CHAPTER 27

If the timing of Barbara’s visit could have been more wrong, Gordon didn’t know how. He was slated to meet with city council members in just twenty-four hours, and he still didn’t know what he was going to say to them. Gordon had barely been able to keep himself from driving up to Marcellus Walden’s home and directly giving him a piece of his mind, or even cracking his jaw, but that would’ve only made him look even more out of control, while also not being fair to Walden’s family.

They met at their house where, thankfully, the power had come back on. The entire district had its power back, only a few others remained switching on and off. Sarah and her people had conducted the interrogation of Bradley Feldhusen as soon as the Batman dropped him off on the precinct’s rooftop, as well as the other one the bat had brought in, whose name was Lyndon Tackett, a major drug-runner for the Molehill Mob, if the evidence the bat had dropped off was any indication. Ledgers with dates that went back years showed how the Molehill Mob had joined with the 21st century, having Tackett as a kind of accountant. Tackett had been to college for economics and accounting, but the unemployment streak across America had driven him to alternative methods of earning money. At least, that’s what he was claiming.

Bradley Feldhusen was a former computer programmer for Chambley Software, but his three-year unemployment streak had also led him to hacking, and eventually meeting Edward Nygma on the Internet. Nygma had been part of a hacker group called Riddle-Me-This before he he met with Feldhusen and struck out on his own. Feldhusen swore he’d never met Nygma in person, but always picked up his dead drops for a stipend, which was placed into an offshore account for him, and kept him going in this down economy. He had a key to a P.O. Box where he dropped off packages for him. Sarah said she’d have her people watching that P.O. Box now, but Gordon was willing to bet the Riddler never used it again.

He’s too good at tradecraft, he thought. We’ve cut off his connections to the hacker community at large, but I think he’s already done the damage he set out to do.

Sarah was laying the pressure on, though, and Feldhusen was confessing to all manner of things, including bank robberies committed online with Nygma’s help. Together, he and Nygma had stolen money from a dozen banks over the last couple of years. Now, with this information, it was no wonder how the Riddler had obtained the funds necessary to do what he’d done so far.

All of this was on Gordon’s mind when Barbara knocked at the door. That wasn’t good. His wife shouldn’t feel the need to knock on a door that had been hers just a week ago. It said something, that little gesture. It said that she now considered this Jim’s house, and his alone, while her and the kids had moved on. Even if she didn’t know she was thinking of it in that context, the knock spoke volumes about the direction their relationship was moving.

When he opened the door, Jim Gordon felt the weeks of stress peel away all at once. Barb stepped in and immediately hugged him. It was a short, but tight hug. When they separated, she kissed him on the cheek. They went into the living room to talk. He offered her something to eat or drink, and realized that was also a gesture that showed they weren’t as close as they had been just days before. Combined, their two gestures revealed so much. It’s like we’ve already given up on each other.

But Gordon would be damned if he let her go. It wasn’t in his blood to just let something go, even if it was a lost cause to everyone else. His tenacious hold of the police commissioner’s office and his commitment to stick it out with Sarah and the bat was testament to that.

After she declined refreshment, Barbara took a seat on the couch and said, “Jim, what they’re saying isn’t true.”

“No, it’s not. And I can prove it because—”

“That wasn’t a question, it’s a statement. You don’t have to prove anything to me. I know you.” She smiled.

That’s good, he thought. A step in the right direction. “Thanks, Barb. That means a lot, especially right now. It means more than you know.”

“Jim, what’s going on? How did all of this happen?”

So he explained. He trusted his wife enough to give her all that she needed to know to make sense of it all. He explained about his conversation with Walden in his office, how it had been recorded and edited to paint him in the worst light and Walden in the best. He explained about Sarah’s investigation so far, and what the bat had dug up. Then, he told her about the suspicion that the FBI had of Mayor Walden, that he was in league with Oswald Cobblepot and possibly even the Riddle Killer himself, that it was all connected.

“And the Joker?” she asked, wanting to know about that for obvious reasons. His reign of terror had nearly broken their family, as well, and he had killed public officials, almost taking out Gordon in the process. “Did these people break him out?”

