The Further Adventures of The Joker Read online

  Insanity was just the beginning.

  His madness is legendary.

  His evil without limit.

  Scarred in both body and mind, The Joker is possibly the most insidious criminal the world has ever known, his dark genius festering beneath an eternal jester’s grin. Yet, for all the pain and suffering Batman’s nemesis has brought the world over the last five decades, virtually nothing has been learned about him. Until now.

  In The Further Adventures of The Joker you’re invited to accompany some of today’s most gifted writers on a descent into madness, a journey in search of The Joker’s greatest hopes, dreams . . . and fears. In these stories of crime, mayhem, horror, and twisted humor, you will discover tales you won’t soon forget, tales which will chill your soul and tickle your funny bone.

  “Why do you hate him so?”

  “You see me as I am,” he said simply. “Look at me. This is his fault.” He stood up and turned before her, like a model, raising his arms, pointing his feet as though about to dance.

  She stared through blood-rimmed eyes at the tall, green-haired, white-skinned mockery of a man, whose twisted mouth flowed across his face like a skein of blood. He seemed invented, like something dreamed up by a bad artist during his final drink. He looked mythical, demonic.

  He was all too real.

  “Will killing me bring you back to yourself?” she asked wonderingly. “Will torturing me change you?”

  The Joker laughed, softly. “No, but it will change him, when he knows what I’ve done. He’d grieve even without knowing who you were, but when I tell him you were his sister, when I send him the tapes of you twisting and writhing, the sound of your screams, of your voice, pleading . . .”

  “I haven’t pleaded with you.”

  “Oh, but it’s early days. You will. Sooner or later. Before the end . . .”

  —From S. Tepper’s Someone Like You

  Bantam Books of Related Interest

  Ask your bookseller for those you have missed.

  THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF BATMAN

  THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE JOKER

  THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE JOKER

  A Bantam Book/February 1990

  BATMAN, THE JOKER and all related characters, slogans, and indicia are trademarks of DC Comics Inc.

  Copyright © 1990 DC Comics Inc. All Rights Reserved.

  Cover and interior art by Kyle Baker.

  ISBN 0-553-28531-9

  Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada

  Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries, Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10103

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  To David R. Silvers, who

  roots for the Caped Crusader.

  Contents

  BELLY LAUGH, or THE JOKER’S TRICK OR TREAT

  Joe R. Lansdale

  “DEFINITIVE THERAPY”

  F. Paul Wilson

  ON A BEAUTIFUL SUMMER’S DAY, HE WAS

  Robert R. McCammon

  THE MAN WHO LAUGHS

  Stuart M. Kaminsky

  SOMEONE LIKE YOU

  S. Tepper

  HELP! I AM A PRISONER

  Joey Cavalieri

  BONE

  Will Murray

  DYING IS EASY, COMEDY IS HARD

  Edward Bryant and Dan Simmons

  DOUBLE DRIBBLE

  George Alec Effinger

  THE JOKER’S WAR

  Robert Sheckley

  THE JOKER IS MILD

  Edward D. Hoch

  HAPPY BIRTHDAY

  Mark L. Van Name and Jack McDevitt

  MASKS

  Garfield Reeves-Stevens

  BEST OF ALL

  Marco Palmieri

  THE JOKER’S CHRISTMAS

  Karen Haber

  ON THE WIRE

  Andrew Heifer

  THE FIFTY-THIRD CARD

  Henry Slesar

  MUSEUM PIECE

  Mike Resnick

  BALLOONS

  Edward Wellen

  JANGLETOWN

  Elizabeth Hand and Paul Witcover

  Belly Laugh

  or

  The Joker’s Trick or Treat

  Joe R. Lansdale

  BATMAN’S JOURNAL

  (Entry, October 28th)

  Sometimes I start to believe my good press.

  In my mind, late at night, before sleep claims me, I actually think of myself as the Caped Crusader, the Dark Knight, and all those ridiculous names the tabloids give me. I am fast and sure and perfect. The world’s greatest acrobat, the world’s greatest detective. There’s nothing I can’t do.

