There was another long silence in the
darkness.
Jean Paul Valley (aka Azrael, the once and
disastrously ill-equipped Batman stand-in) had had no contact with Selina
out of costume. He didn’t follow light news: he had no knowledge of
her as the star of Cat-Tales nor as Bruce Wayne’s girlfriend. His
contact with her as Batman was… not a pleasant memory. He had been
distracted. He had not been prepared for the effect such a woman might
have on him. He had not performed well. And she would not let
him forget it, ever.
He had no idea what Catwoman was doing in
the Batcave, but it figured. Whenever he had a bad time, she was somehow there to witness it.
Somehow,
that voice was there to rub it in. Whatever the actual words, the message
was always the same: how dare he. How dare he have taken Bruce’s
place. How dare he have called himself Batman, watched her, had thoughts
about her… when he didn’t even turn her on.
Everyone else had moved on. At least,
everyone (except Nightwing) had (if not “moved on”)
collectively agreed to work together and pretend the whole thing never
happened.
But Catwoman ignored the rules then, and she ignored them still. If
Azrael screwed up, she would be there and she would comment.
Like now: reaching for his helmet - for
the night vision as much as to protect his identity - he had some how managed to
bump it off the desk where it rolled across the floor and came to rest
against her foot. The beam of the Maglite “looked down” at it, then
back at him.
But before Selina could comment on this latest
development, the work lights hummed and came on again. Cassie, whose
Batgirl cowl was also equipped with night vision lenses, emerged from the alcove
with the emergency generator. Jean Paul, grateful for the distraction, gave her a bright smile, then sunk back
into the strained silence with Selina and Bruce.
Not comfortable in any non-combat situation, Cassie didn’t perceive anything
unusual in the stand-off. She walked straight up to Bruce and asked his permission to work out.
Although the manor and cave were off-limits for the duration of the festival,
she was here now, and it was after hours. Bruce nodded.
Taking advantage of the distraction, Jean Paul returned to the workstation and
resumed checking his e-mail.
Selina ambled next to Bruce and whispered, “Do
the computers have power at this level, or just the lights?”
“Just lights.”
She looked at Azrael. “Should you tell
him?”
“NO.”
“But he’s typing. Does he think he’s
online?”
“Leave him alone; he’s saving face. Help
me with the generator.”
She started to follow, then looked back.
“You don’t think that’s odd behavior, even for around here?”
“You fluster him. Leave it alone.”
“Me? I am full of sweetness and light.”
Bruce’s look said “oh please;” his
mouth told her to bring the light, if not the sweetness, over to the generator.
“Hand me the five-sixteenth, would you,
Kitten.”
He wasn’t jealous. That was not his way.
It simply was not.
Jean Paul, Azrael, and “AzBat” were obviously a non-issue. They
didn’t even like each other, that much was plain. François, on the other
hand, was not a non-issue. That’s not the same as being jealous, Bruce
told himself.
It’s simply that he wanted to know the precise nature of their relationship.
What exactly did they do together? He wanted to know, he wanted details,
and he wanted to hear from Selina’s own lips that it wasn’t better than what he had
with her… Well obviously it wasn’t better than what he had with her, he knew
that, but he wanted to know that she knew that.
“Whew, Bruce, stop man, replay that - that
was one spectacular sentence.”
For some reason, his inner voice sounded like
Dick today. Flippant. Sarcastic. And underneath the
wiseass banter, insecure.
“Now the wire-nut, I need to get this last bit
tied off.”
There was a faster way to redirect current
without rebooting the system. But you couldn’t tell Bruce anything.
Let him do it his way, Selina thought. She was in no hurry. Dick’s
offhand remark at the jewelers had struck a chord.
“Next time, you could just say so,” Dick had said. For some reason, that was
harder. A gesture was okay, some little sign. But saying it was
different: “You’re a good kid, and I like you, and I’m glad to be
part of your family.” What would be so hard about that? Why did
it seem like losing face? Why did it seem like… a liability that would be
hanging around her neck for all time: “Why on February 4th you said
‘nice kid, like you.’ Would you like the court stenographer to read that
back?”
“Hey, Kitten, wire-nut, it’s the little plastic
cone with the tieoff.”
She handed it over automatically, not bothering
to mention “Catwoman! Dismantled alarm systems from time to time; knows what a
wire-nut is.”
