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."
Chapter Eight
Catwoman awoke to a rooster crowing before dawn. The sound startled and disoriented her. She lashed out at unfamiliar shadow-shapes, then, as she shed last night and dismissed it as an unsuitable place for sleeping, without giving the inevitable roosters a second thought. For her, roosters had become an urban sound. Cockfighting was another of the East End's ongoing illicit entertainments. Men kept the gaudy, mean-tempered creatures in cages on the fire escapes, turning those vertical sidewalks into noisy obstacle courses. She'd forgotten that a more natural place for a rooster was a henhouse.
Perhaps she had been cooped up in the city too long.
Shaking her head one final time, Catwoman peeled off her costume. Selina's clothes, left overnight in the backpack, were cold and damp. She was shivering by the time she crept out of the toolshed. Many of the convent windows were lit; nuns were notorious early risers, but they had prayer on their mind and weren't likely to look out the curtains as a lone woman marched through the drizzle and climbed over the gate at the end of the driveway.