Catwoman - Tiger Hunt

Chapter Seven

Not long after Selina closed her eyes, and not all that far away either, Bruce Wayne hunkered down in an ergonomically correct computer-user's chair that resembled the illegitimate offspring of a fold-down church kneeler and a bar stool. He squirmed constantly and unconsciously. After thirty-six hours staring at the monitor, crunching data, and surviving on black coffee and snacks Alfred managed to shove under his nose, his body had used up all its comfortable positions. A lesser man might have quit, taken a shower, gotten some sleep, and started again when the sun was shining and his mind was fresh.

Batman was not a lesser man.

Ranks and files of phosphorescent green marched up and off the screen. Bruce Wayne's hands were poised above the keyboard, ready to stop the flow. His eyes were unblinking. His pupils were wide and steady, absorbing the information rather than reading it. Wayne was dressed for comfort and endurance in dark, loose-fitting slacks and a cotton knit shirt. The Batman costume was in its locker at the back of the large, subterranean room they called the Batcave. In the dim light, his clothing blurred with the furniture and the gray stone walls.

Standing at the top of a flight of metal stairs, Alfred saw Bruce's hands, trembling with caffeine overload, and the flickering green light reflecting off his motionless face. The war paint of a technological primitive.

"I've brought a snack, sir."

No reaction. Alfred descended the steep stairway. he was no longer a young man, but his step was steady. Nothing on the silver tray shook or clattered to give his presence away. He set it on the top of a file cabinet, beside a similar tray bearing the unappetizing remains of an untouched dinner.

"Sir." Alfred found the tone midway between command and request that distinguished butlers from all other human subspecies. "Sir," he repeated, "this really has gone on long enough."

"I'm close, Alfred. I can feel it."

"You were 'close' this morning when I brought breakfast. By now 'close' is behind you."

Bruce Wayne surrendered his concentration with a groan. His hands fell on the keyboard; the marching figures halted. "I'm nailing jelly to a tree," he admitted, using hacket's jargon.

At times like this he was, essentially, a computer hacker. A technology wizard shining lights through the back doors of every major data bank in the world. Over the course of several long days, he'd extracted enough raw information to keep a hundred data-gnomes busy for a lifetime. Thirty-six hours ago he'd thrown it all into the cybernetic equivalent of a centrifuge. Since then he'd been spinning the data down through a bewildering series of customized algorithms. He was fully aware that his eyes were glazed and his mind was numb. It was at times like this---when his brain was reduced to its most primitive processes---that his mind was best attuned to subtle variations in pure pattern or rhythm. He was waiting for the neurons in his visual cortex to erupt and alert the rest of him to a deviation in the data flow.

"I've sorted it on every variable. Hit every correlation. Nothing stands out. He's there---I know he is. These are his deals. I recognize them. I come so close, and then he's gone into a web of corporations and money transfers. He's tickled the Wayne Foundation more than once to clean up his profits. Never the same way twice, never overt. He does things in pieces that look harmless enough---"

Wayne's fingers clattered across the keyboard, bringing up a frozen section of prior data. After he tapped the screen with an optical stylus, a second window opened---the reincorporation papers of what appeared to be some sort of food-processing facility.

"Here's a little juice factory in Florida that was shut down after the mid-eighties freezes wiped out the orange groves. Suddenly it's got a contract to process second-rate apricots from California. Fifty honest people get jobs rendering bruised fruit into generic fruit syrup and by-products. What do you think happens next?"

Alfred pursed his lips. With a thirty-room mansion to care for, he almost always had better things to do than play guessing games. But the terms "second-rate" and "by-products" pointed him in a particular direction. "Someone puts the byproducts into animal feed and people get sick?"

"The Connection's too crafty for that. In his deals---especially his American deals---everybody seems to come out ahead." He tapped the screen again. Now it showed a series of invoices. "Our reincorporated syrup-maker is concerned about the environment. It adds an extra step to its end-processing to concentrate toxins, extract them, seal them in fifty-gallon barrels which they ship to a brand-new company up in North Carolina, where skilled jobs are even more precious and people will welcome a hazardous-materials recycler with open arms."

Another tap, another screen---a list of chemicals by common name, scientific name, and formula. One of the formulas was blinking. Alfred saw a (CN) notation in the middle of it.

"That's cyanide, isn't it?" he asked soberly.

