The first time they’d flown to Metropolis on a case,
Selina was giddy at the thought of a Bat-Cat team-up in another city now
that the masks were off. Captain Leffinger announced their cruising
altitude of 26,000 feet, Bruce was reviewing Riddler communiques on his
laptop and she set about rubbing the soft flesh of his palm until he
accepted a glass of champagne. Then she ran her finger around the lip
of his glass, and as she toasted their new adventure, her moist lips parted
just so whenever she said “Batman.”
Today, Captain Leffinger announced their cruising
altitude of 28,000 feet, Bruce’s laptop was open again so he could study
videos from the America’s Cup trials in Gotham and again Selina interrupted,
but this time it wasn’t on purpose. She wasn’t trying to seduce him;
she wasn’t even aware she was doing it. She was just sitting there,
quietly freaking out.
“Relax,” he said, noting the third sigh since
take-off and agitated breathing otherwise. “I had them stock a Dom
Pérignon, the 2002 rosé.”
She blinked as if he was speaking a language she
didn’t know, and to poke her he released the fop: “Its exuberance from the
bottle is nowhere else to be found according to Antonio. You remember
him, don’t you? Antonio from Wine Advocate? ‘Probably the most overly
vinous rosé ever made by Chef de Caves Richard Geoffroy. Layers of cool,
insistent minerality balance the fruit beautifully on the crystalline, vivid
finish.’”
She looked blankly, and his vacuous smile faded into
Batman’s piercing focus. Selina refusing to paw at the fop was on par
with Whiskers ignoring a catnip mouse.
“Do you have any idea how big this is?” she said
finally. “The scale of what we’re about to do?”
“Jitters?” he said, with a very different smile.
“Kitten, you broke into the Watchtower when almost the whole Justice League
was there.”
“This is different. This is four very serious
break-ins, in multiple cities, in less time than anyone’s even attempted it,
and that’s not even the entire plan.”
“You had to blend in with ninety observant
journalists to get to the Storm Opals, get past Kryptonian senses and a
Martian telepath.”
“And get past you to get away with them,” she added.
“Which I failed to do. Even before Prometheus you were onto me,
weren’t you?”
In answer he glanced at her legs crossed primly at
the ankles, and she shifted in her seat to re-cross them at the knee.
His ability to see through a disguise by recognizing her legs wasn’t the
point; he must know that.
“Open the champagne,” he said without a hint of the
fop.
She did. She brought him a glass, and as
she handed it over she admitted “I have attempted ambitious jobs, yes.
It was always my plan,
start to finish. And I’ve played my part in your mind-boggling
protocols-that-can-take-out-the-entire-Justice-League schemes, but those
were different. It was never a heist, not literally. A
metaphorical one requiring certain skills, yes, but nothing like this, not
on this scale. Not exactly what I used to do in the way I used to do
it.”
“And this is,” Bruce said, standing and
tilting his glass to gently touch hers. “This is a heist,” he said,
looking into her eyes. “That we have planned
together,
Catwoman, and that we are going to execute together.”
It meant ‘I love you’ and that’s what she heard.
“I love you too,” she whispered. “But are we
crazy?”
“Probably. Most criminals are,” he graveled,
and then leaned in, pushed her hair aside and breathed a hot whisper into
her ear, “And our crazy fits.”
The glasses were lifted, the champagne was sipped,
and Wayne One continued on its course into Metropolis.
There was an odd patch of grass between the lakefront
and the Curt Swan Expressway just off the exit leading to the planetarium.
It didn’t have the grandstands of the America’s Cup Village on Shuster Pier.
It wouldn’t host the posh spectating events of the Siegel Yacht Club, or
even the more modest “Boaters Bash” Ross Harbor was offering on a platform
near the racecourse. What it had was the optimal vantage point to
shoot the course through a telephoto lens against the backdrop of the iconic
Metropolis skyline. That’s why Llanzo chose it. He didn’t have
the fanciest gear in the world but he did alright with an ordinary Nikon, a
good zoom lens, a selfie stick and a tripod. That and what his muma
called “good island sense for where to put the camera.” The boats
against the skyline would make for some highly salable pictures.
He hadn’t realized the location also put him in an
ideal spot to observe the dockyard where the boats were stored. But
now, taking the final test shots before the practice day, he spotted a crane
in the distance where no crane had been previously. He adjusted the
zoom and scanned the area beneath it: an exceptionally clean industrial area
peopled with men in windbreakers and ball caps sporting the logos of Team
France and Team New Zealand. Just outside that fenced in compound, a
row of slightly less immaculate warehouses stood apart from the rest.
A man stood alone, no logos, standing casually like he was waiting for
something. He was tall and well built, with broad shoulders, glasses,
a weekend beard and dark wind-swept hair/no ball cap, and a duffel.
There was nothing special about him and Llanzo might have looked away except
right then, as he fussed with his zoom and played with the sightlines in the
new area, a girl came out of the warehouse behind him. Presumably
that’s who he was waiting for. There was nothing special about her
either: youngish dirty blonde, olive jacket and blue jeans… He took a
bundle of cash from the duffel and she gave him a set of keys. There
was nothing furtive about it, but there was something that prompted a test
shot—of the man and the girl, and then an interesting architectural detail
on the upper floor of the warehouse…
As soon as Wayne One landed, Selina went alone to
check them into the Four Seasons with an ostentatious suite of Prada, Saint
Laurent and Globe-Trotter luggage that Bruce used for his “Wayne is in Biarritz
for the season” alibis. She then slipped a plain leather weekender
over her shoulder and made her way to the address he texted, a dreary but
spacious warehouse in a dreary but ideally situated industrial area between
the riverfront and Lake Metropolis.
“He knows we’re here,” she reported. “As you
predicted. Instead of your usual suite, they’d put us in the
Presidential. ‘Snafu.’”
“The
Alexander Luthor Presidential Suite, how
passive-aggressive,” he noted.
“Don’t worry, he’s still his old
aggressive-aggressive too. The room was bugged.”
“It wouldn’t be Metropolis if Luthor didn’t at least
attempt to bug my suite at the Four Seasons. SurveiLEX SV?”
“Five SV-10s, One LX-19, One LX-75. I flushed
all but the last in case we want to feed him something.”
Bruce’s lip twitched.
“That’s a compliment to you, Kitten. On my own,
I never rated more than a pair of SV-10s.”
“Well, you are only a
business rival
as far as he knows,” Selina said, testing the springiness of the bed in
their make-shift loft. “Catwoman had the VIP tour of the Sinister
Citadel—”
“At a time when surveillance from that range without
the aid of a magic user was something to brag about,” he added.
“So of course he’d up his game now that we’re
together—”
“And that’s why you’ll have Team Lex for an alibi.
Or Luthor himself if I can manage it...”
Since the Australia II’s winged keel in 1983, there’s
been a cloak of secrecy surrounding America’s Cup boats on par with that of
a smaller nation’s intelligence bureau. The teams each had their spies
to watch each others’ practice. The software each used to analyze
data, modify their designs, and even monitor the crew’s heartrates were
closely guarded secrets. If he’d known, Llanzo might have expected the
chain of events that promised to buy him better gear (and who knew what
else) by the time the regatta was over.
It began with a video, a silly little video of the
America’s Cup Village under construction. He posted it as a curiosity
from his unique vantage point off the expressway, and in a week his YouTube
subscriptions tripled. Then WLEX bought the video of the Team New
Zealand boat arriving and things really started happening. The Daily
Planet bought a still photo they ran on the cover of the Sunday Magazine,
and in only a few hours he got an email about submitting a series of race
photos from the same location for a calendar.
Then he got the call that changed
everything. A yachting syndicate (whatever the heck that was, it sure
sounded impressive), a yachting syndicate in Fiji (it sounded impressive and
it also sounded like money) was planning to mount a challenge in four years.
They were willing to pay handsomely (handsomely) for footage of the boats
going into the water from his exclusive angle. So here he was much
earlier than expected, unpacking gear that now included a cooler full of
water and sandwiches. It was going to be a very long day, but looking
on the bright side, he hadn’t been sure how early to get up to stay ahead of
the traffic. Now that he had to be set up and shooting at this ungodly
hour, he didn’t have to worry about it.
