Wayne fingered the two-way radio slung on his belt. The device was considerably more complex than ones his erstwhile fellow guards carried. He could have placed a call directly to Commissioner Gordon. At the very least, the Gagauzi were in the country without visas. Rounding them up would leave the arms deal dead in the water. And it would leave a lot of ends dangling. Batman grit his teeth and returned to the gallery.
Two women came in. His mental alarms went wild. The pair were young and animated, mismatched in clothing and manner, but this was Gotham City, and there were no rules. Either one could have been the body inside the black catsuit. He couldn't get close to them without drawing attention to himself. One of them, at least, was aware of him. Considering the Catwoman's independence, Batman took this as a positive sign that was reinforced when they settled down on benches in a less-crowded adjoining gallery, out of camera range. Batman kept an eye on them for a couple hours; then they were gone and he could only wonder if he'd missed an opportunity.
The man he most expected and wanted to see didn't show up until a half hour before closing time. Tiger elbowed his way to the velvet ropes. He stretched and leaned as far forward as balance allowed. Another guard got to him first and told him to contain his curiosity. Bruce Wayne intercepted him moments later. Tiger glared ferociously at the sight of a uniform, any uniform, crowding him.
"Some guys got all the luck," Bruce Wayne said by way of an introduction. His voice was as subtly and completely altered as his appearance. There was no likelihood that Tiger would connect him with Batman.
"Not me," Tiger replied, hesitating but not retreating.
"And to think that he found this in the attic." Bruce paused long enough for confident disbelief to register on Tiger's face. "Makes you wonder, though," he continued, "what else this Bruce Wayne fellow's got in his attic. If you know what I mean."
Tiger's face was transformed. The suspicion was replaced by slit-eyed thoughtfulness. He studied the guard, and he thought about the idea the guard had put into his head. "Yeah," he said slowly. "It does." Not that he believed for one moment that the icon had come out of Bruce Wayne's attic, but the museum had taken the bait easily enough. A wealth of possibilities unfolded in Tiger's mind, and were covered over again. He had other things to do right now.
Like getting that icon out of the museum and using it to get back in the Connection's good graces. Burglary wasn't his strong suit. The icon appeared to be sitting on top of a cheap fiberboard pillar inside a flimsy acrylic box. He couldn't see any security except for these middle-aged rent-a-cops. He knew he had to be wrong. He'd been wrong about the icon from the get-go. He'd never guessed the dark, morbid picture the Russian showed him wasn't the picture the Connection was buying. He thought the new, revealed picture was just as ugly and overpriced, but he could see the gold and the jewels and he knew he couldn't afford to make another mistake.
"You guys for real," he said to the guard still standing beside him, "or are you just for show 'cause the real security's somewhere else?"
"We're real," Bruce Wayne replied honestly enough. "They don't turn the gadgets on until the gallery closes, or you'd have tripped every alarm leaning over the ropes like that."
"They got a foolproof system, huh?"
"No system's foolproof---" Bruce said significantly, then he smiled. "Say, what's your name, anyway? I like you."
Tiger returned the smile. He liked the guard, too. He had a gut-level sense of compatibility and a confidence that they could do business together. Tiger didn't usually feel empathy toward strangers. He felt a heartbeat of doubt, which he shunted aside. The tigers were testing him. It was time to follow his hunches. "Just call me The Tiger. You wouldn't be thinking that maybe you could tell me some more about how it ain't foolproof? I could make it very much worth your while." The guard hesitated; that was good, Tiger thought, the guy shouldn't be too eager. "I'm looking at a lot of business comin' my way soon. I could use someone like you who knows about security and shit."
Bruce Wayne made himself look and feel nervous. He glanced around like a man with something to hide. "Not here," he whispered. "I gotta think about it, Tiger. Maybe later."
"Opportunity like this doesn't wait 'til later. You want in now, I let you in now. I don't want guys who gotta think."
"Then I'm in. I'm your man," Batman said with no further hesitation.
Chapter Sixteen
Bruce Wayne retreated to the guard's locker room in the basement of the museum. He made certain no one was watching, then used the customized radio to tell Alfred that the bait had been taken and he was going incommunicado. Alfred would handle everything for Bruce Wayne and Batman, even take care of Commissioner Gordon if the Batsignal went up. He would also be alert for any other, less conventional message Batman might need to send.
Then Bruce Wayne put on an ordinary shirt and trousers, loaded his pockets with the very best in fake ID, checked his appearance-altering makeup, and strolled onto the museum loading-dock to meet his new partner.
Tiger led him downtown to a sour-smelling bar where the light came from the neon signs proclaiming the varieties of beer on tap. Most of the patrons were crowded around the bar watching the basketball playoffs. The home team was winning by a wide margin, and this was a home-team bar. No one noticed a stranger when Tiger called for two beers at his favorite table in the back.
Sinking deep into his adopted persona, Bruce Wayne didn't blink at what he half saw and overheard. He was one of these lowlifes for a while; their world was his world, their rules, his rules. Batman did not exist, except as an enemy. Slouching in a bentwood chair with uneven legs, cradling a stein of cheap beer between his hands, a reconstructed Bruce was in his element and completely at ease.
They spent a beer or two exchanging bona fides. Or, rather, Tiger drank while his new friend talked. After pounding his chest with his fist and making veiled allusions to killjoy doctors and infernal pills, Bruce ignored the alcohol in front of him. Bruce made up his criminal history on the fly, snatching bits and pieces from Batman's memory. Tiger was duly impressed. But then, Tiger was a criminal and criminals were among the most impressionable people on the face of the planet. Each and every one thought he was the smartest goon in the room, the guy who knew all the angles, the guy for whom the rules did not apply. Criminals were also gullible. Every time Bruce Wayne flattered his companion's ego, Tiger became more deeply convinced that he'd found a henchman he could trust.
Gradually, as the night wore on and the beer continued to flow, Wayne was able to take control of the conversation. He traded information about the improvised security surrounding the icon for information about the Connection. But although Tiger readily admitted that he'd done considerable work for the mysterious middleman, it became clear to Bruce Wayne that Tiger merely did what he was told and had no notion of the Connection's long-term plans. In his mind he'd never believed anything different, but in his heart he'd allowed a brief flicker of hope.