Batman: Lost To the Night

When you realise your worst fears have been realised
And certainties now seem a bit less sure
Ideals that at one time seemed idealised
Now don’t seem so ideal anymore

Where once there was order
Chaos has been loosed
And home-truths like chickens
Are coming home to roost

Illusions may shatter but memories stay…

Anthony Drew, “Good For Nothing”




Oswald Cobblepot settled himself comfortably into a Queen Mary wing chair. As he leaned back against the silk brocade upholstery, he tipped his feet up so that his heels rested on a nineteenth century Chinese Nanmu Altar table. It was good to be back in Gotham. He fitted a chunghwa cigarette into a black lacquered Dunhill holder, lit it, and slowly inhaled.

Outside his lavishly appointed office, the patrons of the Iceberg Lounge were cheerfully sampling the liquor, the canapés, and the… other delights for which his nightclub had a reputation. To the jaded socialites and businessmen of Gotham, the club was a fixture of the Midtown restaurant scene. True, its opulence skirted, and often crossed the border, from elegant to gaudy. There were whispered rumours that its buxom hostesses had found ways to supplement their incomes in rooms not generally open to the public. And its diminutive owner had a questionable past and no breeding worth mentioning. On the other hand, the food was excellent, the jazz quartet sublime, and the exorbitant prices heaven-sent to a myriad of young fops out to impress their lady friends. Yes, in an area where restaurants and clubs came and went with shocking regularity, the Iceberg was a lucrative operation, seemingly immune to economic downturn. And, in a city frequently subject to crime waves, no patron had ever been robbed while under the protection of the club’s four walls.

Cobblepot chortled to himself as he checked the closed circuit cameras that afforded him a view of his clientele. Nobody would dare attack my customers here. Nor me either, for that matter. He frowned. Nobody but the Bat, at any rate and he hasn’t—

“He’s out there!”

Cobblepot sat up so quickly that the heels of his shoes scratched the veneer of the coffee table. The man who stood quaking before him had, at least, known to enter via the side door in the alley. He bent forward, clutching the back of a Louis Quatorze chair for support as he tried to catch his breath.

With a sniff, the Penguin set down the cigarette holder, crossed to the wall, and opened a bar fridge. San Pellegrino? Acqua Panna? He frowned. Not for this lout. He closed the fridge, walked over to the sink, and ran cold water into a disposable plastic cup. “Here.”

With a shaking hand, his visitor accepted the cup and downed the water. Much to Cobblepot’s dismay, he sat down heavily in the chair. “He’s out there, Penguin,” the man repeated.

“Calm yourself, my good man,” Cobblepot snapped. He waited for the man to stop shaking. “Now tell me.”

His guest drew a deep breath. “We were in the Diamond District, casing the shop you told us abou—”

At the Penguin’s frown, the man hastily amended: “W-we were window-shopping boss. And we thought we’d found something that would interest you, so we was trying to get it—”

Cobblepot rolled his eyes. He could see where this was going. “And he intervened?”

“Th-that’s right, Penguin. He caught the others but I got away.”

Did he? Oswald Cobblepot, known to the Gotham underworld as ‘The Penguin’, brought his monocle swiftly to his eye. He pointed toward an antique brass credenza with a copper decorative swag and vine motif, on which a several crystal decanters stood. “Sherry?” He asked solicitously.

The man blinked at the sudden change in Penguin’s demeanor. “Su-sure, boss. Thanks.”

Cobblepot beckoned him over and poured out a glass. “Tell me, my good fellow,” he said sharply, “did the Batman lay a hand on you at any time?”

His henchman shook his head. “He tried, Penguin, but I was too fast for him.” He laughed. “He was gonna grab my coat ’n I just ducked an’ kept running.”

To me, Cobblepot thought. “Romelly,” he said, “I believe you have a thread loose on that blazer of yours.” At Romelly’s blank stare, he continued, “here. Allow me.” Quickly he ran his hand over the fabric, scowling as his finger snagged something smooth and metallic that did not belong on the jacket. With one finger, he flicked off the tracer. “I believe I’ll pour myself another drink,” he remarked.

“Another?” Romelly blinked. “You haven’t taken a first one.”

As his right hand closed on the decanter, Penguin’s left index finger found the silent alarm on the wall behind the credenza. He pressed it. And then, with one fluid motion, he raised the decanter (a knockoff of a Gorham Lady Anne design that he kept on hand for these emergencies) and hurled it at Romelly.

