Robert Asprin & Lynn Abbey - Catwoman 02 -Tiger Hunt

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Catwoman
Tiger Hunt
Lynn Abbey and Robert Asprin
Chapter One
The biggest problem with money was that somebody else always had it when
you needed it. Selina Kyle had little interest in money, except that she
needed it to pay the rent, feed herself and her cats, and purchase those few
essentials of modern life that could not be scrounged from the streets. Since
arriving in Gotham City on her own at the age of sixteen, she had acquired
money in a variety of ways, none of which was entirely legal or recognized as
a career by the census bureau.
Selina took risks.
She'd woken up in a hospital more times than she cared to remember and,
after one particularly brutal assault, she'd finally understood that in the
East End, the grimy neighborhood she called home, only the predators survived.
So Selina Kyle became a predator---the Catwoman.
As Gotham City's colorful predators were measured, Catwoman was small
time. On those rare occasions when the police or media took note of her
exploits, they usually credited them to someone else. This lack of
recognition neither displeased not disappointed her. Felines were as aloof as
they were fierce and independent, and cats---the plain ordinary alley cats
from whom she took her name---survived by staying out of the way of the larger
beasts whose environment they shared.
As Catwoman, Selina prowled her East End neighborhood, keeping it free of
the lesser sorts of human vermin and earning the tolerance of her neighbors
much as a prehistoric cat gained a warm, dry place by the fire in exchange for
keeping the family cave free of mice and rats.
Selina and Catwoman shared a predictable life that left Selina as close
to happy as she could imagine. Indeed, Selina's life fell short of purring
bliss in just one small way---
Every so often, she needed money.
Every so often, Selina left her familiar territory---her neighbors never
had the cash she needed, even if she had been willing to steal from
them---and, dressed in inconspicuous mufti, stalked more affluent prey.
Every wilderness had water holes where a predator could lie in wait for
its next meal. There were two types of water holes in the cityscape beyond
the East End. The first type were freshly renovated buildings where
slumlords-turned-renovators prepared traps for young, upwardly mobile
professionals, naive newcomers who surrounded themselves with the best their
money could buy, and knew precious little about security. On occasion
Catwoman entered their porous domains to remove undefended jewelry and other
small objects. Unfortunately, everything she took had to be fenced---a
process that rarely produced more than ten cents cash for every dollar of
swag, and exposed Selina to scrutiny from both sides of the law. All in all,
she preferred to eliminate the middleman and steal cash.
Cash, in great abundance, was readily available at the second type of
water hole: abandoned buildings where semi-nomadic drug gangs plied their
trade. Selina roamed the sidewalks for several hours before she found the
gutted, grafittied brownstone that would be this month's stalking ground.
A customized crimson 4 x 4---the current vehicle-of-choice among Gotham's
appearance-conscious gang members---was parked in front of the target
building. It had oversize wheels, a chrome-plated rollbar, and more
top-mounted lights than a precinct cruiser. It also had a customized sound
system and four sullen-faced attendants. It pumped the street full of what
passed for music, which, by the time it reached Selina keeping vigil in a
partially renovated building up the block, had been reduced to a thudding,
monotone bass.
The owners of the 4 x 4 belonged to one of a handful of gangs doing the
drug business in Gotham's marginal neighborhoods. A long step down from the
million-dollar enterprises that kept Commissioner Gordon and the municipal
police busy, the gangs waged ceaseless, brutal wars with each other.
Abandoned buildings were the fortresses from which these hardened men
oppressed a few unfortunate city blocks and sold their merchandise to a petty
kingdom of hustlers and users. Once a day couriers brought the drugs in; once
a day they took the money uptown.
Inconspicuously perched on a windowsill, Selina held her breath when
another mobile sound system cruised up the street. She didn't know if the
noisy black vehicle belonged to friends of the stationary crimson one or to
mortal enemies. Elaborate greetings and gestures were exchanged; there was no
gunfire. Selina let her breath out with a sigh. The black vehicle
double-parked. Its speakers quieted. An exchange was made: a crate of money
left the building, a crate of drugs went in.
Catwoman's teeth showed through Selina's smile as the black vehicle fired
up its sound system and roared away. Her money worries were as good as over.
