Batman 4 - Batman & Robin (23 page)

Barbara entered Alfred’s room as soon as she saw Bruce depart. But already, the old man in the bed seemed to be slumbering.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I was too late.”

“Too late for what, dear child?” Alfred asked without opening his eyes.

Barbara looked at him askance. “I thought you were asleep.”

“Nonetheless,” he said, “you said you were too late. I would like to know of what you were speaking.”

She sighed. “I just wanted to take you away from this place. I wanted you to have a chance to live your own life. A man like you doesn’t deserve to be a slave, Uncle.”

Alfred’s eyes opened. They seemed to sparkle, despite his condition. “A slave? Oh no, child.”

“Come,” she insisted. “You’ve been a servant, doing things for others you might have done for yourself.”

He shook his head. “No. I have been part of something special here—the greatest adventure ever known. I have found purpose in this house, and the family I could never have.”

Suddenly, he was hit with a wave of pain. She reached for him, sat on the bed beside him, and held him until it passed.

“You must do something for me,” he said, his voice a little weaker than before. Taking her hand, he put an envelope in it. “Find my brother Wilfred, child. Give him this. I have duties he must fulfill in my stead.” He thrust his chin out, “Only family can be trusted.”

Barbara looked at the envelope. There was something harder and heavier than a letter in it. “What is it?” she asked.

“It is the sacred trust of two good men, whom I have had the honor of calling son. Take it, child. But I implore you, never open it yourself.” Alfred touched her cheek and seemed to look right through her. “You know,” he said, “you look so like your mother.”

With that, his eyes closed.

She leaned closer to him, consumed with worry. “Uncle Alfred?”

P
oison Ivy, hidden in her Pamela Isley persona, stood in the center of the Gotham Observatory and watched the black-tie gala swirl around her.

Her drab outfit and demeanor made her anything but a conversation magnet. But then, that was the way she had planned it.

A storm of camera strobes alerted her to the entrance of someone important—at least by the media’s standards. Turning, she saw who it was.

Bruce Wayne—and his airhead actress friend Julie Madison. Ivy snorted as the rich man and his date began greeting the assembled guests. Then she saw her target.

Commissioner Gordon. The same stern-looking civil servant who had warned her about associating with Mr. Freeze, poor chump.

Gordon was in the process of stepping away from the crowd, reaching for a glass of champagne off a waiter’s tray. Ivy approached him coyly.

“I’ve always wondered,” she said, “where does that big old bat light come from anyway?”

The commissioner turned to her. But before he could answer, she flipped open a compact and blew a pile of her love dust at him. The tiny puff caught the cop square in the face.

Suddenly, Gordon was stunned. And completely in love. “It’s . . . it’s on top of police headquarters,” he stammered.

Ivy took his arm and led him like a puppy into an alcove. “I’d just love to see it,” she told him. “But you probably don’t have access to something like that . . . or do you?”

Gordon grinned under his gray moustache. “Why, I’m the commissioner of police.” He patted a side pocket. “I have the keys right here.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Ivy saw someone headed their way. Cursing inwardly, she turned—and saw it was Bruce Wayne, of all people. As he moved through the crowd, he looked like a man on a desperate quest. And his annoying chippie of a companion didn’t seem to be with him.

Then Ivy saw the love dust on the lapel of the rich man’s tuxedo, and she understood. A little of what she’d blown at Gordon must’ve hit Wayne as well. And had the desired effect—or to be more accurate, the effect of desire.

How lovely,
she thought. But she didn’t have time to capitalize on it. After all, she had to carry out her part of the plan.

Slipping her fingers deftly into Gordon’s pocket, she extracted the keys. Then she whirled away from him.

“On second thought,” she said, “you’re way too old for me.”

But as she headed for the exit, she felt a hand close around her arm. Turning, she saw herself staring into the face of Bruce Wayne.

“Dr. Isley,” he said. “It was as if I could feel you in the room. You’re enchanting. Gorgeous. The most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. If you’re, um, free . . . this evening . . .”

Suddenly, the Madison woman caught up with him. “Bruce?” she said, her brow creasing with concern. “What in heaven’s name are you doing?”

“I think he’s asking me on a date,” said Ivy. “That is, in an awkward, stammering sort of way.”

Madison looked from one of them to the other. Finally, she pulled her date’s hand away from Ivy’s arm. “I’ve heard of commitment anxiety,” she remarked, “but this is insane. You’re not really propositioning another woman right in front of me, are you?”

The billionaire seemed to be having trouble with the concept. Obviously, Ivy thought, with a certain amount of satisfaction, he had other things on his mind.

“Er . . . define ‘propositioning,’ ” he replied.

By then, of course, the press had gotten wind of the confrontation. They were gradually surrounding Ivy, Wayne, and Julie.

“Make a choice,” said the starlet, intensely aware of the swarming reporters. “Her or me, Bruce.”

The rich man hesitated—but only for a moment. “Well, um . . . her.”

Madison was obviously crestfallen. Her lower lip began to tremble. “I get it, Bruce. You’re not the marrying kind. You’ve made your point.” She hesitated for a moment, then said, “Good-bye.”

And with that, she pushed her way through the crowd. Ivy made a clucking sound as she watched the woman’s retreat.

