by J. Rosemary Moss
Genre: Fan-Fiction (
Batman)
Rating: R
LINK TO PART ONE~
Selina went back to swimming laps while I tied on my robe and strode into my study. I collapsed into my desk chair, picked up the phone and dialed Jason Bard’s number. A secretary answered, but once I identified myself as Bruce Wayne she passed me directly onto Jason.
Jason is a top-notch private investigator. He used to be a marine, but an enemy blast crippled his knee while he was serving in Iraq. He came home, went to college for a couple of years and then opened up his agency—an agency that had since garnered a sterling reputation.
He was the perfect man to do some ground-level investigations on Selina. And he wouldn’t be surprised that I wanted him to look into her background. He’d expect a spoiled playboy to check up on his current mistress.
“Bruce, what can I do for you?” he asked, playing dumb. He probably already guessed why I was calling.
I didn’t beat around the bush. “I’d like some information on Selina Kyle,” I told him.
“Yeah, I figured,” he admitted. “What are you looking for? You don’t think she’s cheating on you already, do you? What’s it been—three weeks?”
So Jason kept up with the tabloids. Well, that wasn’t surprising.
“Something like that,” I said. “I don’t think she’s cheating—but I’d like to know more about her.”
“I’ll be honest, Bruce,” he said. “You’re not the first guy to ask about her. I’ve checked into her before.”
“I figured,” I said with a wry grin. “What can you tell me?”
I could hear him typing in the background as he answered—he must have been pulling the information up on his computer.
“She’s thirty years old,” he began. “You have yourself an older woman, my friend. You’re twenty-six, right?”
“Almost twenty-seven,” I said defensively. I didn’t need a reminder that, for all the super models I’d managed to date, Selina was still a thousand times more experienced than I was.
“And she’s an East End girl,” he continued. “Complete with the poverty and the troubled family life. It’s an ugly story: her mother committed suicide; her father drank himself to death. She was maybe thirteen at the time.”
I inhaled sharply at that, so he paused for a moment to let me take it in. So Selina was an orphan too. That was one more thing we had in common.
“She ended up in an orphanage,” Jason went on. “She got into some special programs for high school kids. You know: acrobatics, dancing, stuff like that. But she never tried to go on stage. She became a successful socialite instead. She always has some sugar-daddy to pay her bills.”
I cringed at that term—I didn’t like thinking of myself that way—but I managed to keep my voice even. “Does she have a criminal record?”
He sighed before answering. “Yes—but she was just a kid. She got picked up for prostitution when she was fourteen. That’s when the judge sent her to the orphanage. Apparently she’d been on the streets before that.”
I closed my eyes and clenched my fists. I’d seen my share of under-aged prostitutes in the East End and the Narrows. I’d even gone after some of the pimps. But it never seemed to matter—take one down and there were always three more ready to take his place. And there seemed to be an endless supply of kids to sell. God only knows where they all came from.
“You still there, Bruce?” Jason asked.
“Yeah,” I managed.
“I told you it was an ugly story,” he said apologetically. “I wish the cops would put an end to the things that go on in the East End—but until recently half of them were on the take. Maybe things will be different now with good cops like Gordon and that caped vigilante running around…”
He continued on in the same vein. I listened patiently, interjecting comments at appropriate moments.
“But that’s neither here nor there,” Jason said at last. “What now? Do you want me to keep an eye on Miss Kyle?”
“No,” I said. I couldn’t afford to have Jason Bard looking that closely at Selina—if she was the Catwoman, I’d just as soon that he didn’t realize it.
But I wondered suddenly if some other guy had asked Jason to follow her. If he’d trailed her before—well, that made it less likely that she was, in fact, the cat burglar. Jason Bard would be a tough man to throw off the scent.
“No,” I said again. “I don’t want you to follow her. But has any ex of hers ever asked you to?”
“Bruce, you know I protect the privacy of my clients—”
“I’m not asking you to name names,” I said.
I think he was rolling his eyes as he answered. “I’ll tell you this much,” he said. “My instincts tell me that she’s not one to play a man false. I think she’s a pretty straight shooter.”
“Thanks,” I said. And then I hung up.
But I sat there for a long while before doing anything else. Selina had been straight with me from the first. She hadn’t pretended to have a crush on me, after all. Instead, she had told me exactly what she expected to gain from me.
She’d been brutally honest with me. So why did I still suspect that she was a criminal?
It was just a gut feeling. I could imagine her justifying her robberies if she was stealing from people who were rich enough to afford it—or people that, in her opinion, deserved to have their jewelry stolen.
I sighed and leaned all the way back in my chair, coming perilously close to tipping it over. Some perverse part of me almost hoped that Selina was Catwoman. Otherwise, I’d just taken unpardonable liberties with her privacy. I shouldn’t know the things I now knew about her—not unless she chose to confide in me.
And she hadn’t, had she? And why should she? We’d only been together for three weeks, I reminded myself. And I hadn’t confided in her either. I hadn’t even allowed her to get close to me. The man who paid her bills—the man who wanted to be seen with a beautiful girl, bought and paid for, on his arm—wasn’t the real me.
But there were times when I could almost be myself around her. I couldn't let her guess the truth about me, but the good times we’d had rock climbing and spelunking and exploring each other in bed were all genuine.
Well, they were genuine for me. I didn’t know how much of an act she was putting on.
I sighed again and decided to get back to work. Jason had given me all the background I needed. Now it was time to compare the Catwoman’s activities with Selina Kyle’s. Fortunately, both were well documented. I pulled my laptop out from my desk, turned it on, and brought up all the media articles I could find about both women.
Then I slouched back in my chair as I looked over the wealth of information that was bombarding my screen. This was going to take a while.
LINK TO PART FOUR
Yes, I'm glad that Heath Ledger won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his knock-out performance as the Joker. But there's a basic problem with the Academy Awards that this New York Times article points out:
.jpg)