She went inside and, using a lumpy grocery bag for a pillow, she curled
up for a nap while the gang converted its fresh supply of drugs into cold,
untraceable cash. The smile was replaced by a clenched-jaw snarl: the bass
was just erratic enough to keep her awake. The fresh-painted walls
surrounding her glowed yellow, amber, then red as the afternoon crept to an
end. Streetlights flared; the sound never relented. Selina shed her street
clothes and pulled the sleek, black catsuit over her body. Its hood and mask
fit snugly around her head without dulling her senses.
She approached the building cautiously. The gang was undoubtedly armed
with automatic weapons and keeping a lookout for the enemies it knew it had.
The swaggering gangsters had little practice with the powerful weapons they
brandished readily. They were almost as likely to shoot themselves or their
friends as they were to shoot an enemy---especially a nearly invisible enemy
whose specialty was hand-to-hand, close-quarters combat.
Ghosting down the trash-filled stairwell, Catwoman spotted the gang's
upstairs lookout slouched against an empty window frame. A state-of-the-art
assault rifle was propped against the peeling wall beside him. She knew the
make of the rifle and that the paint was peeling, because they and the lookout
were illuminated by a cool, flickering light. His attention was focused on
the light on the windowsill in front of him; he had no idea there was someone
perched on the bannister one flight up.
Catwoman gathered herself for the pounce. He'd never reach his fancy
weapon; never know what hit him.
She froze instead.
A flicker of movement on another roof had drawn her attention. It was
not repeated. There wasn't much for her memory to chew on, just the knowledge
that something large and dark had been there and was now gone. That, however,
was enough.
He was working the area and he was reason enough to scratch her plans, to
head instead for shelter and stay there.
He was Batman.
Catwoman didn't fear the Dark Knight the way most criminals did. She
wore a costume herself and was not impressed by his mask, his cape, or
mystique. She'd eluded him before---even bested him---but he was a man
obsessed with narrow definitions of right and wrong and it didn't pay to cross
his bows---even when she needed money and had found the perfect people from
whom to take it.
The lookout and the rest of the gang were safe---at least from her. But
Batman's presence cast a strong, lingering spell across the jagged roofs. It
prodded the lookout, who leaned forward, studying the roof where nothing
untoward could be seen. His hand groped along the wall, seeking the rifle.
He turned around. He looked up---
Damn!
He went for the handgun partially concealed in his pocket.
The cards had been dealt; the hand had to be played.
Catwoman launched herself downward. Her hands locked around his neck.
Her knees struck his chest. For a split second they were motionless, with him
flat against the wall and her weight balanced against his collarbones. Then
there was a snap, scarcely audible in the relentless music. Self-defense.
Catwoman sprang away, landing on the balls of her feet. The lookout sank
slowly to the floor, his head slumped to the side.
The motto on his T-shirt proclaimed "I'm too BA-AD to grow old."
Catwoman emptied his pockets and popped the heavy gold chain from his
neck. He wasn't carrying enough to cover the rent, and once his unconscious
body was discovered, this gang would blame another gang and the whole
neighborhood would go into vengeace frenzy. He wouldn't remember after being
knocked out. If Selina didn't get her money tonight, she could forget about
getting it from anywhere around here for at least a week.
Damn.
She leaned out of the window. There were no brooding silhouettes hunched
along the rooflines. Maybe he was gone. He wasn't necessarily hunting her
prey. Heaven knew there was enough crime around here to satisfy them both.
And she needed the money. Catwoman made a fist but stopped an inch short of
smashing the flickering light with it.
A hand-held videotape player---trust the gangs to have the newest
techno-toys. Trust their taste in videos to be slasher-porn.
Catwoman plucked the earphone cord from its socket and was astonished by
the strength of the internal speaker: the woman's desperate screams made the
unit vibrate in her hand. There were knobs and buttons all over the unit.
She pressed and twirled and was about ready to heave the thing into the night
when the flickering blacked out and the screaming finally stopped.
