The Batman Murders

  Craig Shaw Gardner

  Prologue

  The man sat in the dark room, the absolutely dark room. There was no sound here either, except the sound that issued from the man's lips.

  Why, then, was the man laughing?

  There was no moon in Gotham City. The steaming August day had brought heavy clouds, but no rain. The dark clouds hung there like a blanket pressing the heat onto the sweltering streets below. Darkness and heat, a bad combination. It brought crime into the city like a roach, scurrying from its hole and looking to see what it could devour in the absence of light.

  There was no moon in Gotham City. The humid air seemed to dull the streetlights and neon, their glow barely filtering to the street. Sounds, though, were everywhere---music, arguments, laughter, screams, all fighting with one another on the sleepless streets, the million voices of the city rising and falling with a rhythm to match the waves down by Gotham harbor.

  Some listened for the music.

  One man listened for the screams.

  There was no moon in Gotham City, and darkness bred all sorts of things.

  But darkness had another friend. A shadow moved on the rooftops, on a night when there were no shadows. And this shadow leaned over the edge to watch his prey.

  There were three of them in the alleyway below, three common criminals, about to break into the First Gotham Bank. Their voices carried in the still, heavy air, and he heard all their plans, but he still had to wait for them to make their move. First, they would commit their crime. Then they would meet the Batman.

  Still, he wished they would get on with it. Maybe it was something about the night, but it was very difficult to wait for action. The cape was heavy on his back, the fabric of his uniform damp against his skin. Why was he worried? The three below were no match for him.

  They started at last, all three of them moving to the side entrance of the bank. Maybe had to wait for a prearranged time. There was probably a fourth man, a driver, who would show up when they'd finished the job. They had used glass cutters to cut a small hole in the glass on the side door, and a thermite lance to burn out the old lock so that they could just push the door in with the kick of a boot. It looked like they had found the weakest point in the old bank building. All three walked quickly inside. There was no alarm. These guys were professional enough to take care of that.

  But it was time for Batman to get to work, too.

  He tugged one more time on the hook he'd set on the chimney. It would hold. The bank robbers below had spent so long waiting that he'd had plenty of time to find the best place to secure his line. He stepped to the edge of the roof, then jumped, gliding down on the rope.

  Something was wrong. The building was higher than he thought. The angle was too great, he was going too fast. He landed on the ground with a jolt, jarring his left leg. It was a foolish mistake. He'd been out of action too long, too eager for the hunt. He had to calm himself, become centered. He'd have a fight on his hands soon enough.

  He took a step, and felt a pain in his left leg. He must have slightly twisted his ankle. His mistake would cost him more than he thought. Still, there was nothing to do but ignore it and go on.

  He walked quickly to the side entrance. The criminals had left the door open four or five inches, enough so somebody would notice. Maybe they weren't as professional as he had thought. He knew there was a night watchman in his place. If he could, he should get to the crooks before they got to the watchman. Sweeny, that was the watchman's name. Sometimes even Batman was amazed by all that he knew.

  The door opened silently, and Batman crept inside, staying in shadow. He was on the main business floor of the bank, the one with all the teller's cages and loan officer's desks. One of the three criminals was across the room, working on the upstairs vault. There was no sign of the others, but the door that led to the basement levels was wide open. That's where the real money would be, down in the large vault the bank used to supply all its branches. There were safe deposit boxes down there, too, full of the valuables of hundreds of the bank's customers. There was no sign of Sweeny, either. He hoped he wasn't too late.

  Batman had to move fast, before the robbers got too far. He'd take out the one up here first. He reached down to his belt and pulled out a modified boomerang with an attached nylon line. A simple toss, and the boomerang cord would wind itself around the robber long enough for Batman to knock him cold.

  He threw as he stepped forward onto his left foot. He grunted as pain shot up his leg. His toss had gone wide. The boomerang clattered behind the teller's cages.

  "Wha---" The crook looked up from where he had been concentrating on the lock. He stood and took a couple of steps toward the cages.

  Trouble. Batman had to take out the guy now, before he could warn the others. He moved toward the vault as fast as his injured ankle would let him. The ankle didn't allow him to move as quietly as he would like, either. He could hear the sound of his boots on the floor as he ran. He was breathing heavily by the time he reached the crook. The robber turned around, and Batman put all he had behind a single punch.

  The crook yelled as he saw the fist, just before Batman knocked him senseless. One down, but Batman might have lost the element of surprise.

  He hurried to the door leading downstairs. There was an old, circular, wrought-iron stairs in the alcove here, dating back from when the bank was built, close to a hundred years ago. He knew, before he even looked down, that the stairs led to three levels of basement---a basement where the bank's founding fathers thought that vaults and safe deposit boxes would be safer from robbers. There was a service elevator back here, too. It was Batman's business to know about banks, and that knowledge would serve him well now. It was Batman's business to know about every aspect of crime.

  The elevator opened as he walked through the doorway from the bank. There was no place for him to run. He braced himself to fight.

  The man inside the elevator stared at him openmouthed. It was the night watchman.

  "Sweeny?" he called softly.

