Batman 2 - Batman Returns (3 page)

The Salvation Army guy frowned as he saw that the second bill was a single. Pretty smart Santa. It didn’t matter, though, because the cameras had moved on to follow Max, Chip, and the Mayor. The Salvation Army Santa was already old news.

His son tugged at his sleeve. “Watch your step, Dad. It’s pretty grotesque.”

Max looked ahead to the river of melting sludge that his son pointed to. Chip was right. There was some incredible filth in this town. Max redirected his steps to the dry patch on the far side of the sewer grate.

Max frowned. When his eyes had followed the path of the sludge into the sewer, he almost thought he saw something down below. Not a rat, that’s the sort of thing he’d expect. It was much bigger than a rat. No, it looked more like somebody holding an umbrella.

An umbrella?

Max shrugged off the thought. He was on top of the world. What did it matter to him what—or who—lived in the sewer these days?

C
orn dog.

Selina looked at the Post-It notes tacked onto her computer, reminders that would help her fit in, help her to get ahead in the competitive world of Shreck Industries.

“Don’t ‘get’ jokes,” said one. Max didn’t like it when she got too clever.

“Save it for your diary,” read another. The upper echelon here at Shreck didn’t want to hear about her problems. In fact, they didn’t want to hear about anything except making money.

But none of the half-dozen notes in front of her got down to the basics of why she kept screwing up around here. If she could just get a grip on where she was falling short, if she could simply come up with that one golden rule she should remember so that Max and all his cronies would smile on her next time promotions came around.

But what did Max really want?

As soon as she asked herself the question, Selina knew the answer. It was so simple, a single word.

“Obey.”

Selina wrote it on a Post-It note and stuck it on top of the others.

Beyond her window, she could hear the cheering crowd, waiting for Max to give his speech. The phone rang. She let it. It was such a bad day she didn’t want to talk to anybody else.

She shouldn’t be here, anyway, she should be down below, shouldn’t she? But doing what? She frowned, sure she was forgetting something. Her eyes wandered over to the legal pad by the still-ringing phone.

There, on the bright yellow pad, in big block letters, was the word “SPEECH.” Max’s speech. The speech she had written, and then neglected to give to Max.

Oh, no. She was in for it this time.

“Darn.”
She hit herself on the forehead all over again.

Who was the biggest corn dog of all?

Max couldn’t let it go. He was not the sort of man to wait. He had to have the Mayor’s okay, and he wanted it now. If the Mayor wouldn’t give it to him the easy way, he’d just have to take it any way he could.

“I have enough signatures,” he said, still smiling, “from Shreck employees alone, to warrant a recall of a Mayor who isn’t doing his job.” He graciously motioned for the Mayor to precede him onto the dais. “That’s not a threat,” he added. “Just simple math.”

But the Mayor smiled back at him as he walked ahead. “Maybe,” he replied. “But you don’t have an issue, Max. Nor do you have a candidate.”

Max followed His Honor up onto the platform. Both received an obligatory peck upon the cheek from the Ice Princess before they took their places. The clock behind the podium read five minutes to seven. It was time to get this show moving.

Professional that he was, the Mayor grabbed the microphone. “The man who’s given this city so much is here, to keep giving,” His Honor announced to the masses. “Welcome Gotham’s own Santa Claus, Max Shreck!”

Max thought the Mayor was pushing it a little bit. Gotham’s own Santa Claus? There was such a thing as being too sincere. Still, there wasn’t a crowd in all of Gotham that the head of Shreck Industries couldn’t win over.

He opened his executive portfolio. There was nothing inside.

Chip frowned over his shoulder, that “Is there something wrong, Dad?” look on his face.

“Forgot,” he said to Chip between extremely clenched teeth.

“My,” he added.

“Speech,” he concluded.

“Remind me to take it out on Selina,” he amended as an afterthought.

Well, he’d been in worse fixes than this, and he’d get through this one, too. He’d just have to wing it.

His clenched teeth turned into a magnanimous smile as he faced the crowd. “Santa Claus? ’Fraid not. I’m just a poor little schmo who got a little lucky, and sue me if I want to give a little back.”

He waved to the pile of brightly wrapped packages between him and his son; the same sort of worthless trinkets the store gave out every year. He wasn’t even too sure what was in the boxes this year, except that it came from whatever items his store had overstocked.