Maybe she'd keep it. She stared at it, wondering if she'd ever use it,
wondering what she could get for it. Catwoman couldn't waltz into a pawnshop
with an ugly gold chain and a techno-toy, but Selina could. Added to the gold
and the wad of cash she'd taken from the lookout's pockets, there might be
enough---if Selina bargained hard. But if she bargained hard, the fence would
remember her, and neither Catwoman nor Selina liked to be remembered.
Damn Batman for complicating her life!
A possible solution swept into her mind, washing away her anger: If
Batman heard the screaming videotape, he'd drop everything and investigate.
By the time Batman knew he'd been had, she'd have her money and be safe back
home. It might work. She wrestled the unconscious lookout to the windowsill
and let his body drop to the alley below. To her ears the crash was
deafening, but if anyone else heard, they mistook it for a glitch in the sound
system. Besides, the half-filled dumpster he landed in both softened his
landing, and muffled the noise.
Returning to the apartment where she'd ditched her clothes, Catwoman
deciphered the unit's myriad controls. Like any techno-toy worthy of its
nameplate, it had more functions than it needed: a digital clock, a timer . .
. A timer that could start the tape player at a preset moment. She fiddled
with the controls, tested her theory, then grinned with smug satisfaction as
she set her mousetrap---bat trap---on the fire escape.
The screaming would start in ten minutes---just when she'd be putting her
foot through the drug gang's door. If he was anywhere in the neighborhood,
he'd come a-running. He'd know he'd been snookered, but he'd never know why
or by whom.
Catwoman's smile disappeared. Batman needed to know why and by whom.
She wanted to paint a message on the wall with bloodred paint, but the workers
had been careful and she had to settle for a thick carpenter's pencil. When
the message was complete, she reset her trap beneath the handwriting and left
to get her money.
The stairwell was empty. The gang didn't know they'd already suffered a
casualty. Keeping to the shadows, Catwoman descended to the second floor,
where voices could be heard through the din and smells of kerosene and pizza
were heavy in the air. A corridor door was open, throwing large shadows on
the wall a few feet away. Catwoman studied the shadows, marking the number
and locations of her prey: three that she could see, two that she could not.
Up the street, out of hearing, the techno-toy screamed.
Catwoman burst into the room at an angle, slamming into the guard by the
door before he knew there was a problem. She stunned him with a punch to the
solar plexus, then propelled toward the center of the room. The advantages of
surprise and purpose belonged to her and she used them fully, taking out two
more---the first with a chop across the windpipe and the second with a
roundhouse kick to the chin---before the last two had a chance to bellow for
reinforcements.
The street-side music finally stopped, replaced by shouts and staccato
gunfire. There wasn't time to wonder who'd fired from where, or at what.
Catwoman dove across the room at the larger of her remaining targets. He was
reaching into his pocket, but he hadn't drawn a gun, nor had his companion.
She seized her target by his shirt and spun him around, keeping his body
between herself and the door while she rammed her knee into his crotch one,
two, three times. His legs buckled, his eyes rolled back. He was deadweight,
and crashed to the floor when she let go.
Less than a minute had passed since Catwoman burst into the room.
She leveled her gaze on the fifth punk---there were more thundering up
the stairs; she'd worry about them when they came through the door---and
observed, peripherally, that the kerosene lamp by which the gang had conducted
its business had fallen over. Fuel glistened on the lopsided table and
dripped over the edge. She didn't see flames, but flames were inevitable; the
knife moving toward her was not.
First things first. Claws extended, Catwoman reached for the hand that
held the knife. He got lucky---or maybe he knew something about fighting.
Whichever, she clutched air.
"Get him!"
"El Gato Negro!"
"Black Cat! Black Cat!"
"Get him!"
The punks---her prey---saw the costume, but their prejudice kept them
from seeing the shape inside it. They never understood that they were being
slaughtered by a woman.
Surging inside the knife wielder's reach, Catwoman clouted him under the
chin with a sweeping forearm then smashed her elbow into the side of his head
as he went down. She looked straight into the eyes of the newcomer in the
doorway. There were times for silence and there were times for bloodcurdling
shouts. This was one of the latter. Her piercing war cry nailed the punk
where he stood. The gun slipped through his fingers.
He didn't try to retrieve it. He and his companions beat a raucous
retreat from the flames.
