Batman - Mask of the Phantasm Read online

  The Dark Knight of Gotham City is back in this exciting new novel based on the hit film

  MASK OF THE PHANTASM

  B A T M A N

  All across Gotham City, mobsters are dying—murdered. At the scene of each killing, witnesses see a mysterious masked figure in a long dark cloak. The word spreads through the city like wildfire . . . Batman has crossed the line, become a criminal in the name of fighting crime. And suddenly the Dark Knight is hunted by the very lawmen he once risked his life to assist.

  While Batman searches for the masked murderer of Gotham’s crime lords, an old flame unexpectedly reenters his life. She is the first woman Bruce Wayne ever loved—and the only person who could make him consider giving up his life as a crime fighter. Now, as the mysterious figure dubbed the Phantasm spreads terror throughout Gotham City, Batman must decide whether his rediscovered love is worth fighting for—even if it means hanging up his cape and cowl for good.

  Batman threw himself forward into the cloud of mist and found nothing but shadows. He gave a choking cough as smoke from the blazing exhibits swirled down to mix with the dissipating mist. He stumbled back through the charred debris. Then the burning globe exploded with a roar, sending out a wall of intense heat that broke over him like a wave. He flung his arms up to protect his face and took a blind step backward.

  The ground opened up beneath him . . .

  BATMAN: MASK OF THE PHANTASM

  A Bantam Book / January 1994

  Batman and all related characters, slogans, and indicia are trademarks of DC Comics

  Produced by RHK Creative Services

  All Rights Reserved.

  Copyright © 1993 by DC Comics.

  Cover art copyright © 1993 by DC Comics.

  ISBN: 0-553-56581-8

  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, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  For

  Julia Smith

  Radiant Beauty, Valued Friend

  and Potter Extraordinaire

  and for

  Cortney Skinner

  (because he felt it was time

  for another dedication)

  ONE

  Night was settling its dark cloak over Gotham City. The last colorful streaks of sunset had vanished, and tiny stars shone dimly through a high haze compounded of moisture and pollution. A few wisps of pale cloud clung like tattered garments to the tallest skyscrapers.

  On a grinning stone gargoyle that protruded like an unplanned outcropping near the summit of a man-made spire of concrete and steel, a lone figure stood looking upward at the blurred points of light.

  The man was garbed in the colors of the night and the night accepted his presence. When he turned from the stars and leaned forward on the ugly stone head to stare at the city below, his motions were barely perceptible, lost in the shadows that surrounded him.

  Traffic moved fitfully in the maze of streets and alleyways below him. The business districts which had hummed with commerce during the day were nearly silent now, their towering office buildings dark, while certain other sections of the city were just shaking themselves awake. The bookie joints and casinos, the dance halls and all-night movie houses moved to their own feverish rhythm, a twitch and a jangle unrelated to the ordered pulse of the day. Slitted eyes searched the sprawl of garish lights and blinking neon, coming to rest on a tall, well-lit building whose roof bore the outline of a thirty-foot cutout of a woman, posed provocatively with one hand on her hip and the other behind her head.

  The man reached behind him for something resting on the gargoyle’s broad skull. His gloved hands made adjustments to an oddly shaped construction of thin metal struts and panels of dark fabric. Then he rose to his feet, took a deep breath, and launched himself out into the space between the buildings. For a moment he was lost, invisible among the shadowed canyons.

  Seconds later, a black-winged shape swooped out of the darkness, falling with the exquisite control of a hunting bird until it landed silently on the roof of the Shady Lady Casino, just behind the well-turned left ankle of the seductively smiling giant caricature.

  The dark-clad man released himself from the glider and straightened slowly, his eyes searching the shadows. His boots crunched softly as he prowled the rooftop, his cowled head cocked in a listening attitude. A rectangular skylight was set into the roof. The man chose a particular spot not far from the angled panes of glass and removed a small device from a hidden compartment in his belt. There was a muffled report as he fired a black dart into the surface of the roof. The portion of the dart protruding from the tarmac resembled a slender antenna.

