10

Arriving at Dr. Thompkins’ clinic, he walked up the steps to the front door. While its cinderblock exterior wasn’t much on style, he knew the building housed the most modern equipment money could buy. Much of it had been supplied by the Wayne Foundation, while the rest had been paid for through tireless fundraising efforts.

He knocked on the shatterproof glass of the locked front door, and saw movement behind the drawn blinds. A latch was turned, and the door opened.

“Hello, Alfred,” Leslie Thompkins said. A tall, trim woman with close-cropped white hair and an alert face, she wore a white lab coat.

“Hello yourself, Leslie.” He stepped inside.

“I was just finishing up my records for the day,” she said, leading the way back toward her office. As they continued down a hallway, they passed the rooms that housed the clinic. During the day various staff members went about the business of caring for patients young and old. But now it was after hours.

“Would you like some coffee? It’s reasonably fresh.” She gestured toward a kitchen nook.

“Yes, that’s fine.” She walked on, and he poured himself a cup from the steaming carafe. On the refrigerator door, stuck in place by magnets, were several pictures that had been drawn by the neighborhood children. He blew on his coffee, stepped back into the hallway, and followed her into her office, where she was sitting behind a desk.

In a corner was a human male skeleton held upright in a stand. It had been painted in various colors, and a stethoscope was draped around its boney shoulders.

“I’ll just be a few,” she said, making notations in a file. He sat opposite her and gathered his thoughts, doing his best to push the mugging to the back of his mind. Watching her work, he remembered the conversation with Bruce.

Pennyworth wondered if one day she’d be making those notations in a file floating on a computer screen. He’d been to the newsroom of the Gotham Examiner, and watched the writers use desktop computers to prepare their stories. That was a far cry from the complexity required for medical work, but what if she had something more like the equipment in the cave?

For the moment, equipment like that was prohibitively expensive, and took up far too much space to be practical on a daily basis—but would that always be the case? Though it wasn’t the same sort of thing, the Dark Knight’s mission required precise calculations and an attention to detail not unlike the medical profession.

Batman’s mission…

He set his coffee cup on her desk.

“Not to put a damper on our evening,” he said, “but have you heard of a drug called Giggle Sniff?”

She stopped writing, looking up at him over the rim of her thin glasses. Then she put the pen aside.

“Sadly, I have, why?”

“I just… it came up today, in conversation,” he replied. “What is it, exactly?”

She sighed wearily. “It is our version of the West Coast’s crack, I suppose, that’s recently made the scene on Gotham’s streets.”

“Crack is a rock-like crystal, isn’t it?” he said. “Derived from boiling down powdered cocaine.”

“Yes, and in that concentrated form, the high it provides is intensified. It’s pernicious as it triggers certain receptors in the brain. The effects don’t last long, yet because of its effects on the physiology, the addict craves more and more as time passes. A growth industry for the criminal world.”

“And this Giggle Sniff is similar?”

She made a face. “To some extent. Like crack, on Giggle Sniff your performance and dexterity increase. You’re aware of its effects, yet… floating along. Giggle Sniff makes you happy, damn near giddy, as befits its origins.”

“Where did it come from?”

She seemed surprised by the question. “Why, right here, Alfred. It’s a homegrown product, derived from Joker Venom.” She paused, then added, “And yes, it’s green.”

“Oh, my.”

“Oh my indeed. Now I don’t exactly know who was the enterprising back alley chemist to figure this out, but the stuff’s been on the streets for about six months now. And like all American dream stories, all of the crabs in our underworld barrel are clawing to control the Giggle Sniff trade. Men like Antonio ‘Python’ Palmares.”

“Competition is that fierce?”

“Oh, yes. There’s no shortage of opportunists.”

“Fascinating.” He would make sure to mention this to Bruce. Not that it was likely to come as a surprise.

She returned to her notes and Pennyworth sat in silence, sipping his coffee, sorting out the business on the street. What had it been about that man that had unhinged him so? He’d witnessed the atrocities of war during his time with the Special Air Service. He’d seen innocents frozen by Mr. Freeze, their limbs shattered, and morgue photos of bodies where Killer Croc had bitten off body parts. Yet this petty thief had somehow gotten to him.

What was it about using violence to address problems of a systemic nature? Night after night Bruce would go out as Batman, attempting to stem the tide, staring in the face of madmen like the Joker or Two-Face, who operated on a twisted pretzel logic that only the insane could devise, and sought to define life through one heinous act after another.

“Done, at least for tonight.” Thompkins closed her last file folder. Pennyworth surfaced from his reverie.

“Then Don Giovanni awaits.”

*   *   *

As they stepped outside into the cool night air, and Dr. Thompkins locked up the clinic after setting the alarm, she put her arm in the crook of Pennyworth’s elbow as he escorted her to the Jaguar.

“That smear of blood on your cuff,” she said with remarkable calm. “I hope there wasn’t a mishap on your way to the clinic’s doorstep?”

“Oh that,” he said lightly. “Rushed my shave, you see. Too excited to see how this new baritone Vitalli handles his chores in the title role.”

“Mmm-hmmm,” she murmured.

Pennyworth patted her hand and watched the shadows. He didn’t expect another incident—one was quite enough for the evening. Then he glanced down at his cuff, and decided there was no such thing as being too careful.

Still, he knew that even among the lowest of the low here in Crime Alley, the word was you didn’t mess with Dr. Thompkins or the staff of her clinic. The place was considered off limits—they serviced whoever came through the door, no matter angel or devil. So that even those who would readily steal their mother’s wedding ring to pawn for a fix had at least one damn thing they could cherish.