He pointed his camera to the dockyard, setting
the zoom and examining the crane and the area around it, and then he panned
casually to the warehouse… The duffel guy was there! The one who paid
off the blonde. He was on an upper floor balcony, no shirt—and whoa,
very different girl—different woman rather, a very
very hot woman.
Instinctively Llanzo framed the shot but decided still photos were better
for this and switched cameras. They were just having breakfast,
judging by the Starbucks cups, and waiting for the boats, judging by the way
they were facing the crane. They were going to watch the boats going
into the water same as he was, that figured. Then the duffel guy
actually pointed to the crane and Llanzo quickly changed cameras again and
got to work.
Putting those catamarans into the water was quite a
process: getting the wing upright, putting the crane on the wing to line it
up, lifting the hull, the rudders going in while it was suspended over the
water—he only peeked back at the couple once during the process, and
afterwards they had gone inside.
Bruce and Selina were stopped at the door of the
Siegel Yacht Club. Her name was on the list; his wasn’t.
“Ah, Lex, so charmingly petty,” Bruce said, and
then pointed out he was Bruce Wayne of The
America’s Cup Timeclock presented by Wayne Enterprises: Look what WE can do.
He said it like a one-percenter who expected that to end the conversation,
just as Lex carried on whenever he came to Gotham, but he met with the same
response. The Siegel knew what side its Good Foods bread, a division
of LexCorp, was buttered on.
Selina rolled her eyes with a laugh and, seeing who
was close enough to be summoned, called out to John Blaine. Bruce was
duly vouched for and signed in as Prosperity Partners’ very special guest
(“Yes, in the absence of even a Tier 1 security check, Peter. It’s
only the practice day, after all. Not like Mr. Luthor himself is going
to be here.”) and joined the party.
“They’ll still be keeping an eye on you,” Selina
noted.
“Probably,” he replied and then turned to include
Blaine and added “The impertinence.”
Blaine nodded sympathetically and led them to
Moët & Chandon’s special champagne bar set up on the far end of the lobby.
He was playing host, figuring a guy like Wayne was best soothed with a glass
of good bubbly. He was just handing Bruce a glass and babbling how
Moët were fellow sponsors… “Very keen for all the guests to know if we get
bored on the club deck, we’re welcome to view the racing from the M&C yacht
just a few meters from the race course, launch leaving every 15 minutes.”
…when he saw it. A flash
in the eye—a vindictive glint
like Lex’s when he had an idea—which resolved in a rather unpleasant leer as
Bruce’s eye flicked down Selina’s body.
“If some insolent little security goon is watching
us, we’ll have to give him something to see, won’t we,” Bruce said, toying
with the end of her hair for a moment and letting the back of his fingers
brush against her breast.
Blaine chuckled, the idea of humiliating some wage
slave with an exhibitionist romp appealed to him. Later watching the
first 25-minute dash of the day from the outdoor deck, he saw Bruce and
Selina sneaking off just as Oracle Team USA was taking the lead, and he
chuckled again. Imagine the embarrassed oaf turning red at whatever
grunting and moaning reached his ears from the pair heaving against the wall
in the Meltzer room. Say what you will about Wayne Tech—and the
LexCorp team had a great deal to say on that subject—it was a hell of a way
to answer Luthor’s insult at the door. Blaine lifted his glass to the
Wayne name on the timeclock and took a sip of champagne in Bruce’s honor.
Not far away in the clubhouse, the unfortunate
security man did look very much the way Blaine pictured him, though the
rhythmic duet of intimate gasping didn’t actually come from interlocked
bodies. Instead it was a pair of tiny speakers hidden in the models of
Sir Thomas Lipton’s Shamrock V
and Dennis Conner’s Stars & Stripes.
The couple who had disappeared between those models of the most famous
J-Class and 12-metre racing yachts were zig-zagging through traffic on a
pair of messenger motorbikes in matching black jumpsuits, faces concealed
behind opaque black helmets, while a sync’d timer counted down their
approach to East End Holdings.
31 minutes: 30 seconds, it declared as they crossed
Byrne Avenue.
22 minutes: 15 seconds as the female messenger
disembarked, package and clipboard in hand, requiring the signature of the
only non-secretary low enough in the East End hierarchy to not be at the
Yacht Club…
19 minutes as the lowly analyst slumped and three
airline bottles of Smirnoff were dropped into her trash can…
18 minutes: 45
seconds as the window opened for Bruce/Tommy, having made his delivery to
the more trusting offices of Isidor & Pugh Associates next door from whose
16th
floor window he now descended…
18 minutes: 15 seconds as Selina slipped a USB into
the sleeping analyst’s terminal to tap the network…
“Timer is set, three minutes and counting before the
encryption program resets,” she reported into her mic. “Nine, give or take,
until Sleeping Beauty here wakes up.”
..:: Roger, going in::..
he said as she scurried up the line where, two floors above her, he had
defeated the rudimentary protections on Constance Rafkin’s window and was
disappearing inside her office.
The cameras
were off for three minutes. The pressure-sensitive floor was on an
independent system, so with Constance out for the day, there was nothing for
it but for him to reach the desk from a tension line, which required her
counterweight. Climbing up was the easy way to achieve the tension,
once she was there, all she could do was bounce, hold onto the window frame
for dear life and pull against his superior weight.
“You’re heavy,” she said through clenched teeth.
..:: And LexCorp computers are slow,::..
he hissed over the comm. ..:: A
WayneTech would be powered up by now.::..
“My love, Wayne is the best by every measure, and
from the depth of my soul I pity people who don’t… fucking… know that.
But that is so unbelievably… not the point, we have—you’re heavy—we have—”
..:: One minute, nineteen seconds, I’m aware,
I was just—::..
he paused, slamming the USB from Bratsie’s
executive safe into the terminal as soon as the welcome screen appeared.
…::—making
conversation,::.. he concluded.
..:: Logging in.::..
“We have 58 seconds.”
..:: Found the subscriber list.::..
“51.”
..:: Transmitting now.::..
“You’re still heavy.”
..:: … ::..
“How long can that damn file take? Fund’s got a
thirty million dollar minimum, how many subscribers can there be?”
..:: Almost there.::..
“Almost?! ... 24 seconds.”
..:: Got it.::..
“Sweet merciful Bast,” she said, as he pulled the
flash drive, shut down the computer, and jostled the tension line horribly
as he made his speed swing to the window. It was a dramatic move to
say the least as he cleared the window, giving the tension line a fierce tug
to pop the anchor free and holding onto the original descender with his left
hand while struggling with the window on his right.
“I’ll do that, get yourself secured,” Selina said,
and he gratefully snapped carabiners into place again while she announced
“Twelve seconds,” closing the window. “Eleven… ten… nine…” as they
both shimmied down out of view of the cameras that were about to come back
online.
“Cameras are back online in Rafkin’s office,” Selina
announced as they got their bearings in the sleeping associate’s office.
“Six minutes on her.”
She retrieved her USB from the terminal, did a final
look-round for any residual presence, and took a step to the window—only to
find Tommy blocking her way.
“There is one thing before we go,” he said, hovering
over her. “Your plan to ‘show the ant-fuckers just once what it would
look like’ if Catwoman was a Robin Hood, that plan didn't happen to include
putting Bruce Wayne's economic savvy to work for you, did it? Along with
Batman's knowledge of Luthor?”
“What?”
“You did say this is where we
settle accounts,”
he said, reaching experimentally for her throat as if he wasn’t entirely
sure how to go about it. “It's a
possibility that needs to be addressed.”
“You can’t be serious,” she said, echoing a phrase of
their old encounters.
“Kitten,” he graveled, adjusting the hand, “All this
wasn't just to weaponize my expertise to prove some point about what
Catwoman is and shame the people who insist on making you a Dickensian hard
luck case out of an orphanage, was it?”
“It’s what I told you at the beginning,” she said
evenly. “A gift. From the essence of the real me to the essence
of the real you.”
“I know,” he said, and kissed her cheek.