“I only wish I could hand out more than just expensive baubles,” he continued effusively. “In this season of our Savior’s birth, I wish I could hand out World Peace, and Unconditional Love, wrapped in a big bow.”

Max wanted to give everyone a present, wrapped in a big bow?

“Oh, but you can,” murmured the squat man beneath the umbrella. “Oh, but you will.” He opened the ornate pocket watch that he held; a little rusted perhaps, but still elegant. And it kept perfect time.

Time? It was one minute till.

Time to close the umbrella.

A
lfred managed to skirt the last few happy shoppers as Max Shreck launched into his speech. The man was speaking absolute drivel, and the crowd was actually cheering him on. Oh, well, the butler thought, it probably had something to do with the spirit of Christmas. He supposed he could be a little more charitable as well. Still, he was happy to be leaving this madhouse before it became any worse.

He stopped to put the packages down so that he might unlock the door of the Rolls. It was at that moment that he realized there was a parking ticket on his windshield. A parking ticket? What did that have to do with the spirit of Christmas? Certainly, the members of the constabulary were only doing their job, but still, wouldn’t their effort be better served if they were out tracking down the criminals rampant in this town rather than indulging in parking tickets?

The crowd’s roar grew twice as loud as before. Despite his better judgment, Alfred took one final look back at the throng. There, above their heads, he could see some sort of gigantic box, wrapped up in bright paper and colorful ribbons, like some monstrous Christmas present. And the cheers at this monstrosity’s arrival were deafening.

The big clock in the middle of the mall struck seven. In fact, all the clocks in every store up and down the street struck seven, increasing the din even more.

Alfred plucked the ticket from the windshield and walked over to the driver’s side of the car. He wouldn’t be getting out of here a moment too soon.

Max’s mind went blank when he saw the box. It looked like a present the size of a house. And not a small house, either.

“Great idea,” the mayor remarked. For the first time tonight, Max could hear genuine admiration in the politician’s voice.

“But not mine,” Max had to admit. He had to get on with his speech. Or did he? The way the crowd was cheering now, he doubted if they could hear anything else he would say. He looked forward to the edge of the stage, where his son had moved to hand out the presents to the crowd, but the first of the gifts had fallen from Chip’s hands to land on top of the sewer grate before the podium. Chip stood, frozen, watching the giant present make its way through the square toward them.

What was this? A small, wrapped gift had fallen upon the grating, right up above his vantage point?

The squat man chuckled. “Deck the halls,” he whispered.

How generous of them. And how appropriate, for he was about to give all of Gotham City a present of his very own.

I
t was all part of the job, Commissioner Gordon thought, I but he didn’t have to be happy with it. Especially when the crowd grew as large as it did for the Shreck’s annual Christmas giveaway.

There was always the potential for disaster when there were this many people in this confined a space. And then Shreck insisted on letting his son toss out freebies to the crowd! But was even that bad enough? No, now that publicity-mad store owner had to come up with this giant gift gimmick, without even informing the police about it beforehand!

There must, Gordon thought, be some statute they could haul Shreck in on, if only to make him see reason next time. But the mayor would never allow it. Shreck was a big campaign contributor, after all. Not to mention a great source of photo opportunities.

Oh, well, Gordon had to look on the bright side. This would all be over in the next few minutes. No one had been killed yet. And at least he got to sit in his police cruiser, outside of the crush of the crowd, and away from the long-winded speechmaking of Max Shreck.

Gordon turned his attention back to this huge box that was rolling into the square. It was designed like one of those floats in the Christmas parade. Looking at the bottom of the box, he could make out wheels at each of the corners propelling the float along; not truck wheels, though, they were too thin and closely spaced for that. Gordon would guess that the float was being moved by four motorcycles. And in between the cycles, the commissioner could see walking feet. He wondered if there was going to be a second part to this presentation.

Gordon shook his head. This seemed like an awful lot of trouble, even for a media shark like Shreck. He decided he’d better call the other units stationed around the plaza. Who knew what problems they’d have with crowd control if this gift opened up?

Corn dog!

She would never get anywhere if she just sat around and moped! If Max hadn’t taken his speech, it was her job to bring it down to him! Selina grabbed the envelope that contained her carefully worded season’s greetings, and headed for the elevator.

She just hoped she wasn’t too late.