Batman 6 - The Dark Knight (21 page)

“The good-cop, bad-cop routine?”

Gordon was standing at the door, his hand on the knob. “Not exactly.”

Gordon switched off the overhead light and left the room. A few seconds later the light came back on, and Batman was standing behind the Joker.

Batman slammed the Joker’s head on the table. When the Joker raised it, Batman was standing in front of him. The Joker wiped blood from his nose with the back of his wrist, and said, “Never start with the head. Victim gets fuzzy. Can’t feel the next—”

Batman’s fist smashed onto the Joker’s fingers. The Joker’s expression didn’t change, and his voice remained pleasant. “See?”

“You wanted me. Here I am.”

“I wanted to see what you’d
do.
And you didn’t disappoint. You let five people die. Then you let Dent take your place. Even to a guy like me . . . that’s
cold.”

“Where’s Dent?”

“The mob fools want you dead so they can get back to the way things were,” the Joker said, ignoring Batman’s question. “But I know the truth—there
is
no going back. You’ve changed things. Forever.”

“Then why do you want to kill me?”

The Joker laughed, then the laughing began to sound like sobbing.

“Kill you?” he gasped. “I don’t want to kill you. What would I do without you? Go back to ripping off mob dealers? No, you . . .” He jabbed an index finger at Batman. “You. Complete. Me.”

“You’re garbage who kills for money.”

“Don’t talk like one of them. You’re not, even if you’d like to be. To them, you’re a freak like me. They just
need
you right now. But as soon as they don’t, they’ll cast you out like a leper.”

The Joker half rose and stared into Batman’s eyes. “Their morals, their code . . . It’s a bad joke. Dropped at the first sign of trouble. They’re only as good as the world
allows
them to be. You’ll see. I’ll show you. When the chips are down, these civilized people . . . they’ll eat each other. See, I’m not a monster. I’m just ahead of the curve.”

Batman grabbed the Joker’s collar and hoisted him up. “Where’s Dent.”

“You have these rules, and you think they’ll save you.”

“I have
one
rule.”

“Then that’s the one you’ll have to break. To know the truth.”

“Which is?”

“The only sensible way to live in the world is without rules. Tonight, you’re going to break your one rule . . .”

“I’m considering it.”

“There are just moments left, so, you’ll have to play my little game if you want to save . . . one of them.”

“Them?”

“For a while I thought you really
were
Dent, the way you threw yourself after her—”

In the observation room, Gordon moved toward the door, realizing what was about to happen. But Batman had already jammed a chair under the doorknob. Then he picked up the Joker and threw him into the glass mirror. It splintered, and a single jagged shard fell to the floor. The Joker, bleeding from the nose and mouth, laughed.

“Look at you,” he said to Batman in a chiding tone. “Does Harvey know about you and his . . .”

Batman flung the Joker across the table and into a wall.

“Killing is making a choice,” the Joker said as though he were chatting with a dinner companion.

“
Where are they?”
Batman asked, and punched the Joker.

“You choose one life over the other,” the Joker continued. “Your friend, the district attorney. Or his blushing bride to be.”

Batman punched the Joker again . . .

. . .
and for a moment, less than a moment, remembered his dream, his father frowning, obviously angry, shouting words Bruce could not hear, but somehow understood anyway, words about means and ends and becoming what one beheld
. . .

The Joker spat out a tooth. “You have nothing. Nothing to threaten me with. Nothing to do with all your strength. But don’t worry. I’m going to tell you where they are. Both of them. That’s the point—you’ll have to
choose
.”

The Joker rubbed his hand over his chin, thoughtfully. The hand came away smeared with blood and makeup. “Let me see . . . Oh, yes.
He’s
at 250 Fifty-second Boulevard. And
she’s
at Avenue X at Cicero.”

Batman went to the door, removed the chair, and entered the observation room.

“Which one are you going to?” Gordon asked.

Batman strode past him without slowing. “Dent knew the risks.”

“He’s going after Miss Dawes,” Gordon said to his unit as he sprinted toward his car a few seconds later. “That makes Dent our job.”

Rachel stayed in her office until she had heard, through official channels, that Harvey Dent was all right. On her way out of the courthouse, an officer whom she know from Gordon’s squad asked her if she’d look at something odd. She followed the young woman into a corridor and—

Nothing. Then bumping. She was on the floor of a moving vehicle—a van?—and someone was telling her something she didn’t understand, about her friends having to choose and only one making it . . .

And again nothing.

And she was sick to her stomach and her head was throbbing and . . . Where was she? Sitting in almost total darkness, the only light a thin, pale glow from some kind of crack and . . . she couldn’t lift her hands, nor do more than wriggle her leg. Because she was bound? Yes. Sitting, bound to a chair, in darkness, sick from whatever they used to knock her out, whoever
they
were.

“Can anyone hear me?” She tried to yell, but her voice was only a hoarse whisper.

But it was loud enough for Harvey Dent to hear. He had been awake for some minutes and could see, in the light from a single, bare and dirty bulb, that he was sitting tied to a rickety wooden chair in a filthy basement. Rachel’s voice was coming from a speakerphone on the floor.

“Rachel? Rachel, is that you?”

“Harvey? Where are you?”

