The Further Adventures of The Joker (58 page)

As the hours passed, Wayne felt less and less sure of his deduction. When at last the phone rang, he turned to listen with an attitude more of bracing himself for bad news than of eagering himself for good news.

“C.G. speaking. Just as you predicted, B.M. A ground party searching the forests of Cattaraugus County came upon the basket and the deflated bag of the missing balloon. But no signs of the balloonists.”

Wayne’s satisfaction in having read above and below the Joker’s lines—for that after all was the relationship of NY and PA to OZ—was fleeting. His face set grimly. “It was hardly to be expected that the Joker would abandon his captives after taking the trouble to snatch them.”

“I guess not.” A pause, then, “The Joker left a note for you, pinned to the bag.”

“Read it to me, please.”

“ ‘Frankly, would I Ly, man?’ ” C.G. spelled out the
Ly, man.
“Do you know what he means by that?”

Wayne explained about Oz and Lyman Frank Baum.

“Oh.”

Wayne smiled crookedly. “Well, at least we now know one thing.”

“What’s that?” C.G. asked eagerly.

“We know the one place where Clay and his crew are not.”

Sound filtered down: the tread of many feet on boards, the cries of pitchmen, the squawk of sea gulls, the notes of steam whistles. The Joker felt restless. He gave his slight paunch a pat of disapproval and looked around at his henchpersons (he was an equal opportunity employer) with even greater disfavor. They were lounging and slouching altogether too comfortably in the dayroom of the hideout.

“Jane Fonda time.”

Groans rose, only to subside in wave fashion as his maniacal gaze swept around, dipping to take in a rugged dwarf. Behind the fixed grin, the Joker frowned thoughtfully when his eyes rested briefly on his right-hand man Leo. They had not yet begun exercising; why would Leo be already in a sweat? Guilty conscience? The Joker programmed himself to watch Leo from here on out.

At the moment, however, on with the pep talk. “Let me remind you, the Clay kidnap is the least of our planned exploits. While the forces of,”—he raised his hands to claw a pair of two-finger quotation marks in the air around the word
good—“good
believe we’re just sitting on our behinds, waiting to collect the ransom, we’ll be out there pulling other capers.”

There came a hearty chorus of “Yeah, yeah!”

“So, what say, let’s get in shape.”

There came a muted chorus of “Yeah, yeah.”

He cupped a hand behind an ear and said in a mild, questioning tone, “I don’t
hear
you.”

Leo led the roar of “Yeah, yeah.”

They knew what to do. They moved the varsity-crew rowing machine out from the wall and took their places on the sliding seats.

“Okay, Metrognome.”

The dwarf squatted at the coxswain’s post and beat time on bongo drums.

The Joker himself stood alongside with a whip, cracking it to encourage the oarsmen and oarswomen at their sweeps. Occasionally the lash drew blood.

“Building up the old lats and pecs,” he heartened them.

After the exercise period, Leo had so stiffened that he could hardly move and he breathed laboredly through his crooked nose. The Joker, however, though his face remained pasty, felt the glow of invigoration and was raring to go.

He and Leo left the hideout, and while Leo chauffered him in a Good Humor truck to a real estate office in Gotham, the Joker changed in the back, making himself up carefully in a three-piece suit to pass as a businessman.

Putting cash down, the Joker signed a long-term lease for an office suite of his choice in the financial district’s ultramodern Phoebus Building. Within hours, his henchpersons had moved packing cases of equipment in.

By evening they were all set to pull the caper.

“But first to twist Batman’s ears,” the Joker said. And he punched a command into his computer, sending a signal to the program that ran the bulletin lights girdling the Tempo Triangle Building.

That done, he swiveled around to find Leo biting Metrognome’s nails to the quick.

“What makes you so nervous, Leo?” he asked kindly.

Leo’s voice came out scratchy with fear. “Boss, is it really a good idea to tip your hand?”

“Why not, when I hold all the aces?”

Leo had no answer for that; even if he had he wouldn’t have dared voice it.

Bruce Wayne burned the message into his brain.