"Five barrels a month, extracted from apricot sludge in Florida. You can't recycle it, but you can sell it---and so they do. Here's a standing order for all our apricot residue. It's supposed to go to a chemical conglomerate in the unified Germany. I could find where the barrels get hoisted into a ship's hold, but, by the records, they never come off. Three or four tramp freighters show up regularly in Shreveport, Louisiana, to take on cargo. It seems safe to assume that they are empty when they arrive in Shreveport, but there's no sign that they've ever been off-loaded anywhere in the past two years."

"There must be an error somewhere, a gap in the paperwork---"

"More likely a quick coat of marine paint somewhere on the high seas. Ship A vanishes, but Ship B sails into port right on schedule."

"A very large gap in the paperwork," Alfred agreed.

"Ships arrive in ports like San'a in South Yemen where America doesn't have a consulate, and no one asks questions about where a few extra barrels are going, or where they've been."

"Where do they go from there?"

Bruce Wayne tapped the glass a final time. The display shrank into a single green dot, then the screen was blank. "Iran, Iraq, Syria---any place that might want to secretly develop a few chemical weapons to drop on their neighbors. The Connection's broken the laws of no single country. A couple hundred families here in the United States have food on their tables because of this, of him---and somewhere somebody's making chemical weapons."

Moments passed. The computer kept time, then activated a background program that began filling the screen with random blobs of primary colors. The effect momentarily mesmerized both men.

"And those other Arabs," Alfred began gently, "those Bess-arabs you were looking for---were you able to find them, at least?"

"Bessarabia, no Bessarabians. Somewhere around the Black Sea. It's a place like New England or the Rust Belt---referenced by people who clearly believe it exists, but it doesn't show up on any maps. At least not any maps in here." Wayne thumped the console. The movement was enough to cause the screen to go blank again. "It's been swapped back and forth between Russia and Rumania a couple of times just in this century."

Alfred straightened. "Does this mean that Commissioner Gordon has been misinformed by the international authorities?"

"The region was part of the Soviet Union. Nobody knows what's going on over there right now. The Communists hid everything beneath a thick coat of red paint, and now the paint's peeling. Most of our data is suspect, but at least we've got data. The Kremlin ran that country for seventy years on terror and rumor. Open the lid on the Soviet box and you're looking into the Dark Ages, not the twentieth century. But somebody lives in Bessarabia. Somebody got traded back and forth between governments like chips in a poker game. Somebody could be a terrorist---and if he is, the Connection would be right there to do business with him."

"A shadow arms-merchant for a shadow terrorist. It does seem appropriate. What about that Tiger fellow? He sounded real enough."

"Real enough, but not big enough. Gotham City records show him growing up right here---if growing up is the right word for it. The juvenile records are sealed, but there're quite a few of them. He got into a lot of fights. Wound up in the hospital as often as he popped up at the East End precinct. Then, about a dozen years ago he left town---headed south. He either stayed clean the ten years he was gone, or he got in trouble somewhere that still has all their records in a dusty file cabinet. These days he runs an import-export business from the old neighborhood. The police keep a close eye on him. They know he's trouble, but they can't prove it."

"Does he work for the Connection?"

"He does some work for the Connection," Batman corrected. "But, then again, according to what I've learned, so has the Wayne Foundation. I'll trail him, work my way up the ladder, but Gordon set a time limit. I don't see Tiger yielding fruit quickly enough."

"Then what?"

"I'll keep looking for these Connection transactions and hope I get lucky, hope I find something floating in the Black Sea."

Wayne hammered a lengthy keystroke command and the phosphorescent green army began marching up the screen again. He hunched forward, the glaze formed on his eyes agian.

Alfred found his butler's voice. "Forgive me for saying this, sir---but it seems to me that if you're looking for this Bessarabia, you're not going to find it in a computer. You'd do better looking in a book. Have you considered going upstairs and using the library?"

Bruce Wayne hadn't. He lowered his hands to the keyboard, stopping the data march, while his fatigued mind summoned all the reasons books were inferior to sophisticated data-processing techniques---provided, of course, that the data existed in processible form. And in the matter of Bessarabia, it did not. Muttering under his breath about the fallacies of communism, Bruce Wayne prepared to disentangle himself from his ergonomic seat. His knees were numb, his ankles unresponsive; he lurched forward, catching his balance for a moment with his knuckles and spreading such handwritten notes as he'd made in the last five days across the console table.

"Harry Matheson?" Alfred inquired, spotting the words in bold isolation on an otherwise blank sheet. "Where did his name come from?"

