Batman: No Man's Land Read online

  “There’s someone here to see you,” the TallyMan said.

  “Who?” Two-Face snarled.

  “One of the Blue Boys, came over under a white flag.”

  “And you honored it?”

  “Wasn’t going to, but before I put a bullet in her head she showed me this.”

  The Tally Man opened his hand, and Two-Face saw that in the hollow of the man’s palm was resting his real coin, the trick silver half-dollar he had gotten from his father years ago. He grabbed it quickly, then used his other hand to take the TallyMan by the throat, letting his index finger press into the carotid artery.

  “You put a bullet in her?” Two-Face hissed. “Is that what I heard you just say, TallyMan?”

  The TallyMan’s eyes bulged slightly. “No,” he managed. “No… she’s … alive… .”

  “Where?”

  “In … the … holding … cells…”

  Two-Face released his grip, squeezing the coin in his fist, then striding up the courthouse steps. He tried not to run, but all the same he raced across the marble floor of the main hall, to the access stairway, passing the guards he had on duty without a second glance. He went down the stairs into the basement, three and four steps at a time, pushed through another door, then stopped just outside the barred one that marked the start of the holding cells. He took a deep breath and ran the fingers of both his hands through his hair, realized he was still gripping the coin.

  What if she doesn’t want to see me? he thought suddenly. What if… what if what if what if…

  Don’t go in there.

  No, go in there.

  No, she’ll laugh at you. She’ll mock you. She’ll hurt you.

  She won’t. She’s different. She understood.

  You like her. And you think because you like her she likes us.

  She could like us. She could.

  No. She couldn’t.

  She could.

  Have you looked in a mirror lately, Harvey? How could she like us?

  She … could…

  Don’t make me laugh.

  He looked at the coin in his hand.

  Yeah, we’ll have to flip for it.

  Good heads we go in.

  Good heads we go in, agreed. Bad heads—

  I won’t let you kill her.

  Who said anything about killing her? Do we need to kill her? I don’t want to kill her.

  Then what? Bad heads, then what?

  Bad heads. . . we send TallyMan in, he can find out what she wants.

  TallyMan’s a boor. He’ll treat her like crap.

  Then we’ll kill TallyMan.

  He considered, then nodded.

  Flip it. Go ahead. Flip it. And don’t cheat, Harvey. I’m not going anywhere, and I’m not taking my eyes off that coin.

  He flipped the half-dollar, a move so practiced he didn’t even need to consider the action, the placement of the coin, the roll of the shifting balance. His thumb caught the edge, a perfect end-over-end flip straight up, the disk tumbling so fast that it was impossible to predict its result. The coin rose to its apex and then for a mere fraction of a second seemed to dangle, caught between force and gravity, then began its descent.

  He snatched it out of the air then slapped the coin down on the back of his other hand.

  Go ahead. Read it and weep, Harvey.

  He shut his eyes and moved his hand.

  Look.

  He looked.

  Good heads.

  Grinning, he slipped the coin back into his pocket, then ran both hands down the sides of his jacket, making certain he was presentable. He took the keys from the locker on the wall, then swung the barred door back, entering the long hall of cells.

  “Detective Montoya?”

  There was a moment of silence and he’d just begun to think that the TallyMan had lied to him, was playing games with him, when her voice came from the end of the hall.

  “Here.”

  This time he did a better job keeping himself from running, feeling the butterflies fluttering in his gut. He knew what it was, he knew exactly what was going on, and he had gone through contortions over it several times in the last months, since before leaving Arkham, even. He was dimly aware of just how crazy the whole damn situation was.

  He was Two-Face, after all. And Two-Face absolutely did not get crushes on anyone, let alone a GCPD detective. It was one thing for Harvey Dent to be carrying a torch; that had happened before more times than he could recount. When that happened, Two-Face’s response had been entirely and savagely negative. The object of Harvey’s affection had deserved only scorn, and Two-Face had actively sought to crush any interest or hope that might be growing in his counterpart’s heart.

