At sixty stories up, the wind was strong enough to knock most grown men off their feet and tumbling towards a quick and sharp splatter on the streets bellow. But most men were not Bruce Wayne. At sixty stories up, he was at peace. His breaths were slow and even. The costume kept his body at a constant temperature but he savored the chilled night air as it hit the exposed part of his cowl. At sixty stories up, his city looked calm and undefiled. At sixty stories up, the war seemed winnable.
The cowl picked up on the sounds of the drug deal from over a thousand feet. An invention of Wayne Electronics, set to spot key words at remarkable distances. It wasn’t super-hearing, but it was the next best thing.
Batman took a long breath and pushed his feet against the building, sending himself flying into the night sky. His hands grasped the side of his cape and raised it wide, like wings. The wind did the rest. Within half a minute he landed on a rooftop overlooking the dark alley that was the source of the sound.
There were two of them. One was shaking like a baby rattle, clear symptoms of withdrawal. The other stood calm, hands in pockets. Batman pressed his finger a centimeter above his left ear and the cowl zoomed in on the scene below. Baby-rattle pulled a crumpled up ten dollar bill from his sweatshirt and handed it to the calm guy, who in return gave him a plastic bag of a white substance. Batman’s heart rate didn’t raise a beat as he stepped off the roof.
His landing was almost silent, but considering the width of the alley was no more than ten feet – both of them noticed. Baby-rattle screamed for his mother and collapsed on the ground. The calm guy gasped and said a profanity as he reached behind him and pulled a pistol from his waistline. He hadn’t even raised it halfway before Batman grabbed his wrist and twisted it. A loud crack echoed through the alley, followed by a much louder scream. The calm guy fell into a fetal position; Batman pressed his boot down on his broken wrist and kept him there. Baby-rattle tried to get up but Batman grabbed him by the throat and raised him above the ground.
“The next four to five days are going to be hell for you,” said Batman. His voice was calm and quiet; but to baby-rattle, it seemed to boom in his ears. “You’re going to clean yourself up and get through it. Because if I find you out here again, I’m going to make sure the rest of your life is spent in a hospital bed.”
In his early years he would have added a “Do you
understand?” to drive the message home. He no longer bothered.
He reached into Baby-rattle’s pocket and pulled out the plastic bag. He released his grip on his throat and Baby-rattle ran off like an Olympic sprinter. Below his boot, calm guy was still screaming.
“As for you. Selling a teenth for ten dollars. You could be getting at least twelve times that much. Why the discount?”
Calm guy was still screaming. Batman pressed his foot down harder.
“Talk. Now.”
“Jesus Christ, man. Ain’t you ever heard of a bargain?”
“Not from your kind.”
“I don’t make the prices, you psycho!”
“But you enforce them. Eight bones in your wrist. I’d say you’ve still got two that aren’t completely shattered. Stop wasting my time or I move on to your legs.”
“I don’t know why the price, man. My guy told me to sell it for that cheap, so I did. Happy now, asshole?!”
“Who is your guy?”
“I don’t fucking know, man!”
Batman pressed down with all of his weight. Two more cracks. “
Who?”
“Holy – aaah! You fucking maniac! I’m serious! I don’t have the slightest clue what his name is, alright?! He’s from Granton, alright?! That’s all I fucking know, I swear!”
Batman stepped off calm guy’s wrists, pulled the grapple from his belt and fired it towards the roof above.
“Find another job. Or I’ll be back for you.”
He released the trigger of the grapple and it pulled him up.
Granton. That was Black Mask’s neighborhood. The night was just getting started.
Unlike most eleven-year-olds, Charlie Gaddon enjoyed school. He liked learning about how electricity worked. He liked figuring out how to solve fractions. He didn’t even mind the homework. His favorite part, however, was the walk home. His time of day, not to be shared with anyone. He’d walk slow, mulling over everything he learned that day, over and over. Most kids walked home in groups - in Gotham City, most parents insisted - but not Charlie. He wasn’t scared. He had spent a month’s allowance on a can of pepper spray from an Army Surplus store. The owner didn’t ask any questions. Of course, Charlie’s dad didn’t know about it. He assumed he walked home every day with his friends. Why wouldn’t he? That’s what Charlie had told him. He certainly could have walked home with them, but he wasn’t going to surrender highlight of his day. Besides, he knew if he ever got into trouble he could use the pepper spray and run away. He was a fast runner.
