Session One
He was painfully thin, and taller than I'd expected.
I remained standing as the guards led the gaunt, manacled figure into the interview cell.
The Joker's appearance is positively shocking at close range. I'd seen his face before. Who hasn't? But to find myself standing across a small table from the man, to have his eyes scan me from a distance of only three feet as if I were some kind of insect, was a jolt. The smile . . . that was what did it. We've all seen that soulless, mirthless grin countless times, shining at us in black and white from the front page of the Gotham Gazette or in never- quite-true color from the TV screen during the evening news, but nothing in the media prepares you for the original. The smile ... the corners of the mouth are drawn up and back, fully halfway into the cheeks. And the teeth—so big and white. Bigger than Morton Downey Jr.'s. But they're not as white as his skin. So pale. Not so much in the bleached, albino sense; more like a white stain. I could not help feeling that with a little cold cream on a cloth I could wipe it off. But I knew that had been tried many times. The seaweed green of his hair and fingernails were the garnish on this bizarre human concoction.
During my five years of psychiatric residency in New York's Downstate Medical Center, and in various maximum security facilities about the country, I have encountered mental illness in its most violent manifestations. But I could not remember actually feeling madness as I did in my first seconds in the room with the Joker. Nothing in the media prepared me for the power of the man. In fact, the never-ending stream of stories about him in the press only serves to trivialize him. We've become used to the Joker; we've become almost comfortable with him. We all know that he is a career criminal and a multiple murderer, to boot, yet his face is so familiar that he has become part of the background noise of Gotham. His latest outrage does not stir us to as much anger as it would had it been perpetrated by a stranger. Better the devil you know . . .
My task was to get to know this devil.
With two armed guards watching closely, I thrust my hand across the table.
"I'm Dr. Lewis, Mr. Joker. I'll be—"
"Call me 'Joker,' " he said in a surprisingly soft voice as he stared at me, ignoring my hand. The contrast between his grave tone and his grinning face was disconcerting.
"But that's not your real name. I'd prefer to address you by that."
"That name is gone. Call me the Joker if you wish to have any meaningful communication with me."
I was reluctant to do that. The patient's Joker persona appeared to be the axis upon which his criminal career turned. I did not want to reinforce that persona. Yet I had to communicate with him. I had little choice but to acquiesce.
"Very well, Mr. Joker. I—"
"Just.. . 'Joker.' "
I thrust out my hand again.
"Joker, I'm Dr. Lewis. I'll be handling your therapy."
He ignored my hand and appeared suddenly agitated.
"When did you arrive? I've never seen you before. Where is Dr. Hills? Why isn't he treating me?"
"Dr. Hills sent me. I'm new to the staff since your last. . . escape."
I could read fury in his eyes, but the grin never wavered.
"I want the head man. I always get the head man. I deserve it! I'm not just another petty crook, you know. I'm the Joker. I'm the king of crime in this burg and I want Dr. Hills!"
Grandiosity and entitlement. I considered adding Narcissistic Personality Disorder (301.81) to my list of diagnoses.
I shrugged and tried to be disarming.
"Sorry, Joker. He sent me in his place. Looks like we're stuck with each other."
Suddenly he relaxed.
"Okay."
Emotional liability.
For the third time, I stuck out my hand. This time, to the accompaniment of small clinks from the chains on his manacles, he took it. As we shook, I heard a buzz and felt a sting in my palm. I cried out in surprise and snatched my hand away. The Joker began to laugh.
That laugh. His speaking voice had been so soft, almost soothing. But the laugh—a broken, high-pitched keen that makes the small hairs rise.
The guards leaped forward and thrust him into the chair. He laughed maniacally as they ripped something from one of his fingers. The older of the two guards handed it to me, then they searched him for anything else he might be carrying.
I stared at the object in my hand. A joy buzzer. A simple, corny, old- time practical joke.
"He's clean, Doc," the older guard said as they finished their search.
I stared at the buzzer.
"He was supposed to be 'clean' when you brought him in here."
They said nothing but took up new positions, closer now, flanking him on each side.
I held up the buzzer.
"How did you get this?"
"I had it sent in."
"You can't just have things 'sent in.' Inpatients are severely restricted as to possessions."
"You mean other inpatients," he said. "I'm the Joker. What I want, I get. Security here is a joke." His eyes lit. "Get it? A joke!"