  Then I awake and the world sets me straight. Creeps like the Joker step out of the light and into the shadows.

  The Joker escaped from Arkham Asylum two weeks ago, and I’ve been looking for him without success. Waiting for him to strike. Dreading whatever craziness he might have planned this time out.

  And last night it happened.

  Judge Hadley’s dead.

  I wasn’t there when Hadley died, but Jim told me what he saw, and I can imagine how it must have been for the Judge last night. He’s walking along, feeling all right, fresh from a quick dip in the pool, then he becomes aware of the trouble as his feet turn to goo in his shoes. He falls down and flops, his ribs poke through his skin, turn to paste, and flow away. His heart and lungs push through his chest, throb inside his robe, go to mush. His brain oozes out of his ears like oily oatmeal, then there are no ears and no skull, just a blob of white and gray.

  The mess pops and gurgles momentarily, makes the robe in the midst of the puddle pulse as if full of rats. Then all movement ceases. The moonlight catches the goo and a little moon-made rainbow rises above it. A white-gloved hand reaches out and drops a party hat into the mess. Painted on the hat is the green-haired, red-lipped, white-skinned face of the Joker.

  And the Joker laughs.

  Spare me a vivid imagination.

  Here’s how I found out. It was yesterday, just after noon. Gordon’s office.

  Jim got word to me, and I went over there, sat in a chair with a loose spring, and looked at him. It was a bad view. His clothes were rumpled, his face unshaven. The corners of his mouth drooped like crumbling masonry. His hands clutched the arms of his chair as if he were strangling small throats. There was a drop of sweat dangling from the end of his nose. His forehead was wet. The room wasn’t hot.

  I didn’t feel so good myself. Felt small and worn and ancient inside my cape and cowl. Even a little foolish. It had been that kind of year. My last case, the mess with Subway Jack, had taken a lot out of me. And now Gordon had something to say to me, and I knew what it was before he said it.

  “The Joker.”

  Gordon got a tape recorder out of his desk drawer, took a tape from the plastic evidence bag, slipped it into the machine, said, “Listen.”

  (click)

  Well, pilgrim, that old wind is howlin’ around the asylum, and the rain is hittin’ the nuthouse walls like whips. Lightnin’s popping outside the windows like six guns, but it isn’t botherin’ me, nosirree. Day I get bothered, well, that’ll be the day, pilgrim.

  I’m sittin’ here lookin’ just the way Batman made me. White-faced, green-haired and red-lipped. No Stetson. No pony. Sittin’ here in the hoosegow, right where Batman put me. And I been looking at the rain and lightnin’ through barred windows. And I’ll tell you, Mr., I’m tired of it. And know what, d
arned if I don’t get me a plan to break out of this here hoosgow, like in the cowboy pictures.

  Gonna break out and ride away.

  Hear me, Sheriff Batman?

  Pretty soon there’s gonna be a showdown at high noon, and you and me and are gonna slap leather, and when the smoke clears, you and your bat ears are gonna be laying in the middle of the big trail like so much dust.

  Okay, that’s all for the John Wayne impersonation. I also do a mean Humphrey Bogart and the best Sidney Poitier in the world, outside of Sid himself.

  But now, I’m going to talk like the Joker. And pardners, the Joker’s wild.

  Wild as Dorothy’s tornado. Madder than a liberal democrat with a budget cut.

  And guess what, Bats? By the time you hear this, I won’t be in Arkham Asylum anymore. In point of fact, I’m not there now. There’s no wind and rain and lightning outside my window. That’s just a bad memory, but one I wanted to share with you.

  What I’m saying here, Cowl Head, is all the world’s a stage and Heavens to Mergatroit, I’ve gone stage left on the Asylum. I’m in a new suit under a new spotlight. Crime’s spotlight.

  (long pause)

  I’m calmer now. Shall we talk?

  Good. Let us call this Joker Notes. Let us call this the first serial installment. Let us call it a brief history of my parentage. Let us call it a game. Let us call it entertainment and a clue.

  (pause)

  My. We’re calling it lots of things, aren’t we?

  Okay. Here goes.

  I was born in a small vat of chemicals. My mother and father was Batman. He’s strict.

