He wasn't sure, though, how he could determine the most important part---exactly what the flowers were supposed to signify. The only ones who could tell him that were the people who left the flowers in the first place; people who also left dead bodies. Murdered men and flowers that were never alive---a strange set of souvenirs.

  Batman just hoped he could find out what they meant before he was presented with any more.

  Gordon had the answer.

  The commissioner nodded without surprise as Batman related what he had learned about the flowers from Winter. "The Church of Perpetual Happiness. We've been investigating them for some time. Come on into the conference room." He turned to look at his bookcase. "I can show you---I've got the videotape right here."

  He pulled a tape from a row of a couple dozen, then led Batman into the room adjoining his office. He slid the tape into the VCR and turned on the monitor. He waved for Batman to take a seat, then grabbed a chair himself.

  A picture formed as the monitor warmed, first static; then lines that resolved into a young man in his late teens or early twenties, holding one of those yellow roses.

  "Hey, mister, buy a flower?"

  The commissioner picked up a remote control from the conference table and pressed the pause button. "We trained hidden camera on them for four hours," Gordon explained, "right here, in front of City Hall. After that, we didn't bother."

  Didn't bother? Batman looked over at the commissioner.

  "We edited the four hours down to about twelve minutes," Gordon went on, anticipating Batman's question. "You'll see why. It takes no time at all to figure out exactly what's going on." He punched the remote again.

  "A flower?" asked another man, his back to the camera. "Is the money for charity?"

  The young man nodded. "For hunger relief in Afghanistan," he said.

  His face was replaced by that of a dark-haired young woman who nodded, too. "Shelter for the homeless," she said.

  Another young male face, with an oriental cast to his features, spoke next from behind his flower: "To ship medical supplies to the tornado-ravaged south."

  An even younger-looking, blond woman followed: "To help send the less fortunate through college."

  "The flowers cost twelve cents apiece," Gordon interrupted the never-ending flow of sincere explanations. "They get two dollars for them, if not more."

  "Oh, I'm sorry, sir," the pretty blond girl said innocently. "We don't give change."

  "None of them are telling the truth," Gordon explained as he again froze the video image. "And all of them believe they're telling lies to promote some kind of 'greater good.' That's the kind of mind-set this sort of organization promotes in its members. As far as we can figure, all the money actually goes back into the church. After that, we have no idea what happens to the funds."

  "Can't you close them down?" Batman asked.

  "For what? Taking a dollar here and there by misrepresentation? At most, we could stick these kids---none of whom have criminal records---with a charge of petty larceny. What do we end up with---fifty-dollar fines? These kids can make more than that in a quarter of an hour. With our overcrowded courts, the D.A. decided it wasn't worth the trouble, at least at this level. Now"---Gordon's eyebrows went up as he paused---"if we could get at those higher up in this so-called church, that would be a different story."

  The so-called church. Batman was aware of these supposedly "cult" organizations, but he had never had the time to investigate them directly.

  "Do you think this church is behind these deaths?" he asked Gordon.

  "Because of the flowers?" The commissioner grunted. "Why would they leave such an obvious calling card? No, it's far more likely that the flowers are being left by somebody who has a grudge against the church. An ex-member, a parent of one of the converts, perhaps somebody who lost a lot of money to the organization, someone like that."

  Batman wasn't so sure about Gordon's conclusions. "But who's to say what goes on inside these organizations? It's obvious from the bit of tape you've shown me that they operate in flagrant disregard for the law. They're using one of the basics our system is based on---freedom of religion---to hide their illegal activities. If you're already successful hiding fraud, perhaps money laundering, even graft, what's to stop you from hiding murder?"

  Gordon considered this. "Let me show you the next part of the tape," he said after a moment.

  Music blasted from the monitor's stereo speakers. And what music. It was high, ethereal, almost classical in form, some sort of interplay of strings and horns that had to come from a synthesizer, played like Mozart on speed. Surprisingly, the final effect was fairly pleasing, sounding a bit like the laughter of angels.

  The music flew into an even higher key, then faded, as if it had vanished onto some astral plane. The video screen was filled with a handsome, smiling, middle-aged man's face.

  "Happiness is the key," he said.

  "Good afternoon, joy seekers." An announcer's voice spoke from off-screen: "Here are some words of truth from the Reverend Joey Droll."

  A crowd, also unseen, applauded and cheered wildly. The reverend, apparently, was talking to an audience of his followers. He waited politely for the adulation to subside. He nodded once it was silent, and, still smiling, began to speak:

  "Could your life be more than it is today? Do you feel, somehow, that you are missing something? Maybe you never finished high school, are stuck in a dead-end job, and never seem able to get ahead. Or perhaps you graduated from that good school, and got that good job, and try to buy the good things in life. But you find once you buy that new car that it never goes fast enough. The new house has a leaky roof. And your husband, or your wife, why don't they treat you like they did before you were married? Why don't your kids treat you with respect? Why can't your parents understand that you're old enough to make your own decisions? If only you'd get those few things straight, you could be truly happy, couldn't you?"

  The Reverend Joey Droll paused to smile even more benignly than before as he surveyed the audience.