“Then why in the name of all cats and cat burglars—”
“I wanted to try the settling accounts on the
getaway. You said you have to live it to learn it.”
“I don’t believe this.”
“Five minutes on her; fourteen on the tape at the
yacht club. Get the window behind you,” he said, climbing out.
“I’m marrying fifteen kinds of crazy,” she whispered,
shaking her head.
The sounds of hushed but spirited love-making
had gone quiet in the Meltzer room and the demoralized security man perked
up, waiting for his charges to emerge. A minute passed. Then
another. And for ten seconds more he measured the sounds he’d heard
against his own experience, probable recovery time, and the desirability to
not dawdle after screwing in a public place. He peeked around the
corner and—saw nothing. The models of the
America, the
Australia II,
the Shamrock V
and the Stars & Stripes
were flanked by the Endeavor
and the Tall Ship Rose,
each in a glass case on a carved wooden base. It didn’t sound like
on-the-floor fucking he’d heard, but unless Wayne and the girl were on the
ground hidden by one of the bases, they were no longer in the room.
Scott’s head spun. Where? How? He
ran all the way into the room and circled each of the ship’s models just to
confirm the obvious, nobody was hiding there. So where? How?
He ran outside—
And scanned the guests watching on the deck. No
Bruce Wayne, no hot brunette. He ran back inside and checked the
champagne bar—
No Bruce Wayne, no hot brunette. He ran back
outside, and again scanned the crowd while composing four—five—nine ways to
begin his non-report on the man he was supposed to keep an eye on…
He decided the second was the least likely to get him
fired… and if he was fired, if he could make ends meet going back to the
Home Depot or would have to get a roommate—and if it came to that, if it
might be better to move in with Julie...
Then he heard laughter that sounded an awful
lot like Wayne and his wife (not like he hadn’t heard enough of them
enjoying each other’s company) and when he turned to see, it was—IT WAS
THEM! IT WAS—IT WAS THEM! HE HADN’T LOST THEM! THEY WERE—
THEY WERE—How was that possible?—They were getting
off the Moët &
Chandon launch.
But how? HOW? Wayne was telling his
buddies they’d gone to watch the first race from the M&C yacht? Then
who had he heard screwing in the… Y’know what, it didn’t matter. Here
they were. They’d been on the M&C yacht. He was watching them
again, it’s as if he’d been watching them the entire time, he was not going
to be fired, and he did not have to move in with Julie.
Lois Lane Note-Taker Pro 7
Story Notes: Wayne
Keywords: Wayne Enterprises, Wayne Tech, Economy,
Wayne/Kyle Wedding, GSE, NASDAQ, America’s Cup, Yacht Club, Regatta,
Versace, Christina Bomba, Manolo Blahnik; Luthor, LexCorp, hedge funds,
Observatory, Balmain, Delman, Gucci, Davi
Cross-ref: Business & Finance (Hardwick); Fashion
(Cat Grant), Style (Grant), Gossip (Grant); Sports (Lombard)
This wedding is going to kill me. Five
minutes on the record with Bruce wasn’t crazy enough before. Now he’s
half of them.
She’s
part of him. It was supposed to be three minutes on Wayne Tech, one on
the economy, one on the wedding plans. A wedding is just fashion and
celebrity fluff, a few tidbits to barter with Grant. Maybe one piece
of real news in the rest and a half-dozen business tidbits to barter with
Hardwick. How did it turn into this??? I’m maxed out on
keywords.
I’ve interviewed enough Bruce Waynes of the world to
know the drill: they’re scheduled so tightly, they figure making time for
you at all is more than enough effort on their part. It’s not that
they’re blind to the inconvenience when, for example, your five minutes has
to start at their hotel and you wait around the lobby until they’re ready to
leave for the gala. You ride with them in the limo to wherever it is
they’re going and are left to arrange your own ride home. Sure it’s an
imposition, but they figure it’s worth it for the priceless minutes of
exclusive access you’re getting. It’s obnoxious but it’s true.
Bruce isn’t as bad as most, he does consider me a
friend. But he’s also Batman and I know that, and he knows I
know, and that means he knows I know he’s juggling twice as much as it
appears to the outside world. I know he must have a very good reason for
arranging things the way he does and I’ll go along.
And I did. I went along. I presented
myself at the Four Seasons prepared to wait. I wasn’t completely
surprised when the call came down inviting me up to the suite to wait there,
but I was completely surprised to see Selina there still in the manicure and
hair dressing stage. How Wayne,
right? Manicurist and hair dresser from the hotel salon right up there
in the room. It did put a certain crimp in the conversation—not that
it mattered, Bruce was too busy on the phone to do more than wave hello.
Then there was this improvised sign language that I can only guess was
inviting me to order myself a snack from room service while I waited.
I passed and decided to hover around Selina for
extra tidbits about the wedding plans. Instead, I got a regulation briefing
on tonight’s dress, shoes, jewelry and handbag—along with details of another
formal ensemble she brought for “Monday night.” She said it casually,
like I’d know what it meant, and all I could think to do was pocket it like
she was the S.O. of any other interviewee who let something slip.
But Selina doesn’t slip. She’d just told me
there was someplace to be Monday night, she’d done it in a very Brucian way,
leaving a trail of breadcrumbs in front of witnesses that established
exactly how Lois Lane caught the scent of whatever this thing turned out to
be. (She’d also given me a very good idea what to wear, which was nice
of her and not at all Brucian.)
The shindig they were attending tonight was at the
North Harbor Tower, kicking off the America’s Cup Regatta, and that was only
for the weekend. Nothing extended to Monday. No clue there.
I had my interview with Bruce in the limo and
watched them make their entrance. Bruce being Bruce, he offered me the
car to take me home, and that meant I could pump the driver. More
importantly, I could probe all the other drivers before we left. There was
an awful lot of LexCorp upper management attending. I counted twelve sedans
from their car service and four private limos. It took some doing, but I
finally found out Monday night’s bookings are for a do at the Observatory.
And a call to the Observatory as a put upon LexCorp assistant coughed up
the final piece of the puzzle: the event was booked by LEXponencial,
a consortium of hedge funds. [Note: Consortium of HFs is striking me
funny. Like a murder of crows, maybe something catchy for the headline.]
So I’ve got until Monday to get my hands on an
invitation. LexCorp still uses T&M for 90% of that stuff, it shouldn’t be
too hard to get my hands on a proof copy. [Note: Pick up the Hervé Léger
from drycleaners, see about Clark’s tux.] I need to research this
LEXponencial and the hedge funds that belong to it. Still haven’t
organized the notes from 5-min with Bruce and it’s already getting garbled
in all the new stuff. And for what it’s worth, Selina’s
shoes-dress-jewelry-handbag for two nights on top of Bruce’s Wayne
Enterprises/Wayne Tech/Global Economy maxed out my keywords and cross
referencing. My head’s exploding trying to map out the 58 potential
stories coming out of those 5 minutes. I need a staff! It was 5
minutes on the record and they’re not even married yet. I’m going to
need a bloody staff.
Lois Lane, the world-famous Pulitzer Prize-winning
journalist was a witness to Selina’s entrance to the gala and even
documented her dress, an elegant but not especially eye-catching black
Versace. A few guests whose views were not shaped by Luthor thought
the engaged couple looked sweet together as they danced, and a few more
smiled at the gesture when, at the buffet, Bruce took a violet from the
centerpiece and set it on her plate on a piece of chicken. No one but
birds noticed the pair leaping off the tower and parachuting to a safe
landing on a side street. No one but mice saw the unauthorized entry
into the Justice League teleporter on the Daily Planet building. No
one but the mice and possibly Clark would have heard the ultrasonic squelch
of the keypad being hacked, but if Clark heard, he had no idea it was
disabling the log of the transporter’s use.
At the gala, Lex Luthor arrived. Matt and Ellen
Montrasante were the first to greet him, and Lex noted that Ellen had gotten
over the slight coolness of their last meetings. She hadn’t wanted
Matt to return to LexCorp, but as expected a signing bonus that added a
nursery to their house had pacified her, to say nothing of a salary that
paid for a nanny. Naturally he asked about the little brat (though at
this stage, what is there to say other than it eats, it cries and it poops?)
and complimented the ring Matt had given her when the brat was born (though
what was there to say other than it was a sapphire and it was small.)