FACE-TO-FACE IN YE OLDE FUN MIRROR

He had no doubt it was from the Joker to him.

He waited for more, but the regular flow of news flashes resumed.

POWER BLACKOUT AT PHOEBUS BUILDING . . . TON OF COCAINE STOLEN FROM POLICE PROPERTY CLERK VAULT. FLOOR COLLAPSES; WHEN DUST SETTLES, POLICE DISCOVER HUGE HAUL SEIZED AND HELD FOR EVIDENCE HAS VANISHED ALONG WITH OTHER GOODIES . . . POWER RESTORED TO PHOEBUS BUILDING . . .

These he paid little heed to. They might command his attention later, but right now he needed to concentrate on the message and decode its meaning and purpose:

FACE-TO-FACE IN YE OLDE FUN MIRROR

The obvious thing to note was the “ye olde.” Why this anachronistic form in an otherwise straightforward phrase?

What if it signaled a further anachronism in what followed? What if the
f
in “fun” were really the old form of
s
?

That would make it a
sun mirror.

The bulletins he had ignored flashed to the forefront of his thinking. And all at once everything tied in.

The Police Property Clerk’s Office, a one-story annex of Police Headquarters, stood in the shadow of the Phoebus Building. The Phoebus Building’s solar panels, a solid array sheathing the slanted roof and the whole façade, generated more than enough power to service the Phoebus Building’s needs; surplus energy went to Pro Edison, generating a nice profit.

Wayne swung to gaze at the Phoebus Building. At this hour of the evening, it thrust up like a dark finger with a light dusting of windowshine from nearby buildings. By day, the monolithic Phoebus Building would be one great glaring sun mirror.

Batman swung the Batmobile into the Phoebus Building’s parking lot. At the one break in the solar paneling, the glass street-level entrance of the Phoebus Building, the nightman recognized him and buzzed him in.

“Batman! Who are you looking for?”

“Good question.” Batman scanned the wall directory. His eyes lit up.

Joseph Kerr.

It was a short mental leap from that to
Joe Kerr
to then to
Joker.

“Which elevator to Joseph Kerr and Company, on the eighty-sixth floor?”

The nightman took him up. As they rode, the nightman said, “I sure hope the power doesn’t cut off again. It did, for about ten minutes, an hour ago.”

Batman nodded. “I heard. I doubt that it will happen again.”

His nostrils worked, smelling burnt wiring and cindered circuitry, even before the nightman had unlocked the door to the darkened suite.

The nightman flicked the lights on. His jaw dropped. “What did they do to the place?”

“What indeed.”

A laser gun stood atop a desk shoved against the wall. The barrel poked through the wall. Batman’s nose wrinkled. The laser gun smelled burnt out, as did its cable, which was plugged into an outlet.

Batman stepped lightly onto the desk and held his hands behind his back to keep from disturbing the gun’s angle.

The Joker had punched a hole through the outer wall and through the solar paneling.

Batman peered through the gunsight. He stared down, down, down at the police annex. The crosshairs quartered a hole in the annex roof. At first glance, it appeared as though a giant drill had drawn a huge core sample up and out of the annex.

But what had happened, Batman saw was that the laser beam had sliced through in an oval. The Joker had made the cut at a carefully calculated slant. The disk cut out of the roof landed on the ground floor to one side of the pallets holding the ton of cocaine. The disk cut out of the ground floor landed, with its precious burden, in—Batman shrewdly guessed—the open body of a truck waiting in the basement garage.

Batman rode down in grim silence with the nightman.

The nightman called after him. “Don’t you want me to validate your parking?”

Batman shook his head without breaking stride.

In the corner of his eye Leo caught the Joker entering the room.

“Faster!” Leo barked at the assembly line.

The dust-masked crew stepped up its repackaging of the ton of cocaine.

Leo turned and feigned a start of surprise.

The Joker stretched his grin. “That’s right, Leo, let me disturb you.”

