Zach Mendel is a dusky-skinned fence never seen without a mint jammed into
his mouth. He drives a large iron car made in a large iron town. The car
prowls along the Riverfront, headed for a meeting he wants to go to and
another he doesn't. You have to kno w the right people, he muses. Get the
money set up in -advance- of the merchandise. And since people are waking
back up, that means the merchandise is coming. Lots of it. He -can't- be
the first to get some, can he? And besides, it's not like hot comics are
that hard to move, even with people looking for them.... 

Two stories above the big sedan, a figure flits from rooftop to rooftop, a
line cast across the intervening spaces of chimney pipes, crosswalks, and
other brooding architecture. It maintains its pace, staying no more than a
block distant from Mendel's car. A boy sitting on a fire escape gapes as
the blue-black shadow swings past his vista, then out of view behind a
half gutted sign for a now long closed bakery. 

The car eases to a stop at a deserted T-intersection along the slow-moving
fetid river glistening dark in the setting sun. Zach taps his fingers on
the armrest of the car, not noticing the figure stalking him. He looks
around at the neighborhood with a bright-eyed eager hungry look, like he
was ten years younger in a neighborhood ten times better, the look of a
man on his way up. He turns on his radio: through the static he can hear a
dismal news show describing ice cream workers on strike for more security
against the Joker. He says 'ugh', and changes the channel to a crackly
distant oldies station, where Roger Miller croons about being the king of
the road. 

The shadow stalking Mendel fades from alley to alley. It paces slowly
towards the side of his stopped car, kneeling. Gloved hands work quickly
and silently on the back door latch, and the eeriely quiet Caped Crusader
slips into the back seat, out of Mendel's view.

Mendel turns up the radio. "No cars, no phones, no pets...I *CRCZZKT* got
no cigarettes..." wails Miller. Mendel grins and eases the car into gear.
He punches in the cigarette lighter with a KCHUNK, fumbling in his pocket
for a dog-eared hand-rolled cigarette.

"You know, Mendel...you should really try to cut down." The voice seems
dislocated amidst the static-filled tune and rumble of the engine. 

Mendel freezes for only a moment, then twists round to grab down under his
seat, the car swerves, not going fast enough to skid, into the other,
unoccupied and deserted lane. Miller sings "It takes *CRZZT* pushing
brooms..." The cigarette thumps from Mendel's open mouth onto the floor.

A pair of baleful white slanted eyes appear in the fence's rear view
mirror. A hand reaches out to grasp onto Mendel's wandering arm, while
another moves across towards the emergency brake. 

Mendel's arm comes up with a small, stubby wide-barelled black revolver
just as Batman's fist closes around his arm. Behind his back, the
emergency brake is just under the Batman's fingertips...the car suddenly
THDUMPs up onto the curb, making the pair sway and shake. Miller sings
"*CRZZCKT* by twelve two bit room..." 

Batman glares out the front windshield as the car swerves a bit more. He
applies more pressure with his thumb and forefinger on Mendel's bicep,
gritting his teeth. He tries for the emergency brake again with his free
arm, watching the scenery race past...and possible towards...the swerving
vehicle. 

The other wheels of the car THUMP over the curb at just about the time the
front fender starts scraping against the guardrail of the river. Sparks
fly, the screeching hideous sound of metal on metal blares out, and the
emergency brake engages with a CRRRUNCH of gears. Mendel tries in vain to
swing the gun around. It goes off with a deafening BOOM in the car, the
bullet tearing through the roof. He drops it a moment later, fear clouding
his features. The car slams to a halt and his face smacks into the
dashboard, splitting his lip and bloodying his nose. 

Batman kicks a door open, and paces around to the driver's side. He walks
around the side of the smoking car, and punches a hole in the windshield.
As the glass spatters around his black hands, he heaves Mendel out of the
driver's seat, and stands on the hood. He turns to hold Mendel over the
railing. "See what I mean?"