Yeah, right.
Catwoman. Meow. Purr. Hiss.
It was actually easier to stop stealing than to ’fess up and say it.
She
looked at Bruce. That one time, yes, and he had started it. Since
then, it was easier to make a gesture, or make a joke.
Strange that.
“And—EUREKA!”
The generator hummed a happy brrrrrrll as
full power was restored to the cave. “Now for upstairs,” Bruce
said happily.
Selina watched as the terminal where Jean Paul
pretended to work suddenly sprang to life. He looked down at it,
regrouped, and resumed working—for real this time.
“Blonde,” Selina remarked, “Should have
guessed he was blonde.”
“Will you give the guy a break
already?” Bruce shushed her as they continued working on the generator.
“I did cut him a break. I haven’t
used a three-syllable word with him since ‘Pheromones,’” Selina insisted.
“Someday I’ve got to find out what happened
there.”
“I have limited patience with twits, okay.
Unlike some people, I don’t date bimbos.”
“Yeah, that de Poulignac seems like a real
rocket scientist,” Bruce grumbled.
“Excuse me?”
“Guy is the most shallow, degenerate, snobbish,
superficial airhead.”
“I seem to remember hearing that said about you
in more than one quarter.”
“Yes, Love, but with me it’s an act.”
“Let’s see how long it takes the great
detective to work this one out.” Selina paused then counted down. “3….2…1… Yes,
we have comprehension!”
“You’re telling me that Lord, Comte, oh
that’s okay you can call me Count, François de Poulignac is only pretending to
be an arrogant, shallow, superficial snob.”
“This is not an attractive side of you.”
Bruce’s response could be called a silent
“mhmph” and he began twiddling a random card on the generator panel.
Too late he realized the parallel to Jean Paul’s phantom typing as Selina
exclaimed, “Oh, NOW I see the resemblance!”
A change of subject was the only way to avoid
violence.
“By the way, Joker came by to see you
today.”
“Okay,” Selina played along, thinking
I can’t wait to hear the punch line on this one.
“Yes,” Bruce explained crisply, “It seems
he’s ‘dead’ and since you’re the ‘reigning queen of bitch-slapping the Gotham
City press,’ he thought you might know what to do about it.”
“You’re serious?” she asked. Then,
noting the since-when-do-I-joke-about-Joker look, she muttered, “Stupid
question.”
A heartbeat later the full implication hit her.
“You’re asking about Az and François before telling me about Joker?”
Bruce said nothing.
“That’s so sweet.” She purred, and
gave his cheek a light peck.
Bruce continued to say nothing.
She thought for a moment, reached a decision,
then spoke:
“You know, Dick said something today. It
started me thinking. Since things have… changed… with us, well, you’ve
done most of the talking. And I guess I really should mention, that, um,
well…”
She trailed off. Bruce smiled and began
twittering with the random generator panel again.
“You’re not going to make this easier,” she observed.
“Oh no,” came the prompt reply.
The next change of subject came as abruptly as
the last:
“Isn’t that cute; she’s got a crush.”
“Huh?” Bruce looked around, startled
by the new direction the conversation was taking.
“Batgirl,” Selina pointed,
“She’s ‘working out?’ She’s
showing off is what she’s doing. And she keeps peeking to see if Az is
looking.”
Bruce looked. She was doing exactly that.
“That could be…problematic,” he
observed.
“Why? It’s cute. It’s a crush.”
Bruce looked at her penetratingly.
“I believe you were starting to say something
else.”
“Well…um,” Selina looked cornered,
caught with the goods, back to the wall, no avenues of escape. “It’s just
that… I have turned
every corner of my life inside out for your sake and…” she smiled suddenly, “I
don’t care. Isn’t that something? I don’t mind one bit.”
Her look said There, close enough?
Bruce smiled, returned the peck on the cheek,
and she grabbed his collar and spat out the rest without thinking, “Because I
love you.”
This final silence was long, and Bruce
enjoyed it fully before ending it with an offhand, “So what kind of name is
‘François’ for a man?”
It is impossible for sane people to understand
why a mind like the Joker’s decides all the commuters on subway platform twelve wearing
yellow today must die.
It is difficult for those same sane people to
grasp why he would create Joker-fish, all displaying his grotesque grin, and
demand a royalty on their sale.
