I’d disconnected the venthood, lowered myself into the power distribution venue, and began redirecting current to deactivate the motion-detectors without signaling a power outage. It’s time-consuming but brainless work, and I got to thinking about my history with this institution, the oldest and most prestigious museum in Gotham City. I’ve documented eight separate ways in over the years. Thanks to me, they got it down to four, which is plenty.
I should explain that.
In order to get on the museum’s A-List to receive invitations to the good
openings and receptions, you can’t just be a regular member. You have to
make a donation of at least $5,000. Every year I do, happily. This
museum is not only Catwoman’s chief supplier, it’s also a place Selina enjoys
going on a rainy afternoon to commune with the Impressionists.
So the $5,000 donation I don’t begrudge them.
I’ve always specified my donations go to the acquisitions fund. More and
better art on their walls and in their vault is in both Selina’s and Catwoman’s
best interests. But two years ago,
Impression Sunrise was stolen—and not by me. It pissed me off more
than the time Batman called me “kitten.”
Claude Monet’s Impression Sunrise!
This is THE painting! It launched Impressionism and, in a way, all modern art.
The guy who took it came in through the skylight over the sculpture court.
I mean, really! How movie-of-the-week can you get? I was pissed. I decided
if they didn’t tighten up security, every schmuck with a rock-climbing harness
could walk off with whatever they wanted. We couldn’t have that.
So, in the
interests of keeping the masterpieces in the museum’s collection exactly where
they were for whenever Selina decided to view them or Catwoman decided to take
them, I specified that my next donation be used to engage a top security
consultant: Foster and Forsythe. I wasn’t worried that a review by Foster
and Forsythe would cut off all my entries. They can’t, really. The
Gotham Museum of Art has a complete mock-up of a pyramid inside its walls, a
full-size Roman temple, and a loading dock that has to be able to receive
monstrously large and heavy antiquities. And all of it has to be kept
within very specific temperature ranges. The heating and ventilation
requirements alone ensure that I’ll always have plenty of options for breaking
in, moving around, and getting back out along unexpected pathways.
Within two months, Foster and Forsythe had
identified four of my pet ways into the East Wing, and closed a lot of smaller,
less-significant gaps in the security setup. That, as I said, still left
me with four routes in—which is three more than any self-respecting catburglar
needs. Tonight, like picking the
parking space at the mall nearest the entrance to your favorite store, I went in
through the climate control shell between that pyramid exhibit and the museum’s
actual roof.
As I lowered
myself to the floor, the first sight that greeted me was a magnificent,
full-size sculpture of a woman with the head of a lion. At her feet were
four life-size statues of cats with jewel-encrusted necklaces. That, I
knew, would be Bastet. Not to be confused with Sekhmet, the lion-headed
woman in the outer alcove.
You see, the
Egyptians understood cats better than any people in history. Bastet came
first in their mythology. In the beginning, she was the mother of the
savage-faced lion god called Miysis, “Lord of Slaughter.” She was a god of war,
of sorcery, associated with the eye of Re, the power of the sun and moon, and
the breath of the desert. Over time, the goddess’s character became more
and more friendly, her sorcery associated with healing, her motherhood
emphasized, she became a protector. And so the fierce and destructive
aspects of her character became Sekhmet. Her dark side was recognized as
an independent personage. Something about that has always appealed to me…
“That’s breaking
and entering. You want to stop there, or should I come back in ten minutes
once you’ve added a few counts of burglary?”
The voice and the
tingle were unmistakable… Him.
But the words
weren’t right. I’m the one who plays games. Bats is always direct.
I turned to face him.
“Why the choice?”
I asked bluntly, “I’m the one who plays games. You’re always
direct.”
He did that
quirky thing at the side of his mouth, and I realized I must’ve sounded just
like him right then.
“Look, one of us
has to be the straight man,” I said, a bit defensive about that sudden lapse
into battitude. “If you’re not going to do it, there’s a vacuum. It
has to be filled. So I repeat: Why the unusual opening? Why has it been
all of 45 seconds without your trademark threat to ‘take me down?’ … And why are
you doing that bizarre twitchy thing with the side of your mouth that I assume
is a smile?”
A real smile
followed. It was possibly the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen. The
creepiest thing I’d ever heard was to follow:
“Because this
isn’t a crime and for once I’m not going to pretend it is. You want to
talk ‘whys’: Why break into this painfully obvious exhibit the very first night
your show is closed, huh? This isn’t a burglary; it’s a date. You wanted
to talk to me, Kitten, well here I am. What do you want to say?”
I stared.
It may be fair to say: I gaped.
The awful thing is he was right. For
Catwoman, Egyptian cat gods are a hackneyed cliché. I needed another Bast
statuette like I need a hole in the head …I realized at that moment that I was
even thinking in clichés, which was disturbing… And Batman was
staring. I guessed the favor of an early reply was required. I’d
been facing off against him for years. I’d never feared him like the
others do, and I had never, ever felt this… UNCOMFORTABLE. I
heard my voice saying the first thing that came into my head:
“Shouldn’t we be fighting or something?