John Blaine was next, mercifully unburdened with a
wife, so they talked golf, the practice day racing, and the ironic justice
of the drubbing Wartleman-Bromby was about to take with that doomed Silicon
Valley venture they should have bailed on last year… whether it would lose
50 or 100 million by the time it was over, and when the inevitable ‘night of
the long knives’ would occur. Blaine went off chuckling maliciously,
while Luthor considered the pack of executive talent about to be released
into the wild. They had fucked up certainly, and fuck ups have
something to prove. He would talk to Matt on Monday about setting
something up to make them compete, set the dogs fighting each other and you
never know what qualities might emerge.
Willem de Kooning’s Black-and-White Unnumbered never
left Gotham. One of Bruce’s grandparents’ neighbors had met the artist
at a dinner party. He became a fan, went out and bought two pieces
from a private dealer the following week and kept the acquaintance going.
A few years later, he showed up at de Kooning’s studio with $10,000 and a
considerable amount of very good liquor. Got him blind drunk and
bought a ridiculous amount of iconic works from the forties worth ten times
that amount.
Black-and-White Unnumbered hung in the Bristol house
for only a year and was then moved to the family’s Park Avenue apartment.
It was lent to the Guggenheim for an exhibit in the late 70s, to the Layne
in the early 90s, and was finally sold along with the apartment when the
widow could no longer afford the city… Purchased by an energy
conglomerate for their corporate collection, it hung in their headquarters
on Third Avenue for a year before finding its current home in Vault 41,
Compartment 2 of Federated First Metro along with a Klimt and a Mednyánszky
as collateral for oil leases.
Lex spotted Dean Rhoads at the bar, also
unburdened. Dean had a wife, but she detested Luthor and stayed in
Beverly Hills whenever he came to Metropolis. In Metropolis he had a
mistress, but of course he wouldn’t bring her to an event like this where
other wives were present. Lex smiled as he approached. The bar
was the best place to get it over with. Dean would want to talk about
his flight in and that would be easier with a good scotch in hand.
Dean could afford his own plane, but instead he chartered other people’s.
An eccentricity but a perfectly excusable one if only he didn’t have to talk about it
every time. He was always renting a different plane and whatever
little feature or quirk of service struck his fancy was his favorite topic
of conversation. The delight
he took in such things instead of being a properly jaded old money lawyer,
it was decidedly odd.
Unless you believe the al Ghul version of the Mughal
Empire in India—which absolutely no one does—the 68 carat pear shaped fancy
diamond called The Nicolay was first owned by Charles the Bold, Duke of
Burgundy, who lost it in battle in 1477. It’s named for a later owner,
the French Ambassador to Turkey in the late 16th century, who loaned it to
the French king, Henry III to wear in the cap he used to conceal his
baldness. Insert Lex joke here.o:p>
Henry IV also ‘borrowed’ the stone and then sold it
in 1664 to James I of England. In 1688 his son James II, last of the
Stuart kings, fled with it to Paris. It disappeared during the French
Revolution until it turned up, mysteriously, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
where the son and heir of a steel fortune gave it to his fiancé.
Now security for a cattle ranch in Argentina, it
lives in a corporate vault similar to that storing the de Kooning, never
seeing the light of day except for the rare occasion when it’s sent to MBH
in Gotham’s Diamond District for cleaning.
Lex always preferred Constance Rafkin to her
husband. She had a ferocious intelligence, so much so that he’d never
once found it trying to talk to her. That was a rare quality.
She also said what she thought, frankly, honestly and to his face, as if he
wasn’t Alexander Luthor. That was a rarer quality. The
combination made her… unsuitable for the LexCorp ladder where her frankness
would be mimicked by others lacking the intelligence that made her insights
valuable. He didn’t want any John, Dean and Barry feeling they could
just vomit their opinions onto his desk any time they wanted, but someone
who had ideas worth acting on—who saw things that would make or lose
money—he didn’t want her keeping those thoughts to herself from some
insidious sense of tact.
Yet this gifted woman had married an absolute
dullard. He worked in marketing at some company that made snow globes
or something. He read the Daily Planet. And it seemed his
highest aspiration was to be liked..
It was he who mentioned Bruce Wayne was at the gala….
Cezanne’s Treed Lane
in Auvers, a sweet watercolor bought by a 19th
Century Argentine socialite traveling in Paris and left to a Buenos Aires
museum at her death. Seized in the late 20th
century by a military junta and traded to Taiwan in exchange for arms for
the Falklands war. It wound up in the hands of a Taiwanese business
man now using it to buy a timber company, and it resides in the Custody
Department of Gotham National’s Private Banking Group on Twenty-fifth and
Fifth Avenue.
Bratsie Drammen had a new wife Lex hadn’t met.
Bratsie who was famous for saying you probably shouldn’t worry what your
first wife’s mother looks like. Lex was expecting the usual trophy
(And wasn’t completely wrong in that she was blonde, all legs, etc.
Attractive but far from stunning in Lex’s view.). He was not expecting
a broker of high end real estate, specializing in luxury properties in
Venice no less. That discovery produced the odd smile only his closest
associates knew: nothing at all moved from the nose down, but there was an
almost subliminal lift of the upper eyelids that seemed to transform his
entire face, usually followed by a flick of the eye towards whoever brought
the approved thing to his attention. Bratsie knew it well, and
understood in this context it was a dismissal. He went off to talk to
the Montrasantes and would catch up with Lex later.
Máscara dorada del Señor de La Mena,
a gold mask of the Lord of La Mena was found along with a bronze chest plate
in an ancient Moche tomb in Northern Peru. One of the most advanced
cultures in South America a thousand years before the Inca, they developed
entirely different methods of melting and shaping the gold. They had
no written language, so all that’s known of their culture was deduced from
their art. The society seems to have been built around religion,
warfare, ruling elites, and sacrifice. The mask presents the face of a
sea god with jade eyes and ivory teeth; the breast plate is decorated with
monkeys and peanuts carved in relief.
Looted in the late 80s and sold through a local
witchcraft market, it was bought by a collector in Lima and sold to a second
collector who had it authenticated at the University of Munich. After
a number of convoluted side-dramas involving a German banker, a London
lawyer, and that first collector being murdered, it became the property of
Las Empresas Santo Domingo, a telecoms firm in Santiago, Spain, currently
using it to secure a modest $12 million bond issue.
The party was so far along by the time Thomas Pearl
arrived, there was only one man on the door—the same one who had admitted
Bruce and Selina only hours before. He wouldn’t have been Bruce’s
choice if there was any alternative, but his disguise had made it past Lois
Lane, after all. Lois was as observant as any Luthor security.
That was his thought as he strode up and
presented the invitation, when the codicil thought hit: Lois did have the
keen observational eye of a crack reporter with one notable exception.
She had a keen eye unless you counted the
years she didn’t recognize Clark.
It was too late for doubts. The guard was
looking at the invitation without taking it, just as he had earlier with
Bruce.
“Name?” he asked.
“Tom Pearl. Thomas, that is. You’ll have
it as Thomas Pearl.”
He checked his list, while the gremlins in Bruce’s
mind weighed Lois’s inability to see through Superman’s disguise against the
rest of the world’s. Sure she saw more of Clark and Superman, but it
didn’t really mean she was especially dense seeing through disguises.
It didn’t mean she was a poor measure to judge—
“There you are: Pearl,” the guard said without having
looked at Tommy’s face in any detail. “Enjoy your evening.”
“Greenwich!” a new voice called before Bruce could
respond.
“Uhrm, thank you,” he said hastily to the guard as he
strode toward the new speaker with a confidence he couldn’t feel.
“Bratsie,” he said brightly, hoping to nail down the
first-name relationship while they remained in earshot of the guard.
“Matt, Ellen! Come over here, meet Tom Althorp of,
what was it, Althorp Investments?”