  "Batman?" the watchman replied incredulously, as if he couldn't believe his eyes.

  "Sweeny, what's happening?" he demanded.

  Sweeny shook his head. "Happening?" he asked. "I just began my two A.M. rounds. Is something wrong?"

  Somehow, Batman realized, the watchman has missed the criminals---and luckily for Sweeny, the criminals had missed him, too.

  "Don't worry," he told the watchman. "I'll take care of it."

  Batman took a step toward the elevator. The pain in his left leg was even worse---he shouldn't have run on it. His knee wanted to buckle underneath him. He leaned forward, trying to catch his breath.

  A gun went off behind him. He heard the whine of a bullet, close by his ear. The crooks had found him. If he hadn't leaned forward, the bullet would have caught him in the back.

  "Keep out of the way!" he barked to the watchman.

  He turned to face the robbers, two of them, with guns drawn. Both of them were smiling. He'd show them there was nothing to smile about. He'd teach them to fear the Batman.

  "Who do you think you're trying to fool?" Sweeny called out behind him. What was the watchman talking about?

  Somebody shoved him in the back; somebody who had to be Sweeny. Batman realized the watchman must be working with the bank robbers, making it an inside job. Not Sweeny. He'd been with the bank for almost twenty years.

  Batman tried to stop himself from falling, but his leg collapsed underneath him, and he toppled over the railing, three long stories down.

  He had one last thought as he fell:

  Batman couldn't die, could he?

  Part I

  One Batman Too Many

  1

  He had slept poorly the night before. He'd had the dream again.

  But now Bruce Wayne was instantly awake.

  "Sir?" Alfred had that tone in his voice when he had handed him the morning paper. "Something of interest."

  Bruce always marveled at how much import his butler could put in four words. Alfred was always so calm, so unruffled, that a lifted eyebrow could mean he was about to inform his employer of the most dire catastrophe imaginable. And when he raised the pitch of his voice slightly at the end of the sentence as he just had, well, things were really serious.

  Bruce didn't realize how serious they were until he opened to the headline. It ran across the entire top of The Gotham Globe, in 128-point type.

  THE BATMAN MURDER?

  Bizarre Death of Leading Gotham Banker

  Dressed as Caped Crusader

  While First Gotham Robbed of Millions

  Police Unable to Rule Out Suicide

  Below that were two photos, side by side, the one on the left a well-lit, professional studio photo of a prosperous-looking, portly gentleman in his middle fifties, with the caption: First Gotham Bank Vice President Milton T. Cranshaw.

  The larger photo on the right wasn't well lit at all. It showed, in fuzzy black-and-white, an overweight man who had been stuffed into a badly sewn Batman costume. He was stretched out on what Bruce guessed was an inlaid tile floor. From the unnatural position of the man's arms and legs, Bruce could tell there had been a number of broken bones.

  The caption below this photograph read: The late Cranshaw in Batman suit, apparently killed by fifty-foot fall.

  Alfred placed Bruce's usual breakfast of grapefruit, cereal, and dry toast in front of him.

  "Shall I call the commissioner?"

  Bruce shook his head. "Commissioner Gordon is attending the police convention in Kansas City. He should be back this evening around five."

  "I see," the butler replied. "Mr. Winter is running the show?"

  Alfred sighed as Bruce nodded his head. His old friend knew as well as Bruce did that it wasn't worth trying to get any cooperation out of Steven Winter.

  Bruce frowned back at the paper. If Gordon had been around, the commissioner would have called Batman in right away rather than letting him read about the incident in the morning paper. A man found dead in a Batman uniform---what could it mean? As careful as the police might be about maintaining the integrity of the scene of the crime, the longer it took Batman to examine the evidence, the more chance there might be that something, perhaps a vital clue---a few hairs carried away on a policeman's shoe, a whiff of gas sucked off by the air-conditioning system---would be lost.

  Maybe, Bruce thought, he was overreacting because the dead man was dressed the way he was. He had to be careful not to overreact. He knew he had been pushing himself too hard lately. Still, still---

  THE BATMAN MURDER, the headline read. He looked again at the photo of the overweight banker, so strange-looking the way he was stuffed into the homemade Batman costume.

  He supposed there could be any number of explanations for this so-called bizarre death. Maybe this middle-aged businessman, Cranshaw, had somehow fixated on Batman. Cranshaw could have even arranged the robbery personally, so that he could then delude himself into believing he was the costumed crime fighter who would stop that robbery. Realizing what he had done, the banker could even have thrown himself to his death.

  Sometimes people identified too strongly with the famous---it was one of the prices of notoriety, especially when so many considered you to be a hero. Batman sometimes filled much too large a hole in people's lives.

  Why, then, did Bruce take this so personally? Every time he looked at the fat body in the crude suit, he felt as though someone was criticizing Bruce's life; thumbing his nose at anybody who put on a costume disguise to fight crime in Gotham City.

  Bruce put down the paper. A good detective never assumed anything until he had gained as much information as he could gather. He needed to look at the scene of the crime. There must be some way Batman could get Winter to see that!

