Selina shook her head wearily. Whether it was the police or the media, they never got her role in anything right. "Unnamed because they're stupid and wrong," she snarled at Bonnie. "I could tell them a thing or two about who was helping Eddie Lobb get away!"
Bonnie was enthralled by the possibility.
Selina was appalled to hear the words her own voice was saying. "Later," she corrected. "I'll tell you later. We'll do dinner. But now you've got to let me do what I've got to do---" She waited for Bonnie to react.
"Okay---I'll make tapes of everything. You can tell me how stupid and wrong everyone is. It'll be our secret."
"Maybe," Selina said as she hung up the receiver. She lingered beside the phone, expecting it to ring again, expecting that she would have to ignore it, but it remained inert.
The costume was nearly dry. Selina pulled it on carefully and folded the mask hood under the neck band and wrestled with the white seams. The gloves could be folded up under the sleeves, although she could count the number of times she'd bothered to do so on the fingers of one hand. She rarely layered the costume beneath her mundane clothes; even in the dead of winter she preferred to shed one identity completely before adopting the other. But not today. Today Selina wanted Catwoman with her.
Batman was alone in Commissioner Gordon's City Hall office. The raid had been ruled a success, despite the gunplay. The two policemen who fell from the rafters were in the hospital; their lives had been saved by the elasticity. The officer who'd taken the fatal neck wound was being named a hero who'd fallen in the line of duty. Today that didn't lessen the anguish of his grieving family, but in time it might.
As for the others: Khalki, the Gagauzi leader, was in temporary serious condition. The remaining three Gagauzi had been arrested, but the story of their tiny community's struggle for identity and independence was capturing the hearts of those Americans who could always be counted on to root for the underdog. Even the Moldovans---the other men in the rafters whose unexpected presence had reduced Commissioner Gordon's carefully planned raid to chaos---garnered some sympathy for their desire to forge a reunited Rumania.
Commissioner Gordon had impounded the crates of weapons sitting in a Gotham pier. Batman, himself, had provided the navigational information necessary to retrieve the balance of the cache from its submerged mooring in international waters. A delegation from a handful of national agencies had already flown up from Washington, proverbial caps in their proverbial hands, to pay homage to Gotham's finest. He hadn't seen the Commissioner look so proud and happy in years.
There were only two people not satisfied with the way things had turned out. One was Bruce Wayne, who had hesitated a moment too long making certain that Catwoman had surfaced safely after he threw her in the harbor, and lost Eddie Lobb in the process. The other was, presumably, Harry Mattheson, who had, by now, certainly heard about the debacle on Pier 23 and surely could not be pleased with its outcome. It was possible that Harry believed the unsourced reports that Catwoman and Tiger were in cahoots.
Batman knew better.
A television sat in a corner of Commissioner Gordon's office. The volume had been muted, but the pictures scrolling across the screen---officials from the Justice Department and the Customs Office hauling that bone table and chair out of the Keystone---told Batman everything he needed to know about Catwoman's involvement with Tiger from the very beginning.
Batman used the phone behind Gordon's desk and dialed a direct line to the Batcave communications computer. Alfred was on the other end of the line almost immediately. It took a moment to assure the butler that he was in one, undamaged piece and to explain that he wasn't ready to come home.
"I've been watching television. I didn't know enough about Tiger. Batman's got to stop her."
There was a two-beat pause at the other end. "Are you certain, sir?"
"Yes, Alfred, I'm certain." He was always amazed at the amount of concern the butler could pack into a few, supremely polite words. He shouldn't have been. Alfred went along with the Batman, but he never completely accepted the concept.
"Very well, sir. I'll be along presently."
Batman lowered the receiver. He cocked his head toward the door and recognized the rhythm of Gordon's footsteps.
"Thanks for the use of the facilities, old friend," he said, opening the door before Gordon could knock. "I feel like a new man."
"You're always welcome here. You're sure I can't talk you out of this? Lobb's body is probably going to show up under the Harbor Mouth Bridge in a few days, and if it doesn't, he's going to wish it had. The gumshoes over in the Federal Prosecutor's office are ready to take Gotham apart brick by brick to find their would-be canary. Word on the street already is that Tiger's chopped liver."
"I've got to find him before someone else does."
Gordon wrinkled his nose as if the wind had just blown something rotten past it. "You think she's innocent?"
He said nothing.
"Stay out of trouble," Gordon said as his guest departed.
Tiger came to thinking he was already in prison; then he realized that the room was too small to be a prison cell. He was in Old Town. He'd come here looking for the almost-doctor who'd fix anything for the right price. He must have passed out when the sewing started. Tiger never had been a tough man when it came to his own pain. He levered himself into a sitting position. The hole in his shoulder felt like a bolt of white-hot metal, but he could make everything move. A stranger offered him an amber-colored bottle and a glass of cloudy, suspect water.
"For the pain. Water now?"
Tiger pushed the glass away, but he took the pills in his good hand. "Tell the quack I said thanks for the hospitality."
He couldn't stand up until he got into the passageway. The sudden change in posture made him woozy, but there was no going back. Not after last night. It had gone so quickly, so completely. He'd never believed the sheepherders when they said their enemies would stop at nothing. As far as he'd been concerned, they'd always belonged in a circus sideshow. And the police---who had tipped them? But then the black cat---the black tiger---had appeared, and he'd seen what he had to do. He got away alive. There was still hope.
The sun was high overhead when Tiger came out the unmarked metal door. It hurt his eyes. He'd been out longer than he thought. He reached reflexively for his sunglasses, but they were gone, along with his jacket and his shoes. The shoes he was wearing were too big. The jacket was too small and stank of chili sauce, but it covered the bloodstains on his shirt. He tugged on it a couple times, just to make sure, then headed for the street.
The Connection knew what had happened. There was no way the Connection didn't know by now. So Tiger was careful coming out of the alley. He checked both directions for the antenna-sprouting van. The street was clean. Tiger was just as cautious at the next intersection, and the one after that; then he began to relax. If the boss wanted to see him, the van would have been waiting for him. He wanted to get home and clean himself up before he met with the boss to square things up.
On the edge of Old Town he hailed a taxi and gave the Keystone address. The cabby dropped the flag and steered one-handed into traffic.
"You live in there?" the cabby asked, looking at Tiger in the rear seat, not at the traffic. "More kinds of cops parked over there than I ever seen before. Television cameras. The works. This guy they're after, he must really be something."