The guards looked uncomfortable as he laughed. And they deserved to. He should never have arrived at this interview carrying something like that. What if the prong had been poisoned?
He seemed to read my mind.
"All in good, clean, harmless fun, Dr. Lewis. I'm as harmless as a pussycat."
I gave him a level stare.
"I believe Colin Whittier might take exception to that... if he could."
The Joker snorted and waved a hand in dismissal.
"Whittier! A fraud! A charlatan posing as an artist. He left his mark on the art world—like acne. I put a finishing touch to his work—a match. Get it?"
He began to laugh.
"You murdered him!"
"No loss. He deserved to die. A destroyer of true art. The world is far better off without him.
Complete lack of remorse or guilt.
I remembered his latest atrocity so well. I'd joined the staff shortly after the Joker's last escape and it wasn't too long thereafter that he raided an art gallery that was showing the work of an immensely talented young artist named Colin Whittier. The Joker pulled all of Whittier's work from the
walls and burned the canvases in the center of the gallery floor. Then he replaced them with a collection of dark abstracts, each signed, The Joker.
The next morning, Whittier flew into a justifiable rage. He yanked all the Jokers paintings and ripped them to shreds. An eye for an eye. And that should have been that. But it wasn't. Whittier was found in the gallery two days later, dead. Murdered. But not by any means so simple as a bullet or a knife. No, his mouth and nose had been poured full of thick green paint, asphyxiating him. And then he was nailed to the gallery wall within a large, ornate gilt frame. On the wall next to the corpse was written:
Colin Whittier
RIP
An artist who really threw himself into his work
The casual brutality of the crime still blew an icy wind through my soul whenever I thought of it. And the perpetrator was sitting not three feet away from me. Grinning.
Grinning. . .
I'd quietly admired Whittier's work for years. His paintings spoke to me. I’d even bid on one or two of his early works a few years ago when they were still within reach, but lost out to deeper pockets. Now they were permanently out of reach. Well, at least there were posters. But when I thought of all the paintings he would never do, I felt a rage seep through to my very soul—
Stop!
This was no good. I was becoming emotional. I couldn't allow that. I had to help this man, and I couldn't do it if I remained angry. I terminated the first session then and there.
Session Two
"He's clean this time, Doc," said the older guard as he sat the Joker in front of me.
"You're sure of that?" I said.
"Yeah. Pretty much."
I did not offer to shake hands with the patient.
"Good morning, Joker," I said, cheerily addressing him by the name he preferred.
The Joker stared at me, his eyes twinkling as I took my place on the far side of the table.
"I've decided to accept you as my physician for this stay, Dr. Lewis."
"Be still, my heart."
"I was getting tired of Dr. Hills, anyway. Such an egotist—an I-sore. Always letting off esteem. Get it?"
"Unfortunately, yes."
"But seriously, folks, if I am to cooperate in therapy, we must have privacy." He glanced at the two guards who flanked him. "I can't have a couple of screws eavesdropping on the intimate details of my life."
He had a point, of course. But I wasn't about to take any chances. I had the guards manacle his wrists and ankles to the arms and legs of his chair, then had them wait outside the closed door.
"Your credentials are impressive," the Joker said when we were alone.
Concern began to nibble at the back of my neck.
"You know nothing of my credentials."
"Au contraire, Dr. Lewis. I have a complete dossier on you."
He then proceeded to recite my curriculum vitae, ticking off one by one the schools I'd attended, the awards I'd received, my class rank in medical school, my appointment as chief resident on Downstate's psychiatric service, even my starting salary here at Arkham.
"That's an insult," he said, shaking his head in disdain at the last item. "You're worth far more than that."
I knew my jaw was hanging open and slack.
"Where did you—?"
My expression must have been hilarious, for the Joker burst out laughing.
"I told you—I'm the Joker, the Clown Prince of Crime! Nothing goes on in this city without my knowledge."
Persistent grandiose delusions. But how did he . .. ?"
I shook off my shock and forced myself to focus on the matter at hand. Namely, interviewing my patient. He was uncooperative, giving nonsense answers to my questions about his childhood, and purposely bizarre responses to the Rorschach blots I showed him.
I tried probing his past history again.
"Ever been in love, Joker?"