Scowling, Batman collected the papers in a neat pile. Harry's name disappeared. "His name popped out in the early going, before I got the search parameters refined."

"You were looking for the Connection and Harry's name popped up?"

Bruce raked his wilted hair off his forehead. He evaded Alfred's raised eyebrows and took a stride toward the stairs.

"Did it?"

"I was asking the wrong questions. My own name popped up, too, as President of the Wayne Foundation. I didn't write it down."

"But you wrote down Harry's name."

With a weary, irritated sigh, Wayne confronted the only man alive who could challenge him this way. "Harry Matheson was one of my father's closest friends. They served together overseas, and after the war they helped each other out. He sits on the board of the Wayne Foundation, for heaven's sake. We don't see eye to eye on many things, but I've known him my whole life. I might as well suspect myself as Harry."

Blessed with a butler's logic and a recent night's sleep, Alfred was tempted to say that Bruce Wayne, who led a double life as Batman, was indeed a perfect suspect---and so was Harry. He resisted the temptation, however, since his goal was to get Bruce moving toward his bedroom and that goal had almost been accomplished. After he slept, Bruce would find the error in his logic without any assistance, and he would be refreshed enough to make good use of it.

But things did not go Alfred's way. Bruce paused partway up the stairs. He cocked his head, and from his place beside the console, the butler could fairly see the fog lifting from his friend's shoulders and logic falling heavily into place. He drew an imperceptible breath and hoped Bruce would continue up the stairs.

"You're right, Alfred. I would suspect myself. To acquire what Batman needs, I've had to cast a web of international and financial confusion. I've got the contacts. I've got the computers, the money, the network of holding companies---all so no one could do what I do and connect me with Batman. The motive is different---entirely different---but I could be the Connection."

Alfred combined the items on the two silver trays and prepared to follow Bruce up the stairs. "Might I remind you," he said almost reluctantly, "that the Mattheson fortune grew out of Blue Star Shipping Lines?"

"He shut that down." Wayne's voice wandered.

"Maybe he just gave the Blue Star ships a new coat of marine paint... ."

The steel railing vibrated from the intensity of Batman's grip. "Harry. But why? Why---?" He looked across the cave chamber at the bank of digital clocks on the back wall. It was just after one A.M. "Alfred---I'm going to my club."

"But, sir..."

"I look like death---I know. Bruce Wayne hasn't gone to his club in weeks. Showing up like I do right now---or a little worse---will feed everyone's suspicions. Harry Mattheson has never failed to call me out to lunch for a fatherly lecture whenever he thinks I'm letting the Wayne foundation---and my father's memory---down. Well, I'm more than ready to do lunch with Uncle Harry."

"You have no idea if he's even in town. Please, sir, there must be a better way." Generations of understairs expertise shaped the butler's inflection; Queen Victoria herself would have reconsidered.

But not Batman.

"I'll make an entrance that he's sure to hear about. Bruce Wayne: the debaucher debauched; scoundrel and squanderer. Maybe I'll even make the papers, Alfred. It's been a while since Bruce Wayne has tromped across the gossip pages." He released the railing and charged up the stairs two at a time.

Alfred started up the stairs at a more reasoned pace. "I'll await you in the car, sir."

There was always a chance that Bruce would see his reflection in the mirror and realize this was no time for playacting, but it was a slim chance and Alfred wasted no time getting down to the garage. He guided the limousine out of its stall, parking it conveniently close to the door and coincidentally blocking the sports car. Bruce Wayne stood in the doorway. He surveyed Alfred's careful arrangement and accepted it without comment.

If he had not known the precise condition of every garment in Bruce's wardrobe, Alfred might have believed that he'd found his tuxedo rolled up in a ball behind a door somewhere. It was criminally wrinkled. The cummerbund and tie were both slightly askew and there was a reddish smear on the starched white shirt that could pass for wine, lipstick, or blood---depending on the prejudice of the observer. He landed on the leather seat with a thud that shook the car's suspension.

"Drive on, my good man," Bruce said jocosely. "To the club."

Alfred knew better than to say anything. The real Bruce Wayne---to the extent that there was a real Bruce Wayne---was gone, replaced by a sotted, irresponsible playboy. He pushed the button to replace by a sotted, irresponsible partition, and a second button to turn the heat on. Perhaps a forty-five-minute ride in the back of a stuffy limousine would accomplish what reason could not, but, no---several customized lights on the dashboard flickered to life. Bruce had activated the remote computer and was recalibrating his data searches at a furious rate.