  The man pulled an earphone from his belt and held it to the side of his black hood.

  “Go ahead, boys, take a good close look . . .” said a gravelly voice in his ear. The man in the black mask smiled a small grim smile.

  The Shady Lady Casino occupied the first three stories of the recently renovated structure once home to the Gotham City Venetian Blind Laundry and now known as the Hotel Grand Imperator.

  The penthouse suite of the Grand Imperator was both plush and tawdry, from its gold lamé wallpaper to the sunken entertainment pit where purple velour cushions surrounded a wide-screen TV. The main room of the suite featured a conference table embellished with carvings of mermaids and a pseudomarble fountain gurgling at the center of a sea of scarlet carpeting. To facilitate business transactions, a fully stocked bar covered one entire wall of the suite.

  The current occupant of the Grand Imperator’s penthouse was one Charlton “Chuckie” Sol, a squat, pale-skinned man whose involvement with organized crime stretched back over thirty-five of his fifty-odd years of life.

  At the moment, Sol was standing at the head of the conference table, a medium-sized briefcase open on the table in front of him. Four men sat at the table, the smoke from their cigars hanging like a blue veil beneath the gold cupids of the chandelier.

  “Go ahead,” Sol said again to the four men seated at the table. He tapped the side of the briefcase. “Dive in!” The briefcase was filled with neat stacks of hundred-dollar bills.

  One by one the men leaned in. Each withdrew a stack of bills.

  “Jeez, Mr. Sol.” The hoodlum closest to the head of the table squinted at one of the hundreds, rubbing its surface with his blunt fingertip. “I can’t tell the difference between this and a real one.”

  Sol beamed in satisfaction. “Course ya can’t,” he rasped. “You’d need one a’ them nuclear microscopes.” Thirty-five years of smoke-filled rooms had left Chuckie Sol with a voice that approximated the sound of a cement mixer badly in need of an overhaul. “It’s identical right down to ol’ Ben Franklin’s chin stubble.” He held out his hand and collected the stacks from his henchmen, counting silently under his breath. He carefully replaced the last bill and stepped back from the table, one eye on the briefcase as he crossed to the bar and poured himself a glass of amber liquid. There was a slight flicker of movement in the darkness beyond the large window that looked out over Gotham. Sol returned to the table and scowled at his henchmen, his manner businesslike.

  “I want the dough laundered through the casino at a half million a week. Three-quarters of a mil by March. Anybody got a problem with that?”

  The answer came with a crash of glass as the huge picture window shattered inward. The thugs stumbled back from the table, arms raising instinctively to shield their faces as a dark figure swung into the room o
n a slender line.

  Chuckie Sol gasped in astonishment. The man who landed lightly on his feet on the glass-strewn carpet was tall and strongly muscled, dressed in a form-fitting uniform of gray with black boots and gloves. A segmented gold belt was clasped around his flat middle, and a golden emblem glinted from his broad chest, where it framed the stylized image of a black bat suspended in flight. A cowl that rose into two stiff points and a long, scalloped black cape echoed the motif of a winged denizen of the night. The face beneath the black mask was grim.

  “The Bat!” Sol yelled, an edge of hysteria cracking in his rough voice. “Nail ’im!”

  The four hoodlums reached for their guns. A pair of small black objects appeared in the masked man’s hand and went whirring across the room. Two of the thugs on opposite sides of the conference table cried out and clutched their hands as their pistols went flying. The largest of the crooks stuffed his own gun back in his pocket with a contemptuous snort and lumbered toward the intruder, ham-sized fists ready to swing.

  Batman ducked easily beneath the first punch. His own black-gloved fist rocketed toward the thug’s lantern jaw. As the big man staggered back, the Dark Knight delivered an uppercut that propelled the crook onto the conference table and sent him sliding down its length, empty bottles and half-filled ashtrays flying off to either side.