Gordon shook his head. “No. At least, we don’t think so. Right now we’re treating them as two separate incidents. However, all this chaos—these power outages and riots—it’s exactly where he thrives. It’s the kind of playground he always wanted, so who really knows if it’s related somehow in the end?” He shrugged. “The Joker’s psychiatrist, Dr. Quinzel, she’s gone missing, and there are some who think she had something to do with the escape, that she might’ve even been the woman in the garbage truck.”

Barbara sighed and shook her head. “Jim, are you really going to stay here? Now, after you’ve learned all of this? I heard Walden saying they’re bringing in the National Guard. These riots, they’re spreading. These power outages just migrate across the city, and wherever they happen these mobs are attracted to them.”

“Barb, I can’t just—”

A knock at his door interrupted him. He stood up and went to answer, and his heart sank when he saw Sarah standing there. He opened the door, but before he could even tell her that this was a bad time, she swept inside with her cell phone in her hand and was texting someone. “Jim, where’ve you been? Didn’t you get my calls? I tried to get here sooner but they had the roads blocked off because of the riots and—” She stopped in the living room when she spotted Barbara. His wife stood up, and for a moment both women just looked at one another. “Oh…er, sorry, guys.”

“Hello, Sarah.”

Sarah offered an amiable smile. “Hey, Barb. How’s the kids?”

“They’re fine, thank you.”

Jim Gordon stood in the most awkward silence of his life. It was worse than when Sarah had met Batman. He finally cleared his throat and said, “Sarah and I were supposed to have a meeting today with the governor, who’s coming down to discuss the National Guard’s plans on executing this broadened operation—it’s getting more complicated. I’ll have to help coordinate with the local police, assuming I still have a job by the end of the week, of course. She and I were also going to go over my deposition, for what I should say in front of the committee tomorrow.”

“I see,” Barbara said. “Well, I won’t disturb you. I think I’ll have that drink, after all.”

“Uh, everything’s warm since the power only just came back on—”

“It’ll be fine,” Barbara said. “Sarah, it was good to see you again.”

“Yeah, same here.” When Barb had left, Gordon and Sarah just looked at one another. Finally, she said, “Wow…I’ll bet you’ll be glad when I finally leave Gotham, huh?”

Gordon said, “Don’t take it the wrong way. She’s not stupid enough to think we’re doing anything. She just doesn’t like how this all might look to outsiders. Us with our history…”

Sarah took off her jacket and threw it on the back of the couch. “Well,” she sighed, “then she’s not gonna like tomorrow’s Informer headline.”

Gordon didn’t like the sound of that. “What now?”

“Somebody at GCPD talked about our supposed ‘history’ together,” she said, making quotation marks in the air with her fingers. “An anonymous source at City Hall is also going to be quoted—three guesses as to who likely set that up—and so they’re running a fantastic piece of investigative journalism that calls into question the appropriateness of our relationship.”

Gordon moaned. “You’ve gotta be kidding me!”

“Wish I was. But let’s not worry about that right now. After the National Guard comes through and we have some semblance of order in the streets, then we’ll settle up with Walden. But right now, he’s not done anything that we can definitely pin him for. Oswald Cobblepot, however, is about to get a very, very serious visit from Uncle Sam.”

“You got the go-ahead?” Gordon said eagerly. It was about time they moved on this.

“Warrants, signatures, everything.” She smiled, and gave him her patented wink. “It didn’t take long to get just about anything I wanted, seeing as how I’ve been alone on ground zero here—at least, alone as far as the bureau’s concerned, no offense—and now that we’ve got riots in the street and a terrorist burrowing a hole into our power supply, Washington practically flung total control at me. At least, until the Guard gets here and General Kinnear takes the lead.”

“The riots are what finally got them moving so fast?”

Sarah took a seat on the couch, and answered someone else’s text. “Actually, it was the information we got from Feldhusen just an hour ago. Brace yourself,” she said. “Feldhusen confessed to having helped Nygma to understand how to get past IPSs, or intrusion-prevention systems, by using what’s called a zero-day exploit—that’s a hole in a security system that the designers themselves aren’t aware of until the exploit is utilized by hackers. Of course, by then it’s too late.