Catwoman watched for a heartbeat. The fire was spreading fast, but it
was still less important than the money. She spotted a grease-stained,
crumpled paper bag. When it was full, she headed up to the roof.
Selina was back home and out of the costume inside of twenty minutes.
She began counting her money. There were three piles. The smallest would go
into the poor box at the Mission of the Immaculate Heart: payment on a very
private debt. The middle pile would keep her well fed and content for another
month. The largest pile she shoved into a plain brown envelope.
Reaching under the sofa, she retrieved an old ballpoint pen. She printed
in a neat, anonymous hand: Wilderness Warriors.
The Warriors were a small group of activists dedicated to the notion that
if the few remaining wild predators---the big cats, the timber wolves, the
eagles, the grizzly bears, and the killer whales---were protected from the
greatest predator of all---Homo sapiens---the wilderness and the world would
be saved. They were one of many charities clanging the mission bell for
Planet Earth, but Selina liked their name and the lion silhouette they used as
an emblem, so she sent them her monthly surplus and told herself that the end
justified the means.
Chapter Two
The herd of emergency vehicles was thinning. The ambulances left first,
followed quickly by the television crews. Who could blame them? The fire had
looked promising for the late news, but there were no innocent victims---just
body bags and stretchers filled with drug dealers and gang members. No
relatives showed up to grieve photogenically. No neighborhood residents
wandered by proclaiming that it was about time somebody put a torch to that
place.
The fire trucks coiled their hoses and headed back to their stations.
Most of the squad cars peeled off when their radios crackled to life with news
of the next crisis. There were only two cars left. A black-and-white from
the local precinct, and a Fire Inspector keeping watch a little while
longer---just in case there was a pocket of fire left inside the smoldering
wreck.
They thought they were alone on the scene. They weren't. Five stories
up, on a roof, across the street, a black-shrouded, solitary figure watched,
waited, and pondered what had gone wrong.
He'd passed through the neighborhood earlier in the night. He'd spotted
the abandoned building for what it was: a drug depot, a gang's fortress. It
was quiet enough, if you didn't count the four-wheeled boombox parked outside
the front door. The gang wasn't going anywhere. He figured to bust it later
on, after midnight. Before midnight he liked to stay loose and outside, ready
to go where he was needed.
His parents died before midnight. All the years he'd been Batman, and
all the years before he became Batman, Bruce Wayne never forgot how his
parents were murdered on the Gotham sidewalks because no one was around to
come to their defense. The Batman costume and persona were designed to put
fear in the hearts of those who walked on the wrong side of righteousness, but
Bruce had become Batman because the innocent had to be protected---especially
when they got lost in the dark.
So when he'd heard the woman screaming in the next block, he'd gone
immediately, tracking it down without the least suspicion until he beat down
the door and saw the deceitful videotape player flickering in the middle of
the empty room. Empty---except for the message scrawled on the virgin-white
wall:
The body's not here. It's in an alley, up the street.
It's your fault---you on the rooftops---you made him jumpy
Drug gangs---terrorists and scum.
Killing them is no loss at all.
I take their money and put it to a better use.
But you don't understand that.
You won't mind your own business.
So you have to be tricked---for your own good.
While the Bat's at bay
The cat's at play.
Batman had crushed the tape player beneath his heel. He would have
gotten rid of the message, too---if there'd been any white paint lying around.
Catwoman was wrong. Justice must be served, and the end did not justify the
means. Catwoman didn't understand---apparently could not understand---and
that, in a tortured way, made her one of the innocents. He suspected she was
supporting herself by stealing from the drug gangs, where her crimes
disappeared in the statistical rounding. And his own passage through the area
had probably forced her hand. It didn't make what she did right, but it did
mean he didn't have to hurry.
Then Batman heard gunshots. Neither he nor Catwoman carried guns. He
had plenty of other gadgets hung on his belt, but so far as he knew, Catwoman
had only her claws and her wits. She might be cornered. She might be
outnumbered. And she was innocent---at least more innocent than her prey.