  Chuckie Sol swooped in to yank the briefcase out of his hireling’s glide path, snapping it shut in a smooth motion as he tucked it under his arm.

  Both of the men who had been disarmed earlier had retrieved their weapons. They jockeyed for a clear shot as the fourth man bobbed and weaved toward Batman. The Dark Knight shook his head reprovingly. “You guys just don’t get it, do you?” he said. As the nearest man took a swing at him, he leaped to one side, reached inside his cape, and sent a third black batarang whirring past his sparring partner toward his other prey. The bat-shaped missile knocked the gun from one crook’s hand, ricocheted across the table, and struck the shorter man a glancing blow on the side of the head. As the little man reeled from the impact, Batman grabbed him and flipped him through the air to land on top of his partner, who was kneeling to grope for his weapon. The two crashed backward into a display case filled with small glass statuettes of famous ecdysiasts.

  The fourth man had raced around to the head of the conference table. Now he pulled his own gun and aimed at the gray-and-black figure. “Don’t worry, guys,” he growled to his confederates. “I can’t miss at this range.”

  The first bullet whined an inch from the bat mask’s pointed left ear. Abruptly the Dark Knight lunged forward, ducked low, and disappeared under the long table. The second shot punched a fist-sized hole between two mermaids in the expensive mahogany. Panic growing in his eyes, the crook fired shot after shot into the dark wood. Batman braced his shoulders against the underside of the massive table, then straightened suddenly, heaving the table into the air. The crook stared in frozen wonderment at the slab of wood as it hung poised, then toppled down on top of him with a shuddering crash.

  Chuckie Sol had begun edging toward the doorway as he watched the commencement of battle. Sensing the imminent defeat of his men when the Dark Knight threw his first batarangs, Sol had clutched the briefcase to his chest and bolted out into the corridor.

  As Batman turned toward the door, a heavy hand fell on his shoulder from behind. The Dark Knight turned with a tsk of annoyance, lightly sidestepping a vicious right. His eyes still on his destination, he elbowed the large thug in his ample midsection, grasped his jacket at collar and hem, and sent the man flying toward the nearest patch of gold wallpaper. The hoodlum struck a portrait of a scantily clad actress with platinum hair, dropped heavily onto a low bookshelf lined with cheap crime novels, and rolled onto the carpeted floor with a moan. Batman made a quick survey of the room.

  Finding no one else in any condition to follow him, he exited the suite in pursuit of the runaway Sol.

  TWO

  Chuckie Sol dashed across the open-air bridge that connected the penthouse level of the Grand Imperator with the top story of the neighboring parking garage. He was puffing with exertion by the time he reached the shadowy cavern of the garage. He paused at the entranceway to look back over his shoulder. No sign of the Dark Knight. He took a moment to catch his breath, then ducked inside.

  His car was parked in the lot reserved for special customers on the roof of the garage. He searched the gloom for the nearest stairwell and took off toward it, the briefcase banging against his thigh as he loped across the concrete floor.

  Then he saw it.

  Sol skidded to a halt and looked frantically to either side. There had to be other stairs!

  About fifty yards in front of him, directly between him and the stairwell to the roof, stood a shadowy figure in a long dark cloak. Swirls of smoky mist surrounded the figure, clinging to it in dark tendrils as it began to move slowly toward him.

  “Chuckie Sol . . .”

  Sol blanched. The voice had a weird, computer-altered quality to it that sent a chill up the gangster’s backbone. “Batman!” he cried, whipping out his gun. He fired five shots in rapid succession.

  The bullets seemed to have no effect, disappearing harmlessly one by one into the swirls of mist that obscured the figure. The apparition continued to move toward him, gliding smoothly as if floating on the mist that surrounded it. Its ragged black cloak fluttered behind it.

  “Your angel of death awaits you, Sol,” the menacing voice intoned. The gangster’s eyes grew wide as the cloaked figure passed under one of the garage’s dim lights and he saw the pale skull mask that rode upon its shoulders. “Gaze upon your death mask . . .”