I mean, it’s midnight. It’s a museum. You wear a cape.
Isn’t this all a little talky?”
“Talky? You’ve
been standing on a stage every night for almost four months telling stories
about us.”
“You know why I had to do that,” I hissed,
“You of all people must understand the importance of—respect—for the
masked persona.”
“Yes, yes.” He
sounded annoyed, like I was deliberately missing the point. “As far as
protecting your image goes, it was ingenious. It’s just—did you have to
drag ‘us’ into it that way?”
Oh. My.
God.
I suddenly clued
in that this was the dressing room visit I’d been dreading and hoping for.
“Well… Maybe I didn’t have to—but
I think the audience would’ve felt pretty shortchanged if I’d dodged so central
an issue, don’t you think. If it’s any consolation, after going over it
500 times, I don’t understand it—us—what we do—whatever it is, any better now
than I did before.”
He scowled. I gave a flirtatious smile.
At least that much was back to normal. Any second now, he’d grab my wrists
and say how he’s going to take me down.
“How are we ever
going to get back to where we were?” he asked.
I’d been getting
big laughs on the inanities of our relationship for 15 sold-out weeks, but I’ve
got to say, at that second, I no longer found it funny. Something snapped.
“Why in hell would we want to? Christ, how
many years… how many years has it been that you haven’t noticed ‘where we
were’ SUCKED! Do you think I ENJOY being taken to the brink and
back time after time after time after time after time? Do you think I get off on
that ‘Thanks but no thanks’ martyr routine of yours?”
He looked
mystified.
“I honestly
thought you enjoyed it. You certainly looked like you were having fun.”
“Maybe I was,
maybe it was exciting—the first five or six times—but it got old. Don’t
you think it’s gotten old?”
The twitch-smile
returned.
“Honestly? No.
Maybe you’ve never noticed who else is on my dancecard. With week after
week of twisted riddles, giant flytraps, fear toxins, SmileX gas, megalomaniacs,
mutant assassins, not to mention the garden variety murderers, rapists, muggers,
mobsters and drug cartels, I’ve always found our little scuffles to be a welcome
and refreshing change.”
“Most people that
want a change would, you know, take a vacation. Long weekend in the
mountains, maybe some skiing. Or snorkeling. Surfing’s good.
Some just lie under a palm tree eating those big shrimp, sipping frothy drinks
with umbrellas.”
“I don’t.”
I felt a quirky
twitch starting on the left side of my own mouth.
“Workaholic, I
take it?”
“That’s what they
tell me.”
“So you’d
actually be quite pleased if I grabbed, eh, that bronze calico with the ruby
collar and took off for a sprint across the rooftops?”
“No. I
wouldn’t.”
“But you’d get as
closed to pleased as you CAN get.”
Long silence.
He was considering it. I could see the answer in his eyes: “Perhaps.” But
he couldn’t say it out loud. That would be admitting too much. For
some reason I decided to let him off the hook, changed the subject. I also
shifted my weight in the direction of the altar with the calico.
“I had it all
worked out you know…” <step> “…what I would say if I found you in my dressing
room—so it would sound good later…” <shift> “…it started with ‘is that a
batarang on your belt or are you just happy to see me.’”
I gave him the
naughty-grin. He loves the grin.
He took a step
closer, closing the distance between us. He was as close to me as I was to
the altar with the calico.
“This,” he said,
“is the part where I’m the killjoy, right? Wet blanket? Stuffed shirt? Pompous
self-righteous prig?”
“Well, if you
want things back to the ‘way they were,’ then yeah, that’d be the way to go.”
“Is that what I
do in the scene you had scripted?”
“Well, if you
really want to set up the perfect bit for my finale, in the show I’m no longer
doing by the way, you put on your best Bud Abbott/Harvey Corman/straightman
face… Yep that’s the one, you got that down… And you say ‘So Catwoman, doesn’t
it bother you that you’re mostly thought of as a busty, leggy sex kitten?’”
“So Catwoman,
doesn’t it bother you that you’re mostly thought of as a busty, leggy sex
kitten?”
He did it.
He actually did it. No hesitation, not a smirk. And not the
slightest hint that the great Dark Knight was above this totally silly exchange.
“Hey,” I answered on cue, “We have a killer
clown, birds and umbrellas, schizophrenic lawyer, Alice in Wonderland, Shape
Shifter, Fearguy, Mutant Plants, and Sex…which would you pick?”
You keep setting
them up, Handsome; I’ll keep bringing ‘em home.
The mouth twitch
returned. I got him.
I edged towards the altar again, he
countered. It wasn’t ‘where we were.’
This was a new place.
But we can’t change too much too fast.
©2001