Charlie Gaddon never made it home that day.
“I don’t know if you’ve heard or not,” Black Mask said as he poured a tall glass of whiskey, “but the Bat hasn’t been seen ‘round these parts in a few weeks.”
Waylon Jones shook his head.
“Still,” Black Mask continued, “I’m nothing if not a cautious man. Some may call that paranoia. They’re usually the ones who end up with a bullet in the brain. I’m not like that, Mr. Jones - can I call you Mr. Jones?”
“Croc.”
“Mr. Croc. I’m not like that. I won’t lie, caution hasn’t been my main concern in the past,” he gestured towards the coal black skin that once used to be his handsome face. “But I’ve learned the hard way. Playing with matches, you could say.”
Black Mask downed the entire drink and slammed the empty glass on his desk.
“I know you’ve been trying to keep a low profile lately. Believe me, me too. But like any good choir singer knows - sometimes you gotta take center stage. You agree?”
“Suppose so,” Croc growled.
Black Mask nodded. “Good. I like when me and my employees are on the same page. You got a girlfriend, Mr. Croc?”
Croc shook his head.
“Me neither. No need for one, if you ask me. Last one I had tried to kill me. She’s dead now.” Black Mask poured himself another drink. “No grieving required. You know what you’re there for tonight, don’t you, Mr. Croc?”
“Insurance.”
“That’s right. Insurance. And so I have to remind you. If something
should come up, keep the collateral damage to a minimum. As hard as that might be.”
Croc got up from his chair with deliberate leisure. At eight feet, he towered over Black Mask. The light from the desk lamp bounced off of his scale-covered skin. He stood still for a moment, his chest expanding with every slow breath, then turned around and walked towards the door.
“You know, Mr. Croc, I gotta say,” Black Mask called out, “You don’t look nearly as horrific in person as you do on TV,”
“You do,” Croc replied. He left the office.
For a town like Gotham City, Granton was considered a genuinely nice neighborhood. Pretty low murder rate: only about 300 a year. Decent schools. Plenty of churches. Only one homeless shelter. All things considered, you couldn’t do too much better by Gotham City standards. In the last seven months it had even taken a positive turn when the leader of the neighborhood’s biggest crime organization went missing. Roman Sionis - Black Mask - was presumed dead. It was becoming quite apparent to Batman that he had not stayed that way.
There were eight bars in the neighborhood Black Mask’s crew visited on a regular basis. Only one was having a $5 beer night.
Pablo’s. One of the few joints left with a skylight. Batman crashed through it and timed the smoke pellets to explode at the exact moment of his landing. In the midst of the panic, all anyone could see was a large black object fall through the ceiling and vanish just as soon as it appeared. The cowl’s thermal vision turned on as soon as it detected the smoke. Batman moved with little effort through the cloud until he found who we he was looking for hiding under the pool table. By the time the smoke cleared both of them were gone.
At sixty stories up, the fall would leave little of a corpse left. Every single bone would shatter in a million pieces and the skin would splatter like the latex of a popped balloon. Plenty of DNA would be left to identify the victim, but there certainly wasn’t going to be an open casket funeral. Batman could have told Antony DeSiado all of this as he woke up from the blood rushing to his head, but the view spoke for itself.
After he had finished screaming, DeSiado twisted his body until he could look up above towards his leg, tied together to the edge of the roof by a thin black cord. The Batman crouched on the edge, a razor batarang held to the line.
“Ah, shit. Not you. I thought you was in Europe or somethin’,” said DeSiado.
“Maybe I am. Maybe you are too. But European or American, the sidewalk will hurt just the same.”
“I don’t know nothin’ bout nothin’, man. I’m clean. Like a crystal.”
“I met with one of your distributors tonight. Broke both of his legs. I was in a lot better mood then. Black Mask.”