  "But is any one of us, you may ask, any one of us rich or poor, ever truly happy? Well, perhaps you weren't before you had the good fortune to turn on this program. But now that you have discovered the Church of Perpetual Happiness, that's all about to change."

  "Tell the truth, Reverend!" someone yelled from the audience.

  "Share the joy! Share the joy!" a couple of female voices began to chant.

  Droll nodded his head magnanimously. "Real happiness, pure joy, the end to all your troubles; that's the very thing I'm here to provide."

  Three bright yellow lines were superimposed over the lower third of the screen:

  CALL NOW

  1-600-555-1600

  YOUR KEY TO HAPPINESS

  Gordon hit the freeze button again.

  "The Reverend Droll showed up in Gotham City about six months ago. His half-hour show began to appear at odd hours on UHF and cable outlets. Within a month, he'd bought an old elementary school and converted it into the church's headquarters. The kids showed up on the streets about that time, hawking the flowers. We believe, incidentally, that the street hawkers are only one small part of Droll's organization. As Droll's money situation improved, his show went to better and better outlets, at better and better times. And he kept on buying Gotham real estate."

  The commissioner looked back at the smiling, frozen image in the screen, then put down the remote control. "The rest of the tape shows the highlights of Droll's show---happiness testimonials from the audience, repeated instructions on where you can send your happiness donation and receive the reverend's blessing---"

  "I get the idea," Batman replied.

  "We tried to plant a rookie in the organization a little while ago. He reported back to us once---the day after he went into the church. That was almost three weeks ago. We haven't heard from him, or seen him, since. We even managed to trump up a building inspection and searched the church headquarters. It was like he vanished from the face of Gotham City."

  "Why haven't you told me about this before?"

  "I would have, if I thought there was some way for Batman to help." Gordon stood up and turned off the monitor.

  Batman considered what he had seen. The commissioner was right. There were no cops and robbers here. This looked like a whole new kind of crime.

  He stared down at his gloves for a moment. "There must be some way we can get inside their organization."

  "How?" Gordon asked. "We can't very well go in and ask. And I don't dare risk sending in somebody else undercover."

  Batman searched his mind for some ploy they had used in the past to get inside someplace that was supposed to be impenetrable. He could arrange for Bruce Wayne to give the church a bequest. He dismissed the thought immediately. He wouldn't want to give the scam any publicity.

  "I could join the church myself," he said.

  Gordon dismissed the suggestion with the wave of his hand. "In some sort of disguise, I assume? You're too old. They'd take all your money and leave you outside the organization. The church takes their real recruits from the young and impressionable. They're easier to train, easier to indoctrinate with the church's true mission."

  Gordon sighed and slumped in a chair. "These cults are everywhere in Gotham---everywhere in the country, I suppose."

  Gordon's statement didn't surprise Batman in the least.

  "Maybe I could get somebody with a couple more years of experience to volunteer, somebody that we could keep better tabs on. In good conscience, though, I don't know if I can expose anybody to that kind of manipulation without the proper training."

  The proper training? Batman thought. It might be almost impossible to find the right combination of youth and mental toughness. Batman knew of only one very special person who might fit that assignment, and that person very likely would never talk to Batman again.

  "Do we have to wait here all night?"

  Big Mike shook his head. "Couple more minutes. Then we go in and steal the paintings. It's simple."

  "Yeah," the other guy said. "It would have to be."

  The other three gang members laughed.

  "What do you mean by that?" their leader demanded. "Are you making fun of Big Mike? The boss put me in charge---the boss knows what he's doing!"

  "The boss is crazy," the other guy shot back.

  There was a noise up above them, somewhere on the roof of the museum.

  Big Mike made an exaggerated shushing sound. "Batman's here. We can do it now."

  The other crooks gathered up their gear. Big Mike wasn't going to let the others get off that easily. He was still angry.

  He glared at the other members of his gang. "Because of what you said," he whispered hoarsely, "Big Mike's not going to let you have any fun. Because of what you said, you don't get to kill Batman." He jerked his thumb toward his chest. "Big Mike kills Batman!"

  He smiled. That was telling them. Big Mike felt better already.

  6

  "I can't." Dick Grayson's chest felt so tight, he could barely say the words. Why couldn't he talk to this man? Why did he have to make up excuses? "I'm too busy with the Titans."

  "I see," the voice on the other end of the line said without emotion. "Well, I'll have to make some other plan." There was a click and a dial tone.

  Dick hung up the phone. He wanted to slam it back into the receiver.

  Dick Grayson had been expecting this sort of call ever since he had read about the man murdered in the Batman costume. Why, then, was it so difficult to talk to Bruce? And why did he want to slug Batman in the jaw?

  He supposed this all went back years, to a time when he thought everything was perfect---when his world was centered around Batman and Robin, keeping Gotham City safe from crime. But Batman broke up their team---coldly and abruptly---when Dick almost lost his life during a case. And part of Dick, at least, had accepted the break-up, even looked forward to getting out on his own. After all, what seemed perfect at fourteen could be holding him back by the time he finished high school. There came a time when Dick Grayson had to grow up.