The electronic gate swung open to let the limo out of the estate, then swung and locked shut behind them. Alfred guided the car down the dark, deserted rural road toward the always-visible amber dome of Gotham-by-night. Less than an hour later he jockeyed the lumbering vehicle into line outside a seemingly deserted office tower.

Bruce Wayne's club was at the top of the tower---a quietly expensive amalgam of antique and modern that made the statement: the best of everything never clashes with itself. The same could be said for the men who sat in air-conditioned comfort before a roaring hardwood fire. Once you were a member here, you were beyond the rules.

Then Bruce strode in, his face made florid through biofeedback exercises, his voice much too loud, his words slightly slurred.

"And how the hell have you been?" he said coarsely to the nearest body, clapping it between the shoulders and sending a rare, single-malt Scotch spraying across the equally rare Persian rug.

The victim, a silver-haired executive whose companies rolled steel on five of the seven continents, was a paragon of manners and self-control. His expression was as cold as the interstellar void. "I'm busy, Bruce. Go play your little games elsewhere, if you please."

"Bad day at black rock," Wayne replied, playing his ne'er-do-well role to the hilt. He spied another of his father's business colleagues in deep conversation near the wall of windows. He bulled his way across the room, pausing only to collect a drink from the tight-lipped bartender. With carefully calculated rudeness, he marched between them.

"What a view!" He opened his arms and flung bourbon into one man's face. "There's no place like home---when you're up here and everyone else is down there---"

"Mr. Wayne---?" A butler---not Alfred, of course---appeared at Bruce's side. He laid one hand on Bruce's shoulder and wrapped the other around his wrist. "There's a call for you. If you'll just step this way..."

Bruce allowed his arm to be lowered and the pinching hand on his shoulder to guide him toward a darkened doorway. Mission accomplished. He had the club's undivided, but discreet, attention. Within hours the old guard would be asking itself the perennial question: What should we do about Tom Wayne's son? A few hours after that, Bruce could count on a call from Harry.

But, as it turned out, he didn't have to wait hours. The door closed behind him, and Bruce was alone in one of the private rooms, face-to-face with a disapproving Harry Matheson. A shiver of anticipation raced down Bruce Wayne's spine as he divided his consciousness between the actor who would play out the scene and the coldly sober Batman who would be watching Harry with a new eye.

"What is it this time, Bruce---liquor, the wild life, some unholy combination of the two?"

The actor let his jaw hang.

"Look at you. You're a disgrace to your father's name. What's the matter with you? When are you going to take hold and make something of yourself. Something worthwhile?"

The younger man whined alcoholically; the older man scolded. Both seemed completely sincere. Batman looked at the edges for a sign that the disguise was not quite complete, that they were both, in fact actors. The analysis was inconclusive. After all, Harry Matheson could be the Connection and still care deeply about the ruination of his dead friend's son; the roles were not mutually exclusive. Batman sought the words for a speech that would place Harry's roles in conflict.

"You're not my father!" Bruce shouted. "Stop treating me like the son you never had. You're planning to take your businesses with you to your grave---like all fathers. Like my father did." It was an act, his inner voice said urgently, calming the part of him that would always feel an orphan's anguish. "If I was your son would you teach me what you know? Would you have shown me all your inner secrets, the deals you made to get to the top?"

The actor waited; Batman watched.

Harry opened his mouth and shut it again. He set his glass on a polished wood table and ground his cigar to shreds in a cut-glass ashtray. "Show you? Never." He squeezed his lips into pale lines, biting off words Batman dearly wished to hear. Then he stalked out of the room, allowing the door to strike the wall when he beat it open.

For a moment, while he was truly alone, Bruce Wayne shed all his roles and let his tension out with a shuddering sigh. He had as much information as he was likely to get. Mental images of Harry's response, clearer than any photograph or videotape, were printed in his mind's eye. Later, after analysis and reflection, perhaps he'd have an answer.

There was no reason to stay. Harry's stormy exit left him with no need to explain his own. Bruce Wayne left the club scarcely a half hour after he'd entered it.

"Let's go home, Alfred," he said as he settled in the back seat of the limo.

"Did you learn what you wanted to? Is Harry Matheson the man? Is he the Connection?"

Bruce pulled off the black tie and undid the top studs of the starched white shirt. He sank back in the upholstery as Alfred pulled away from the curb. "I don't know. I can't tell---that says something right there, doesn't it? A man I've known all my life---and I can't tell what he really is."

"Yes, it does, sir. Yes, it does."