"Always. I'm girl crazy—girls won't go out with me, and it makes me crazy! Get it?"
I pressed on: "Ever been married?"
"Dr. Jekyll, I believe you're getting under my hide."
"Answer the question, please."
"Married? Me? No. I prefer to stay single and unaltared. Get it?" For the second time, amid wild laughter, I terminated the session early.
Conference
Later that day I had a clinical conference with Dr. Hills, the chief of psychiatry at Arkham. We discussed my two disturbing encounters with the Joker.
"Be extremely wary, Hal," Dr. Hills told me. "He's a diabolical creature.
I'd never heard Dr. Hills talk like this. It was so unclinical, so . .. unscientific.
"I know he's an incorrigible, but—"
"He's worse than that. He's a master manipulator. He makes it extremely difficult, almost impossible, to stay in command of your therapy session. He turns everything around on you. If you're not careful, he'll reverse the therapy process. Instead of you treating him, he will be influencing you, making you question yourself, your values, everything you believe in...." Dr. Hill's voice trailed off and a far away look seeped into his eyes. "Everything."
I didn't know about that. What I did know was that he would not be manipulating me—although he had managed to unsettle me. That would not happen again.
"What I would like to know," I said, "is how he manages to have such easy access to outside sources from which he should be completely cut off."
"I know, I know. We don't know how he does it. But don't let that distract you. Stay on course. This is your trial by fire for Arkham Asylum. If you can weather the Joker, you can handle anything." "You make him sound like the devil himself." Dr. Hills looked away. "Sometimes I wonder . . ."
Session Five
I tried to hide my agitation as the session began, tried to pretend that nothing untoward had happened. The Joker, for his part, was less cooperative than usual. Despite the fact that we were alone, he said not a word. Just sat there staring at me. Grinning.
Finally, I turned off the tape recorder, ready to terminate the session.
Then he spoke.
"Don't you like your new car?"
I bit down on the insides of my cheeks to keep from shouting out my anger. I couldn't let him see how shaken I was, how he'd gotten to me.
It had happened that morning. I'd been running late and so it was especially frustrating when I couldn't find my car in the Gotham Gardens parking lot. At first I'd thought I'd simply forgotten where I'd parked it, for there was a Mercedes in the spot I usually used. Soon it became clear that my car was gone. But who would steal that old junker?
Agitated now, I walked over to my usual spot and checked out the Mercedes. It was new. A brand-new 560 SEL. Royal blue. My favorite color. I thought about how I was going to own one of those someday and I wondered which tenant in a low-rent apartment complex like Gotham Gardens could afford such a beast.
Then I saw the keys in the door lock.
I peered through the driver's window. There was an envelope on the front seat. With my name on it. I yanked open the car door and tore open the envelope. Inside was the registration card—in my name—and a sheet of purple stationery.
For the exclusive use of Dr. Harold Lewis.
A playing card was attached. A joker.
"Well?" the Joker said now from the other side of the table. "Aren't you even going to say thank you?"
No. I wasn't going to say thank you.
"How'd it drive?"
I'd been running late already and had no choice but to drive the Mercedes to work. How'd it drive? Like piloting a cloud. But I'd been too angry, too unsettled by this arrogant intrusion into my life to enjoy it.
I steadied myself. Finally, I felt able to speak calmly.
"Where is my old car?"
"Gone. Dead. Kaput. Junked. Pounded into a neat little cube of twisted steel and sent back to the melting pot from which it came."
"Listen, pal," I said, "if you think such a blatant attempt at bribery will get you special treatment from me, or turn me into some sort of clandestine ally, you're sadly mistaken. I'm not for sale."
Not ever. I thought. Especially not to the murderer of Colin Whittier.
"Of course you're not. Do you really think I'd be so clumsy as to try to bribe you with a car? A car?” Good gracious me, no. It's just that I simply couldn't bear to know that my personal physician was driving around in public in that 1982 Toyota. A Celica, no less! I've got a reputation to uphold. How do you think it looks to my organization when they see their leader's doctor driving a Jap junker? It was an intolerable situation that required an immediate remedy."
"I won't stand for it!"
"I'm afraid you have no choice, Dr. Lewis. The deed is done. Your old car is no more. You might as well use the new one. Why not enjoy it? Your conscience is clear, you ethics are unsullied. I ask nothing in return, only that you drive it. My image, you see."