But if those sane people are honest with
themselves, they will admit that they can understand, quite readily, the Joker’s
reaction standing at the 59th Street newsstand, surveying a dozen headlines
about his supposed death:
According to the Post, he had a brain tumor.
According to the Star, he was beaten to death by Nightwing (“with the
candlestick, in the conservatory” he mused.)
According to the Post-Herald, he was blown up in a suspicious warehouse
explosion - a ‘suspicious’ warehouse explosion, mind you, not the routine kind.
And according to the Daily News, he’d bitten the big one at the hands of his own
beloved Harley in a sordid love-triangle with some slimy private eye called
Bradley.
The sanest, kindliest, most moral citizen
should be able to empathize: he thought the people responsible for these
stories should die.
The problem was deciding what manner of death
would be most appropriate. Death was a tricky thing. You only got to
dish it out once to a customer, so in cases like this it was important to choose
just exactly the right one. If you picked something too quick and
painless, there were no do-overs. That was the problem with Batsy.
That one mustn’t be wasted.
SLAM BRADLEY! HIS YOUNG LITHE AND LUSCIOUS
HARLEY AND SOME FAT OLD SLOB OF A FLATFOOT! How could they print that
bilge?
Selina would know what to do. Those damn
reporters. She hadn’t gotten a retraction for the lies they had spread about
her. But people were fired. She’d made them blink. She had
made them a laughing stock.
Not quite as good as making them dead, but you could do it over and over. If they did it again, she could mock them again. Yes, that was a very
satisfying idea. Like that Carnie-game called Whack-a-Mole: Whack-a-Hack.
Heeheeheeheeheeheehee-HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAA!!!!!!
François de Poulignac had planned on giving his
American hosts, as a token of his appreciation, a case each of an indifferent
vintage. Americans, it was said, “talk dry but drink sweet.” They
would have no appreciation for Grand Cru, the choicest wine of his family’s
great château. But Selina’s presence in one of the households changed
this. She knew the difference, and she would perceive the insult in a gift
of substandard wine. So he sent for several cases to be shipped from his
private reserve, a gift denoting the very highest respect. These were to
arrive at the Gotham Airstrip this afternoon, and he invited Selina to accompany
him to pick them up. It would give them a chance to catch up on old times.
This they did over a bottle of the
aforementioned Château de Poulignac, Grand Cru.
François had already been in Gotham for several
days, and a sixth generation winemaker is expected to have high tolerance for
his own family label. But François claimed the wine plus the jet lag left
him in need of a nap, and he made himself comfortable on Selina’s sofa.
Selina smirked at this, but went on with her business. She was answering
e-mail when the doorbell rang.
“HAHAHAHAHAHAAA! Hiya, Catty!”
“Oh shit,”
Selina hissed under her breath. “Hey, Joker. C’mon in”
He did, looked around, and then pronounced,
“You know what, I’ve never been here before. You don’t have a lot of
cat-stuff, do you?”
Before Selina could glower a reply, a dark head
popped up from the sofa.
“Petit chat,
qu’est-ce que ça veut dire 'cat stuff’?’”
Selina turned and answered,
“Ça veut dire des bibelots de chat.”
“Ah, parce que tu es la femme-chat?”
“Oui.”
Joker watched this exchange, fascinated.
Then he noted the empty bottle of wine, François’s tussled hair and reclining
posture on the sofa. He recognized his antagonist.
“Hey, you’re the guy from Wayne
Manor!”
Selina started at this outburst, but François
responded in kind.
“Oui, and you the fellow with the grand smile and the odd pallor
whose femme is screwing around.”
“You two, ah, know each other?” Selina
stammered. “And who is screwing around?”
“THAT’S WHAT I WANT TO KNOW!”
thundered Joker.
Observing the sacred principle not to ever respond when
Joker thunders, Selina choked back her answer and Joker continued.
“Apparently that sort of thing doesn’t bother some people, cause
this guy was saying things in front of Brucie that struck me as in very bad
taste considering.”
“Wait a minute,” Selina sputtered, “‘BRUCIE?!?’”
“Yes… in very bad taste considering
your thing with Bats.”
“Ah oui, Brucie, the other fellow - with
the dour expression,” François added helpfully.
“Well, who can blame him!” exclaimed
Joker, confirming the identification.