Tommy hadn’t given his company a name when they’d met
in the Caymans, so he murmured ‘Althorp Private Equity’ while trying to
subtly nudge the circle farther into the party and away from the guard.
“Matt Montrasante of LexCorp,” Bratsie was saying.
“His wife Ellen. Met Althorp when I was last in the Caymans, getting
into rare whiskies in a big way…”
“And in a little way,” Tommy said, pointing towards
the bar which did finally get the group moving away from the door and the
guard, though Tommy’s situation hardly improved. As soon as he got a
drink in his hand, Bratsie was spiriting him off to meet the business elite
of Metropolis, including John Blaine and Dean Rhoads.
Finally, when it seemed the worst really must be
over, Bratsie said “Now you really must come meet my wife, and by ‘meet’ I
mean help rescue her from Lex.”
Before Tommy could react he found himself propelled
by his elbow, good manners, and Bratsie’s determined party spirit, directly
into the path of Lex Luthor and his repugnant meeting-rich-people smile.
“Tom Althorp,” Bratsie was saying, and almost before
Tommy could get through the How-do-you-dos, Bratsie had liberated his wife
and was steering her towards the dance floor.
“Althorp, you say.”
Leaving Tommy with Lex.
“Any connection to Althorp House in Northampton?”
Bruce considered his position: Tommy had never
actually passed a background check. His alias was inserted onto the
list by a criminal who had broken into the LexCorp HQ under all of their
noses. He’d arrived late, using another guest’s invitation to get
through the door, and was immediately greeted by a different name. And
now, within minutes, he was in a private conversation with Luthor. In
stabbing distance, as it were. He should be under intense scrutiny
right now if anyone in security knew what they were doing.
As for his disguise, well…
“Not that I’m aware of,” Tom said glibly. “If
there’s any connection it must be too far back to matter. Family’s
been in Connecticut forever.”
…On the one hand, Lex wasn’t any
better than Lois when it came to seeing through Clark’s disguise. And
if he hated Bruce Wayne, it certainly didn’t compare to his hatred for
Superman. Hate never led him to look close enough to perceive what
other people missed…
“That’s the funny thing about European nobility,” Lex
was saying. “The farther removed from the source of the original honor, the
more it counts.”
…But neither Clark nor Superman had to deal with
the dynamic Bruce faced now, Luthor in that mode
when he’s with his own kind.
This was exactly the Luthor Bruce encountered the first time they’d met:
oily and inclusive. Another rich man with a foundation helping the
hospital? Let’s join forces and use our muscle to make this place a
profit center…
“I wouldn’t know; never looked into it,” Tommy said,
a part of his mind tracing paths of escape while the other considered that
on his first really serious heist, Thomas Pearl managed to get his face
known to half of Lex Luthor’s inner circle, including Lex himself, by the
name Althorp. It was either a miraculous criminal achievement or an
unprecedented criminal fubar, and he wasn’t sure which.
“Nobody in the family ever looked into it, the
genealogy stuff,” he said. “Maybe they knew there was nothing to find.
The Althorp who immigrated might have been a nobody running from a
murder charge for all I know, grabbing onto the first name that occurred to
him.”
Bruce looked blankly into the eyes of Lex Luthor and
wondered why the dumbest, most unattractive scenario he could think of to
shut down the Althorp discussion had introduced a criminal angle Lex might
actually connect with.
“Well there is that,” Lex laughed.
“That’s the downside
of inherited nobility, they do tend to piss away the fortunes. If this
equity fund is as promising as Bratsie seems to think, they’d be happy to
claim you.”
This was Hell.
This was his punishment for learning how to become
the very thing Batman abhorred.
“A self-made fortune is the best kind to have, Tom,
don’t let the social climbers tell you otherwise.”
Maybe if there was a way to work
Superman into
the conversation. Tommy could say how much he admired the Man of
Steel, Luthor would decide Tommy was another mouth-breathing imbecile and
that would be that.
“So tell me about this fund for limited-edition
scotch whiskies.”
This was Hell.
Cora Colette was the last guest to arrive at the
party. Like Tommy, she noticed the guard on the door was the same one
who admitted Bruce and Selina. Unlike Tommy, she didn’t worry about
it. Men of that type noticed two things: hair and tits. Selina’s
black Versace downplayed her bosom and emphasized her height; Colette’s
eye-catching red was all about the cleavage. Selina's long, black hair
was down; Colette’s short blonde wig was cropped. Recognition was a
non-issue.
Finding Tommy was. She looked at the bar near
the door, the one by the dance floor, and the two flanking the buffet.
She wandered around the buffet, behind the band stand, and the dessert bar
and in little alcove with… cordials.
She stared. There was spirited manly
laughter—but just not any
man’s laugh. A laugh heard almost exclusively in the Sinister Citadel
among members (and guests) of the Secret Society of Supervillains.
Tommy Pearl—her pupil
Tommy Pearl—had apparently, approximately 4 days into his criminal life,
become BFFs with Luthor.
“He’s even a better villain than the rest of us,” she
whispered in a daze.
“It’s called ‘Overheard in the LexCorp elevator’ and
it’s this little-known gem of the Internet,” Tommy said as Luthor shook his
head in admiration. “‘Teach a man to fish, he’ll still vote for the
guy who gives him a fish. Pay taxes that fund a dozen fire departments and—”
“‘He’ll still cheer the cape that puts out the fire
for him,’” they said together and then Luthor added “Ericson, that has to be
Ericson.”
“Lex, it’s been a pleasure and a half meeting you,
but the future ex-Mrs. Althorp is waiting out there somewhere.”
Lex laughed and waved him off like an old buddy used
to his friend’s horn dogging, and Tommy called back “Overheard on the
LexCorp Elevator.”
“I’ll look for it,” Lex promised.
Tommy mingled until he met Colette. They danced
once, apparently discovered an exciting synchronicity in the way their
bodies moved together for they disappeared into the bushes and were not seen
again. Bruce and Selina danced a few times, mingled a bit more, and
then left.
The Saturday racing began with wind delays which may
have quickened the rumors. Once again, Bruce and Selina went out to the
Moët & Chandon yacht for the first race, and the sense among the guests was
that there was ‘a piece of paper in the room’ among the finance guys on
shore. The guests on shore thought those on the yacht were the ones in
the know. Bruce played the silences, creating the impression that the
news was about LexCorp and his presence was keeping people from discussing
it openly. Selina played the silences, creating the impression that
the news involved a theft, perhaps of a cat item, art or jewels of the sort…
the American boat had to capsize to avoid a collision with Team New Zealand…
and the rumors suddenly expanded and clarified.
They now circulated with great specificity,
though in extremely hushed tones and with great care that no Gothamites were
in earshot. There had been a theft
of the collateral on certain loans
connected to LexCorp,
possibly key loans in certain portfolios. It wouldn’t be a
default but the
bonds would have to be restructured, roll over into new bonds, which
constituted a credit event that would… that would trigger the credit default
swaps. Come Monday all the paperwork would be filed, starting the
process and then, whew, it would be an early payday for the portfolios
involved. And any derivatives based on them, and derivatives based on them.
An exponentially giant payday the farther out you went.
“I don’t understand,” Clark said. He was reluctant
to interrupt when it wasn’t a Superman-accosting-the-villain situation, but
really.
“Trust me, nobody spreading the rumors did either,”
Selina said. “You know what his protocols are like, right? The
complexities? This is the finance version. All you have to know
is the dominos were falling, starting with the thefts and ending with a
payout on one of Lexy’s funds. Japan won the first race and there were
two capsizes: USA and Team New Zealand.”
“Uh-huh.”
At the dockside, a black 2008 Hummer H2 parked in
front of the warehouse where Llanzo had seen duffel guy and his hot
girlfriend watching the boats. On the one hand, there was nothing
suspicious about it. A black Hummer—an older one, but still—a black
Hummer catches the eye. It’s not the kind of thing you’d use if you
were doing something shady. Was it? Not if you wanted to
stay under the radar…
Llanzo took a few pictures.
On the other hand, there were tens of thousands of
fans lining the pier, another thousand at least in the grandstands...
