Free Batman 1 - Batman by Craig Shaw Gardner Page A

simply strange. Now she thought of it as more of a conspiracy. The Herald ’s file was every bit as skimpy and uninformative as the one at the Globe, full of short news fillers and society clippings. Strangely enough, they didn’t have any photos either. But it was the TV station that clinched it. There were no videotapes of Bruce Wayne on file at the station, even though Vicki’s friend could have sworn her evening news show had covered dozens of events that Wayne had been a part of.
    A millionaire playboy who hobnobbed with the rich and famous every night, and never, ever had his picture taken? That sort of thing didn’t just happen. You had to consciously avoid all the “photo opportunities.” Even then, someone like Vicki was bound to take a candid of you when you least expected. What could you do then?
    If you had Bruce Wayne’s kind of money, she imagined, you could always buy the pictures back from some newspaper or TV employee who needed a little extra cash on the side. But why?
    Allie Knox might have been right for once. Bruce Wayne was more than a little strange. The more Vicki tried to find out about him, the less she realized she knew, until she was surrounded by a mystery that threatened to consume her.
    Who was Bruce Wayne? Maybe it had been her pride that had started her on this but it was her news instincts that would find the truth.
    He had gotten too close to the wrong woman. Whatever Bruce Wayne was hiding, it wouldn’t stay hidden for long.
    Someone dressed in dark glasses and a long black overcoat stepped from inside the gate of Wayne Manor. She thought it might be a workman until she focused her telephoto lens.
    It was Bruce, dressed very much unlike a millionaire playboy. He paused to put on a pair of sunglasses, then walked toward the heart of the city, just another working man with a long and narrow package under his arm.
    One more mystery, Vicki thought. But this one wouldn’t get away. Taking her camera with the helpful telephoto lens, she got out of the car. She paused long enough to lock the door—even in this neighborhood, one had to be careful—then walked, quickly but casually, in the direction Bruce had taken.
    She had been following him for half an hour.
    A ten-minute walk, and they had gone from the swank area around Wayne Manor to middle-class houses with tiny lawns, double- and triple-deckers, then larger and larger apartment buildings. Another ten minutes and the neighborhood had really started to deteriorate; some of the buildings here were deserted, and there were broken windows everywhere. Trash was piled in empty lots and on street corners. She had never thought before how close Wayne Manor was to this part of town. It was one of the things about living in a big city—you might be living on Easy Street, but poverty was just around the corner.
    She walked about three quarters of a block behind Bruce, matching his pace, not wanting to get too close, but keeping him in sight. He never looked around. Whatever he was doing, he seemed totally self-absorbed.
    In the last few blocks, some of the locals had started calling out to her—wolf whistles, asking for a date, a few other things that weren’t quite so polite. A young woman wasn’t supposed to walk alone through this part of town. Still, she didn’t think she was in any real danger. They might try for the camera. She kept it half hidden as she walked straight ahead. She doubted they’d do anything else in broad daylight with all these people around. If the worst happened, she’d learned to defend herself in Corto Maltese, anyway.
    She had been most worried, at first, that Bruce would hear the taunts and turn around. But he only kept on walking, totally involved in his errand.
    Bruce turned abruptly into an alleyway. Vicki hurried to catch up with him, afraid she might lose him if he was out of sight. She recognized this area. They were close to Seventh Avenue, not all that far from the center of town.
    She stopped at