Batman headed for the roof. He was standing there, pinpointing the
source of the sounds and planning his rescue assault, when he saw her sleek
silhouette leap from an upper-story window of the drug fortress. He'd cased
out the area earlier. He'd thought he'd known where she was headed, but when
he got there she wasn't. So Catwoman knew this part of Gotham's jungle better
than Batman did. That wasn't surprising: he knew she lived somewhere in the
East End, and that particular hellhole wasn't more than a quarter mile away as
the cat ran, or the bat flew.
He didn't pursue her. He'd spotted the flames by them, and the rigid
codes that, for him, separated right and wrong mandated that he search for
survivors. Justice wasn't served at a barbecue. He was in the building,
counting casualties, when the fire trucks roared up. It was time to find the
window Catwoman used for her escape---the hardworking men and women of
Gotham's uniformed services had precious little use for a loner like him.
Life was less complicated when he stayed out of their sights.
In some ways he and Catwoman weren't all that different.
Batman figured he'd stick around a while longer, until all the uniforms
were gone. He hadn't looked for the body in the alley yet. It rankled him to
think that she might have lied to him. If she lied, she lost her protective
innocence and he'd have no choice except to hunt her down. So he waited on
the rooftop while the cops and the inspector joked with each other over cold
coffee and stale doughnuts.
"Jay-sus, will you look at that!" one of them exclaimed, gesturing with
his pastry at the sky over Batman's head. "The Commissioner's got a burning
gut again."
Batman craned his neck around, already knowing what he'd see: the beam of
carbon arc lamp striking the clouds, framing the sign of the bat.
Catwoman could wait. The body in the alley would have to wait. Another
servant of justice needed help.
There was no reason Batman couldn't walk through the front doors of City
Hall and ride the elevator to Commissioner Gordon's office. The officers on
duty here, while no less hardworking than their peers in the precincts,
understood that the Commissioner's door was always open for the caped and
masked man, and whatever their personal feelings about Batman, they viewed
Gordon with a respect that bordered on awe. They knew the signal was beaming.
They were watching for him, laying a few bets on who would spot him first.
Batman ignored the front doors, the back doors, and the basement loading
docks. He used grapple lines to reach the broad ledge outside the
Commissioner's office. After all, serving justice didn't rule out a few
surprises. It wouldn't hurt either of them to laugh at a fundamentally
harmless prank. Bruce Wayne could almost see his old friend spraying coffee
across his desk when he heard his window opening rather than his door.
But Gordon's window opened silently, and he was too engrossed in his
paperwork to notice which way Batman had come into the room.
"Ah---you're here. Good. Have a seat and let me fill you in."
A bit abashed, and grateful for the mask, Batman closed the window.
Shrugging his shoulders reflexively to keep the cape from choking him while he
sat, Batman settled into one of the leather armchairs. "Is this about the
fire down below the East End---"
Gordon cut Batman off with a wave of his hand. "No, I don't know about a
fire, but it's not at all likely. Our problem isn't in Gotham City yet, but
it's coming soon. Interpol and our own Federal security agencies had me in
meetings all day; we just got them loaded on their planes and shipped out of
here. Seems they've gotten wind of some newfangled terrorist group planning
to come here to Gotham City to buy enough arms, ammunition, and ground-to-air
Stinger missiles to outfit a small army."
Batman leaned forward in his chair. His concern was clearly visible
below the hard shadow of his mask. The Commissioner had his complete
attention. "Who? There's no one in Gotham running that kind of arms race.
Who's buying?"
"Didn't I ask them those very questions myself, and more than once, I
assure you." Gordon tore a sheet of paper to shreds, crumpled it into a crude
ball, and lobbed it at the basket. "But these are high-level bureaucrats,
diplomats---not cops---and they're not going to tell me anything except that
I'm supposed to turn over a hundred of my men to them---not to mention get
them offices, computers, and their heart's delight of office supplies."
"Treating you like an errand boy. Coming in here like they're the
grown-up and you're still the kid, eh? And talking about your men as if they
were cannon fodder?"
Gordon exhaled his anger with a sigh. "That's the truth of it. Too
sensitive for us locals. I thought at first they didn't have the facts to
back their mouths up, but they showed me enough to make me think they're onto
something. A couple wiretaps, a CIA briefing, an Interpol file filled with
bad pictures and names I couldn't pronounce if I were drunk. Ever hear of
Bessarabia of Bessarabians?"
