FOLLOW ME
Chapter 2 - Strike!
“Barbara! Channel 18! Now!” screamed the bat-phone. Barbara hurriedly turned on the LCD screen in her office and found Channel 18. It was just the news, some stock market news. “Investing, Batman??” she asked, “Today doesn’t seem a good day for investors, dear! Everything is in the red.” “Precisely! Everything except The Gotham Trust Bank.”, replied Batman.
Now, Barbara knew something was wrong. She wondered what the “odd-man-out” could mean. But she hadn’t wondered for long before Batman answered her query; “The bank is a fund provider headed by Thomas Ericsson, a well known social activist. It lends out loans on minimal guarantees to immigrants from across the border. It is known to run at losses.”
“And your point here is...?” asked Barbara.
“Shift to GCN.” he said. And so, she shifted to the Gotham Corporate News Channel. And there, she found the exact reversal. All stock prices were in green, expect GTB’s. She was amazed. “The Riddler is known to mess with Channel 18’s broadcast. Sources once told me he could change TV programming in the blink of an eye.”
“So, he’s gonna do something? But is it at the Gotham Trust Bank? Or is he going to do something to its stocks? Or to its employees? Or to its owners? I don’t know, man! This is not even half a clue.” Said Barbara, with a state of desperation beginning to set in to her.
“There, there! It ‘IS’ half a clue!” said Batman. Barbara look puzzled. “That’s the riddle. ‘The concerned citizen... Burn after reading’ “, he finished.
Now Barbara knew what was going on. The Batman had done all the work for her. She was glad she decided to even turn on the “bat signal” the other night. She took her cell-phone and searched for “RIC” to find Richard Downing, a detective at the Gotham City Police Department. She put her phone to her ear and could hear it ring.
“Barbara! Watch Channel 18!” said the bat-phone. She hit the swap button on the remote, looked up and found a flash news interrupt:
“BREAKING NEWS: The Gotham Trust Bank CEO Thomas Ericsson found burnt to death. Speculations of suicide due to plunging stock prices.”
She cut the call she was making. “He’s gone beyond himself, Batman! He can’t commit murder in my city and get away with it!” said an enraged Barbara.
“Don’t jump to conclusions, Barbara. This might be a suicide after-all! Riddler doesn’t commit murder himself. He always pushes people to do things to themselves. He puts them in positions to take awkward decisions. Most people prefer death to some decisions. We just have to dig in deeper.” said Batman.
“Brilliant! So, he’s back in his ways, driving others crazy and puzzling them to death, is he?” screamed the lady.
“Temper, Barbara, is a bad virtue. It clouds your thoughts, makes you nervous and makes you forget things. It was a quality Jim possessed too and he took quite an effort to overcome it.”
“Sorry, man!” said Barbara, collecting her senses back and placing a phone call to Richard Downing asking him to investigate Thomas Ericsson’s death.
She had been right; the letter was indeed from someone who knew Nygma had been out of action for long enough. It had been from Edward Nygma himself. She could have never seen that coming. He cleverly misled her with the butler and the car. “Why even give the clue?” she thought and she remembered how her father had asked the same question years ago.
By the end of the day, Barbara felt very helpless. If these were the sort of crimes that were heading her way, it would take months, years to find out where Nygma or who Nygma is. It would mean the loss of lots of lives and property. She couldn’t help thinking about the numerous lives Thomas Ericsson had made a difference to. The numerous families he had uplifted from poverty through his organisation.
“The files don’t show Nygma being an evil guy.” She thought to herself, “He was purpose driven, clean and he always was an intelligent person, knowing well enough to see the difference between the greedy pig and the generous cow.”
“Maybe he is just another ass-hole!” she thought, “No different from the others. Just like the money loving gangsters and mob-bosses. Maybe he is just another Falcone or a Zucco. After all, what he is doing is technically ‘organised crime’ too!”
She needed a drink. She took her stuff and went home. It had been a long week. Her house was a mess, full of papers and files about Nygma. She had been reading his case files for a week now. She had changed her opinion about Nygma over the week. His methodologies weren’t as psychopathic as they initially seemed. He wasn’t killing random people and looting random places. He was not arbitrary in his actions. He was not The Joker for sure. She was surprised to find how an intelligent man could manipulate so many people into doing what he wanted them to do. If he tried, an intelligent man could be the worst nightmare of the law.
“Edward Nygma is one in a million!” she thought. Looking at the files again convinced her that she was wrong about Nygma being a money-loving gangster. He wasn’t a simple criminal. “He would be a big fish, a tough catch. I just need the right bait.” she thought, “and a very strong fishing rod.”
She poured herself some Bourbon as she relaxed on her couch. At the age of 35, she was the youngest police commissioner in the history of Gotham City. She loved priding herself on that. She looked at her father’s portrait and toasted her drink to him, “Cheers dad!” she said to herself as she raised the glass to the portrait and downed the whiskey. She had humungous amount of work ahead of her. Papers of all kinds needed to be cleared. Plus, there was Nygma, the only thing that had been on her mind for every minute of the last week. She needed sleep. She helped herself to another shot before she hit the bed. The paperwork could wait.
It was a bright Gotham morning the next day. Barbara Gordon woke up and found her house a mess, just like it was the previous night. She walked to the kitchen and turned the coffee machine on. As she made her way to her living room, she found a blank envelope lying under her door. She knew the envelope; it was just like the one with the previous letter from Nygma. She hurried to the door and took the envelope. She opened it and started reading it as she sipped on her coffee:
“
Dear Commissioner,
As you will learn shortly, Robin Hood is a mythical character. No matter how much you travel or make others travel, you will never find a good man on the face of the earth.
Good luck, Commander.
You have scaled heights few people in this city have reached. Do not fall down too soon.
“
She could feel her blood boil as she finished reading the letter. She had to call Batman and inform him as soon as she could. She reached out to her purse only to find out she’d forgotten to bring the bat-phone home with her. She couldn’t waste time. She had to start decoding the message herself. “The previous letter was a week before the incident” she thought “but we can’t rely on such time-frames!”
“Now, Robin Hood...” she thought, “steal from the rich, give to the poor! Quite obviously he refers to Thomas Ericsson. Now, what is Nygma trying to say about Ericsson? That he is not as great a guy as he seems to be? That’s ridiculous!”
Just then she heard her phone ringing, digging into her purse she found it. It was Richard Downing.
“Yes, Dick?” she said.
“Ma’am! It does seem like Mr.Ericsson’s death was a suicide!” he said with a typically Southern accent.
“Now, why would you say that?” she inquired.
“It is his files at his home, ma’am. The ones found next to his body. It shows that he actually laundered the investors moneys, ma’am. There are many records of his fraudulent activities. And he seems to have been drinking too; blood reports confirm high ethanol content. A classic case of ‘the guilty suicide’, ma’am!”
“So, Robin Hood was actually no Robin Hood!” said Barbara, now deeply immersed in thought. “Thank you, Dick!” she said as she cut the call and sat down on the couch for a breather.
“So, is Edward Nygma trying to be a vigilante?” she thought. “Now, my dear friend Batman wouldn’t be happy with this. I remember the last time someone tried to impersonate the Dark Knight. They were left tied up in a parking lot, next to the Scarecrow. Well, so what is the next clue, Nygma? Have you given us another riddle on this letter? I think I am up for the challenge now! I need to do my job. I can’t house murderous vigilantes in my city!”
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