“Black Mask? Ain’t you heard? He’s dead. Don’t you get CNN or some--”
Batman sliced through the cord sending DeSiato rocketing towards the traffic below. His scream must have been heard from miles. It took twelve seconds for him to be close enough to read the advertisements on the taxicabs below. At that moment something hooked onto the bottom of his jeans and his body jerked up then down as he came to a violent stop. Not one bone in his leg was where it was supposed to be. His insides squirmed and he vomited as he felt himself being pulled back up. Even when they were sure he wasn’t going to kill them, Batman had yet to meet a man who wouldn’t talk after being in free fall and depositing the day’s meals onto the sidewalk. He retracted the grapple line, cut it from the gun and grabbed it in his hands. DeSiato squirmed and cried for mercy.
“I’ve got all night. Wanna go again?” said Batman.
“G-G-Go to hell, you rat-fuc--”
Batman loosened his grip enough for DeSiato to slide a few inches at an alarming speed, then re tightened it. It did the trick.
“Okay, okay, okay! Just please put me down and I’ll tell you wha-whatever you wanna know, man!”
“I like you right there, DeSiato. Black Mask.”
“Yeah. Yeah. He’s back, alright? That it? That all you wanna know?”
“Your guys are slinging his product for next to nothing. Why?”
“New - new product. Mask said he wanted to give out samples - get the junkies hooked on it for 10 bucks then charge them thirty times that.”
Samples and they’re not even free, thought Batman.
He hasn’t changed.
“How’s he getting it into the city?”
“By boat. There’s a - a big shipment coming in tonight! O’Neil Dock! 2am!”
Batman tossed DeSiato onto the gravel rooftop. DeSiato flopped around trying without success to untie his legs.
“Wait, wait! How the hell am I gonna get down from here?!”
“You’re a loud screamer. I’m sure the police will be here soon.” Batman stepped off the ledge.
Jim Gordon couldn’t remember the feeling of being completely awake. It had been years since he’d had an uninterrupted sleep of more than four hours. The doctor assured him that if he kept this up he wouldn’t the end of his sixties.
Hell, Gordon had thought,
in this line of work making it past fifty is a damn monumental achievement. This town didn’t offer much in the way of forgiveness.
He felt the breeze from what used to be a closed window before he heard the familiar voice.
“Roman Sionis is back.” The Batman stepped into the room. Gordon took off his reading glasses and leaned back into his chair, straightening his back for what must have been the first time that day.
“Doesn’t surprise me,” said Gordon, “You’d think just once one of these bastards would do us the favor of staying dead.”
“He’s not following through his usual M.O. No power-plays. He’s being careful.”
“You’re worried by that? That he hasn’t tried bombing or shooting-up any rival gang territory?”
“Aren’t you?”
Gordon didn’t say anything. He sat up in his chair and leaned over his desk. His fingers reached towards the photograph of his daughter that had been there since the day he got the job, but he withdrew them instantly.
“So, if that’s the case,” he said, “we wait. We wait till he makes a move and pray it’s not a bloodbath.”
“He’s already made it. There’s a shipment of heroin coming in tonight at O’Neil dock. 2am.”
Gordon looked at his watch. “That’s in less than an hour.”
Is it really that late already?Batman nodded. “Assemble a team and set up a discrete perimeter. I’ll meet you there.”
“We can handle this. There’s something else I need you to look at.” Gordon picked up a folder off his desk and threw it to Batman. “This came in earlier tonight. Charlie Gaddon. Eleven-years-old. Father called it in, said he never came home from school. I put Bullock on the case, but he hasn’t found anything yet. Figured you’d spot something he missed.”
Batman scanned through the file in the folder and tossed it back on Gordon’s desk. “Zsasz is still in Arkham?”
“Yes,” said Gordon.
“And Tetch?”
“Yes.”
“Most kidnappers keep their victims alive for days. I’ll find Charlie Gaddon, but right now, this takes precedence.”
Gordon stood up quickly. He almost didn’t feel the pain in his knees. “We can handle a bust on Sionis’s shipment. This boy, he…every minute he spends with the psychopath who has him is trauma. Every minute we don’t find him that trauma sets in deeper.”
“The trauma has already set in, Jim,” said Batman. There was a pained honesty in his voice. “Whatever he’s gone through will haunt him for the rest of his life. It’s too late to stop that. But he’ll survive. Black Mask isn’t taking his re-emergence lightly. If I’m not there tonight, police officers will die. Do you think their children will ever live
that down? Assemble your team.”
And with that, The Batman was gone. Jim Gordon felt more tired than he had all day.