Selina began massaging small circles above her
eyebrows. One couldn’t stop for clarification every time Joker said
something nonsensical, nor correct every loony idea he decided to spout off. It wasn’t safe—besides which, there wasn’t time. You had
to pick your battles.
“…you and Batsy, which, okay, everyone
knows about, but it’s cruel to stand in the guy’s house and rub it in that way.”
This one might be worth the battle.
“Now look, Joker—” Selina began.
…But the moment had passed. Joker had seated
himself and introduced the reason for his visit.
“It seems I’m dead,” he began. “Now I don’t feel dead.
Don’t look dead. Don’t sound dead - HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA! - but the papers all
say I am. So what I want to know is: How can I best contradict
this?”
“You could appear in public,” suggested
François, “and let it be seen that you are alive.”
“Don’t help me,” Selina told him.
But Joker seemed to be considering the idea.
“Yes, but even if they see me alive now, they might think I died and came
back. You know, like Ra’s. Heard you met him, by the way,” he said,
turning to Selina, “Did I lie? Hairdo?”
Selina raised an eyebrow. One never liked
to admit the Joker could be right.
“Did he tell you about all these famous
people he knew? King Tut, Henry VIII, Alexander the Great. Yeah, like you
can check up on that stuff.”
“Wagner,” Selina admitted.
“Who?”
“We were talking opera. He said he knew
Richard Wagner.”
Joker knew nothing about opera and made no
comment. But François was curious:
“I don’t understand. How could he know—”
“It’s a long story,” Selina sighed.
Joker eyed the Frenchman unpleasantly.
“Are you still here? Why is he still here? Go away.”
“Every person in your life is there because
you have drawn them there. What you do with them is up to you.”
When did fortune cookies go New Age, Jim Gordon
wondered? There was a time you could expect a nice “Good day to
travel” after your sweet and sour pork, or even “Beware falling rocks.”
He tossed the cardboard containers into the
kitchen trash and reached for the old Cumberland pipe. Then he thought the
better of it, went to his study and took the new one, the Bruyere, from its
place on the desk. He didn’t like it so well, but he better get used to
it. The sleek, too elegant smoking instrument was a retirement gift from
Bruce Wayne, and Wayne would have plenty of chances in the coming weeks and
months to notice the gift being used or not as they met for whatever reasons
connected to the wedding…
Yes, the wedding. Gordon chomped down on
the new pipe without lighting it.
Item 1 was Bruce Wayne. Item #2… was also Bruce Wayne.
Now wait a minute, Barbara wasn’t marrying
Wayne, she was marrying Dick Grayson…
Still. The family mattered.
The kind of man Dick was was whatever Bruce Wayne raised him to be.
Values. Standards. Character.
So yes, Bruce Wayne was very much a relevant
factor to consider.
And Bruce Wayne - it was time to stop beating
around the bush and say it outright - Bruce Wayne dressed up as a bat and took the law into his own hands, hiding his face, hunting down criminals in
total disregard for due process and the rights guaranteed them by the law of the
land. That was part and parcel of the values,
standards, and character he’d passed on to young Dick.
THAT is what his little girl was marrying into.
The Rich are different, he said before.
Jesus Christ. Like it was chilling the salad forks or what wine goes with
caviar.
Gordon saw what it did to Barbara’s mother, casually seeing him off every day never knowing if he’d come home alive. He didn’t want that for Barbara.
That’s the way things are married to a cop, and that was bad enough. But how much worse is it if the
‘cop’ - if - oh for pity sake.
It’s not like he wasn’t expecting this…
In fact, it was overdue.
Did he ever discourage it? No. On the contrary, he needled them both
for taking so long.
Because deep down he knew this was coming, and he knew it was right, and he knew
it’s what it would take to make them both happy.
The rest was the price you pay.
Well, that was that.
All that was left was telling Bruce how much he
knew. If they were going to be family…
Although…
It suddenly occurred to him that, as they were going to be family, it would be a
damn site more appropriate for Bruce to finally confide in him. It’s not like he was an insurance salesman,
after all. He was - had been - the Commissioner of Police and Batman’s closest
ally in the official establishment. He was Bruce Wayne’s friend, or so
they all maintained. It was high time they cleared the air. He would
go to Wayne Manor, speak about the wedding, and give Bruce every opportunity to
come clean. If he didn’t, then Jim Gordon would have to do the job himself.