  I’d like to talk about him. I’ll keep it short and sour. I hope to kill the sonofabitch.

  But there are others that come first. I’m starting at the bottom of my hate list and working to the top. If you were a movie, Batman, you’d be five stars. And I’ll save the best fun for last.

  And Gordon, I give you four stars—make you fourth on the list. Don’t be disappointed you didn’t get top billing. You’re an ache in my heart, but Batman, he’s a pain in my soul.

  Right now I dream of Judge Hadley. You remember Hadley, don’t you? He’s the one said I was mad that last time and that I should never be released from Arkham Asylum, no matter what. He called me homicidal. Wrecked. Ruined. He made fun of my wardrobe. He’s one on a list of five, and I think I’ve made it clear where you two are on that list. But for now, let me say I’m drawing a line through Hadley, and I’ll add this:

  Check his house, out by the nice, heated pool. And don’t get him on your shoes.

  (maniacal laughter and a series of coughs)

  Excuse me. Almost choked.

  Now I’ll find a couch and lie down. Relax. Analyze my life. Next time, I’ll shoot the works.

  (click)

  “The tape came in about three hours ago,” Jim said. “No one knows how it was delivered, or who delivered it, but it was found at the front desk. We’ve theorized someone dressed as a cop brought it in during a shift change. The Joker or one of his thugs, probably.

  “When I heard the tape, I got some blue coats and we went out to Hadley’s, and it was quite a mess. It looked like an army had puked out there by the pool. All that was left besides the goop was his robe, swimming trunks, and house shoes. You see, Hadley always took a late-night swim before bed. Told me he started doing it when his wife died, because after that, he couldn’t sleep unless he was worn out. Why, he has a heated pool, so he can do it year round.”

  “It’s the sort of thing the Joker would know,” I said. “Leave it to him to have all the right bad connections.”

  “Yeah,” Jim said. “He’s probably had a better crime business and information center going from the asylum than some crooks got on the street. He’s got enough money stashed away to pay for the contacts and to get things done. Anyway, one of the boys spotted something in the bottom of the pool, a gold coin about the size of a half dollar. We fished it out with a pole and a scoop. It had the Joker’s face on it. Lab boys say it has pin-size holes in it, and when it hit the water, it released a colorless, odorless chemical that mixed with the water and turned it into an acid. It won’t do a thing to cloth, plastic, metal, any of that. Just works on flesh and bones. It’s major bad business. Stuff in that coin—and it was just a few drops—could have dissolved a killer whale and had enough left over to mush-out an aquarium full of fat guppies. That’s it. You’ve got the low down and you’ve heard the tapes. Any thoughts?”

  “Just one,” I said. “Wish that tape had been three minutes of music.”

  Fifteen minutes later, I’m in the so-called Batmobile, roaring along past fine downtown skyscrapers with copper-colored glass reflecting sunlight bright as a promise from God; buildings with show windows full of orange and black crepe paper and ceramic pumpkins and holiday floral arrangements and mannequins decked out in masks and costumes that make them witches, Casper the Ghost, the Werewolf, the Frankenstein Monster, Dracula . . . or, Batman; darting through thick traffic, past gooseneck pedestrians trying to catch a view of me. as if they thought by will alone their eyes could cut through the smoke-colored windshield of the Batmobile and the sight of me were truly worth something.

  Then I’m roaring out, into the older sections of Gotham where trash blows across the streets like urban tumbleweeds and sad eyes look out of dirt-colored apartment doorways and dust-filmed windows; apartments whose tenants are not only people, but cat-sized rats and thumb-sized roaches and enough despair to put on pants and take a fast walk; sections where in one sense it is Halloween everyday, minus the festive.

  I drive down streets I have no need to travel. Drive down them because they put me in touch with what I do and who I am; drive past the wreck of the once majestic Gotham Theater, formerly at the center of downtown, now part of the urban dead, and I turn my head to look . . . and review my past in an instant, as if it is all inside my head on a very short reel of black-and-white film.