As soon as he had wakened, Dent had strained his head to look behind him. He knew that he was near two metal barrels, wired to a car battery and a crude timer that was counting down; its clock face showed five minutes. Five minutes to what? Nothing good.

It was now 4:35.

“It’s okay, Rachel. Everything’s going to be just fine.”

The Joker was certainly damaged—bloody, smeared—but he seemed perfectly content, sitting in the interrogation room, guarded by Gerard Stephens.

“I want my phone call,” he said.

“That’s nice,” Stephens said.

“How many of your friends have I killed?”

“I’m a twenty-year man. I can tell the difference between punks who need a little lesson in manners and the freaks like you who would just enjoy it. So I’m not gonna hit you. And you killed six of my friends.”

“You know why I use a knife, Detective? Guns are too quick. You don’t get to savor all the little emotions. See, in their last moments, people show you who they really are. So, in a way, I knew your friends better than you ever did. Would you like to know which of them were really cowards?”

The night shift was busy in the holding area adjoining the lockup, uniforms and detectives alike processing the Joker’s crew: taking fingerprints, photographing, asking simple questions. A badly overweight man who had identified himself as Kilson was pleading for a doctor.

“I don’t feel so good,” he moaned, clutching his belly.

“You’re a cop killer,” a detective named Murphy said. “You’re lucky to be feeling anything below the neck.”

“We better get a medic,” a sergeant said, turning to a uniformed officer standing next to him. “Remember what Gordon told us . . . everything by the book.”

“I think some of the ambulance guys are still outside,” said the cop. “I’ll see if any of ’em feel like getting their hands dirty.”

As Rachel’s eyes had adjusted to the dark, she began to discern silhouettes and, comparing her situation with the one Harvey Dent described to her, she realized that they were in identical predicaments: helpless and close to ticking bombs. She began to realize, for the first time, that she might not survive, or that Harvey might not, and she was filled with regret for all she had not said to him, for her reservations about loving him. Should she speak now?

“Can you move your chair?” Dent asked her.

“No.” Rachel could see the red numbers on the timer. “Harvey, we don’t have much time.”

2:47

2:46

2:45

Her confession to Harvey would have to wait. Because she had to believe that, somehow, they would both come through this ordeal intact. Right now, she had to concentrate on escape.

1:56

Dent could move his chair by tilting his weight until it was mostly on a rear leg, pivoting on that leg, and repeating the process on the other side. That’s what he was doing, inching closer to the barrels and sweating and talking to Rachel: “Look for something to free yourself.”

“They said only one of us was going to make it,” Rachel said. “That they’d let our . . . our friends choose.”

Dent’s chair wouldn’t move—stuck on a raised board, probably. Dent shifted all his weight to one side and . . . that was a mistake. He began to topple. It was too late to regain his balance, and he fell into one of the barrels, knocking it over, falling on top of it and slipping to the floor. The concrete was cold against his cheek, then it was cold and wet; the top of the barrel had dropped open, and diesel fuel was spilling out.

1:23

“Harvey,” Rachel called. “What’s happening?”

“Nothing. I’m trying to—” Dent gagged: Some of the fuel had touched his lips, filling his mouth and nose with an ugly taste and an overpowering stink.

Fuel continued to seep out onto the floor and onto Dent, soaking through his clothing, wetting his skin, making it itch and sting, the fumes rising into his nostrils and mouth and eyes. He had never, never felt so uncomfortable, so helpless and trapped, and if he had been in this situation alone, he might have simply surrendered to it. But he had to save himself and in so doing, find a way to save Rachel.

59 seconds

Rachel knew, now, that they wouldn’t escape, that one or both of them would be dead in less than a minute. But there was still time. She could still tell Harvey what she felt.

34 seconds

“Harvey, in case . . . I want you to know something . . .”

“Don’t think like that, Rachel.”

“I know, but I don’t
want
them to . . .”

20

19

18

“I don’t want to live without you, Harvey. Because I do have an answer, and my answer is
yes
. . .”

Murphy escorted an ambulance paramedic to where Kilson sat handcuffed to a bench.

“Where’s it hurt?” the medic asked.

Kilson pointed to his belly.

“Let’s get your shirt off,” the medic said.

Gerry Stephens stepped from the interrogation room with the Joker holding a piece of broken glass to his throat. A half dozen detectives stopped what they were doing and stared. Two of them reached for holstered pistols.

“This is my own damn fault,” Stephens said. “Just shoot him.”

“What do you want?” Murphy asked the Joker.

“I
want
,” the Joker said slowly, as though speaking to a toddler, “my phone call. Please.”

Murphy looked around at the other detectives, shrugged, took a cell phone from his hip pocket, and tossed it to the Joker, who managed to catch it in his left hand while keeping the shard in his right pressed against Stephens’s throat. The Joker began to press keys with his thumb.

The medic stared down at the rectangular shape under Kilson’s skin, which bore a line of crude stitches. It was about the size and shape of a playing card, and a bit thicker.

“Is that a . . . phone?” the medic muttered. “Somebody stuck a phone in this guy.”

The detectives looked at each other, their expressions saying:
Well, this is a new one
. . . Murphy took a step backward, but craned his head forward to maintain his view of Kilson.

The Joker pressed the
SEND
button on Murphy’s phone, and Kilson’s belly . . . started ringing. The medic and several officers leaned in closer in disbelief. Three seconds later, an explosion tore through the room.