Batman mouthed the word, making it sticky and tossing it into his memory
to see what it caught. Nothing more than the vague sense that he heard the
word before. He shook his head in the negative, and Gordon was disappointed.
"Can't remember a thing myself either. Don't think they knew too much
either. They all pronounced it exactly the same way---like a word they'd just
learned yesterday. You know those types---they find their own way to
pronounce Monday, just so you'll know they've got an opinion they can't tell
you about."
Smiling wanly, Batman reached for the water pitcher on the corner of
Gordon's desk and poured himself a glass. He hadn't expected to be inside
tonight---especially not inside City Hall where the flow of political hot air
kept the place overheated and stale. "I'll research it," he said after the
water cooled his throat.
"I've got a staff of college-educated rookies camped out at the library.
By tomorrow morning I'll know what Bessarabian grandmothers eat for breakfast.
What I don't know is why they've come to Gotham City, where they're hiding,
and what they mean to do before they leave."
"You want me to find out?"
The answer was obvious, but the Commissioner hesitated before nodding his
head. There wasn't a law-enforcement agency in the world that didn't own a
debt to one or another of the eccentric, sometimes inhuman, champions of
justice. Gordon was privately grateful that Batman was simply eccentric---a
human being beneath the polymer and dedication, who could still play a
practical joke like coming through the window instead of the door. Even so, a
few of Gordon's muscles always resisted admitting that a man in a costume
could do things a man in a policeman's blue uniform could not.
"Track them down. Tell me where they are---then I'm going to put some of
my best men on the job. I want this thing busted by Gotham's own." He stared
intently at his fingertips. "You understand, don't you? Having you pull our
bacon out of the fire time and time again . . . It's bad for morale. It's
bad in the media---and this is going to get a lot of media. I can feel it in
my gut."
The phone rang conveniently, sparing Batman the need to reply, giving him
another few moments to organize his thoughts and lay the groundwork of a
comprehensive plan. If these Bessarabians were real, and he had no reason to
believe they weren't, the combination of his computers and a little legwork
would find them. He'd do that much for Gordon, and let the police force have
the glory; he understood what Gordon said about morale. But the Bessarabians,
as the buyers, were small potatoes on a larger plate.
He waited until Gordon hung up the phone and completed a notation in his
daybook.
"Did your visitors drop any hints about the suppliers and sellers?"
Gordon closed the book slowly. Had he really thought he could invite his
old friend here and not tell him the whole story?
"They mentioned a name: The Connection."
Batman slouched back in the chair, steepling his fingers against the
exposed portions of his face, rendering his expression completely unreadable.
The Connection . . . that was a name that made, well---connections. He was
the ultimate middleman---whenever a buyer needed a seller, or vice versa, the
Connection could make the market. The operation started up after the
war---the big one, WWII---and for decades intelligence considered it a "what"
rather than a "who": a loose association of wartime quartermasters, procurers,
and scroungers doing what they did best.
There were files in the Batcave computer that continued to refer to the
Connection as "it" or "they" in the stubborn belief that no man could move so
much mat‚rial. Those documents also supposed that if the Connection were a
man, he'd have come forward by now to claim his honors. Easily ninety-five
percent of his activities were legitimate; some were downright heroic. The
world had cheered when three bulging freighters steamed into Ethiopia with
enough grain to feed the country's war-weary refugees for a month. The world,
of course, had not known that buried deep in the wheat and corn was enough
ammunition to feed the civil war for two years.
Bruce Wayne knew, just as he knew there could only be one mind behind it
all. Maybe forty-five years ago it was a group; not anymore. No committee
could generate the subtle elegance of the Connection's world-ringing
transactions. But not even Bruce Wayne had a clue about the body or
personality that went with the name. Other monikered individuals, including
himself, had public faces and private faces, but the Connection---so far as
anyone knew---had no face at all. A complete recluse, he'd never been
fingered, not even when one of his operations went sour. If a description did
emerge, it contradicted all previous ones---fueling the case of the
committee-ists. Bruce Wayne was guiltily grateful that the
Connection---though widely believed to be an American operation---scrupulously
avoided washing its dirty laundry in the USA.
