Free Batman 6 - The Dark Knight by Dennis O'Neil Page B

eleven when the four of them ate their last bite of dessert. The Ocelot was empty except for the wait staff and a handful of late diners.
    Natascha dabbed at her lips with a napkin and continued the conversation they’d been having. “No, no, come on. How could you want to raise children in a city like this?”
    “ I was raised here,” Bruce said in mock outrage, “and I turned out okay.”
    “Is Wayne Manor in the city limits?” Dent asked.
    “Sure. You know, as our new DA, you might want to figure out where your jurisdiction ends.”
    “I am talking about the kind of city that idolizes a masked vigilante,” Natascha said, her voice rising.
    “Gotham’s proud of an ordinary man standing up for what’s right,” Dent said.
    Natascha shook her head. “No. Gotham needs heroes like you —elected officials, not a man who thinks he is above the law.”
    “Exactly,” Bruce said. “Who appointed the Batman?”
    “We did,” Dent said. “All of us who stood by and let scum take control of our city.”
    “But this is a democracy, Harvey,” Natascha said.
    Dent leaned forward, his elbows and forearms on the table. “When their enemies were at the gate, the Romans would suspend democracy and appoint one man to protect the city. It wasn’t considered an honor. It was considered a public service.”
    Rachel said, “And the last man they asked to protect the Republic was named Caesar. He never gave up that power.”
    “Well, I guess you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become a villain,” Dent said. “Look, whoever the Batman is, he doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life doing this. How could he? Batman’s looking for someone to take up his mantle.”
    Natascha looked directly into Dent’s eyes, smiled, and purred, “Someone like you, Mr. Dent?”
    “Maybe. If I’m up to it.”
    Natascha leaned over the table and covered the top half of Dent’s face with her flattened hands. “What if Harvey Dent is the Caped Crusader?”
    Dent took Natascha’s wrists and gently drew her arms away from his face. “If I were sneaking out every night, someone would’ve noticed by now.”
    Rachel glanced quickly at Bruce.
    “Well, you’ve sold me,” Bruce said to Dent. “I’m gonna throw you a fund-raiser.”
    “That’s nice of you, Bruce. But I’m not up for reelection for three years. That fund-raising stuff won’t start for—”
    “I don’t think you understand. One fund-raiser with my pals, you’ll never need another cent.”

    The next day, the Gotham Times’s headline was:
    WHO IS HARVEY DENT?
    The paper tried to answer the question in a six-column profile that filled the entire front page of the Metro section. It began with basic biographical stuff: Public-school education; middle-class parents, father a cop, mother a housewife; scholarship to Gotham University, with history and pre-law majors; law school at the state university; both parents dead while Harvey was still a teenager; clerk for a supreme court judge; appointment to the Gotham City Internal Affairs Division and . . . from there on, Harvey was a meteor. Then, he snared one of the big prizes; he had been promoted to district attorney following the death of the previous DA. He wasn’t the most popular man who ever held the job—the cops and courthouse guys hung nasty nicknames on him—but he was the most effective. He was sometimes slow to prosecute, but when he did, he won. Period.
    He dated. No commitments, nothing that could be called a relationship, but he had no trouble finding attractive young women to share an evening with. No surprise there—he was a man on his way up, and, who knows, the last stop might even be the White House. And he was handsome, as handsome as any leading man, as handsome as Bruce Wayne, and though he wasn’t much of a dancer and not awfully good at small talk, he was socially adept enough to get through any reasonable social situation.
    Hobbies? Well, he ran around the reservoir