“According to Feldhusen, Nygma sought help from various other hacker groups, which isn’t hard at all since these days cyberspace is flooded with these transnational criminal gangs that use offshore ‘bullet-proof’ hosting in countries with few or no computer crime laws, and in countries that have no extradition laws. Feldhusen said he suspects Nygma had never even been to the U.S. until just a year or two ago. He said he always suspected Nygma of hopping around the globe, hacking and cracking while on the move. When I suggested to him that Nygma might be the Riddle Killer, Feldhusen seemed genuinely shocked—not only did he think murder out-of-character for his fellow hacker, but he said that it suggests Nygma has come here with some permanence, possibly to roost for good. It’s a great, big, wide playground for him.

“Here’s the part you should really brace yourself for. Nygma and Feldhusen specifically targeted exploits found in major systems designed by Hard Target Security. One of Hard Target’s clients is Gotham Light and Power, but they also annually beef up security for Anglo Nuclear Generating Station, their biggest client.”

Gordon didn’t like where this was going. “ANGS? You mean, Feldhusen helped Nygma with a virus or a worm that can penetrate the security of a nuclear power plant?”

“Maybe. Our cyber crimes guys say it’s plausible, since the various computer security systems in both GL&P and ANGS are the exact same specially-made security systems sold exclusively by Hard Target Security. They’re one-of-a-kind.”

“Jesus.”

“It gets worse,” Sarah said. Gordon couldn’t fathom how. “Hard Target Security also used the same systems with the same security holes on Gotham Public Transit systems. The GPT has been alerted, but so far all they’ve seen are the same power outages we’ve had at their stations. The subway trains all seem to be running fine.”

He just looked at her. Had it all really come to this? “This thing could tear us apart,” he said. Then, he corrected himself. “It is tearing us apart.”

“Feldhusen says it was only meant to be a project of theirs, something for fun, not anything that they really intended to use,” Sarah said. “At least, that’s his story. One of the reasons Feldhusen felt it was so impossible to pull off was because it was similar to Stuxnet in its delivery method, just like Lionel Curran told us, and someone would actually have to be physically standing in front of a computer that was part of the targeted system in order to upload it.”

“Then it could be anybody,” Gordon said. “Anybody at GL&P, ANGS, or Hard Target Security.”

“Not necessarily. It could’ve been somebody who was used unknowingly,” Sarah said.

Gordon thought for a minute. “What about GL&P and ANGS? Can’t the people in charge just shut it down?”

Sarah sighed. “They’re trying. So far, the thing hasn’t shown up in ANGS. In some cases they have isolated the computer worm at GL&P, but, well, the worm occasionally refuses to let the systems be turned off and continues rifling through files and other systems using a hunt-and-seek program. The Department of Homeland Security is all over this now, especially since their recent focus has been more on lone wolves and homegrown terrorists.

“This is the real reason the National Guard and Washington are jumping now. This thing is predatory as hell, Jim, and it’s already everywhere. My cyber crimes people are working with yours, and the consensus is that this is the most sophisticated worm any of them have ever seen. It multiplies, copying itself instantly on any system it touches, and it’s touched a lot of systems since the combined network of GL&P is so vast. I mean, their networks include government link-ups.”

“Jesus,” Gordon said, taking a seat. In the next room, he could hear Barbara running the blender, making a shake.

“Now you see why Washington agreed to bring anyone who might know something in for questioning,” she said. “Cobblepot was seen as a big maybe, but now he’s high on the list of people to bring in. The list may include Mayor Walden himself, eventually. There’ll be a scandal, of course, and Walden’s lawyers and underworld friends will be back-up for him.” She shrugged. “But we gotta do what we gotta do. We’ve got all of Parasyte locked up, but what they knew was limited. Lionel Curran and his ilk were kept in the dark, while Bradley Feldhusen was a lackey for Nygma so he never had to expose himself. Feldhusen’s connections to the Molehill Mob indicate Nygma truly knows how to interact with the underworld. Nygma’s thinking big.”

“What are his other sources?” Gordon asked. “How does he procure all the materials he needs? It can’t all just be from dead-drops.”

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“According to Feldhusen, Nygma has one very important talent above all others—if he doesn’t know how to do something, then he knows how to find those that do, learn from them, and become an expert in no time. Apparently, he worked briefly with the Russian Mafia and their team of hackers—I don’t know if you know much about them,” Sarah said.