"They weren't positive," Gordon said when the silence became
uncomfortably prolonged. "It's not the Connection's style to make a swap
where our side has jurisdiction. They're leaping at the chance, I think, but
they admit it might all be smoke and mirrors."
Massaging his cheeks, Batman shook his head. "The world's changing; it's
already changed so much the sides are smudged. The Connection's got to change
with it. I don't wonder that the Feds and Interpol are jumpy. There's a
first time for everything---he's testing the waters."
Gordon took note of the singular pronoun. "You think it's one man,
then?"
"I'm sure of it. One genius. He doesn't leave many traces, and when I
find them, I'm always chin-deep in something else. But this time he's
steaming right across my bows, and I'm going to find him." Batman's voice was
calm and even, leaving no room for doubt.
The Commissioner drew a ring of arrows on his blotter, all pointing
inward. "Remember," he said without looking up, "when the time comes, my men
close the trap, not the Feds, not Interpol, and not you---"
Batman wasn't listening. A cool breeze was stirring the papers on
Gordon's desk. Batman was gone.
Chapter Three
It was no accident that Batman's mind filled with maritime metaphors when
he thought of the Connection. In this day of fiber optics and instantaneous
communications, a good shipping line was still the best way to move
contraband. Jet planes were faster, of course, and these days could carry
just about anything if the need was great enough, and the buyer cared nothing
about cost. Big planes, however, needed big runways and left big blips on
radarscopes around the world. Refined drug operations, with their
worth-more-than-gold cargoes, made good use of short-takeoff planes. But the
Connection moved contraband by the ton, and for that an interchangeable string
of rust-bucket freighters, casually registered in Liberia or Panama, and
crewed by a motley assortment of nationless sailors, was a necessity.
Batman wasn't ready to leave the city for his cave and computers.
Getting a lead on the Connection with pure legwork, prior to doing data
research, was a long shot, but the night was young and his perambulations
hadn't taken him along the waterfront in over a week. He made his way toward
Gotham's deep-water harbor---one of the largest and safest in the New World
and still a place where an isolated ship could come and go virtually
unnoticed. He detoured briefly, cutting the corner of the East End and sating
his curiosity behind the now-deserted and damp ruins of the abandoned
building. A swift, but thorough, examination of the alleys revealed the
bloodstained impression of a body dropped from above and the muddy stomping of
the EMS crew that carted it to the street. Catwoman hadn't lied. He could
put that out of his mind completely, and did.
The harbor's glory days were behind it now. Most cargo---legitimate or
not---traveled in sealed containers that were hoisted from ship to truck or
railroad flatcar at the massive new mechanized Gotham City Port Authority
Terminal some twenty miles away. No one used the oceans for speed anymore.
The great passenger ships and fast freighters had all been chopped up and
turned into cheap, Asian cars. The lumbering oil tankers belched out their
contents at oiling buoys anchored on the three-mile limit.
The big piers and wharves were crumbling mausoleums of days gone by.
None of the ships riding beside them shoved identifying funnels above the
rooflines. Batman climbed a rickety harbormaster's tower to get a better
view, because things still moved here. These old docks were the biggest
cracks in the system, and if the Connection were bringing something into
Gotham City, the men working the night shift along the waterfront---the last
of the stevedores---would have heard about it.
Expectations were rewarded. Midway along the dark line of piers, a dome
of light marked the place where cargo was being manhandled with ropes, hooks,
and shouts. Leaving the tower, Batman took an open path toward the activity,
moving past the deep shadows, rather than through them, inviting a stranger to
approach.
Contrary to common wisdom, there was no honor among thieves or any other
criminal type. They were always eager to sell each other out, especially if
they thought he---Batman---could be distracted with someone else's misdeeds.
Word of his presence should have spread like wildfire, and since it was just
about certain that somebody here on the waterfront was doing something he
shouldn't he doing, it was equally certain that somebody would scuttle up with
a tattletale rumor.