With relief, Selina shut the door behind the
Joker. She turned to her remaining guest, who instantly dropped the
charmingly confused, I’m-just-a-bewildered-foreigner expression he had maintained
for the past hour.
“You do that very well,” Selina
observed.
“Do what well, Chérie?”
“The Fop.”
This shrewder de Poulignac did not pretend
ignorance of the English word.
“It is not so difficult when it is what they
expect.”
“No, really. It’s a good act. I talked
with the world’s foremost expert on that particular routine a few hours ago and
you had him completely fooled.”
“It is not difficult, Chérie, when
it is what they expect.” The weight he placed on the words
seemed to say he knew the ‘expert’ she spoke of was Bruce.
“So, Chérie,” he went on as he
uncorked another bottle of Grand Cru, “the happy fellow, he seems to say
the dour one, ‘Brucie,’ would not approve of your ‘screwing around,’ yes.”
Selina couldn’t help but smile at this.
“There are quite a number of things ‘Brucie’
doesn’t approve of. Let’s leave it at that, shall we.”
“And this Harley he speaks of,” he handed
her a glass, “is she really ‘screwing around,’ do you think?”
“You like that expression, don’t you.”
“Oui.” He then put on
the ‘fop’ expression for her amusement as well as his own. “It will be the
new English phrase I use when I get home, so everyone knows I have been in
America.” François then became serious as only a
Frenchman can be when discussing such matters. “So does this Harley
with the luscious tush screw around, and, if so, when can I meet her?”
“François, there’s something you should know
about Gotham City. Some of these men will do more than key your
Lamborghini if you make love to their women.”
François leaned in close as he asked, “And
is ‘Brucie’ one of these, Chérie?”
Selina turned away before his lips could make
contact. It was a subtle rebuff, but understood, and François’s next
comment merely acknowledged it.
“I did not think much of him, your Bruce Wayne.
He is not overly friendly like most Americans, which I thought would be an
improvement, but alas.”
And it was done. Finis. Next
topic.
“So tell me about this Batman. He is the
other man in your life, yes, so says the laughing fellow.”
Selina did not smile this time.
“You don’t want to meet him, Frank.”
“No? I could not drop in on the art
galleries after dark and meet the great crime-fighter American, how do you say,
the ‘Dark Knight?’”
“François, I’m going to say this once:
if
you know what’s good for you, don’t go there. Not in Gotham. Pigé?”
François shrugged noncommittally.
“Besides, now that you’ve come into the title
and made such a success of the château, is it necessary?”
He said nothing but regarded the label on the
wine bottle. It pictured the château, his family home, nearly lost in his
youth to debts and usurious taxes. He had found a way, as every generation
must, to hold on to it.
“But I suppose it never really was,”
Selina was saying.
François responded now, with some passion.
“Of course it was. Chérie, you know it was necessary. What was
I to do? To save the estate, to save the family! What would they
have had me do? Marry some horrible heiress!”
“There are worse fates.”
“Bah, I did not wish to marry the horrible
heiress, I wished to marry you.”
There was a long pause, then Selina sighed.
“Why wouldn’t you marry me, Selina? We
were so good together. We had so much in common. We were such a good
team.”
“Same reason I left, Frank. We were a
great team, but training together like that, I never had a chance to see how
good I was on my own. I had to find out how much of it was us and how much
was me. Besides, settling down - ’til death do us part - we were, what,
twenty? It would have been a mistake.”
“You would be the Comtesse de Poulignac
now.”
“And you would still be asking if it’s true
Harley Quinn is screwing around and if so you’d like to meet her.”
“Harley Quinn! Her name is Harlequin! Oh that is too rich. I must meet this woman, I must.
You must arrange it, Petit chat. I beg you. I will buy for
myself a costume outrageous and make-up my face and you can introduce me as
Pierrot.”
Selina laughed. There was something about
Gotham.
Joker was not at all pleased with the day’s
events. He didn’t like François de Poulignac. He didn’t like the
idea of girlfriends stepping out with other men. He didn’t like this man saying
those things in front of poor Brucie then showing up on Selina’s couch looking
disheveled. The feeling of kinship with Bruce
Wayne, the distaste for de Poulignac, and the whatever-it-was that went on
between Selina and you-know-who… Somehow, in Joker logic, it all led to one inescapable conclusion: François de Poulignac was Batman!
To be continued…
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