On the other hand, they were just having breakfast.
He saw the cups. And some kind of rolls. Could’ve been
croissants.
And watching
the crane maneuver the boats onto the water. (He took another
picture.)
Well that wasn’t so very suspicious, watching the
boats. He’d been up at dawn to shoot video of it, after all. It was a
fascinating process.
On the other hand, ten thousand at least on the Navy
Pier, another thousand in the stands, who knows how many along the
waterfront. And the duffel bag. The guy rented the warehouse
with a bundle of cash from a duffle bag.
The back of the Hummer opened. There was a
crate, and something awkward and bulky that looked like another crate under
a cloth... Another crate and another weird thing… Between the
door of the Hummer and the bulk of the stuff he was carrying, Llanzo didn’t
have a good view of whoever it was unloading the stuff, but he was pretty
sure it was the duffel guy. It seemed like the same color jacket
anyway.
Llanzo took a few last pictures… and then
breathed a sigh of relief. He could now see very clearly a corner of a
painting in a thick gold frame under one of the cloths. The covered
stuff were paintings.
They weren’t explosives, duffel guy wasn’t a terrorist and Llanzo could
relax, give the race his full attention and stop wondering if he was
trespassing, if there were any laws against using the patch of grass off the
exit this way, or if he could get into any trouble calling the police if it
turned out to be a false alarm.
Whew! And Oracle Team USA capsized, he would
have killed himself if he’d missed that!
Sunday saw ideal weather for racing, a cloudless sky
and a steady Northerly breeze. Apart from the fresh water in Lake
Metropolis, it was exactly what the America’s Cup is meant to be (in the age
of the hydrofoiling catamarans, but that’s another conversation).
No practice day, no wind delays, just six 44-foot
cats with 5-man crews in three tight, intense dashes that are roughly
25-minutes of sustained strategy adapting to luck. And I mean STRATEGY
down to the millimeter and nanosecond of fluid dynamics, resistance and
torque… and I mean LUCK, what the wind is doing, not three minutes ago
but now, and not six meters that way but right here. 25-minutes of
sustained tension and thrills, it’s up there with sex.
Clark blinked.
“The first leg was very even, with four boats leaping
ahead at the start and drag racing on their foils to the first turn—the
marker was right on the boundary, Team USA sailed fully out of bounds, UK
and New Zealand clipped it and all three took a penalty leaving Japan firmly
in the lead.”
“Do I really have to know this?” he asked when Selina
took a breath.
“Lois only got five minutes, Spitcurl, you’re getting
as long as it takes to take in all the detail.”
“I know that, I remember the de Kooning that never
left Gotham and somehow Bruce’s grandparents were involved, and Henry III
borrowed the Duke of Burgundy’s diamond to cover his baldness. ‘Insert Lex
joke here.’”
“I’m giving you atmosphere! Do you have no
romance in your soul? You’re a writer.”
“’Insert Lex joke here?’” he quoted again.
“That was fun. If you can’t see the fun in
this, I don’t know where you’ll ever find it,” she said.
“Selina, my experience with art and jewel thieves—and
cat burglars in general—is somewhat limited. Does a typical cat really
know that kind of thing, I mean, that kind of detail about any given piece—”
“Well I don’t know, Clark, why don’t you find a
typical
nobody from nowhere and ask them? I am the whole package—meow—from
the generational history of the mansion in Bristol to the Sorbonne to the
way yacht racing worked when they still used 12-metres. If that’s too
much for a super-journalist to handle...”
Near the dockside, a Metropolis Police helicopter
closed in on the warehouse where a suspicious Hummer had been sighted.
A police van and two squad cars squealed into position outside the gate, the
van doors burst open and armed officers ran out in a swift, military double
time to surround the building. Outside the gate and across the street,
a sedan came to a more dignified halt. Driver and passenger waited in
tense silence as the bullhorn order to evacuate went unanswered, a bolt was
cut, a door forced and the officers stormed inside the warehouse.
Special Agent Finley was pissed.
Metropolis PD had a photo of a couple
inches of painting too dark to make out
anything.
That’s all that could be seen from the little bit sticking out from the
tarp: a corner, a fucking corner of what could be an entirely black canvas
for all they knew, in a thick, gaudy, 4-inch frame. And from that,
this Maria Ciaccio decides it has
to be from this Swiss-Italian smuggling ring she’s investigating, because
reasons!
Some photo of some antiquity found in the wreckage of a car belonging to a
smuggler turns out to be an antiquity that a Sicilian art dealer sold to the
Metropolis Art Institute. It wasn’t his idea of a firm evidentiary
link between the smugglers and Metropolis, but Interpol had apparently been
looking for a way in for years. That corner of a painting in a dark
photograph was it, and if the FBI was to get the help they needed
negotiating the tangle of jurisdictions between the Carabinieri and Polizia
di Stato when they tracked a terrorist to Italy, he had to make Miss
Interpol happy.
“All clear, it’s empty,” their radio squawked just as
the lead officer on the bullhorn waved them in.
The two emerged from the car, the FBI liaison and
Interpol agent who clearly didn’t like each other but were united in
contempt for the Metropolis PD. They marched together into the
warehouse, Agent Ciaccio outlining her plan of attack once her suspicions
were confirmed: the items they were about to find had been shipped to
Metropolis “for restoration,” she was sure, and shipped back with forged
provenance documents to be sold throughout the world. Once the items
were recovered, a cursory look at the shipping containers would show where
they were headed and point to the next string of raids…
Finley could tell from the MPD officers they passed
that she was destined to be disappointed. He let her prattle until
they were inside and tried not to look smug as her speech slowed and then
stopping entirely. The warehouse was all but empty. None of the
thousands of vases, bronze statues, and frescos were anywhere in sight.
There were no antiquities at all. A few crates of art, yes, and those
would have to be identified, but the one in the thick four inch frame was
certainly not Antonio Pisano’s Our Lady of the Quail, so whatever it all
turned out to be, it wasn’t Maria’s Ciaccio’s smugglers. It was the
Metropolis PD’s case, none of Interpol’s business, and that meant there was
no need for Special Agent Finley to be there. At all.
Bruce and Lois sat in their black tie best in the
living room of the Four Seasons Presidential Suite until the door from the
office burst open and Selina and Clark entered at full steam.
“Did you just
pull rank on me,
Gotham?”
“All I said was I can only speak for the world
class thieves who didn’t crawl out from under a rock of who-gives-a-damn—Oh
Lois, that is beautiful.
That’s Hervé Léger?”
“Badgley Mischka, it’s new,” Lois said proudly.
“It’s gorgeous. And god, it suits you.”
“And this is Balmain?”
“Mhm, not new. I’ve worn it to the opera but
that was an Eddie thing that doesn’t count.”
Bruce and Clark looked at each other, and Selina
abruptly changed tone.
“C’mon, you’re up,” she told Lois. “The full
story, no time limit, ask as many follow-ups as you please.”
Lois glanced triumphantly at Bruce, who was looking
at Clark like he’d let him down.
“What did you win?” Clark asked his wife, but she
directed her answer to Selina.
“This time I’m kidnapping you. Better shopping
in Milan or Paris do you think?”
“I was
promised the full story,” Clark insisted, and Lois looked at him pityingly
like he’d had his chance and clearly blew it.
Selina looked at him like ‘fair is fair, she had
promised’ and she rattled off quickly:
“Lex was there Sunday, so Mercy was there making the
yacht club security miserable. I gave Matt my answer about the vulture
fund, Bruce baited Lex about the rumors, and he appropriated tonight’s party
like we knew he would. It’s no longer about the consortium in general
but the East End fund and its impending payout in particular. Save me
a dance, Spitcurl.”
Even for one born into a financial dynasty like the
Hobbs Trust, it was a thrill. Getting into his tux in Gotham and
boarding Luthor’s plane to Metropolis, the limo waiting to bring him to the
Observatory. Barry Hobbs was on such a high, he didn’t even mind the
sight of Bruce getting out of his limo up ahead in a party that included
Clark Kent.
There was an awkward bit at the door, maneuvering
through the staff and security hovered around a pleb.