"Guards," I called. I wasn't about to listen to any more of this.
"Dina will love it, too."
Dina? What did he know about Dina?
Weak and numb, I watched the guards unlock his restraints and lead him out.
Session Eight
The session was going particularly well. The Joker was opening up about his troubled, turbulent childhood. I still had no insight as yet into the mechanisms of his behavior, but we were just getting started in therapy. The important thing was that I felt that we were beginning to make progress toward a viable physician-patient relationship. Then he started with the crummy one-liners again.
"You know, Dr. Lewis, I was the kind of student who made my teachers stay after school. Get it? I was an honor student—I was saying either 'Yes, your Honor,' or 'No, your Honor.' Get it? When I was a kid I was so tough, I got thrown out of every reform school in the country."
"Can we try to be serious? Just for a moment?"
"Don't worry, Doc. I know you're trying. In fact, you're very trying. Get it?"
That did it. I made a final note prior to ending the session. But when I looked up, I saw that his hands were free. He was holding out a deck of playing cards.
"Pick a card," he said. "Any card."
Terror jolted through me. I shouted for the guards. By the time they reached us, the Joker's hands were back in the manacles. The deck of cards remained between us on the table.
"Never mind," I told the guards. After all, he hadn't tried to harm me. Maybe this was an opportunity to gain his confidence, which might put us on the quickest road to meaningful therapy. "False alarm."
As they returned to their posts outside the door, the Joker looked at me curiously. I picked up the deck and shuffled through it. All jokers.
"How do you get these things smuggled in?"
"I've told you: I'm the—"
" 'Clown Prince of Crime.' I know. A regular modern-day Mabuse."
"Ah. The doctor is a movie buff. Yes, I suppose I could be compared to Dr. Mabuse on a superficial level, but I am his superior in every way. Dr. Mabuse was a piker compared to the Joker."
More grandiosity. It was wearying.
"But you're real," I said. "Mabuse was fiction. He didn't have to worry about running up against Batman."
I knew immediately that I'd struck a nerve. Something changed in the Joker's eyes and demeanor. The airy, bon-vivant pose vanished. I felt a chill worm across my shoulders as cold hatred flashed from his eyes and hung like rank smog in the air between us. And then as suddenly as it had come, it was gone. Blown away by a gust of laughter.
"Batman! Talk about crazies! They put me in here while they let him run around loose in his cape and tights."
"They could have put you in the electric chair for murdering Colin Whittier," I said softly. I'd almost said should instead of could. I'd have to be careful.
"But they can't!" he said with another laugh. "Because I've been classified as insane! I'm not responsible. Isn't that wonderful? Oh, it's so good to be mad in America. I can do unto others, but they can't do unto me!"
As he giggled on, I said, "Don't you feel any remorse for the hurt you've caused people? For the artistic riches you've robbed from society by killing Colin Whittier?"
"Society? What has society ever done for me?"
"Well, you might have a point there, but you've caused untold harm in your lifetime—the deaths, the grief, the pain. Don't you feel any impulse to make reparation?"
"Not the slightest. I put the Joker first. If I don't, who will? I. Me. Moi. Society, the public good, the little man, they can take my leavings. And I'd prefer you not mention Batman in my presence again."
Remembering how quickly he'd gotten in and out of his manacles a moment ago, I nodded.
"And by the way," he said, "how does the lovely Dina like the new car?"
I was suddenly boiling on the inside, but I remained cool without.
"Just as you do not wish Batman mentioned, I do not wish anyone from my personal life mentioned."
"She's very attractive."
"I hope you're not thinking of threatening her."
"Threaten?" He laughed. "That sort of thing is for pistoleros and dime- a-dozen desperadoes. Fratellezza swine. I like you, Dr. Lewis. I have no interest in threatening anyone dear to you. Besides, why should I? What can you do for me?"
"You might think I can help you escape."
Another laugh. "I can escape any time I wish."
"Really? Then, why are you still imprisoned here?"
"Because for the time being it amuses me," he said without missing a beat. "Just as I can smuggle in anything I wish, I can leave anytime I wish. And when I decide that it's time to take my leave, I shall escape with élan, dear doctor. Without your help. No crude, petty jailbreak for the Joker. The Joker will not sneak out, nor will he crawl or tunnel out. He'll either fly or walk—at the time of his own choosing."