“Physical perfection, charm, and wealth,” she said. She turned to Wayne. “All tossed aside for a dowdy little spinster like me? How do you explain your behavior, Mr. Wayne?”

The man seemed puzzled by it himself. “I can’t. But perhaps tonight, over a candelight dinner . . .”

She saw an opening. And having seen it, she went for it with all the viciousness of a Venus’s-flytrap.

“Maybe your witless, playboy persona works on your bimbos du jour,” she said—just loudly enough for everyone in the room to get an earful. “But I am not the least bit titillated by your attentions, Mr. Wayne. So back off—or I’ll have you in court quicker than you can spell sexual harassment.”

He looked at her. “Er . . . does that mean dinner’s a no?”

People were staring, murmuring to each other. And Wayne was predictably chagrined. Good, thought Ivy. That’d teach him to destroy the ecology with his conglomerate indifference.

Concealing a smile, she pushed past him and headed for the door.

“It’s just that I sort of . . . kind of . . . love you,” Wayne called after her, his ardor untempered by his embarrassment. “I said I love you,” he repeated, this time a little louder.

I’ll just bet you do,
she mused.

Angry and hurt, Dick gunned his motorcycle down the road that bisected the benighted grounds of the Wayne estate.

The wind in his hair, he popped a wheelie past the pool and the silhouette of the old barn. Then he roared through the woods at the back of the estate, finally emerging at the cliff road beyond.

A right turn would have pointed him toward Gotham’s center. He made a left instead, tires screeching as he fishtailed on the roadway and took off in the opposite direction.

Dick leaned into turn after turn on the winding macadam. On his right, past the black expanse of the harbor, he could see the distant lights of downtown sparkling like a scattering of gold and green gems. It was a scattering that seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see.

But then, no matter how far one went, it was tough to get away from Gotham. Didn’t people say that all the time?
Hard to get away from this place, very hard. Maybe impossible.

Of course, just then it wasn’t the city Dick was trying to get away from. It was Bruce, he realized, scowling. A man who had professed to be his friend. A man he had admired and wanted to emulate.

But what kind of friend hungers after your woman? He demanded an answer with silent fury. What kind of mentor tries to poison the best thing that ever happened to you?

The jealous kind, Dick told himself. The spiteful kind. The kind who can’t tolerate the idea that there’s something he can’t have, despite all his wealth and influence.

The road unfolded before him, zagging this way and then that. To his right, the surf crashed against the rocks; to his left, the trees whipped savagely in the wind off the water.

Why couldn’t Bruce just be happy for him, for god-sakes? Why couldn’t he, of all people on earth, understand how good it felt to be loved again—really
loved
—and to have someone to love in return?

Abruptly, he thought to glance at his watch—to get an idea of how far he’d come. It was farther than he would have imagined. He didn’t have much gas left either, not having bothered to fill up before he split. And there weren’t any gas stations in this isolated neck of the woods.

If Dick was going to make it back to the manor, he would have to stop and turn around. But he didn’t want to go back. Not yet. Not until he knew where he was going with his life.

Catching sight of a clearing with an unobstructed view of Gotham, he pulled over and cut his engine. Then he wheeled his bike over to a tree, leaned it there, and sat down in the untamed grass.

The wind howled around him, echoing the howling in his heart. How could Bruce have become so cruel to him?
How?

Months earlier, when his family was murdered in an encounter with Two-Face, Dick had been devastated. He hadn’t known where to go, whom to turn to. Bruce had taken him under his wing. He had given him a home, a family to replace in some small way the one he’d lost.

And more than that, he had given Dick a purpose. A way to make the bad thing that had happened to him into something good.

Naturally, Dick had been grateful to him. But in all those months, had Bruce ever shown any affection for him? Any real feeling?

Now that the young man thought about it, it was only Alfred from whom he’d gotten any familial vibes—anything approaching compassion or warmth or love. Bruce always seemed so stony, so withdrawn. It was as if he was holding a part of himself back.

No . . .

There had been moments, hadn’t there, when Bruce seemed to open up to him? When he treated him like an equal? There had been times when they shared a joke . . . or an appreciation for something . . .

Dick shook his head.

It was hard for him to remember, hard to separate truth from distraction. When he tried to recall the good parts of his stay with Bruce, when he tried to imagine him as something other than a selfish tyrant . . . something happened. And all he could think about was Ivy.

The seductive smell of her. The way her eyes shone, as if with an inner light. The perfection of her, the softness of her skin, and the silken beauty of her hair.

Ivy, who offered him a life of love given and returned. Ivy, for whom he burned with passion as he’d never burned before.

But . . . she was also a criminal, wasn’t she? Like the two-faced monster who had put an end to the Flying Graysons? When he thought of her that way, he knew there was no way he could love her.

But he
did
love her, he snarled, holding his fists to his forehead. God help him, he
did.

Suddenly, Dick saw a way out of his dilemma. He would reform her. He would make her give up her life of crime to be with him. And if Ivy wouldn’t do it? If she refused?

He wasn’t going to think about that possibility—the same way he hadn’t thought about the possibility of falling when he was performing with his family in the big top. He was simply going to do what he had to do.

His mind made up, Dick rose from the grass and straddled his bike. Then he started it up, scooted back onto the road, and headed back in the direction of Wayne Manor!