“I just want to talk to one of the guests,” it
bleated. “I’m not going to eat anyone’s shrimp cocktail.”
“This is a private event and if you don’t have an
invitation,” the head staffer said as Barry waltzed around him. The
pleb cut him off with a puerile “They are a bunch of crooks. You do
realize that, don’t you?” which faded into “The debt’s triple-A rated, solid
gold” and “The poor bastard’s peeing his pants just because they laid off
half the state” as Barry made his way into the party.
“Asking fifty cents on the dollar, I offered
twenty-five and he threw in the headquarters in Star City,” a too-eager
young man boasted at Constance as Barry approached.
“That kid’s a prick,” Constance declared once he was
(probably) out of earshot. Followed by “You should hire him.”
Barry considered the hyperactive idiot’s back and
shrugged.
“If I get through the evening without walking in on
him in the men’s room putting the day’s profits up his nose, I’ll consider
it,” Barry declared, knowing there wasn’t the slightest chance of that
happening.
“Did you hear we bagged the cat,” Matt said proudly
as Constance steered Barry into his path.
“Urhm, no,” Barry said, looking awkwardly around the
room to see where Wayne and Selina had landed. They weren’t together.
Bruce was working the room alone, in a pattern that seemed a mirror image
of Matt’s, but Selina, where was she?
She was with
Lex, who was walking her towards the little
circle—towards Matt and Constance and Barry himself—like one of them, Lex or
Selina, was giving the other a present. It wasn’t clear who was doing
the giving, but it was clear they—Matt,
Constance and Barry—were
the gift.
“Selina wanted to have a word,” Lex said
graciously while she shook Matt’s hand and gushed “I just wanted to thank
you for letting me into your fund.
“I know you’re oversubscribed,”
she added, offering her hand to John Blaine who had somehow joined the
circle without Barry seeing. Then she turned to him with a…
warmer smile
than Barry had received from her before, although perhaps that wasn’t quite
the word. It didn’t seem any more sincere than the usual social
façade, but it was... more focused in a way that wasn’t entirely, eh… “I am
so glad you made introductions.”
Barry took the cue and quickly introduced Constance…
“Pleasure.”
“Good to meet you.”
…Released from the focused smile and seeing it turned
on someone else, Barry was finally able to identify it. It was a
predator’s smile. The focus of a lioness locking onto prey.
“Constance is our numbers gal, she knows the inherent
value on the different…”
Jesus! He thought that Catwoman stuff was a
gimmick but—but the things he’d said to her before the board
meeting—Jesus—and then voting against her proposal for the Man’s Reach
exhibit, and that Gotham v Metropolis campaign he launched against it—he was
lucky to still have a head!
The dinner was unnerving. Selina returned to
Bruce’s side, of course, Bruce who was Luthor’s rival, and the two of them
sat next to Clark Kent, who took down the Luthor administration, and his
wife, the head cheerleader for Superman. How plebs like that got on
the guest list he couldn’t guess, but there they were. And that feline
quality he thought was a gimmick somehow enabled Selina Kyle to move back
and forth from Lex’s circle to Bruce’s as if it was a matter of walking
across the room with her feet. How? How?! A part of him
wanted to sound out John or Matt, but then he thought of that smile and he
couldn’t move.
The things he’d
said before that
board meeting thinking he was only risking banishment from Wayne guest
lists—he was lucky to still have a head.
And now… she was dancing… with Kent.
The orchestra ended on a particular note as Constance
Rafkin approached the podium.
“Alright, if you’ve all finished your baked alaska,
let’s get on with the dessert,” she said. “It is time for our
speakers: beginning with our leader and inspiration in all profitable
pursuits, Lex Luthor. A man who’s never heard the words ‘no’ and
‘deal’ in the same sentence, unless he was the one speaking.”
There was polite laughter from all but Bruce, Selina,
Lois and Clark. Several people lifted or toyed with their champagne
glasses as if prepping for a toast, and Lex himself reached into his pocket
to retrieve a vibrating phone. While he read…
“A man who has shown us again and again that
adversity and opportunity are one and the same…”
…Matt’s phone buzzed obnoxiously and Blaine’s sounded
a sharp musical tone. Both took them out and read…
“Who has drilled into us that the business cycle’s
ups and downs depend on which way you hold the chart.”
Selina elbowed Clark and pointed, though of course he
had already picked up the surging heart rates from Matt and Blaine.
Lex’s face was frozen in a mask that revealed nothing. Matt’s brow
dipped, then glanced across his wife at Blaine, still reading his phone and
then looking up to return Matt’s stare. The two rose in sync, as if
they shared a telepathic link, and walked casually to the door.
Constance faltered slightly as she watched them:
“And a man whose team has led a reputation— uh-a
rebirth in the reputation and profitability of the private investment
sector.”
Bruce’s lip twitched as he tilted his knife to adjust
the reflection. Predictably, both men’s eyes were back on their phones
before they reached the door.
“A man whose team will be back in a minute, I hope,”
Constance adlibbed.
Clark tuned out the room and directed his attention
to the door where they exited, listening intently:
“Bloomberg
and Dow Jones.”
“The collateral's recovered? Paintings, diamond,
all of it.”
They were talking over each other, and Clark turned
his head to see them pacing madly back and forth, phones in hand.
“Literally hours after the thefts were discovered,
it's all on its way back to the vaults. What does that mean?”
“The bonds don’t have to be restructured. No
reissue, no rollover into new—There's no credit event to trigger the default
swaps.”
“Prosperity Partners under investigation sources
report—”
“I mean, it already has, the payouts have been
initiated, the CDOs are rolling over. Initiated but not completed, what will
happen? The whole tsunami rolling in on itself.”
“It’s tomorrow in Japan.”
“Billions tied up in legal limbo. Inquiries
and litigation…”
“We have two billion in redemption orders because of
this.”
Duet became trio as Bratsie joined them.
“What is this? Market Manipulation? Money
Laundering? Class-A banks threatening to...”
Trio became quartet as Barry caught up…
“Self-dealing, fraud—Where the hell is this coming
from?”
“Damnit, more redemptions. All right, freeze the
fund.”
“We can’t freeze; subscribers will be baying for
Lex’s blood.”
“There’s no choice; we are not that liquid.”
“Nobody is that damn liquid.”
…And quartet became quintet when Dean got there.
“No, no, no, not the Cayman accounts. Son of a
bitch. How the hell did they find out about this?”
“East End accounts flagged for—mother fucker—
the start and stop on all the subscribers looks
like money laundering?”
In the ballroom, everyone’s phone was now
buzzing and beeping with news alerts, stock alerts and frantic calls from
brokers while Constance went valiantly on with her remarks, repeating the
mantra that “Adversity is
opportunity. And I for one look forward to hearing that principle
expounded upon by the master himself. Ladies and gentlemen, I give
you… Lex Luthor.”
Never one to back down from a fight, Lex strode to
the podium ignoring the phones as Superman might ignore artillery shells
bursting around him. He ignored the empty seats—every table was now
missing one or two, and the three tables nearest to the podium were almost
completely abandoned.
“Greed. Fear. Hope,” he declared. “They
are universal human emotions that have destroyed investors again and again.
But for us, in this room, they do not exist. Not where it matters.
Not in our business pursuits…”
“Lois, care to powder?” Selina said as Luthor’s
rhetoric built like a revivalist preacher:
“Because when others panic, we are steady. When
others hesitate, we know only calm. When others are paralyzed by fear,
we have the will to do what must be done. When the weak run from
reality, refusing to see or acknowledge the truths that doom a venture, we
are strong. No denial for us, no matter the sums or the years
invested, we face the reality head on and make the call that must be made…”
He ignored the continued warble of phones.
Most of all, he ignored the sight of Clark
Kent, the journalistic disease who somehow
got in here and would undoubtedly be writing up this debacle unless his
insufferable wife beat him to it.
“When others succumb to the twin cancers of fear and
hope, we know these temporary market distractions are, at worst,
meaningless, at best, our friends…”
The two women maneuvered towards the door, though
Lois was nearly run over by a man screeching into his phone “How much do we
have with East End?” and another “No wait, can we post the redemption in
Singapore—” who then grabbed her by both shoulders he asked “What time is it
in Singapore?!”