  My mental projector rolls and the film is fast and silent with dialogue cards. There is a SERIES OF SHOTS where I, Bruce Wayne, am young again, and inside the Gotham Theater with my parents, sitting in a middle row between them, sharing a bag of popcorn, watching the rereleased classic, The Mark of Zorro.

  Scene OVERLAPS AND DISSOLVES to me and my parents taking a shortcut home, foolishly walking down the alley out back of the theater.

  There is one streetlight in the alley. Its light is dirty amber and is currently the only true color introduced into this otherwise black-and-white scenario.

  OVERHEAD VIEW. The three Waynes look like ants crawling through filthy maple syrup.

  CAMERA SWOOPS DOWN, goes CLOSE on a MAN coming out of the shadows. He’s carrying a revolver, wearing a slouch hat, oversized coat, and too-long pants. He walks like a man with a monkey on his back.

  He points his revolver at the three of us, opens his mouth, and a DIALOGUE CARD fills the screen. It reads: GIVE ME YOUR GOODS OR I’LL SHOOT.

  Card goes away. My dad steps protectively in front of my mom. Man panics, FIRES. (Gun Burst is BRIGHT ORANGE.) Dad goes down.

  Man FIRES again. (Another burst of ORANGE.) Mom’s pearls take the shot before her throat does. The necklace snaps. The pearls pop away, hit the alley, and bounce in all directions.

  Mom falls.

  CAMERA FOLLOWS as Man flees into the darkness and the darkness closes like a mouth and we DISSOLVE TO CLOSE UP of me on my knees between my dead parents, my fists bunched into little white knots, my face lifted to the streetlight as if it is some god I can appeal to.

  The COLOR of the streetlight becomes more distinct, more GOLDEN. It highlights the tears on my cheeks, makes them look like cold, wet gems.

  Hold a beat.

  Streetlight DIMS gradually, and—

  —FADE TO BAT-WING BLACK

  My mental projector clicks off and the reel automatically resets for another time, and I’m alone in my skull with gray space aplenty. I turn my head back to the street and drive on bet
ween worn-out, soulless buildings as if they are ancient mountain ranges and the car is a dark cloud full of thunder, rain, and lightning, going get-up-and-get-it toward the graying horizon of a bad October day. And inside that cloud is me, a single drop of captured rain, on a course I can’t control, ready to spill at nature’s decree.

  (Entry, October 29th)

  Today, I come to you to write that I’m a failure and a fool.

  Here’s the news, straight from the October twenty-seventh edition of the Gotham Gazette. I’ll paste it on the page.

  FAMED PSYCHIATRIST AND

  POODLE DISSOLVED

  Marilyn Chute, famed doctor of psychiatry, noted for her work with such infamous psychopaths as the Joker, was victim to a bizarre and unexplained murder yesterday morning. She was found partially dissolved along with her poodle, FiFi.

  The body was discovered at approximately ten o’clock by her day maid, Tuppence Calhoun. Mrs. Calhoun said she let herself in with her key, and when she didn’t see Dr. Chute, assumed she had gone shopping or out to answer a call from her office.

  In preparing to clean the tub, Mrs. Calhoun discovered the shower was on and that the tub was full of a gelatinous mess containing a rhinestone dog collar, a shower cap, a mass of blond hair, white fur, pink dog toenails, and a purple party hat with a clown’s face on it. Mrs. Calhoun is recorded as saying, “It was a damn silly way to die, wasn’t it? Whatever happened to stabbing and shooting people?”

  Police have refused to release details of this peculiar case, but Police Commissioner Gordon is calling Dr. Chute’s death murder, and the Joker, who recently escaped from Arkham Asylum, is suspected. He was under the psychiatric care of Dr. Chute.

  Critics of Commissioner Gordon and Batman, claim Dr. Chute was an obvious target, but was overlooked by both the police and Batman, who many criminologists claim, has been much overrated as a detective.

  Dr. Chute is survived by a sister, Carolyn Holt of New Jersey, and a brother . . .

  The Joker told me what he was going to do, and who he was going to do it to, and I failed to see it. Now Dr. Chute is dead and something of a joke, even to her housekeeper, and, of course, that is the Joker’s way.