He looked at one of the new glassine packets labeled with the Joker brand name and with a saxophone
J
as logo. He gave a nod of approval. “I’ve just looked in on our guest. It’s a broadening experience for Mr. Roman A. Clay.”

The Joker’s eyes glittered and he rubbed his hands together. “Speaking of broads, let’s join the ladies, shall we?”

Leo shivered, but turned the supervising over to Metrognome, an even sterner taskmaster than Leo, and followed the Joker out.

Dr. Amicia Sollis was dining with Bruce Wayne out on the patio of his penthouse when the Joker’s next message flashed.

CHASE YOURSELF ON THE LOOP-THE-LOOP

Alfred his butler called their attention to it, and Amicia joined Bruce at the telescope.

“Another challenge to Batman?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Perhaps.”

“I wonder what Batman makes of it—that is, if he’s watching at all.”

“Oh, he’s watching.”

Amicia cocked an eye at him but said nothing.

“That’s his job,” he hurried to add. He grew thoughtful. “As to what he makes of it—well, what is there to make of it? We all know what a loop-the-loop is—a centrifugal railway.”

“But we also all know that the Joker is not that simple.” She frowned. “Could he be hinting that he’s transferring his activities to Second City?”

Wayne looked jolted. “Because of the Loop, the elevated railway ringing Second City’s business district?”

“Exactly.”

Wayne felt a sudden emptiness. If it were true that the Joker was leaving Gotham to take up in Second City, that would remove the Joker from Batman’s reach. Rather, for Batman would never falter in his grim pursuit of the Grin Reaper, it would force Batman far from his base of operations.

“Can’t you think of any other possibilities?”

Amicia smiled. “Sure. Off the top of my head,
loop
could refer to one of the identifying characteristics—loops, arches, and whorls—that a fingerprint expert looks for;
loop
could mean the platinum bent at one end into a loop that a bacteriologist uses to transfer microorganisms with;
loop
could stand for the aerial maneuver of a stunt pilot.” She shrugged. “Or it could be none of the above. With the Joker’s crazy sense of humor, it could be a play on
loupe
—l-o-u-p-e.”

Wayne narrowed his eyes. “The magnifying glass that a jeweler uses to examine gems?”

“Exactly.” She stared at him. “You don’t think—”

“I do. What more lucrative caper than a heist at the midtown Emerald Center? I’ll bet that’s next on his hit list.” He moved to the phone. “I’ll tell Commissioner Gordon my hunch and let him pass it along to Batman.

Amicia’s eyes shone. “You and Batman make a good team—the man of thought and the man of action.”

“Thanks.” Wayne smiled as he went to the phone, but it was a twisted smile. He sensed that Amicia’s eyes shone at the thought of the man of action. “I think I speak for Batman when I say you can consider yourself part of the team.”

With Amicia present, the direct-line phone was out of sight. He picked up the everyday phone and dialed.

The Joker peered from around the corner of the block. The coast looked clear. Rush-hour traffic was long gone. The fire truck idling behind him would have clear passage to the tall building housing the Emerald Center. He eyed the green neon sign over the entrance to the great conglomeration of offices and stores devoted to emeralds and other gems:

EMERALD CENTER

He stretched his grin. “The center of EMERALD is
R. Are
you ready?”

Leo and Metrognome and the others chorused, “Ready when you are, Boss.”

“Then let’s go.” He pumped his arm up and down to signal the driver of the fire truck. And as the truck swept by him around the corner, he hopped aboard. Like all the others, he wore full fireman’s gear, but his badge read
Deputy Fire Inspector.

The fire truck stopped directly in front of the Emerald Center and the Joker hopped off. He rang the doorbell.

He looked through the glass door and watched the nightguard hurry from a desk near the bank of elevators.

The guard stopped just inside the door and looked at the Joker questioningly.

The Joker shaped words with his lips without actually saying anything.

The guard strained to listen, but heard nothing.

The Joker again lip-synced silence.

In total frustration, the guard unlocked the door and poked his head out.

The Joker spoke boredly, as if this were all in a long day’s work. “Surprise inspection. As you know, we spring these at random.”