Tiger went numb. The pain in his shoulder was a world away. He told the cabby to let him out a few blocks shy of the Keystone. His hands were shaking as he dug into his emergency stash and produced a twenty.
"Keep the change."
"Thanks." The cabby rolled the bill with the hand that never touched the steering wheel and tucked it into his shirt pocket. "You know, you don't look so good. You sure you don't want me to get closer?"
"The fresh air'll do me good," Tiger replied with a thin-lipped smile. Feeling returned to his shoulder as he got out of the cab. He relieved the pain by slamming the door. The cabby told him to go to hell.
Tiger hoped that this wasn't going to happen, but hope was fading.
Television vans were double-and triple-parked. None of them was big enough to be the boss's, but Tiger approached them cautiously just the same. There was no reason to panic, Tiger told himself as he neared the end of the line of vans and the start of the police cars. He'd had a bad day---a disastrous, catastrophic day---but nothing he did would justify this media circus.
"Can you move to one side, buddy? We're trying to film here."
A harried technician raised his hand at Tiger's wounded shoulder. Tiger backpedaled, but stayed in the crowd as the movie-star-handsome reporter called for a sound and light check. He couldn't keep from holding his breath as the tape began to roll.
"Who is Eddie---Tiger---Lobb? In one night he's gone from being a precinct nuisance to worldwide notoriety. Two things are clear. First, as the nation and the world saw earlier today, Eddie Lobb turned his Gotham City home into a conservationist's worst nightmare. And second, he was a major factor in the Pier 23 shoot-out that left one policeman dead, two injured, and made Bessarabia a household word. But who is Eddie---Tiger---Lobb? With me now is Ramon Diaz, the doorman here at the Keystone Condominiums---"
The reporter paused dramatically. Tiger was seized with fear. Rayme would recognize him standing here at the front of the crowd and it would be as good as over. The pause lengthened uncomfortably.
"Where the hell is he? Where's the little guy? Stop rolling."
Tiger recognized an eleventh-hour reprieve when he got one. He melted back through the crowd. An all-too-human part of him refused to believe this was happening. Then a gap opened in the crowd farther up the block and he looked into the back of a moving truck. All his tigers were in there, jumbled together without any respect or order. They'd never forgive him for this. They'd destroy him. He was as good as dead. He'd have been better off staying in the river and letting the tide take him out to sea.
All the same, turning himself in to the dozens of waiting policemen never occurred to Eddie Lobb. If he had to die, he was going to die the way he'd lived, on the waterfront streets, not rotting in some jail. Miraculously, his mind had cleared and his shoulder was pain-free. Tiger had no difficulty slipping back down the block and hailing another cab.
"Take me over to the docks," he told the driver.
He got out at Pier 23---the old Blue Star Line. It was quiet, nothing to show for all the excitement. The Connection would survive. Tiger admitted---for the first and only time---that he wasn't a big enough man in the organization to take his boss down with him. But Pier 23 was as dead as he was. The boss would shut down all the operations that touched it. He stared at it awhile---a man needed to set things in his memory, even when he knew he wasn't going to be remembering anything pretty soon. Then he ambled over to his favorite bar and sat at his favorite table.
"Hey, Tiger---you don't look so good."
One of the Pier 23 stevedores made himself comfortable in the chair opposite Eddie.
"Things went bad. You heard."
"Yeah, I heard. Tough break, Tiger. People been comin' in askin' about you."
"Cops?"
"Yeah, cops... and people. They gave me a message to give you, if you should show up."
"So, give."
"They says if you want to make things square again, you go over to the place on Broad Street. There, I give you the message. I give you a piece of advice, too---don't go over there, Tiger. Get outta Gotham City. There must be a hundred places you could go."
"I ain't paying for advice, Jack."
The stevedore got up from the table. "Then it's been swell knowing you." He walked away.
Tiger finished his beer and left another twenty on the table to pay for it. The place on Broad Street; he knew where that was. The clarity that had come upon him by the Keystone had been dulled a bit by the beer. His shoulder was throbbing again and he was tired, too tired to go around the corner to the place on Broad Street. Tiger decided to return to the waterfront one last time. When the tide changed he'd make the final journey. It seemed that all the nearby buildings had eyes when he left the bar. Maybe the boss was going to have him popped on the street. He forced the muscles in his back to relax. The word was that it didn't hurt at all if you were relaxed.
Batman paid little attention to the dead man as he walked past. He was watching the roofs and the shadows for some telltale glimmer of movement that would reveal Catwoman's hiding place. A woman wearing sunglasses and a bright floral print dress stepped out of a doorway. She didn't seem the right type, but she was carrying a large purse and she was following Tiger. Batman was armored within his costume. He allowed himself the hope that Catwoman would be similarly concealed when he found her. It would be easier for them both if they handled this professionally. The woman changed her bearings and headed for the parked cars. Batman combed the shadows again.
The days were lengthening and getting warm. Batman was forcibly reminded that the black polymer was a heat sponge and unpleasant to wear in the sunlight. He'd guessed Tiger's intention of sitting on a piling until the tide changed again, which wouldn't happen until after sunset. Catwoman wasn't likely to make her approach in broad daylight. The Wayne Foundation owned a building not far from here where Batman maintained a safe house. Instinct and logic agreed that he could afford to snatch a couple hours of naptime. He didn't owe Tiger anything, although the scar-faced man wouldn't be looking at a death sentence if their paths hadn't crossed. He didn't owe anything to Catwoman, either. But he stayed where he was, dulling his senses to the heat, waiting for the sun to set, the tide to change, and the final act in Tiger's drama to begin.
The temperature in the cul-de-sac where Batman had hidden himself dropped noticeably when the sun dropped below the roofline of the piers. Batman shook himself out of autopilot and assured his conscious mind that nothing had changed---Tiger still sat on his piling and Batman's criminal sense still told him Catwoman was near. Shadows lengthened and a scattering of streetlights sizzled to life. Isolated pools of halogen light emerged from the twilight. There was a movement, a shadow within a shadow, at the front of the pier nearest to Tiger. Batman became fully alert.
Tiger began moving. So did the shadow. So did Batman. They moved together toward Broad Street. Tiger started down the middle of the street. A piece of shadow separated from the piers. Batman adjusted his course for an intercept once she reached Broad Street. She slashed at his face when he forced her against a wall. The mask took the brunt of it, but one claw had found its mark and he felt a warm trickle across his cheek.
"It's over," Batman told her. He locked his hands firmly over her wrists and held the vicious hooks at arm's length.
Catwoman's face contorted with hate and fury. The twin passions stripped away her ability to speak. She hissed and growled like the alley animal she pretended to be. They were close enough to taste each other's breath.