel pierced his cape.

B-A-R-O-O-M!!!

Then SWOOSHHHH-THUDD!!! as the blast severed the steel cables and dropped the cage several floors to the basement.

A singed and battered postman limped out past the doorman and hobbled away.

A quarter hour later, Sam Rubin slipped out from under the bed and pretended to have come with the police and fire personnel now swarming the scene. Foster Cavendish was touched that Rubin had responded to the news of the explosion—not just as a Housing Commissioner concerned about damage to habitable buildings, but as an acquaintance concerned about the Cavendishes. Cavendish hadn’t realized how good a friend of the family Rubin was.

Batman dreaded the thought of facing Alfred with the cape in the state it was.

Wayne phoned Sollis. “Do you happen to know how many Wise Men of Gotham there were?”

A pause, then Amicia said, “I could journey to England and look up Gotham in the Domesday Book, and in the Pipe Rolls that carried on the census, but I doubt I’d find a breakdown of the male population into wise and foolish.”

A pause at Wayne’s end, then he said, “You’re taking me too literally. I’m talking about the Wise Men in the legends, not necessarily about men who lived and breathed.”

“You’re right, Bruce. I ought to lighten up. Let’s see . . . Well, there is a nursery rhyme:

‘Three wise men of Gotham

Went to sea in a bowl.

If the bowl had been stronger,

My story had been longer.’

But it doesn’t say ‘The three wise men.’ So that leaves it open-ended.”

“What I was afraid of,” Wayne said.

Even though Bruce would have continued cause to consult her—which she didn’t mind at all—Dr. Sollis shared his fear.

“You have to go out again, sir? I haven’t finished spotting the cape.” Alfred reluctantly fetched the Batman costume. He hesitated before handing it over. “If I may suggest, sir, mightn’t you wear Master Dick’s Robin costume while he’s in England on his Rhodes scholarship?”

Wayne worked his shoulders. “It wouldn’t hang right.” He patted Alfred reassuringly. “Don’t fret, Alfred. Darkness covers a multitude of sins.”

Alfred remained stiff. “I thought it was Charity, sir, that did the covering.”

“We’re told to do good deeds in secret, aren’t we? That’s darkness.” Batman flung this and his cape over his shoulder and did not wait for Alfred’s comeback.

They met at Fourth Avenue and Fourth Street at four
A.M.

“That was a near thing with Foster Cavendish,” Comissioner Gordon said.

“That it was,” Batman said. He did not add that not Cavendish but Rubin had been the Riddler’s target. He said quickly, “The Riddler again?”

Gordon nodded grimly. “He keeps bouncing right back.” He handed Batman a photocopy of a rhymed note.

Fool’s cap for a crown,

Would’st see the dunce drown

An eel in a pond?

Then come and be conned.

—Yours cruelly, the Riddler

Like a cold cold finger the word “cruelly” touched Batman’s spine to ice. The Riddler seemed bent on making up for the past near-misses. Batman did not let Gordon see the dismay he felt. He smiled, then faded to black before Gordon could tell the smile was frozen.