“What’re you doing?” Romelly shouted as he tried to dodge. The crystal bottle clipped him on the shoulder.

Cobblepot ignored his cry of shock. “Thief!” He screeched. “Thief! Take what you want, and get out! Help! Police!”

Romelly backed away, eyes wide, shaking his head. Both doors to the office, the one from which Romelly had entered, and the one that led out to the lounge area, burst open and GCPD officers poured in.

The Penguin pretended not to notice and continued to call loudly for assistance, until two police officers rushed over to calm him down. “Oh, thank heaven you’ve arrived, officers,” he burst out then. “It was ghastly, simply ghastly.”

“I’m sure it was, Mr. Cobblepot.” The officer whipped out a pad and pen. “Are you able to give us a statement, now?”

Barbara's voice came through the cowl receiver, slightly amused. “Was that nice?”

“Nice?” Dick repeated. “Batman doesn’t do ‘nice’.”

“Well, no… but he never used to do evil incarnate, either.”

Silence.

“OK, he never used to do that brand of evil incarnate.” She laughed.

“Ozzie had it coming.”

“He did that.” She knew the answer to her next question, but she still asked it. “What next, Current Bat-Wonder?”

Batman’s flippant mood vanished. “Arkham,” he said. “I want to see how Bruce is doing.”

Oracle shook her head sadly. He knew that she’d interfaced the security cameras in Bruce’s cell. He knew that she always had that link up, and that she checked it more frequently than she did Joker’s. He knew that if he’d asked her for an update she would have told him that there had been no change. But even had she volunteered the information, she knew that it wouldn’t have made a difference; Dick would still have wanted to head over to Arkham. It might make a difference for Bruce.

“Hi, Bruce. How’d it go today?”

Dick. Of course. He rarely missed a day—and when he did, he always made sure that someone else came in his place. It was one more part of the routine: within the last hour before lights out, Dick would come by. Bruce never acknowledged his presence; in fact, he usually made a point of having his face turned away from the mesh-screened window that faced out into the corridor.

Dick waited for a moment, as though he expected Bruce to reply. He never did, of course. That was also part of the routine.

“Listen, about tomorrow night. I bought the roses, but I just wanted to double-check the time.”

Roses. He kept his eyes closed. He hadn’t realized that it was coming up on that anniversary.

“Was it 8:43?”

He had to hand it to the younger man. It was an excellent question, one meant to elicit a response. Except, of course, that Dick had to already know the time of his parents’ murder. A grandfather clock in the main study concealed the stairway leading from the manor to the cave. In order to access that stair, one was required to position the hands of the clock to 8:25. Dick knew that.

“Things have changed a bit at the manor,” Dick’s tone was guarded. Bruce could appreciate that. Although the guards withdrew enough to allow them a measure of privacy, the conversation—or monologue, to be exact—almost had to be monitored. “I guess you can probably figure out that after they arrested you, the cops searched the manor for evidence. They kept coming back—they never found anything they could use—but a lot of things got moved around. I haven’t been up to the house for months, now.”

Bruce translated automatically: his team had sprung into action to hide as much evidence of his activities as Batman as they could. If the clock still existed, Dick wasn’t using it. Either he was accessing the cave from one of the other entrances, or he wasn’t using the main cave at all. It was plausible. Even likely.

Still, as much as he appreciated Dick’s gesture, the fact remained: placing roses in Crime Alley on the night of the year on which Thomas and Martha Wayne died was one of his traditions, but it was a duty that he had taken upon himself. It was good of Dick to let him know that the tradition would be upheld despite Bruce’s inability to fulfil it. In the larger scheme of things, though, did it really matter whether Dick was 20 minutes late?

Dick continued to talk softly, as Bruce felt his eyelids grow heavier. By the time the light switched off at nine P.M., he was sound asleep.

The younger man waited another moment. “Well, goodnight, Bruce,” he said finally. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” There was no hint of sorrow in his voice or on his face until he was safely off the asylum grounds. Then, he pulled over to the side of the road, and clutched the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. Until the ridges of the wheel rim felt like they had engraved their imprint on his hands.

Once he had attained a measure of control, he drove back to the nearby satellite cave where he had parked the other car. Automatically, he exchanged his street clothes for a fresh suit. The night was still young. And the city still needed Batman. And until things are different, it’s still stuck with me.