The Further Adventures of Batman (4 page)

He was starting to get the idea that something was going on in the New Era Hotel. So far it seemed to be something done especially for him.

It was much later in the night that the noise woke him up. He sat bolt upright, moving instantaneously from deep sleep to immediate alertness. What had it been? A muffled thud from the next suite. It must have been something thrown against the wall, thrown hard enough for the sound to penetrate the soundproofing. Bruce dressed quickly in the dark. He was utterly silent, listening, his senses at full alert. Then he heard a scream. It was from the suite next door.

He hurried out to the balcony. It was about a fifteen-foot jump to the balcony of the next suite. Bruce could do better than that in the standing broad jump, but that was under ideal conditions. Here he would have to crouch on the very edge of his balcony and push off without the benefit of being able to swing his arms. And he would also have to be careful not to let his feet slip on the bevelled facing material.

He leaped. His calculations were not amiss, no matter what else might be wrong with him. His fingers closed crisply around the rail of the next penthouse. He used his back flip to vault neatly over the railing.

The terrace doors to the penthouse were open, but long fluttering white curtains obscured his view within. He moved forward into the darkened room. He felt something soft under his foot and recoiled sharply. Then he had found the light switch and flooded the room with light.

She had been beautiful in life, but death had taken something out of her. She lay with one arm thrown back, the other bent beneath her. Her eyes were open and she seemed to be smiling. This was remarkable in view of the fact that her throat had been cut.

There was nothing to do there. The woman, sole occupant of the suite, was dead. The telephone line had been cut. Her brocade purse seemed to be missing, but Bruce had no time for a complete search. Nor did he know what to look for.

He went back to his own suite. There he made two calls, one to Commissioner James Gordon, the other to Assistant Manager Blithely. And then back to await further developments.

Soon thereafter, he received a telephone call from the assistant manager. Would Mr. Morrison come to the main office.

Bruce was already dressed. He paused only to check his attire, then went down to the lobby. Although it was the small hours of the morning, there were still many people there milling around. Fun ran late in Gotham City.

Blithely greeted him as suavely as before. But he had a curious expression on his round rosy face as he looked at Bruce. Could it be pity?

Also present in the office was Police Commissioner James Gordon. The tough cop had cooperated secretly with Batman on more than one occasion. Despite Gordon’s skepticism, they often teamed up in their fight against crime.

“Hello, Morrison,” James Gordon said. “Been quite a while.”

“Hamburg, about three years ago,” Bruce said.

“Tell me what you saw tonight, Charlie,” Gordon said.

“But you’ve seen it yourself by now.”

“Never mind. Describe it for me, please.”

Bruce described the scene in the suite.

“OK,” Gordon said. “Let’s take a look.”

Bruce, Gordon, and Blithely took the penthouse elevator to the top floor. There was the same corridor, with Bruce’s suite on one side, the other belonging to the woman who had ridden up in the elevator with him.

“Is this the place?” Gordon asked, indicating the door through which the woman had passed.

“Of course it is,” Bruce said. “What’s the problem?”

Blithely opened the door with his pass card. He entered and turned on the light. The first thing Bruce noticed when he went in was the smell of fresh paint. Under the strong overhead lights, he could see that the whole suite had been freshly painted. Before painting, it had been stripped of furniture. A pile of dropcloths was stacked in a corner. Aside from that, the room was empty.

Gordon and Blithely waited while Bruce inspected the apartment. He checked out all the rooms. In none of them was there any trace of recent occupancy, and even less was there evidence that a brutal murder had been committed less than half an hour ago.

The two men waited while Bruce walked back to them.

Bruce said, “Gentlemen, my apologies. I seem to have been mistaken.”

Gordon gave him a curious look and sucked at his unlit pipe. In his own brown gabardine suit and beige trench-coat he looked like a private investigator of the old days rather than Police Commissioner of Gotham City.

The manager said, “Are you feeling all right, sir? It was a very startling incident you described. I do not wish to pry, but are you perhaps under the influence of alcohol or some prohibited drug?”

“Certainly not,” Bruce said, his voice taking on a cutting edge. “Do you want to make charges against me, Mr. Blithely?”

“Heavens no,” Blithely said. “I am only thinking of the reputation of the hotel. When a guest starts describing scenes of mayhem that have never taken place . . . Well, it makes one fear ever so slightly for the safety of the other guests. That, taken with the various other incidents—”

“What are those?” Gordon asked, interrupting sharply.

Blithely described Bruce’s first appearance at the hotel, when he was looking for a man with green hair, and then Bruce’s unusual entry into the health club.

Gordon nodded when Blithely was through. He took off his heavy horn-rimmed glasses and cleaned them with a crumpled tissue. He put the glasses back on, then broke into a grin.

“Well, Charlie,” he said, “you’ve won your bet.” He took a ten dollar bill out of his pocket and handed it to Bruce.