“I know that the Russian Mafia call themselves the vory v zakone, and that they’ve gotten so good at hacking that their revenues are in the billions of dollars.”

“Yeah, and they also steal so many identities a year that they literally have no more use for them all.” She sighed. “Edward Nygma’s only new to us, Jim, but apparently he’s been around the block more than a few times. With his resources and acumen, the potential scale of his plans have gotten everyone at DHS scared outta their minds.”

He shook his head. “But what about the deathtraps and the riddles? If he was just going to attack the power grid anyway, why take such great risks with kidnapping and setting up the traps?”

Sarah shrugged. “Only Edward Nygma knows that. And he’ll answer once we bring the son of a bitch in.”

Something else occurred to Gordon. If Sarah was serious about closing in on Nygma, there was only one place he could think to start. “You’re going into the Iceberg Lounge?”

“Looks like it. We’re coming through like a tornado, taking all their money, documents, ledgers, everything. We’re probably even bringing in Cobblepot and his people for questioning. We’re gonna get to the bottom of this, his civil rights be damned.”

“Be careful with that. Remember what the bat said. These are serious people.”

She graced him with another wink. “So are we, Jimmy, so are we.”

* * *

“ALL RIGHT YOU cooooooool hepcats,” said the lead singer of The Hurlihees. “We’re gonna clear the floor right now for a moment. Oh yeah, that’s right, it’s that time again. That’s it, everybody off the floor. We’re gonna spice it up a notch and let one couple—just one hip couple—take the floor. It can be anyone, any volunteers who think they’re cooooooool enough to mesmerize us all with their grooves and their moves.”

The Iceberg Lounge was full to bursting with activity tonight. Young hipsters were shoulder-to-shoulder, but somehow managed to part just as The Hurlihees’ lead singer had commanded them numerous times before. Time seemed to slow down inside the Lounge, that’s what all the regulars to the nightclub said, anyway. The troubles of the world slipped away, and all there was was the music, the atmosphere, the bodies of the coolest, most attractive people in Gotham City, and, of course, the frigid air that excited young Gothamites.

Most were scantily-clad, as always; they were the most daring, while others who had to wear furs were considered too uptight, too timid to just relax and let the cool air invigorate them. The cold air also encouraged people to get closer, to share their warmth. The pale-skinned owner of the club enjoyed the rhythms, the light-blue lighting, the edginess of it all, but he liked nothing more than to look down from his top VIP floor and see many couples removing even more clothing as they danced closer and closer to one another. It was a wondrous blend of the risqué dancing one found in strident, obscene nightclubs anywhere else, and the textures, style, finesse, taste, and light rhythm of the very best jazz club.

Oswald wished he could enjoy himself tonight, but he just couldn’t. He had contacted the Calabrias and they had given him the miniature surveillance microphones to put in Commissioner James Gordon’s home, and so far they had worked swimmingly. Nygma had lent him two of his regular unwitting helpers from the Molehill Mob to listen to the feed around the clock, and just this morning they had picked up a most interesting conversation.

The FBI is coming to arrest me, he thought, looking at the wineglass in his hand and observing the light refracting through its dark-red contents. I suppose I’d better look my best. The gallows humor only lessened his worry. The fact of the matter was that Special Agent Sarah Essen and her team could come through at any moment and take him and his people in for hard questioning. If things went south and they really did look thoroughly into his club, they would no doubt find the secret rooms where he stashed some of the merchandise for Dreaded Sun and the Molehill Mob.

I don’t fancy myself in prison fatigues, he thought, again with the gallows humor. Oswald thought of the last words he’d heard recorded from inside Commissioner Gordon’s house. We’re gonna get to the bottom of this, his civil rights be damned. Those had been the words of Sarah Essen, according to the people he had monitoring the house.

Oswald lifted the wineglass up to his lips, and took a sip of the 1945 Chateau Mouton-Rothschild Jeroboam. The wine cost $114,000 for one bottle, and there were only two others besides his believed in existence. Wine enthusiasts considered it one of the greatest vintages of the 20th century, and Oswald was inclined to agree. He had first cracked it open because he felt like celebrating. After all, when a plan came together it was worth tasting the good things in life. Now, he drank it because he feared he might be taken away before he ever got the chance to enjoy the vintage.