As Pennyworth was well aware, Gotham was too often bereft in the upstanding department.

*   *   *

Sparks spewed from the motorcycle as it skidded into the gutter. Using her newly acquired grapnel gun, Batgirl latched onto a truck with the logo of Tri-State Freight on the side. She swung up and onto its boxy cargo area and went flat as one of the goons in the car behind them took another shot at her.

This replaced one dilemma with another. Since they were on one of the city’s wider thoroughfares, she’d ditched the motorcycle to avoid having any innocent motorists caught in the crossfire. Now she would need to stay toward the back of the truck, lest a stray bullet strike the driver. At least the cargo unit afforded her some protection.

Her target, an AMX muscle car with a built-in hood scoop and a throaty big barrel V8 under the hood, sped to go around the truck and leave her in the dust. Running along the top of the bobtail, she launched herself into space and landed on the car’s roof, gripping the front edge and securing a line—along with a surprise package.

As she knew would happen, they shot through the roof trying to tag her, but she rolled off and let herself fall onto the trunk. The line held and she was up like a jet skier daunting a wild wave. A thug twisted around and leveled his pistol to shoot at her through the windshield, when the present she’d left on the roof ignited. It was a magnetized device that pierced the top of the vehicle and shot smoke inside. Instantly the occupants of the car were engulfed, but the gunman managed to get off a shot, shattering the back window.

Even as the glass exploded outward, much of the choking cloud remained inside the vehicle.

“Watch it!” one of the occupants shouted.

“Can’t see for shit,” the driver bellowed as the car skidded, tore across the lanes, then vaulted over a concrete-and-grass divider.

In this area of town there were bars and restaurants catering to the college and young adult crowd. People stood in doorways or bunched behind plate glass windows, enthralled by the excitement. An elevated subway train rumbled overhead. It was just a matter of time before someone got hurt.

*   *   *

Seeking a line on Giggle Sniff, Batgirl had taken her cue from Batman and made the rounds of her own network of informants. The tip had come from a campus contact, a part-time instructor who Barbara Gordon knew from her job at the library. This man had gone out a few times with one of her coworkers, Cassie Lane. She knew too he smoked pot, so that put him in tune with some of the drug crowd.

From him she’d learned about a trio of thugs who’d been hitting the campuses, looking to recruit customers and pushers. He’d described the three men and the flashy car they drove. Sure enough, after some time on solo patrol, she had spotted them.

*   *   *

As the car careened out of control, she timed her move just right, jumped free, somersaulted in the air, then rebounded off another car top. The dizzying series of moves landed her on top of a mailbox. The AMX slammed into an iron girder, part of the metal and concrete holding up the elevated tracks for the crosstown subway. The top of the driver’s head hit the windshield, leaving a spider’s web of cracks, and he was out.

His two companions were still mobile.

The one in the front passenger seat was out and running, limping a little but looking to put as much distance between them as he could. For good measure, he shot over his shoulder without looking back.

The one in the rear seat was trying to extricate himself, but the crash had driven the driver’s bucket seat back off its rails. He was pinned, and had to use both hands to shove the broken seat off his legs. Finally he pulled himself loose and fell out of the car, clambering to his feet. The entire time he glanced around, frantic that his pursuer might be close.

“Boo.”

He spun around, waving a gun this way and that. She jumped on him from above. Three quick chops to his neck had him dazed, and a left to his face had him bloodied and reeling. One more punch put him out.

Not far away there was a gunshot, and she took off at a sprint. Her quarry was running along beneath the train tracks, shooting at phantoms. He approached a stairway just as a wave of commuters descended from the platform. With a toss of her line and grapnel Batgirl was airborne, swinging over his head and dropping down in front of him.

Instantly she cursed herself for being over-confident. The thug grabbed a woman and pressed his gun to her temple.

“One more step, and her head disappears in a red haze.”

“All right, just be cool,” Batgirl said, hands forward so he could see they were empty.

“Now you’re gonna let me walk, and me and this chick here are gonna find someplace else to be.”

“Who’re you callin’ a chick?” the woman said as she drove her heel into the man’s foot, pushing the gun upward and away.

The guy bellowed and she elbowed him to open space between them. Batgirl threw a dart retrieved from her utility belt, embedding it in his chest. He jerked violently as the gizmo sent an electric charge through him. She covered the distance between them in a bound and grabbed his wrist, twisting the gun loose and clubbing him with it.

He sank to the pavement groaning.

“Way to go, Batgirl,” one of the commuters enthused.

“You showed him,” another said.

Forearm at a ninety-degree angle to her waist, she bowed slightly. Using a zip tie to secure the thug, she was off, eager to reach her motorcycle before it could be impounded.

Sirens got closer in the distance.

As she neared the wrecked car, Batgirl paused. The trunk was loose, and she kicked the ruined lock with the heel of her boot. The lid sprang open, and she found the mat normally used to cover the spare tire. Lifting it she spied numerous packets of Giggle Sniff, loaded into a cut-down cardboard box.

Well, well…

She smirked. One of the geniuses must have figured it would be clever to offer the drug at a frat party or some such, using the cardboard like it was a serving tray. Turning the cardboard over, she noted the stylized double Ns in a circle. As she hurried to retrieve her motorcycle, she wondered if maybe those clowns had just found that box they cut down in the trash. Yet the Novick Novelty company had been closed for some time. What other trash would that have been in?