Mendel shrieks as the glass cuts him, dragged through the windshield. 
Miller croons brokenly, "I'm a -maaan- of means *CRZKCT* no means...king
of the road." The cigarette lighter pops out with a THUMP. But nobody
picks it up. Mendel tries to look collected, but is bleeding too much and
is too close to hysterical to pull it off. "What you want?" he finally
babbles. "What you _want_?" 

Batman looks down with the expression days of chasing the Joker has put on
his face; pale, worn, and angry. "You were on your way to do business,
Mendel, weren't you?" He speaks barely above a whisper. 

Mendel babbles, "So what? Huh? So what? I didn't do nothing! I swear! I
didn't do nothing! It wasn't me!" 

Batman's brings his clenched fists closer together as he holds onto
Mendel's collar. "...Don't lie, Mendel. Neither of us have the time for
that." He makes a point of shaking the crook a little as the murky river
waters lazily roil under his dangling feet. "You're going to tell me who
you were going to meet, what you were going to buy, where you were going
to meet, and how you got in contact with them...then, you're going to tell
me everything you know about the Joker and his gang..." 

Mendel laughs a little. "You still chasing him?" He stops laughing when he
sees Batman's look. "I don't know nothing. Okay, I'm going to meet this
guy, he's going out to California, he's going to sell this stuff for me,
all right? Okay, no big deal, right? Ha. Yeah? Put me down, man, I got
rights!" he whines. 

Batman glares. "What stuff, Mendel?"

Mendel stutters, "Well, see, there was this guy, he said he hadn't gotten
paid in a while, he needed some money, see, so he brung me these..." He
swallows hard, "These comic books..." He mumbles this last. 

Batman pauses. "Amazing Comics?", he asks, gravely.

Mendel looks sick. He spits out a little gobbet of blood onto his chin.
"Yeah." he mumbles, knowing he's in big big trouble. 

Batman tilts his head in a newly contemptous look at Mendel. "In the car?"
He motions vaguely to the battered automobile. 

Mendel coughs hard. "No, unh-unh...I mailed it to the guy's PO box in
Cali..." He raises a hand limply to his nose. "Hey, man, how was I to
know, huh? I ain't got any TV, I dunno whass going on." he babbles again,
trying this line on for size. 

Batman lip curls.

Batman says "...I want names, Mendel..the source and the destination..."

Mendel coughs. "The guy in Cali, I don' know his real name, out there they
call him Vin...like the baseball announcer?...I was gonna meet him, don't
know where he'll go now...the other guy..." He pauses..."Aw hell, you
don't -know-?" His eyes light with a new fear. "I'm the -first-?" 

Batman slants his gaze. "...the first to get his hands on the Joker's hot
property? Maybe so, Mendel. That makes you an extra special delivery for
the cops. And for Blackgate." 

Mendel coughs some more blood up. He curses, dangling helplessly. He looks
down at the river, as if gauging his chances. The river looks impassively
back up at him, as if asking him frankly, to try them. He mumbles
something quietly, then repeats it of his own volition. "Franky Jefferson.
He said he was supposed to get paid at the end of the job but he already
owed a lot of money at the beginning." 

Batman pages: Franky Jefferson; ring any bells?

You paged Batman with 'Thug. Could work for Joker, he's certainly scummy
enough.'. 

Batman says "...Where'd you last talk to Jefferson?"

"In the alley behind Noonan's," Mendel coughs, then musters up a tough
look somehow. 

Batman swings Mendel around, away from the railing. He takes a pair of
Batcuffs from seemingly nowhere, and snaps them open. Cuffing one of
Mendel's wrists to the railing, he leans in close to his face. "Maybe they
won't make an example out of you when you show up at the police station.
Maybe they won't when you meet yourcellmate. But...whatever happens...I'll
be watching." A fling of a batarang and a pull of a rope later, the Batman
ascends back into the receding light of Gotham's evening skyline. 

Mendel spits blood on the ground and looks over at his car, a dozen feet
and a thousand miles away. He curses softly again and rubs the blood off
his face as best he can...