"We'll see."
"Yes. We will. And when are you going to ask that woman to marry you?
"None of your business!"
"Ah! Business! I wish we were in business! Building and loan—I wish you'd get out of the building and leave me alone. Get it?"
"Good day, Joker," I said, rising.
"Good day, Dr. Lewis."
Session Ten
I could barely contain my rage. As soon as the guards left, I exploded.
"This time you've gone too far, Joker!"
"Whatever are you talking about, Dr. Lewis?"
"The ring, damn you! The goddamn ring!"
"You mean that little bauble I sent Dina? Think nothing of it."
"It wasn't 'just a bauble,' and you know it!"
When I'd answered my doorbell the night before, I'd been shocked to find Dina standing there with tears in her eyes. She threw her arms around me and told me how beautiful it was, and what a romantic way to propose. And then she showed me the ring—a huge solitaire, flawless, at least three carats. It was perfect, she said, the engagement ring she'd always dreamed of, and to think I'd sent it to her nestled in a bouquet of roses with the note: Dina—Make my life complete. Marry me. Hal.
I'd been planning to ask her to marry me as soon as I got on my feet financially, but I'd had nothing to do with this. I knew immediately who was behind it, though. I should have told her right then. But when I saw the look in her eyes, the joy in her face, I couldn't. How could I take that ring off her finger and say it wasn't from me? I wrapped my arms around her and said nothing.
"I won't have you interfering in my life!"
"Who's interfering?" he said through that grin. "I like you. I don't want to see you settle for second best. In a few years you'll be able to afford all these things on your own. But for now, it gives me pleasure to help you out. What's so wrong with that?"
"You're trying to compromise my judgment! And it won't work!"
"Of course it won't. We both know you've got too much integrity for that. By the way, there's an engagement gift waiting for you in your apartment."
That did it. I stormed out of the examining room.
But deep within my gut was a strange new feeling, a growing awareness that it was my duty to render this . . . this Joker incapable of corrupting or harming anyone again.
Conference
"A prefrontal lobotomy?" Dr. Hills said. "You must be joking!"
The irony of his choice of words was lost in the shocked silence around me. I'd gone directly from my session with the Joker to the psychiatric conference where I'd blurted out my recommendation. The rest of the psychiatric staff—Drs. Hills, Miller, and Bolland—were there, and I believe I stunned them all.
The solution had occurred to me as I'd entered the room. A prefrontal lobotomy—surgical invasion of the frontal lobe of the brain. It had been used briefly with great success in the 1930s. Violent, agitated patients had become pussycats—gentle, placid, physically and emotionally in low gear. But the procedure had fallen out of favor because it was deemed too extreme. And because it was irreversible.
"Yes, I'm aware that it's a radical suggestion," I said, "but you've got to admit that this particular case warrants a radical solution. Demands it, I should think. Lobotomy is definitive therapy in the case of a patient as incorrigibly violent as the Joker."
Dr. Hills said, "We'll come under heavy fire from the patients' rights groups merely for suggesting it. The ACLU, all the—"
"What about the rights of the people he will harm in the future when he escapes again?" I replied. "And we all know he will escape again. Let's be honest, gentlemen: modern psychiatry has failed society in the case of the Joker. I know. I've gone through his past records. The man seems to escape at will. Then he goes on a rampage of murder and robbery, is caught, is returned to us, only to escape again for another rampage. No matter how we chain him, drug him, psychoanalyze him, he escapes. And he never pays a price for the harm he does! Between rampages, he's given a clean, comfortable cell, three meals a day, and free medical care. For life!"
"But a lobotomy—?" Dr. Hills said.
"We've failed to contain him, we've failed to change him with therapy or control him with drugs, and the courts won't send him to the chair. As physicians charged with treating the so-called criminally insane, I think we have a duty to consider the definitive therapy for his sort of behavior disorder."
There was a long silence. Finally, Dr. Hills said, "I'll take it up with the State Board of Medical Examiners."
I left the conference room in a state of wild exhilaration. I might have been the new man on the staff but I was making my presence felt in no uncertain terms. And beyond that, I knew that my recommendation for lobotomy would prove to the Joker once and for all that Harold Lewis, M.D., was not for sale.
Session Nine-A
Numb, speechless, I stared across the table at the Joker. That smile ... if only he’d stop smiling.