  So he joined the Titans, first as Robin, but then forging a new identity as Nightwing, starting what he hoped would be a whole new life as a part of the group. But his past was still a part of him. Even though he was a world away from Wayne Manor, he still compared himself to his mentor. Was this the way Batman would have handled it? Batman would have seen through that ruse right away. Couldn't Batman have solved this faster? Somehow, Nightwing always came up short.

  This, Dick realized, was what was making him furious. Perfect. That's how he had always thought of Batman. That was the real reason Dick has become Nightwing, to try to be Batman all over again.

  But Jason's death changed all that.

  Something had happened to Batman when his second Robin had been murdered. Batman had always solved crimes by balancing an analytical mind against a need for action. But Batman seemed to have less time now for analysis. In these last few weeks, physical force had dominated over thought, and Dick watched Batman lash out blindly, as if violence could keep away the pain.

  The pain---that was the real difference. Before this, Dick hadn't even known Batman was capable of feeling pain. Oh, he had seen Bruce go through physical pain. They had both gotten their share of bruises over the years. But emotional pain? Somehow he had thought Batman was beyond that. Dick guessed that his biggest shock in all of this was to find out that Batman was human. And not just human, but just as messed up as all the other humans.

  Dick had tried to talk to Batman about this before. He had asked him why Bruce hadn't told him about Robin's death, why he had to find out about it somewhere else.

  He had gone to meet his mentor in the Batcave. It had been strange for Dick, going to a place that used to mean so much to him. But the Batcave was also one of those things Dick had consciously left behind when he had moved on to become Nightwing. It felt awkward to be back there again.

  Batman hadn't been exactly glad to see him, either. "I didn't expect to see you again" was his only greeting.

  But Dick hadn't wanted an argument. "I heard about Jason," he said instead. "I'm really sorry, Bruce."

  "You weren't at the funeral" was the blunt reply. "People asked about you."

  Dick found himself getting frustrated. There were reasons he couldn't come to the funeral. He had been busy as Nightwing, something he didn't think Batman even wanted to hear. "Come on, Bruce, talk! Don't turn your back on me. I'm here---now."

  But Batman still wouldn't look at him. "You were lucky. When you didn't listen to me, your injuries weren't fatal. Of course, by the time I properly trained you---"

  Dick remembered how angry he felt at the other man's coldness. "Bruce, come on. Lay off. I'm not here to fight you---"

  "Then don't."

  Something snapped in Dick, the same sort of thing that made him leave Wayne Manor. "Are you blaming me? I left, so Jason replaced me, and because I left he died?" He laughed coldly. "No way, pal. Jason wasn't me." That's when he said the things he shouldn't have, the words coming from his emotions, not his head. "I was a trained acrobat. I could think quickly in perilous situations. But Jason? Why did you let him become Robin before he was ready?"

  Batman had spun to face him at last. "Don't you dare blame me for Jason's death! Don't you dare!"

  Bruce had ended up taking a swing at him, as if Dick's question had been some sort of physical assault, then gone on to shout about why he ever thought he needed a partner. At the end there, Batman wasn't making sense, just letting the rage come out.

  It was the first time Dick had ever seen the other man so illogical, so unreasonable---

  So human.

  When it came to Jason Todd, Batman couldn't think about his troubles or confront his emotions. For the first time, Dick realized that Bruce might be afraid of thinking, that maybe Bruce blamed himself for the deaths of Dr. and Mrs. Wayne just as Dick felt guilty for what happened to his own parents. But Dick, at least, had been seeing a therapist for his problems. He was dealing with his grief. Batman, though, had no place for his problems to go. He was filled with a rage that someplace, some time, would have to explode; the sort of rage that could destroy someone---even somebody like Batman.

  What would happen if Batman couldn't take it anymore? Could Gotham City survive?

  Big Mike would make the boss proud. The keys fit the locks, the alarms were just where they were supposed to be, the night watchman was tied and gagged before he could do a thing.

  Mike sent the boys off to cut the right paintings from their frames, and steal the best stuff out of the cases. Most of it seemed like so much junk to Mike---who wanted old vases and bowls anyway? But the boss said he had buyers. And money always made the boss happy. So Big Mike would get the boss money.

  Everything else was ready. Now Big Mike had to take care of the new Batman. The last guy fell over the railing to smash on the floor down below. Well, he was dead, that was what the boss wanted, but Big Mike wasn't happy. He was only happy when he could really squeeze.

  So this time he waited in the dark coatroom, waited for Batman to walk in the door so he could go out and greet him with open arms.

  "Hey!" one of the boys yelled from inside the museum. "Look out!"

  "It's the Batman guy!" another one added. Then he screamed.

  Big Mike frowned. The new Batman had come in another way? It wasn't supposed to be like this. Big Mike let out a long breath. He couldn't wait for Batman anymore. He'd have to go out and find him.

  He stepped out of the dark and walked down the hall toward the big room with all the paintings. The bright lights that they left on in the museum threw huge shadows against the white walls. It made him feel like a giant.

  "Don't hide from Big Mike, Batman!" he yelled ahead. "Big Mike wants to be your friend!"

  He'd give Batman that last big hug.

 

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