Clockwork Redux

Chapter Two

Batman: He must have friends!

Sal Maroni: Friends? Have you met this guy?

-The Dark Knight

----

He has no idea what to do with her.

All good criminal masterminds are totally ruthless. He knows this from the old Saturday morning cartoons-the best bad guys, the pioneers, the visionaries, are the ones who show no mercy. He wants to bring Gotham to her worn-out knees, and Taylor is one of the old slut's children. It would be easy-okay, doable-to catch her, slit her thoat, and push her out the broken window.

It'd take weeks for the street cleaners to wash away the sidewalk splatter.

But he's not really sure if that's the direction he wants to go in. This is all so new to him-a fresh paradigm, a dizzying ground-level view of wrongdoing-and he wants to start small. Get used to it. The dime-store greasepaint still doesn't feel right, even though he's had it on for three weeks straight.

Plus, the gangs kill kids-only sometimes, but the point still stands. Right now, he defines himself by what he's not, and at the top of that list is a joyless, dumbass criminal businessman. Jesus. How could you stand to make a career out of it, anyway?

So, he leaves Taylor alone. He feeds her, but only when he's hungry himself. She never complains, or asks him outright, but every few hours she slinks into his line of vision, her eyes slitted in expectation. Eventually, he throws down the map of Gotham with a sigh  and goes out to steal food. Pizzas and footlongs are easy pickings; takeaway deliverymen can be held at gunpoint, and sent back to the restaurant with stained pants and a joker card laid flat on the passenger seat.

He can't tell how she feels about him, because she's mostly not there. She hides-under beds, in the closet, in the stamp-sized bathroom-or she mumbles stories to herself on the sofa, staring at the smashed TV. It's like taking care of a feral cat. He's not sure if kids are supposed to be this quiet, but it suits him. She gives him the peace he needs to put some polish the Plan.

He wants to pull a bank heist.

The guys he's promised a share of the spoils to have no problem with that. They've gotten away with armed robbery before, they say. They only have concerns about the time, date, and bank he's chosen. No-one does a job at noon on Saturday, apparently, and no-one hits Gotham Lending & Holdings either.

The one reason they're still with him is because he's entertaining. Every time they gather at the apartment to discuss the Plan, he has the maddening sense of being mocked when he's the only guy talking. He wants to do something about it, but he can't pull anything off without them. He knows it, and they know he knows it.

So he keeps his tone civil, and he imagines them sniggering behind their hands when his back is turned, and he swallows his poison.

One night-when they're all gone, not even bothering to hide their smirks after his rambling, desperate attempt at explaining Why We Are Robbing The City's Biggest Bank In Broad Dayight-he sits on the battered sofa and puts his head back.

He is penniless. He is exhausted. He is furious and humiliated and lonely.

His heart pumps a shot of hot, rage-slicked blood to his head and he can't take it anymore. He just can't. He has to get up, has to move around, has to DESTROY THIS PIECE OF SHIT HOVEL AND ALL THE FUCKING WORTHLESS CRAP LYING AROUND INSIDE OF IT-

Taylor appears on the lintel in time to see him put his foot through the TV, right through the plastic casing. He swings straight from his hip, wrenches his foot from the wreckage and does it again. And again. And again.