Batman 2 - Batman Returns by Craig Shaw Gardner Read Free Book Online

look!” another voice cried.
    For, out of the darkness, the Mayor’s child was being raised up into the light. The crowd gasped. How could such a thing be? It was almost magic. But no, he was being held aloft by someone—or something.
    A flipper emerged from the manhole, followed by the portly visage of The Penguin!
    The crowd cheered.
    The Penguin smiled.
    Max had to admit, it couldn’t have gone better if he had planned it himself.
    Which, after all, he had.
    Alfred had paused in his hanging of ornaments on the tree. It was obvious from his expression that he didn’t believe this. But then, Bruce Wayne didn’t believe it either.
    “This morning’s miracle,” the man on the screen intoned solemnly. “Gotham will never forget.”
    The TV showed the abduction of the Mayor’s baby, and the supposed miracle of his rescue by The Penguin, who rose out of the sewer on top of the strangest of vehicles, a contraption that looked like nothing so much as a large rubber duck. The camera zoomed in on the rescuer.
    “That’s him,” the announcer continued as if he saw large duck vehicles every day. “The shadowy, much rumored penguin man of the sewers, arisen. Until today, he’d been another tabloid myth, alongside the Abominable Snowman and the Loch Ness Monster.”
    The Mayor’s wife was in tears as she grabbed her baby back. She swallowed hard, but somehow managed to embrace the man, or whatever it was, called The Penguin, who certainly looked as if he had spent his life in the sewers, and no doubt smelled accordingly. The Penguin, for his part, blinked as if he could not get used to the brightness of the light.
    “But now,” the announcer again remarked, “this bashful man-beast can proudly take his place alongside our own legendary Batman.”
    The Mayor reached out to shake The Penguin’s hand. But somehow, Max Shreck had gotten in the way, and now stood beaming by The Penguin, patting him heartily on the back.
    “Gotham’s leading citizen, Max Shreck,” the announcer droned on, “had been on a fact-finding mission in Gotham Plaza.”
    Shreck bent down to whisper something encouraging in The Penguin’s ear. The Penguin, embarrassed, took a little bow. The crowd cheered wildly. Loudspeakers in the plaza began to play “Joy to the World.”
    The TV picture shifted to a live interview with the new hero. The Penguin shielded his eyes with a small, frayed umbrella as he spoke in a shy and halting voice:
    “All I want in return”—he blinked at the camera—“is the chance to—to find my folks. Find out who they are—and thusly, who I am—and, then, with my parents, just—try to understand why”—he paused to take a ragged breath—“why they did what I guess they had to do, to a child who was born a little—different. A child who spent his first Christmas, and many since, in a sewer.”
    His parents, Bruce thought.
    Mother. Father. A scream. A gunshot. Lost to him forever.
    “Mr. Wayne,” Alfred remarked softly. “Is something wrong?”
    Bruce looked up to where the butler had returned to trimming the tree. Bruce shook his head, as much to clear it as to indicate the negative.
    “No, nothing,” he began, “ah—his parents—I—” He took a deep breath. “I hope he finds them.”
    Alfred heartily agreed as he returned to his tree-trimming duties. Bruce turned back to the television. So The Penguin had lost his mother and father. Or maybe, his mother and father had lost him.
    Max smiled most pleasantly from where he stood within the entry way of the Gotham Hall of Records. A short flight of steps beyond, a whole cordon of police held back dozens of reporters, hungry for a story.
    “What do you think he’ll do to his mom and dad when he finds them?” a reporter asked near the door.
    “What would you do to your ma and pa,” another reporter replied sarcastically, “if they flushed you down the poop-chute?”
    Somehow, one of the reporters had gotten around the cordon, and was quietly