Behind him, the seals called out to one another. On their island, the penguins honked excitedly and flopped around. It was feeding time and his girls, Lark and Blue Jay, were tossing fish into their habitats.

Downstairs, there was a bit of a commotion. He saw people looking quite alarmed. Oswald craned his neck slightly to look, but as the crowd parted to let the solo hip couple of the night take to the revolving ice floor, he figured it had merely been a brief scuffle, perhaps some other young couple thinking they deserved the floor tonight. Fighting for such an honor was known to happen from time to time in the Iceberg Lounge.

He took another sip of the Mouton-Rothschild as the young, hip couple took to the center of the room. The Hurlihees, now a mainstay of the Lounge, cued up their song. At first, it was adagietto, rather slow, but then it picked up. The song then took a decidedly uptempo but remained light. The couple didn’t go barefoot as most couples did, but they were dressed absolutely to impress, which Oswald approved of. The man was in a perfectly black, modified tux, while the woman had a dress that didn’t just have the slit up the side, but actually looked ripped farther up the leg.

The lady looked longingly up into the man’s eyes, while the gentlemen just stared at her as they began to move in time with the tempo. Then, under the light-blue light, Oswald caught sight of their faces. Both faces were painted white, with just a dab of color around the eyes and lips. That was a bit unusual, but not unheard of at the ’Berg. Oswald liked the occasional bit of flair, and this couple certainly seemed to have—

Oswald froze as he was about to take another sip of his wine, because, as the couple swayed this way and that, he got a better look at the left side of the woman’s face. There were definitely bandages there, poorly applied, with bit of bright red blood seeping through. Oswald thought he spotted a place on the bandages where they had peeled loose, and saw fresh stitches.

As the couple swayed and gyrated, the gentleman dancing around his lady finally glanced up…and he looked directly at Oswald. In that instant, Oswald nearly dropped his wineglass. He knew what this was, he just didn’t know how it had happened. He didn’t know how his security had allowed this to happen.

I really, really, really don’t need this right now. Standing behind Oswald was Norman, one of his oldest bodyguards. He whispered, “Get them out of here.”

Norman had seen the couple, but hadn’t made the deduction that his boss had. “Yes, sir.”

“Just escort them out, don’t call the police.”

“Sir,” Norman said, nodding towards the dance floor. “They’re coming up.”

Oswald turned to look, and saw that the couple had preemptively left the dance floor before the song was over. The lady took the lead, holding her man’s hand over her shoulder as she made her way to the spiral staircase. She stood to one side, though, once at the stairs, and bowed ostentatiously as her man took the lead.

Norman started to go towards them, but Oswald put a hand on his chest. “No. Just…wait. Tell the others.” He didn’t want violence, and it seemed likely if he were to appear too aggressive with these people.

Norman spoke into his radio, alerting the rest of the Lounge’s security. Below, the other hip couples had tentatively returned to the dance floor, although some of them seemed to at least partially understand what was going on, and were watching the white-faced couple ascend the stairs.

Oswald reached for his umbrella, which he’d leaned against the banister, and held it in his hand by the cane handle, finger on the trigger. He moved over to his private booth in the corner, and took a seat on the side closest to the exit. Materializing beside him were Judd and Maurice, the guards who had been by him the night of Commissioner Gordon’s visit—they knew the emergency evacuation drill.

At the top of the stairs, the white-faced couple moved unchecked over to his booth. Norman fell in step behind them, ready to do something if they made a move.

The gentleman was in the lead, but was followed closely by his stitched-up woman, who paused to admire the three women dancing slowly on the poles—Oswald had nicknamed them Lark, Raven, and Blue Jay, all three a staple now at the Iceberg Lounge. The stitched-up woman seemed fascinated by their dance moves, and said gleefully, “Look, snoogums, they move like water! And I can see my breath up here! Brrrrrrrrrrr! It’s so cold!”

The Joker said nothing as he approached, and paused directly in front of the booth. All he did was stand there for a moment, studying Oswald with a sheepish grin on his face. Then, all at once, he reached out to a bottle of wine sitting in ice at the center of the table, popped it open, and drank from it as though chugging a beer bottle. After a few gulps, he tore his red lips away, and wiped his mouth on his sleeve, smearing his face paint, which, hitherto, had been neat and orderly.