“Thanks,” Bruce said, following Gordon’s lead, nonchalantly pocketing the money.

“I don’t understand,” Blithely said.

“I used to tell Mr. Morrison here he was too formal, too uptight. I said he was too well-mannered to start a commotion. Charlie bet me ten bucks he could get the manager of the best hotel in town to call me and complain that he was crazy. I never thought you’d go through with it, Charlie.”

“Well, you annoyed me,” Bruce said.

“So this has all been a practical joke?” Blithely asked.

“Of course it has,” Gordon said. “Does Mr. Morrison look crazy to you?”

“Not in the slightest,” Blithely said. But there was still a shade of doubt in his voice.

“Thanks for being such a good sport about it,” Bruce said. “There’ll be a nice bonus added to the bill for you, personally, for taking this in such good humor.”

“Oh, Mr. Morrison, there’s no need—”

But Bruce waved him away with a lordly gesture. When Blithely left, even he was chuckling at the joke.

When they were alone, Bruce went to the bar and poured Gordon a shot of bourbon, and accompanied it with branchwater on the side. He poured himself a glass of Vichy. Both men sat down on one of the couches. Gordon sipped his bourbon.

“Damn good bourbon, Charlie,” he said.

“They have only the best here,” Bruce said.

“So I see. Charlie, what in the name of Sam Hill went on here?”

“Nothing, apparently,” Bruce said. “You should have taken me in. I’m obviously ’round the bend.”

Gordon didn’t reply until he had his pipe going. While malodorous fumes rose in the air, he said, “Even if you were crazy, I’d never let on to a guy like that.”

Bruce nodded. “Blithely is not a sympathetic type, is he?”

Gordon shook his head. “I’d arrange to have you committed all by myself, if that was what was needed. Charlie, are you crazy?”

“Why ask me?” Bruce said. “How would I know?”

“I’ve gotten to know you pretty well over the years,” Gordon said. “You and I were involved in one of the toughest cases of this century. Charlie, I lost my belief in organized religion a long time ago. And I think I’ve lost about half my faith in justice, too. But one thing I still believe in is Batman.”

Gordon looked up from his drink. He saw that “Charlie Morrison” was smiling at him.

“What’s so funny?”

“You. Police Commissioner of Gotham City and you don’t even know a loony when you see one. But you know what, Jim? I’m just as bad. I don’t believe for a moment I’m crazy. Tonight has proven it to me.”

“How’s that, Charlie?”

“I’ve seen the Joker several times in recent months. Just quick little glimpses, then he vanishes. It had me worried. I followed him into this hotel, or so I thought. I decided it would be worthwhile to check in myself and see what was going on. All these incidents, all in one night, convince me that someone is trying to put something over on me. I don’t know how, or why—not yet—but I’m going to find out.”

“Frankly, I’m glad you’re doing this,” Gordon said. “We’ve been getting a lot of rumors recently, nothing we can pin down, but stuff that keeps on popping up. About something going down that’s both criminal and political. Something involving important people. Something involving the New Era Hotel.”

“Interesting,” Bruce said. “Anything else?”

“Nothing definite. Just a lot of ominous-sounding rumors. You always hear these crazy stories about new criminal combines from foreign countries. This time there just might be something to it.”

“I’m going to see what turns up,” Bruce said.

“I’m glad. The way I see it, we’ve got just one thing to worry about.”

“What’s that?” Bruce asked.

“I know you’re sane and you know you’re sane. But what if we’re both wrong?”

Two days passed without incident. Charlie Morrison did all the things a wealthy young bachelor might do in a hotel like the New Era. He sampled all their nightclubs and watched the shows. He listened to the comedians and laughed as heartily as anyone else. He tasted the gourmet specialties in several exquisite restaurants. He drank sparingly and turned down the offers of drugs and women from the bellboys.

Early on the evening of the third day he saw her again. She stepped out of the New Era beauty parlor just as he was coming out of the magazine shop. It was her unmistakably, Ilona, the woman he had ridden up with in the elevator and later seen murdered in her suite.

She wore a dark silk dress, and had a turquoise scarf knotted carelessly around her neck.

“Excuse me, Ilona,” he said. But she ignored him and hurried through the lobby, going through a door marked PRIVATE. Bruce followed. He was in a corridor that seemed to lead to the kitchen area. The lighting was bad, and there was deep dust on the floor: the New Eras spick-and-span look did not extend to the off-stage areas. Bruce decided he wouldn’t eat here any more if this was a sample of their true housekeeping. He rounded a corner, and there she was.

“Stop following me!” she said.

“Just a couple of questions,” Bruce said.

“Oh. Well, if that’s all . . .” She smiled, then opened her purse and took out a cigarette. She found a small golden lighter in her purse. She flicked it once and a cloud of yellow gas sprayed into Bruce’s face. She dropped the lighter and fled as soon as Bruce hit the floor.