“Eh-aahleven thirty, I think,” she said meekly, and
he went off, barking orders into his phone.
“This is what
it would be like if you were a crusading Robin Hood?” she asked Selina, and
Selina nodded guiltily like she knew it wasn’t pretty but, regrettably, it
couldn’t be helped.
“It’s a good thing you’re not,” Lois observed as a
woman passed them, clutching her necklace and cancelling an order for his
and her Gulfstreams.
This time Selina made a sickly half-shrug, tilting
her head like a kitten and making a face.
“I hope she doesn’t have to sell those emeralds,” she
said, looking miserably in the direction the woman had passed.
“They’re nice.”
“A series of payments made and then reversed to
all the fund’s subscribers flagged the fund’s accounts for money laundering,
so now the Cayman banks that his
Cayman banks rely on to exchange currency are threatening to drop them
unless they drop Lex and
a bunch of his investors,” Bruce concluded, while Clark took a final note.
Both men sat in the back of the limo, ties abandoned
but still in their tuxes.
“Check,” Clark said. “I think that’s all I’ll
need. Unless you’d like to go on the record with a quote.”
“I gave Lois the quote,” Bruce said, and Clark
shrugged.
“Alright, you can do something else—a couple things.
First, suit up and keep an eye on things in Lex’s neighborhood while I call
this in. Just once I’d like to beat Lois to a story, but—”
“Done,” Bruce
graveled. “And next?”
“The details Selina was giving me on the stolen
collateral. I think I’ve got it. She was hinting at a pattern:
the de Kooning, widow had to sell it. So someone’s died and the
survivor’s lost her money. The diamond’s in the hands of James II,
deposed in Scotland, takes it to Paris in time for the French revolution.
The collector of the gold mask is murdered… Is it me, or is there a lot of
death and misfortune following this stuff around?”
“The superstitious like to see patterns where
none exist,” Bruce said firmly. “You don’t really expect me to
speculate Luthor tripped some curse
assembling a portfolio with a number of bad luck items among the
collateral…no matter how good a story it would make. Next?”
Clark looked at his friend for a long, cold beat.
He had only one question left…
“Your new cover. Who is the guy in glasses and
how does he fit into all of this?”
Bruce’s lip twitched.
The roof of the Fleischer Foundation on Lakeshore
seemed like a spot Matt Montrasante could be summoned to. He would be
out of his comfort zone on a rooftop at midnight, but the neighborhood was
safe and it was a roof a layman of his age and build could get to without
strain.
Catwoman would normally watch his arrival from a
higher roof and drop dramatically into position when he was in place and
looking around, nervously uncertain. But the poor ass had a rough
night, so she was just waiting—new claws that still bore the menacing sheen
that didn’t outlive the first night’s scuffs, but standing and waiting all
the same.
“Hello, Matthew,” she said in that tone she’d dipped
into at the Pegu Club only after Barry had left. “Time to talk
frankly, I think.”
Matt was never one to back away from a confrontation
but he’d never confronted actual claws before. He eyed the
lethal-looking tips for a moment, and then responded gamely.
“Alright, Catwoman, I wouldn’t expect meeting in a
place like this to be anything other than ‘frank.’”
“Lex isn’t just some Fortune 500 balance sheet and
you know it,” she said. “You know what he is. Secret Society,
Injustice Gang, Injustice League, and those are just the ones that have
names. Half his fortune and financial muscle is useless if not lost,
tied up in legal limbo for—what’s the worst case estimate, 19 years?—while
he’s got a mob with pitchforks at his door. This isn’t his problem,
this is your problem. I might be able to help.”
“Why?” Matt asked sharply. “Why bring this to
me?”
“Because that Gotham bashing in the campaign
pissed me off. And that was you. You owe the city, and tonight
the note comes due.” She handed him a tablet and pointed.
“Barry’s high frequency trading division made a killing on the chaos
tonight. Barry’s algorithm
made a killing on the chaos. Not just LexCorp’s predicament but the
companies of East End subscribers who lost their liquidity, and possibly
their tax havens. Do you have any idea how much that algorithm can
make in 1.4 minutes?” She swiped to a new screen and again pointed “In
Hong Kong, Malaysia, Tokyo…” She swiped. “Out-vulturing Lex
Luthor’s vulture fund. Positive Carry from Luthor’s problem. Lex
will fucking destroy him.”
Matt looked up numbly and tried to hand back the
tablet, but Catwoman shook her head sadly, refusing to take it.
“And then there’s that
rumor, that the
big payout we were all there to celebrate tonight was the result of lynch
pins in the East End fund, secured loans whose security was stolen, and that
the thieves sent images of all four pieces to LexCorp, ransoming them.
Did you hear that part? The story goes that there was a video feed of
the stolen artworks, in a storage unit rented by Mrs. John Blaine.”
“There is no Mrs. Blaine,” Matt said irritably.
“You really want to focus on that right now?”
Catwoman asked, and then with an expression of exquisite sadness as if it
really did pain her to break the news, she pointed at him with a gleaming
claw tip, tilted the finger down to the tablet he still held, and swiped.
There, of course, was a timestamped still image from the video.
“Point is, Lex will fucking destroy him too,” she
said bluntly. “This video was encrypted through the servers at
Prosperity Partners… and, by the way, sent to you at your office.”
Catwoman waited. All the back and forth,
the second trip to Metropolis, pernod and gin at the Pegu club,
Vitam regit fortuna, non sapientia…
for this. And it was like he couldn’t come up with anything to say.
(Though his thoughts were presumably running along the lines of ‘Oh crap.
Oh shit. How do I get out of this…’) She improvised.
“Video feed sent from his office to yours before it
was all recovered…”
Still nothing. (How do I get out of this…)
“Some kind of blackmail or payoff…”
(How do I get out of this…)
Just standing there like a hatted drone. Pernod and
gin, the second trip to Metropolis, that horror of a ruffled suit
dressing up as Mrs. Blaine, for nothing. Time to move on.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “How
do such ugly rumors get started. Well I heard it from him.” She
swiped, and there was a photo of Selina dancing with Clark Kent.
“Bruce’s best man,” she explained. “You know what reporters are like
when it comes to their sources, I guess we’ll never know where he got it
from.”
Matt still hadn’t spoken, though he had that look,
eyes shifted off to the side, like his mind was racing at mach one,
rolodexing through schemes and strategies. He wouldn’t find one.
A trap Bruce had crafted over a the course of six days before bringing her
in for an additional three, their cornered prey was not going to find an
escape route in thirty seconds of panic.
“I guess the point is, as a right-thinking villain
who wants to see the Justice League burn, I really should let Lex know what
Hobbs and Blaine have cost him. And since you coordinate everything,
he might just decide to destroy you too. Unless of course he never
finds out that you put his financial nuts in the hands of Gothamites with a
grudge.”
“What do you want?” he said flatly.
Catwoman pulled a folder from her loot sack and
handed it to him.
“Baen Assets,” he read from the cover.
“Mhm, “ Catwoman nodded happily, “Though it
would properly be called ‘Ba en Aset,’or ‘the soul of Isis,’ otherwise known
as Bast. As in ‘ Beloved Bast, mistress of happiness and bounty, with
your graceful stealth anticipate the moves of all who perpetuate cruelties
and stay their hands against the children of light.’ I think that’s
how it goes. It’s in very small hieroglyphs on a statue I have at
home. Seemed a good name for a fund that’s subscribed to by Gotham’s
soup kitchens, homeless shelters, VA hospital, Meals on Wheels and, just to
complete the trope, an orphanage. They got a nice piece of the 1.4
minute Hobbs party but you know how greedy
those people can be. They want more.
“Give ‘til it hurts, Matt. And I mean that.
I’ll be watching and I want to see a very impressive pain threshold.
You, Blaine, Hobbs. ‘Wow me.’
“And remember, I tangle with Batman, steal Picassos
for fun, and I’m marrying Bruce Wayne. I’m not easy to impress.”
© 2018
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