  It was another thing entirely when Two-Face agreed with Harvey.

  There she was in the cell, Detective Renee Montoya, wearing blue jeans and scuffed black boots and a dirty leather jacket and it was the first time he’d seen her in over six months, and he thought she looked lovely and almost exactly the same. Maybe just a little older, but the No Man’s Land could do that to anyone, and really it only made her prettier. Her hair had gotten a little longer, too.

  “Sorry about TallyMan,” he said, unlocking the cell door.

  “He didn’t know who you were. He didn’t, uh … he wasn’t rough or anything, was he?”

  She waited until he had swung the door back, then joined him in the hall. “No rougher than I’m used to. I’m fine.”

  “You can call me Harvey.”

  Montoya nodded. “I’m fine, Harvey.”

  “Good.” He tried another smile, and he thought maybe she gave him just a tiny little hint of one in return, and he felt the butterflies start really going nuts then. He had maybe five, six inches on her, and she was looking right back at him, not flinching or repulsed or anything like that, at least, not that he could tell.

  Stop staring at her, you idiot.

  “Would you, um … you want a drink or something? I’ve got a crate of Zesti Cola we salvaged from the Jiffy Junior down on Ander.”

  “No, thanks,” she said.

  “You, um… you wanted to talk to me? TallyMan said you wanted to talk to me, that you came in under a white flag and everything. Did you want to talk to me?”

  “Commissioner Gordon sent me.”

  Two-Face felt momentarily crestfallen. Of course Gordon had sent her, why would she have come on her own accord? It must’ve been an order.

  “Oh,” he said. “Right.”

  She was still looking at him. “You know why he sent me?”

  Two-Face sighed, then gestured to the end of the hall. “If we’re going to talk business, let’s move somewhere more comfortable. Don’t want to keep you down here. You might think I was planning on keeping you prisoner or something.”

  When she smiled, he felt a little better. Together they left the holding area, going back up the stairs. He tried to walk beside her where he could, but on the stairs it was difficult, so he took the lead, thinking that would make her a little more comfortable. When they came out again into the main hall, TallyMan was waiting inside the foyer. Two-Face ignored him, waiting for Montoya to move up on his side, and then he pointed to the other flight of stairs, the big broad set that ran up to the gallery overlooking the atrium, beyond which were the courtrooms and judges’ chambers.

  They went up the stairs and into another hallway, passing more posted guards. He watched them carefully, noting which ones were staring at Montoya and which ones were minding their own business. Only a few of his men directed glances their way that made Two-Face feel a response was in order, but he’d deal with them later, after Montoya had left. He knew she was a cop, and that she’d dealt with plenty of violence in her life, but even so, he didn’t want her to have to see it if things got ugly.

  He had been using Judge Halsey’s chambers for his quarters, and he held the door open for her, even risked putting a hand on her back, lightly, to sort of guide her inside. She didn’t react in any way that h
e could see, and he figured that must mean she didn’t mind, and he was grinning when he shut the door behind them. By the time he was crossing to the desk, though, he had it under control again. He retrieved two bottles of Zesti from his stash in the bottom drawer, opening them and then offering her one.

  When she took her bottle, her right index finger touched his for a second, and it was warm, and it made a soft heat climb into his whole body.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  Two-Face nodded. “So… uh… I assume the Commissioner has decided to take me upon my offer?”

  “That’s why I’m here.”

  “You can sit down, if you want to, Renee.”

  She took the chair opposite the desk. He had hoped she would go for the couch by the coffee table instead, so that he might be able to sit closer to her without it being so obvious.

  Stupid useless moron idiot! You should have moved from behind the desk first, you dolt!

  He perched on the corner of the desk.

  At least she didn’t mind me calling her Renee.

  So far. You’re such apathetic loser, you know that…

  “He told me about the offer you made,” Renee said. “About… about helping us.”

