Catwoman - Tiger Hunt

Chapter Twenty

Bonnie got Selina to a doctor, who assured her, in writing, that her hearing loss was temporary. Bonnie also invaded the East End with an armload of uptown take-out food and a bottle of the robust red wine that came in straw-wrapped bottles.

"You look like a ragpicker," Selina said when she opened the door. She spoke slowly and carefully. Her hearing was already partly restored, but she had a tendency to talk too loudly and her own voice sometimes echoed confusingly in her ears.

Bonnie said something Selina didn't catch on her way to the kitchen counter.

"What?"

"I look the way you always look," she repeated.

"That's no excuse."

Selina was uncomfortable at first. She expected Bonnie to do or say something that would reveal her contempt for the East End way of life. But Selina had never gone to college and lived off campus. Selina rarely drank, either. All her life she'd been surrounded by the ravages of alcoholism. There had been times when her only source of pride was the knowledge that she wasn't a drunk. Bonnie wasn't afraid of a glass of wine, and with Bonnie sprawled on the floor, playing with the gray tiger kitten and talking her usual blue streak, Selina dared tiny sips from a jelly glass.

The evening was the most pure, simple fun Selina had had with another person since---well, at least since she arrived in Gotham City. She told Bonnie the kitten was hers, if she wanted to take him home and give him a name. She did. The visit ended early, while Bonnie, carrying the kitten in a cardboard box, still had a prayer of hailing a taxicab on the avenues. Selina waved good-bye and returned home, still feeling warm and mellow.

"Maybe I shouldn't go out," she said to the cats. "Maybe I should just stay home and get some sleep."

The cats ignored her, and she dug Catwoman's costume out from under the bed. She had no fixed destination in mind, but wasn't surprised when she found herself looking at the Keystone's wedding-cake facade. The excitement was long over and just about forgotten. Somebody had given the police an anonymous tip about the Broad Street explosion, and the Federal Prosecutors had to start looking for another sleazeball to squeeze.

Catwoman wasn't sure what she expected to find---bare walls, new tenants---when she raised the window and slipped in behind the drapes. The mirror-ceiling bedroom had been searched, but not trashed. The wardrobe doors were shut and locked. It was clear to Catwoman, after that, why she'd come. She got out her picks. The doors swung open. The box was there. She lifted it out. It was filled with strands of pearls and semiprecious stones---none worth the trouble of fencing, so she left them in the box's place and closed the doors.

Somebody should tell the nuns to tell Rose that it was safe to go home again.

Selina had what she'd come for. The only other thing she was interested in---the velvet painting of the prowling tiger in the living room---was far too big to think about. She should have called it a night and headed home, but curiosity, as always, got the better of her and she opened the corridor door.

The door to Tiger's relic room lay on its side, blocking the closets. More to the point, a night-light's worth of foot-candles was spilling out of the room itself. Holding the box tightly against her side, Catwoman took a peek.

"I knew you would come. Sooner or later."

Selina was startled. She thought---hoped---her ears were playing tricks on her, but there he was in full regalia silhouetted against an undraped window. She put her right foot behind her left, and measured the distance to the gouged door frame with her outstretched hand.

"Don't go. I wanted to tell you that I didn't understand until it was too late. I knew you were involved, but I thought it was the icon, strictly business. I didn't know about this."

Eddie Lobb's sanctuary had been stripped to the bare walls, which concentrated the sound of Batman's voice, making it easy for her to hear him.

"What difference would it have made? Would you have let me have him? Ever?" The questions were as sharp as the claws she thrust into the wood behind her.

Batman gave them the decency of a moment's thought and an honest answer. "No. I wanted Tiger's boss. I still do. You were trying to destroy him. I had to stop you, if I could."

"You couldn't. He's dead and the trail's gone cold. I won."

Another pause. "In a way you did, I suppose. But you were lucky. Someday your luck will go sour."

"I'll take my chances."

"You're alone, Catwoman. You've got no one. It doesn't have to be that way."

Damn her quirky hearing! Catwoman swallowed hard and felt her ears pop. It didn't help. She couldn't hear all the nuances in Batman's voice. She couldn't be certain what he meant.

"I'm doing fine," she said defensively.

"You're not like the others. You don't have to wind up at the end of a blind alley."

Catwoman shifted her weight onto her right foot. This conversation was the only thing going up a blind alley. "Don't waste your time worrying about me," she snarled.

And was gone.

Batman let his breath out slowly. Alfred had warned him that Catwoman wasn't going to be persuaded by a halfhearted offer of friendship. It was all or nothing with cats. With Bruce Wayne, "all" went to Batman and there was nothing left over. He gave her enough time to get clear of the building before leaving the room himself.

Then the phone rang. The line was supposed to be dead. Bruce Wayne was curious. He picked it up.

"Is that you, Batman?" The voice was bland. "Come to gloat over your successes? You've made a nuisance of yourself, but you're not even close. Eddie Lobb, Tiger, had reached the end of his usefulness. You did me a favor. We're even again. There's no need for us to interfere with each other."

"We're not even. We never were. I know who you are, and I'm going to bring you down."

"Don't be a fool, Batman. You're not in my league."

"I'm not a fool, Mattheson. I'm Batman."