“That’s Shipwrecked Heidsieck, vintage 1907,” said Oswald, taking out his quellazaire and sticking a cigarette in it. “That wine was bottled and shipped to the Russian Imperial family in 1916, but the ship sank off the coast of Finland, and in 1997 divers recovered two hundred bottles of it in pristine condition. It sells for two hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars a bottle, but to me it’s actually priceless.”

The Joker looked at him for a moment, tilted his head like an ape trying to understand sign language, then looked at the bottle and gently sat it down, as though it were now suddenly imbued with the power and majesty of an ancient artifact. “Wow,” he said. “Just…wow.”

Behind the Joker, his woman imitated Lark’s dance moves, and did so badly. Oswald watched her for a couple of seconds before, all at once, the Joker reached out and raked the Heidsieck bottle off of the table, along with its bowl of ice and a few preset wineglasses. “My impression of Gotham City in its current state,” he said. “That’s what that was.”

“We’re pirates!” shouted his woman, turning around all at once with a switchblade in her hand and running over to the table. “We’re pirates and we just sank your shipwrecked Hind Sick!” She giggled, bent over, and flopped her arms over on the table, staring up at Oswald.

My God, Oswald thought. What are these people?

“Harleyyyyyyyyyy,” the Joker said in a low, quasi-loving voice.

“What?” she said, looking him.

He gestured for her to come close, and whispered, “Ssshhh, come here, sweetie.”

“What?” she whispered back. “What is it? What—?” As soon as she got close enough, the Joker reached out, snatched her by her hair, and slammed her head into the table. The woman reeled back against the glass banister that separated the booths from the island of seals and penguins. And the woman laughed. She laughed so hard and so long that her stitches broke and blood leaked out from her bandages. “Owwwwww!” she said, giggling. “You got me good, Mr. Jay!”

The Joker cocked his head, popping his neck. “Sorry about that,” he said to Oswald. “I just can’t take her anywhere.”

“It’s fine,” Oswald said. He glanced sidelong at Judd and Maurice, both of whom remained at his side with their arms crossed in front of them. “So,” he said, lighting the cigarette in his quellazaire and taking a puff. “I know who you are and I think I can be pretty sure this visit isn’t any sort of coincidence, so that means you know me, too.”

“Oooooooooohhhhh, everybody in Arkham and Blackgate Penitentiary knows the Penguin,” the clown said, putting his hands to his side and using them as fake wings. “Wraaaaack! Cobblepot! Cobblepot! Wraaaaaaaaaaack!”

Oswald bit down on his quellazaire and tried to keep his anger from showing. It was the name Penguin that got to him, and the fact that the clown also knew about his inside jokes with his elite clubbers. It begged the question of where he got his information. “You’re in my establishment, sir, so I’ll thank you to treat me with the respect I deserve. And I’ll also ask you to look around you and realize that I haven’t yet called the police, or put a bullet in your woman, so you’ll do well to return the consideration.”

The Joker said, “Oh, now, it’s just a bit o’ fun! Let’s not get those feathers ruffled.” His woman snorted at the joke as she staggered back to her feet, holding her bleeding face. “And we both know the real reason you’re not callin’ the police. Hmmmmmmmmm?” He nodded. “Goodness gracious, I mean, who knows what else they’ll find once they start looking even deeper, wonderin’ why it is that I escaped and wound up at your club, of all places?”

Oswald took a drag of his cigarette, and said, “I don’t deny you have a point. You bring up an excellent question, though. Why are you here, of all places?”

“A white man, a black man, a Hispanic man, and a Chinese man are all standing on top of Mount Everest,” the Joker said, looking up at Maurice, then at Judd, and then over at the braying penguins, where his woman was calling at them. “The Chinese man said, ‘This is for my people!’ and jumped off the mountain. The Hispanic man said, ‘This is for my people!’ and then jumped off the mountain, too. The black man said, ‘This is for my people!’ Then he grabbed the white man and threw that jerk right off the mountain.” He looked Oswald, and started chuckling.

Oswald exhaled smoke, and managed a smile, not sure if that was what the clown wanted or not. Finally, he repeated himself, “Why are you here?”

“I’m taking over.”

“Sorry? Come again?”