  “And now?”

  “He’s planning something… something that he feels we can’t do alone, and he’s hoping you’ll help.”

  “He wants to take the land between Old Gotham and the Park.”

  She looked surprised, but only for a second. “That’s right.”

  “Penguin’s land.”

  “Yes.”

  Two-Face sipped at his bottle of cola, then made a face, wishing suddenly for ice. He had suspected that Gordon would come around sooner or later, but not as soon as this. In a way it was a perfect opportunity, and gave his plan regarding the Batman a perfect symmetry.

  “I can help,” he told Montoya. “I can help a lot, actually. You guys will have to do all the hard work, of course, but if you’re ready to move at midnight tomorrow—by which I mean be ready to attack—then I can guarantee you’ll win. It won’t be easy, there will be resistance, but you’ll get that land.”

  “What kind of resistance?” Montoya asked.

  “Penguin has a lot of men, Renee, and a lot of equipment. All I can do is make it so there aren’t too many of those men in your way. But there will be some.” He took another pull from his bottle. “You’re going to take casualties. Not as many as Penguin will, to be sure; but then again, for people like Penguin that’s not an issue. For people like you and the Commish, it might be.”

  Montoya was looking at the bottle in her hands, turning it back and forth, not drinking. He noticed that her fingers were bare, that she didn’t wear any jewelry on her hands or even in her ears. He remembered seeing her with earrings once, small cubic zirconium studs that had shone brightly against her tan skin.

  “People will die, Renee.”

  Her head moved in a bare nod.

  “Anything else Gordon wanted you to ask about?”

  “He wanted to know what you’d take in trade. What you wanted in return.”

  You. That would be fair, don’t you think? You stay with us, here.

  Not possible. Can’t ask for that. That would be …

  Prisoner.

  Right.

  It’s an option.

  No.

  It’s an option, Harvey.

  No!

  “Harvey?”

  She was looking at him, and for another second he remained distracted, but this time by those brown eyes, the warmth in them. Gilda had had blue eyes, he remembered. His wife, before the accident and the world splitting into two halves. Gilda’s eyes had been blue.

  He thought he liked Montoya’s eyes more.

  “I’m sorry?” Two-Face said.

  “What do you want for the help?”

  “Nothing for now. Maybe later I’ll contact Gordon, maybe then he can lend me a hand when I need one. Will you tell him that?”

  “Sure.”

  “And…” he trailed off.

  Oh, don’t say it, you fool … she’ll shoot you down you know she’ll shoot you down. . .

  “What?” Montoya asked.

  “And I think that if Gordon wants to contact me again, you’re the person he should send. Now that my men know who you are, I mean, that’s probably safer. He should send you. Okay?”

  “That’s fine,” she said, and there wasn’t even a pause, like she had no trouble with the idea, like maybe she even wanted to see him again sometime.

  “Good. I’ll make certain TallyMan knows.”

  “I should head back … if we’ve only got until tomorrow night, we’re going to have to get ready.” She rose from the chair, still holding the untouched bottle of Zesti. “Thanks for meeting with me, Harvey.”

  “My pleasure,” he said earnestly. He set his empty soda bottle next to the Lucite paperweight on the desktop, then stood. “You hardly touched your cola, Renee. What’s the matter, you don’t like Zesti?”

  Montoya smiled sheepishly and he felt his heart all but melt. “Not really, sorry. I’m a Soder drinker mostly.”

  Brilliant, you’re brilliant, you know that? Offering Zesti to a Soder drinker…

  She handed the bottle back to him. “Maybe one of your men would like it.”

  Two-Face felt the charge again as his fingers touched hers for an instant, and nearly forgot to say, “Sure, I’m sure they will.” He cleared his throat. “Let me walk you out?”

  “Okay, if you like.”