"Well?" he said. "Do you like your engagement gift?"
"Where—?" My mouth was dry. "Where did you get it?"
I'd come home last night to find an original Colin Whittier hanging on my wall. An original! An abstract of swirling blues and greens that made me think of the depths of the ocean . .. the eternal cycle of birth, life, and death . . . cold, ghastly, unutterably beautiful.
The cost of a Whittier had gone through the roof since his death at the Joker's hands. Each was worth millions now. I'd never be able to afford a Whittier. Never. And the Joker had given me one.
I owned a Whittier original... a Whittier . ..
The monetary value meant nothing to me, for selling it was out of the question. I'd sell my soul to the devil before I'd part with it.
"I have a bunch of the things," the Joker said. "From his show at the Gotham Gallery."
"But the papers said you burned them!"
"Don't be silly. They're far too valuable for that, although for the life of me I can't imagine why. The man showed not the slightest trace of talent. I burned some old canvases of my own that I was unhappy with."
"Then . .. you still have all those Whittiers?"
"Yes. Stacked up in one of my warehouses. I forget which one, actually I had one of my men dig that piece out for you."
A stack of them ... I felt weak.
"Well? Do you like it? You haven't told me."
"I—I can't accept stolen goods," I said, forcing the words past my lips.
"Too bad. I was going to give the rest of them to you as a wedding present." The Joker shrugged. "Very well. I'll have my men remove it and—"
"No!" I said—almost a shout. "I mean, not yet. Let me live with it awhile."
The Joker's smile seemed to broaden. "As you wish, Dr. Lewis."
Whittiers ... a stack of Whittiers . . . sitting in a warehouse . . . collecting dust. . . rats nibbling at the canvases . . . clawing at the paint. . .
The image roamed my mind at will as I sat at the conference table and waited for Dr. Hills to arrive. Finally, he burst in.
"They approved it!" he cried. "The State Board of Medical Examiners approved a prefrontal lobotomy on the Joker! Any other patient and they would have said no, but the Joker—yes! Within weeks Arkham Asylum is going to be in all the medical journals!"
As excited chatter swept the table, I felt my blood run cold. The paintings. The Whittiers. A lobotomized Joker would be so passive and tractable that he'd tell the police the whereabouts of all his stashes of loot. The Whittiers ... my Whittiers . . . they'd be returned to the gallery ... to be sold for millions apiece.
"When is the surgery scheduled?"
"Tomorrow morning. Dr. Robinson is flying in from Toronto tonight."
"Maybe we should give electroshock a try," I said.
"ECT has failed already. What's the matter, Hal? The lobotomy was your idea. Having a change of heart?"
I hesitated. How could I protest the implementation of my own suggestion?
But that had been before I'd known about the Whittiers.
"Maybe. I think ECT deserves another chance. It could be we're rushing this too much."
"We have to move quickly. It was the Board's opinion that delay will only allow opposition to organize and cause legal obstruction. They feel that if we present the world with a lobotomized Joker as a fait accompli, there will be far less protest. And we will have discharged our duty to the public. As you so eloquently stated, Hal, we need definitive therapy in the Joker's case. And that's just what we're providing."
What could I say? I decided to risk everything.
"I'd like to go on record right now as being opposed to the surgery. At least at this time. I think we should explore other options first. And I'd like to call for a vote."
They all stared at me in shock. I didn't care. I had to stop the surgery— at least until I got my hands on the Whittiers. They were all I could think of. Even if I could only delay the surgery, it would give me time to convince Dina to move up our marriage so that the Joker could make good on his promised wedding gift. After that, I'd push again for the lobotomy.
But when the vote came, mine was the only hand raised in opposition.
Session Nine-B
That night I arranged another session with the Joker. I didn't even bother going through the motions of turning on the tape recorder.
"Did you really mean what you said about giving me the other Whit- tiers as a wedding gift?"
"Of course," the Joker said. "Have you set a date yet?"
I clasped my hands together to keep them from trembling. I'd always been a terrible liar.
"Yes. Tomorrow. We've decided we can't wait any longer. We're getting married before a justice of the peace in the morning."
"Really? Congratulations! I'm very happy for you."
"Thank you. So ... I was wondering . . . could you tell me where you've stored those stolen Whittiers? I'll pick them up tonight, if you don't mind."