  He popped a couple of vitamins in his mouth and drank his orange juice. He was too agitated at the moment to eat anything else.

  "Alfred?" he called to his butler. "Clear this away, would you? I have to go for a ride."

  "Want to buy a flower, mister?"

  Special Mayoral Assistant Steven Winter ignored the kid pushing the daisy in his face and quickly climbed the steps to Gotham City Hall. Commissioner Gordon's absence gave him the perfect opportunity to study the real structure of the Gotham police force without interference.

  If there was one thing that Winter had learned from the mayor, it was that everything was politics, and the police were no exception. The mayor was more interested in the structure underneath the commissioner. That was Winter's specialty: finding out who really ran the show in the various city departments he "oversaw."

  As far as the police were concerned, Winter had already discovered there wasn't much power sharing near the top. Gordon wasn't the sort to delegate much in the way of real responsibility. Gordon's second-in-command, John W. O'Neal, was a year away from his pension, and didn't want anything (decision making included) interfering with his happy retirement. That made Winter's job even easier, since---whatever inquiries he might make---O'Neal was guaranteed to look the other way.

  So Winter searched for the real centers of influence in the police force: certain individuals, such as Captain Grant down in Vice, and groups, such as the elite S.W.A.T. team Gordon had trained at the army facility, that the rest of the officers on the police force looked up to. And once Winter found the real leaders and opinion makers, it would be amazing how quickly the mayor would choose to lavish a little extra attention here, and grant a special favor or two there, so that, when the time came, the mayor could ask for a favor or two of his own.

  It wasn't that Commissioner Gordon was necessarily doing a bad job. But a city the size and complexity of Gotham had special needs, and the mayor had his own thoughts on law and order. Commissioner Gordon had been in office a long time; he had become set in his ways, sometimes treating criminals with a total disregard for public opinion, but---most of all according to the mayor---depending far too much on that masked vigilante, Batman.

  What the mayor wanted, and therefore the mayor's assistant wanted, was a police commissioner who thought like the mayor; ideally, a man who had been put in office by that mayor. Officially, Winter was spending a month in the commissioner's office "observing." However, he was really here to make sure that the police rank and file saw things the mayor's way, so that the next time elections rolled around, it would be that much easier for the mayor's man to become the new commissioner.

  Winter nodded pleasantly at his fellow workers as he marched down the long corridor to his temporary quarters. Many nodded back. Some ignored him, too busy with their overworked lives to even think about who he was, much less what he was trying to do.

  He stepped into the suite of rooms that held the offices of the commissioner and his aides. Every time he walked in here, he realized again that he hadn't been totally successful in camouflaging his true intentions. He could see it in the office workers here---Gordon's family, he liked to call them---who regarded him with suspicion and, in the case of Gordon's secretary, Ms. Davis, open hostility.

  "Oh, Mr. Winter," Davis's voice called from over by the file cabinet. He turned toward her with his best public smile, ready for her frown and withering gaze.

  "I'm so glad you're here," Ms. Davis continued. She actually looked happy to see him. Winter almost lost his own smile. Something must be very wrong here.

  "Phone for you, sir." She pointed at the red receiver resting on her desk. "It's---um---it's Batman."

  She was almost laughing by now. Winter cleared his throat to cover his annoyance. How could she know how much he disliked the vigilante crime fighter? Still, he had been expecting this call since two A.M. last night. This was the sort of thing the mayor paid him for. He might as well get it over with.

  "Thank you, Ms. Davis," he replied, keeping his voice as light as possible. "I'll get it in my office."

  He walked quickly to the small, enclosed cubicle at the back of the suite and closed the door behind him. He gave himself a moment to take a deep breath, then picked up the phone.

  "Steve Winter here. So nice to hear from you, Batman."

  "Winter?" the voice on the phone demanded. "Why wasn't I informed of last night's incident at the First Gotham Bank?"

  Winter had plenty of experience handling anger, even from a guy who wore a bat costume. "I'm sorry," Winter answered smoothly, "but I wasn't in a position to divulge any details. That was priveleged information."

  "Haven't I worked long enough with the police---" The angry voice stopped and was replaced by a much calmer tone. "Don't you think that due to the circumstances involved I might be able to shed some light on the situation?"

  Winter paused for a second. He actually found Batman's neutral, emotionless tone much more disquieting than his anger. "Well," he answered rapidly, with as much cheer as he could muster, "now that you mention it, I'm sure you have a point, and when Commissioner Gordon returns, I'll be glad to bring up your concerns at the first opportunity."

  "First opportunity?" Batman's voice was still, somehow, as calm as the grave. "Valuable evidence could be lost while you are---"

  Winter decided he didn't want to hear any more of this. "So nice to talk to you, Batman. I'm afraid, though, in the commissioner's absence, there are other matters that must take priority. We must get a chance to talk at some greater length. I assure you that I will keep in touch."

  He hung up the phone. Nobody, not even Batman, told Steven Winter what to do. Especially today, with all the calls and contacts he wanted to make. After all, Commissioner Gordon would be back at day's end, and Winter would have to be far more circumspect.

 

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