  Sol’s pistol clicked on empty chambers. “You ain’t the Bat!” he grated. “Why’re you—”

  With a sudden rush of speed, the dark figure glided in, raised its right arm from beneath its cloak, and knocked the gun out of his hand. Sol gaped as he watched the shiny metal spin across the concrete floor. The pistol had been neatly sliced in two.

  His eyes darted back to the black figure. A wickedly curved, foot-long blade glinted at the end of the black-draped right arm. Sol cowered back in terror as the apparition raised its gloved left arm and backhanded him. The gangster went flying, the briefcase dropping from his hand as he crashed back against a concrete pylon. He slumped to the ground, feeling a warm trickle of blood beginning at the corner of his lip.

  “Who—what are you?” He scrambled to his feet as the dark figure glided toward him. “Whaddya want from me?”

  With unexpected strength, the skull-headed figure grabbed him by the lapels and hoisted him into the air, slamming his back and shoulders against the pylon. Sol cried out in pain and fright.

  The two stood nose to nose in the dimness, the sharp inward-curving jut of the skull’s gaping nostrils pressing against Sol’s skin. “I want you, Chuckie-boy!” With a twist of its left arm and a mighty heave, the apparition hurled the gangster into the air.

  Sol screamed shrilly as he flew through the darkened garage, tumbling over the hood and trunk of a pair of parked cars before crashing heavily against the wall behind them. Across the garage, the cloaked figure wheeled about in eerie slow motion and began to glide toward the moaning gangster.

  Metal glinted in the shadows as the figure neared him, once again extending the curved blade at the end of its right arm. Sol huddled back against the wall, closing his eyes.

  Suddenly tires screeched. The grinning death’s head turned in the direction of the sound, the shadowy figure melting back into the darkness as a dark green roadster flashed around the far corner of the ramp on its way to the exit several floors below. As its taillights vanished around the next curve, the dark figure re-emerged from the shadows.

  The gangster was gone. The skull mask lifted at the faint sound of footsteps, scanning the garage with its dark eye sockets.

  Several yards away, Chuckie Sol raced up the stairwell, his precious briefcase again tucked under one arm. His face was bruised, hi
s collar bloody. He breathed in shallow gasps.

  Sol mounted the top step and dashed out onto the roof lot. He paused to gaze up in relief at the stars shimmering in the hazy sky, then hurried on.

  Unseen in the shadows behind him, a black-cloaked figure began to rise silently through the twisting stairwell, dark mist billowing beneath it.

  Half a dozen cars were parked on the roof. Sol puffed to the side of an expensive-looking silver sports car. He fumbled his keys out of his jacket pocket and unlocked the driver’s door. Heaving the battered case into the backseat, he slid behind the wheel. Sweat beaded his face. He slammed the door shut, jammed the key into the ignition, and jerked it to the right. The engine made a low, churning sound.

  Across the garage, a pale death’s head rose from the stairwell. The dark eye sockets surveyed the roof. The motor strained in the silver sports car as the cloaked figure glided toward it in a cloud of mist.

  Sol was gnawing at his lower lip. As he gave the key its third turn, he glanced into the rearview mirror and saw the approaching figure. He made a strangled sound. Then the engine caught.

  Sol gave a sob of relief. He snapped the headlights on, slipped the car into gear, and backed out of the parking place. With a grunt of triumph, he wheeled the car around and gunned the motor, speeding toward the dark apparition. When the front bumper was less than a yard away, the cloaked figure seemed to contract, mist coagulating around it. Then it leaped directly up into the air. A second later it landed on the hood of the sports car with a surprisingly substantial sound. Sol jerked back in surprise as the blade-wielding right arm drew back, then plunged forward into the windshield. Glass shattered inward. The gloved left hand reached for Chuckie Sol’s throat through the jagged hole.

  Before the clawing fingers could close on his flesh, Sol wrenched the steering wheel sharply to the left. The silver sports car swerved and the dark figure was hurled from the hood. Sol hit the gas pedal.