Killer Croc hadn’t said a word since he arrived at the dock, but he knew his presence said enough. He leaned against a wooden pole, arms crossed, and watched the twelve men move crate after crate from boat to truck. Every once in a while one of them would try to make eye contact, and Croc was happy to oblige. After one look, they didn’t try again. Batman watched all of this from the rooftop of an eight story apartment complex some four-hundred yards away. Next to him, Jim Gordon, binoculars in hand, did the same.
“Sionis really is taking this seriously,” said Gordon. He put the binoculars down and turned to Batman. “Croc changes things.”
“I’ve put him down before. Stand your men down until I take Croc out.”
Gordon nodded. It was far from his first time of going through this routine.
Croc was the only one who recognized the sound of metal landing on cement. Flashbangs. Like fools, the others turned towards them. Croc threw his hands over his eyes and turned away from the impossibly bright light that followed. Like the rest, his ears were overwhelmed by ringing, but unlike them, he had maintained his sight.
The thugs were screaming, bent over on the ground and grabbing their eyes as if it would help. From somewhere, batarangs flew into three of them and sent them into a deep sleep. Coated with a tranquilizer that could knock a grown man out for days, they’d be useless against Croc; if they could even pierce his skin. Batman landed in front of Croc and waited for the unavoidable. Like a bull to a matador’s cape, Croc charged towards him. Batman ran forward and dropped down at the last moment, sliding between his legs. He kicked the back of Croc’s knees, a move that would leave most paralyzed for months if not years. To Croc it was merely an annoyance. The unmistakable sound of a gun being fired cut through Croc’s animalistic roars.
One of the thugs stood shaking, smoking gun in hand. The rest were still trying to figure out what the hell was happening around them. The bullet had hit Croc’s shoulder and barely drawn any blood. Croc growled at the shooter and, acting on instinct, lunged at him. The man screamed as a child screams and was suddenly pulled away from the beast, a grapple line tied around his ankle. Batman stood over the horrified thug. He pushed his finger against a spot just below his neck and knocked him out. The action took little more than a second, but it was enough for Croc.
His fist connected with Batman’s head and sent him to the ground. Batman’s rolled with the hit, the only thing keeping his jaw in place. Croc grabbed a hold of his neck with one hand and started squeezing. The suit’s Kevlar lining didn’t help. Croc raised his other hand in a fist.
One solid hit and you’re dead, Batman told himself. He reached for a small tube on his belt. Croc swung his fist. Batman pointed the tube toward his eyes. A dozen different colors emerged from it. Croc yelled and lost his grip; Batman slipped away. The device used bright, rapid pulses to overload the victim’s visual senses. Typically, it left them disorientated and blinded for several minutes. Batman knew he had seconds. He jumped onto Croc’s back and pulled another tube from his belt. He hammered his knee int Croc's neck, sending his head to the side, and poured the contents of the the tube down Croc's ear. It contained the same tranquilizer used on the batarangs, only in a much more concentrated dosage. Within seconds, Croc was stumbling forward, and then collapsed, asleep. Fed directly into the brain, the compound would kill a man; with Croc, it would leave him incapacitated for twelve hours, at best.
The remainder of Black Mask's crew left awake were just now recovering their eyesight. They tried to pick up their guns and aim at Batman, but h was gone. Sirens and shouted orders from all sides convinced them to drop their weapons.
“If I didn’t know better,” said Gordon, “I’d have thought you were dead for a second there.”
“You weren’t the only one.”
Batman and Gordon stood on the rooftop and watched the SWAT team cuff Black Mask’s crew and break open crates full of drugs. Though they never acknowledged them, for both men, these were the moments that kept them going. The thing that pushed them forward when pushing seemed impossible. The night wouldn’t be over for several more hours. The war wouldn’t be won for many more years, if ever. But it was in these moments that both of them found affirmation for continuing.
Their silence was broken by the ringing of Gordon’s phone. He turned away and answered it. It wasn’t a long conversation. Batman could read people’s expressions arguably better than anyone alive, but an amateur could have seen something was wrong.
“Jim?”
“That was Bullock. They found Charlie Gaddon’s body in a dumpster. Initial coroner’s report says he died less than an hour ago.”
Both men stood silent for a long time.
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