Wayne of Gotham Read Free Page A

everything to lose.
    At last, Gordon fell quivering beneath the careful blows of his old friend. Batman secured him as he had the others, although perhaps not so tightly.
    He stood up and closed his eyes.
    The cowl was responding once more.
    The game was over.
    It was time to claim his prize.
    â€œI ’ve done your bidding, master,” she mumbled. “Everything exactly as you asked. Did it please you, master? Did I please you?”
    Batman found her in a small room with a single, high-back winged chair. She was seated before a shrine.
    On the shrine, a ventriloquist dummy stared at the intruder with dead, glass eyes as he approached.
    Batman set his jaw. He knew the wooden doll too well to turn his back on him.
    He had been called Woody when he was first carved in Blackgate Penitentiary. The gallows had been dismantled after a botched execution in 1962, and a “lifer” by the name of Donnegan had salvaged some of the wood to keep his hands busy. Donnegan was a big fan of noir and gangster films, and managed to dress his puppet creation in a miniature gangster suit with wide pinstripes and lapels to match. As Blackgate became more crowded, Donnegan and Woody were joined in his cell by a rather unlikely murderer, a usually timid man by the name of Arnold Wesker. Wesker tried to hang himself but, according to the prison psychiatrist reports at the time, was “talked out of it” by the dummy, who Wesker claimed had started speaking to him. Woody convinced Wesker to attempt an escape with him using a tunnel that Donnegan had abandoned digging the year before. Donnegan agreed to help finish the tunnel for Wesker to use. However, when Donnegan discovered that Wesker was planning to take Woody with him, Donnegan became upset. He was happy and safe in his cell with Woody and would not let him go. Wesker, under delusions that the mute dummy was actually goading him on, attacked Donnegan in their cell with a corkscrew. His initial lunge missed Donnegan but slashed Woody’s face, leaving a long, ugly scar. Wesker killed Donnegan and escaped with the dummy. The escaped lunatic and his puppet both took on new personas: Wesker became the Ventriloquist, while Woody was billed as “Scarface” because of the irrepairable gash left by the corkscrew. The Ventriloquist turned out to be a terrible performer—mispronouncing all his B s and G s—but he always claimed that the advice of Scarface made him a criminal mastermind. Both eventually vanished into the dark underside of Gotham. Wesker eventually was killed by his own gang, but Scarface continued on as a strange icon among Gotham shadow society. The dummy was said to have been cursed or possessed, and there were those in the criminal underworld who swore that it spoke to them, too.
    The dummy’s eyes seemed to follow Batman as he walked around the chair.
    Fay Moffit sat staring blankly at the dummy as she mumbled a one-sided conversation. “You really are too kind, Scar-boy! Thank you. Thank you …”
    She lapsed into silence, her eyes unfocused and her breath shallow. Her head lolled to one side in the chair.
    Spellbinder … is spellbound? Who hypnotizes a hypnotist ?
    Batman bound her wrists. She barely moved, let alone resisted. He slung her limp body over his shoulder and turned to leave.
    â€œSolved another one, eh, copper?”
    Batman turned at once.
    Scarface was talking to him.
    â€œYou missed the mark, flatfoot.” The dummy’s mouth moved as it spoke, the dead eyes fixed on Batman. “Lettin’ the big fish get away. I’m the brains of this operation, and you’re just pickin’ up the crumbs. But then, you never did see straight.”
    It’s a device. Audio player coupled to actuators. But it’s aimed at me. This whole thing was to deliver a message … but what’s the message and who’s it from ?
    â€œTake your folks, fer instance! Salt of the earth! Saints of