Mountainous bales of old clothes and musty newspapers stood in line,
waiting for the crane to hook their rope-lashed pallets. Removing a small
cylinder from his belt, Batman shone a finger of light across one of the
bales. He recognized the logo of a respected international relief
organization, and a series of destinations, in several languages and scripts,
starting in the Bangladesh port of Dacca and continuing on to Kabul in
Afghanistan. Feeling suddenly lucky, he returned the cylinder to his belt.
There must be six million worthy souls in that misbegotten corner of the
world willing to put to good use those things Americans had used once and
thrown away. There were also a half dozen different insurrections operating
there, and Batman could practically smell the armaments packed---unbeknownst
to the relief organization---in the middle of each bale. Although the
Connection didn't transship through American ports, he'd certainly want to
know if someone else was. When Batman spotted the silhouette of a solitary
man leaving the pier area at a brisk pace, he gave chase.
Batman caught up with the walker in the concrete fields beneath the
waterfront highway. Not wanting to stage the confrontation in the open, he
circled wide and waited until his quarry was striding down a deserted
warehouse block. Batman didn't say anything. The mask, the cape, and his
thou-shalt-not-pass stance spoke louder than any words.
He got a good look at the man he'd been following. Dark-haired and
powerfully built. About thirty, give or take a handful of years. The
stevedore's age was hard to guess; his face was puckered with a series of
long, thin scars. Because of where he'd been earlier in the evening, Batman's
first thought was that the man had been mauled by a big cat, but he rejected
that thought. The scars weren't quite parallel, and there were at least six
of them. Somebody'd worked this fellow over with a steel whip.
"I got nothing to do with you," the scarred man said with a sneer. "You
ain't king of the jungle around here."
Batman wasn't entirely surprised that his quarry was unimpressed by
appearances. It took a certain kind of man to live with scars like that; it
took a certain kind of man to survive the getting of them. "You were working
on the pier. Loading that freighter for Bangladesh?"
"No, I was checking my yacht for a friggin' regatta." He took a step
sideways; Batman moved with him. "We don't keep regular hours," he explained,
as if talking to an exceptionally dense child. "The boats come and go with
the tides. That one's going to leave about four A.M.---if that's all right
with you, I suppose."
"I'm looking for someone who ships a lot of freight to places like
Bangladesh---places where the people are poor and needy and the customs
inspectors are conveniently blind---"
"Don't know what you're talking about." He veered the other way; again
Batman stayed with him.
"Let's say I'm trying to make a certain . . . connection."
The light on the empty street came from a single halogen lamp at the far
end of the block. But Batman was angling for a reaction, so he was watching
when the dark eyes lost focus and pulled sharply to one side. He didn't need
a polygraph to know when a man was getting ready to lie. He began feeling
very, very lucky.
"What kinda connection? There's things come into port sometimes. Maybe
I hear about them. Maybe I don't. It depends." The scarred stevedore
shrugged his shoulders and slipped a hand under the waist ribbing of his wool
sweater.
Batman knew what was coming, and how he'd react: carefully. Whoever this
guy was, he looked to be useful. "What's your name?" he asked on the off
chance that an answer would be forthcoming along with the knife.
"Call me Tiger."
It wasn't a knife, but one of the hooks stevedores used to maneuver cargo
pallets while they were swinging through the air. An ordinary hook could
puncture a man's lungs. This one had been filed and sharpened, and Tiger
whipped it through the air like a pro.
Dodging the first two sweeps, Batman took the measure of the man and his
weapon before closing in. His costume protected him from things inherently
more dangerous than eight curved inches of sharpened steel, but his partially
exposed face was open to mistakes and punishment. It didn't pay to be
careless. Nor would it pay to disable his attacker. Batman employed his
forearms constantly in contact with Tiger's, making his slash wide and pushing
him steadily backwards until his back was against a proverbial wall.
As soon as Tiger felt brick behind him, his eyes glazed. He put all his
摘要：

CatwomanTigerHuntLynnAbbeyandRobertAsprinChapterOneThebiggestproblemwithmoneywasthatsomebodyelsealwayshaditwhenyouneededit.SelinaKylehadlittleinterestinmoney,exceptthatsheneededittopaytherent,feedherselfandhercats,andpurchasethosefewessentialsofmodernlifethatcouldnotbescroungedfromthestreets.Sincear...

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