  He put her bottle next to his on the desk, and together they left Judge Halsey’s chambers, making their way back outside. He wanted to tell her that he’d picked Halsey’s chambers for a reason, that back when he had served as Gotham City’s District Attorney, Halsey had been known as the most honest judge on the bench. As Harvey Dent, he’d had a lot of respect for Halsey.

  But he didn’t say anything about that to Renee.

  The sun was setting as they stepped outside, and Two-Face said, “Would you like an escort to the border? Make certain no one gives you any trouble?”

  “I’ll be all right,” Montoya said.

  “It’s no bother.”

  She put her arm on his. “Really, Harvey, I’ll be fine.”

  Then she headed down the stairs, across Courthouse Plaza, making her way west.

  “Thanks for bringing the coin back,” he called.

  He couldn’t hear her response, but she nodded and actually waved, and he stayed there, leaning against the cracked Ionic columns at the front of the courthouse, watching her go. Even after she was out of sight he stayed there.

  Well?

  Well what?

  Well, that could have been worse.

  She likes us.

  You hope.

  No, she does. She really does, I mean, she touched me, she put her hand on my arm and she touched me and … nobody’s touched me … no woman has touched me, you know, like that, not since Gilda. Not since Gilda, that’s a long time.

  You’re reading too much into it. You’re setting yourself up for a fall.

  No. No, there’s … she’s different. Admit it. Even you think she’s different.

  …

  Admit it.

  … yeah, you’re right. Happy? You’re right. She’s different.

  See? Wasn’t so hard.

  You’re a fool, Harvey. You’re a damn fool and she’s going to break our heart.

  SIXTEEN

  MONTOYA FOUND GORDON IN THE GARDEN, talking to his wife. For a moment before opening the sliding glass doors she hesitated, thinking to wait until they were done speaking. But it was already dark, and the clock was running, and there was really no time to waste.

  She slid the door back and stepped out into the spring air, catching the whiff of flowers immediately, the cloying smell of rot from the near corner where one of the plants was obviously decaying. The conversation stopped, and both Gordon and Essen turned to look at her. Montoya could read the question in
the Commissioner’s face, but she kept herself from offering him any answer yet. Essen’s look had a question, too, but it was an entirely different one.

  “What?” Essen demanded.

  “I need to speak to the Commissioner.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Alone.”

  Essen sharpened her glare, then turned it from Renee back to her husband. Gordon said something softly that Montoya didn’t catch, and Essen frowned. Montoya moved out of the way, letting the other woman past. Essen didn’t spare her a second glance.

  Montoya waited until the door had slid shut before moving closer. When she was within reaching distance of Gordon she stopped.

  “What did he say?”

  For a moment, Renee thought about lying to him. In her chest, her heart felt like it was on the verge of breaking.

  “Midnight tomorrow,” she heard herself say. “We need to be ready at midnight tomorrow. He’ll back us up.”

  “What did he want for payment?”

  Montoya shook her head. “He said he’d take the payment later. He said… he said he knew you’d come around and that he’d already taken care of it.”

  She watched Gordon’s face change, the sadness creeping into something closer to concern. “He knew?”

  “He wasn’t surprised.” She tried to make the distinction clear. “And he said if you have any further messages for him, you should send me.”

  “Did he treat you all right?”

  “Fine.”

  “I am sorry, Renee.”

  She didn’t know what to say to that, and so she just nodded and then left, heading back out of the garden and through the house without stopping. Essen was nowhere to be seen. Donnelly was on post with Beardsely outside, and she caught a snippet of their conversation, talking about when Pettit next wanted them to drill their hand-to-hand moves.

  For her quarters, Montoya had taken over one of the bedrooms in a still-intact bungalow, sharing the house with a couple other female officers. In her room she pulled off her jacket, throwing it to the floor. Montoya was turning when she caught her reflection in the cracked mirror above the bureau. The badge, hanging on its chain around her neck, glimmered gold. Taking the badge off, feeling its weight in her hand, the coolness of the metal, she traced the shape of her number with the pad of her thumb.