“All this you see here,” the clown said, waving around. “And the street outside. The cars out on the street. The buildings you see when you walk outside. The people you see. The politics of this city. The operation you’ve had going with Edward Nygma, the Juarezes, the Shukurs, a little-known mastermind named Tony Zucco, I’m all over it now.”

Oswald never thought he’d laugh in the face of such a violently dangerous terrorist, because he didn’t know what would happen if he did, so he was careful to minimize his exclaimed humor to a chuckle. “I’m sorry, but I believe you have all of this confused,” he said. “I don’t have any operation going besides running my nightclub.”

The Joker glanced over at the woman he’d called Harley, who was now leaning over the waist-high wall and making smooching lips at the seals. “You’re in league with the hacker who’s tampering with Gotham’s power supply,” he said.

That was frustrating, because Oswald was the information broker here, yet somehow the clown had put this together? “In league? That’s certainly a dramatic turn of phrase. Might I ask where you heard that nasty rumor?”

“I have birds, too,” the Joker said. “Just like you have. And they fly all around me, singing their little songs.” He smiled, revealing yellow, slightly jagged teeth. “The birdies also tell me that there’s a lotta money comin’ through this place, and they say that your information broker business is just the tip of the Iceberg.”

The Joker’s lady friend howled with laughter. “I get it, puddin’! Tip of the Iceberg!”

“You also don’t seem to have had any unfortunate power outages befall you on this end of the city,” the Joker went on. “That’s very telling.”

“Nonsense. We had an outage just this morning, didn’t we, Judd?”

“Yes, sir,” said the big man.

“But not one that lasted long enough to invite riots,” said the clown. For a moment, his eyeballs rolled around in his sockets, as though he were following a gnat no one else could see. Finally, his eyes landed on Oswald again, and he smiled even wider. “I heard a good story while I was hanging around with all the other crazies.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah,” the Joker said. “Care to hear it?”

“Pray tell.”

“There’s was once this liiiiiiiiittle bitty fat man, who had a crooked nose and pale, pale skin,” he said, reaching to the floor. Oswald got ready to rear his umbrella and fire it at the clown, but when the Joker brought his hand back up all he had was an olive that had fallen from one of the glasses he’d flung to the ground. It had come from an empty martini glass, and he now plopped it into his mouth. “The little bitty fat man was unhappy because he was so grotesquely ugly, no one wanted to be his friend.” He made a frowny face. “But then, the little fat man met a clown, who made him smile because he could make all the little fat man’s problems go bye-bye.”

“Bye-bye!” shouted the woman Harley, who suddenly flung herself over into the freezing waters with the seals. She made a terrific splash and everyone standing around didn’t know whether to marvel or go and help her, so they decided to applaud.

Oswald never took his eyes off the Joker. “Is that right?”

“Mm-hm, that’s right. ’Cause, ya see, the clown went around takin’ care of all the bad people who had unfairly ridiculed the little bitty fat man, who’s only dream in the world was to be left alone. Alone, to play with himself and his birds.”

Oswald smirked. “I guess you’re trying to offer some sort of assistance to gain my trust or something?”

“No, I’m drawing an analogy of my brother Jerry and his misadventures in the Amazon,” the Joker retorted. “Of course, I’m offerin’ help.”

At that moment, the insane girl was climbing up over the edge of the wall, Maurice having gone over to pull her out by her hair. She cackled like a schoolgirl all the way back up. When she flopped onto the floor, she wasn’t even shivering. Maurice tried to help her up, but he backed off when he saw the bandages falling from her face. They had gotten soaked, and flopped to the side of her neck, revealing the jagged red mess of her face.

The woman looked up at Maurice, smiling prettily except for the stitches and bleeding wound. “You wanna know how I got these scars?” she asked.

The Joker looked at Oswald. “So, whattaya think o’ the price o’ soup in China?”

He took another toke from his quellazaire, inhaling thoughtfully. “I’m thinking I’d like to buy some, if the price is right.”

“Oh, it won’t cost you anything, just a guarantee.”

“A guarantee of what?”

The Clown Prince of Crime glanced at Harley, who was pulling off her dress and now stood only in her underwear, soaking wet and her teeth chattering while she laughed to herself. The Joker looked back at Oswald. “I hear you collect birds,” he said. “I’m in the market for a bat, myself.”