"No. Of course not. Do you know where Wrightson Street is?"
I could barely contain my excitement.
"No. But I'll find it."
"Here," the Joker said, casually freeing his hands from the restraints and picking up a pencil. "I'll draw you a map."
As he began to draw, I leaned forward. Suddenly his other hand flashed forward. I felt a sting in my neck. As I jerked back I saw the dripping syringe in his hand. I opened my mouth to shout for the guards but the words wouldn't come. A roar like a subway charging into a station filled my ears as everything faded to black.
A voice, faraway, calling me through the blackness. I move toward it and come into the light.
A bizarre, twisted face, half Joker, half normal, floating before me.
"Time to wake up, Dr. Lewis," it says in the Joker's voice. "Time to rise and shine."
I try to speak. My lips feel strange as they move, and the only sounds I can make are garbled, unintelligible.
I try to move, but my hands are cuffed to the chair. I can only sit and watch.
And as I watch, the Joker stares into a mirror and fits pieces of flesh- colored latex over his chin and left cheek. I see him only in profile, but as each piece is affixed, he looks less and less like the Joker, and more and more like someone else. Someone I know.
"You gave me some very bad moments there, Dr. Lewis," he says. "For a full twenty-four hours you had me believing I'd misjudged you, underestimated you. Self-doubt is most unpleasant, even in a minuscule dose. I don't know how other people put up with a lifetime full of it."
I try again to speak but the result is still gibberish.
"Don't bother," he says. "One of the effects of that injection is a disorganization of the speech centers of the brain. But let me get back to the story of my brief episode of inner turmoil. You see, all through these past few weeks I've been thinking that I had you, really had you. For instance, you kept the Mercedes. I mean, if you'd really wanted to show me up, you could have sold it, bought another old Toyota junker, and given the balance to charity. That would have put me in my place. Same with the engagement ring. Oh, I know I put you in a tough spot then, but if you really had the courage of your convictions, you'd have told the lovely Dina the truth. But you didn't. You were willing to let the very first step of your marriage be a false one. Oh, I was sure I had you."
He pauses as he begins brushing makeup over his latex mask, then continues:
"Then you go storming into the staff conference and drop your bombshell. I was shocked, believe me. A prefrontal lobotomy, Dr. Lewis? How audacious! It would have worked, I'm sure. I was almost proud of you when I heard. None of the other incompetents here had the brains to think of it, or the guts to suggest it. But you charged right in and told it like it was. I like that. Reminds me of me."
I try to speak again, with the same results.
"What's that?" he says. "You're not like me? Oh, but you are. A while back you took me to task for being indifferent to the consequences of my actions, their tragic effects upon the individuals directly involved and upon society at large. And I told you, quite honestly, that I didn't care. You were so self-righteous. And then what did you go and do? When you discovered that I had something you wanted, you tried to turn the staff away from your 'definitive therapy.' Up to that moment, I'd planned simply to disappear and, as usual, leave you all wondering how. But now I see that you weren't concerned with what was best for society; you weren't concerned with the responsibilities of your position here. You were concerned only with what Dr. Harold Lewis wanted. And you weren't even honest with yourself about it."
He lifts the mirror and holds it before his made-up face as he turns toward me. Hidden behind the mirror, he says, "See? Didn't I say you were just like me?"
And in the mirror I see the pale, distorted features of the Joker grinning back at me.
Horror rips through me. I try to scream but it's useless.
"That injection contained a nonlethal variation on my tried-and-true Joker venom," he says, staying behind the mirror. "So, besides scrambling your speech areas, it has also pulled your lips into a handsome smile. I've completed the picture by bleaching your skin and dying your hair and fingernails green."
Then he lowers the mirror.
I gasp as I see my own face on the Joker's body.
"How do I look?" he says.
I struggle frantically with the manacles, trying to pull free, trying to break the arms of the chair so I can get my hands around his throat.
"Guards!" he calls in my voice. The two uniformed men rush in and the Joker says, "The patient has become violent. I think it best to carry him back to his cell as is, chair and all. I'll order a sedative that will hold him until his surgery tomorrow morning."
The lobotomy! Please, God! Not the lobotomy!
As they drag me from the room, I hear his soft voice behind me.
"And I'll be sure to give Dina your best tonight."