BAE Chapter 19

Barbara repositions, swings, and smashes through the glass.

The woman in Nygma’s lap shrieks and recoils, crashing onto the coffee table. Barbara hits Nygma before he can react, sending his bowler hat and mask flying with a punch that knocks him out cold. He slumps over.

The screaming woman leaps up and runs for the door. Barbara’s about to act, but there’s a crackle and a flash as something shocks the woman. She collapses in a smoking heap.

Barbara is there in a heartbeat, checking her pulse. She’s OK, just stunned. Barbara looks up at the wires around the door. Nygma believed that the Batman was gone; his defenses were in place for the police. That was what made the window a good entry point. If Barbara had tried the door, she would’ve ended up like this woman: helpless, but Nygma would’ve been conscious.

Barbara shudders at the thought. She picks the woman up and carries her to the sofa, where she kicks the **** Nygma onto the floor. Barbara puts the woman down and covers her with her dress, then handcuffs Nygma. She straightens, dusting off her gloved hands. Her cowl takes pictures of the apartment in case there’s anything that matters, but she has a good idea of what Nygma did. He has a need to show off and expensive tastes. If he’s free, he uses his talents to get money, which he burns through quickly. Then he needs more. If he was just a little bit smarter he’d be less flamboyant and never get caught, but he has to remind people as often as possible how smart he is.

Barbara goes to the window and looks back at the apartment. Wind howls this high up, and the noise of the city sounds distant.

“Alfred, Nygma’s in the bag. Send the police to pick him up. He had cameras all over the gala. I’m frying his equipment.”

“Very good, Miss Gordan.”

“Tell the police to watch for traps and let them know there’s a woman here. Possible accomplice. Make sure that Vicki Vale has the inside track.”

“Not Ms. Gleeson?”

“Barbara Gordon deals with Summer Gleeson. Vicki Vale is the bat expert.”

“Quite so, Ms. Gordon.”

Barbara tosses a small EMP grenade into the apartment and hops out the window, turning to grapple to the roof. There, she checks the time and calculates what needs to be done. In a city the size of Gotham, the odds of running into a Bat are slim, but never zero. They have to know. This takedown on Nygma wasn’t very public. Vicki Vale will help make it public. She was at the gala that was hit; her life was at risk because of Nygma. She’ll take this and run with it.

Across town, the doorbell rings in the apartment of Riley Beaumont.

Riley hurries out of the bedroom, a slim and elegant figure in a white satin robe. She answers the door for the distraught Viti Saxena, Gotham’s District Attorney. Viti throws her arms around Riley and squeezes.

The slim redhead returns the embrace, hugging the smaller, curvier woman tightly.

“I was so scared,” Viti says tearfully. “I couldn’t show it!”

Of course she couldn’t. She’s Gotham’s DA. She has to project strength. Riley gets her to sit down on the sofa and pours a large glass of red wine for Viti, then another one for herself. She joins Viti, who gulps the wine.

It doesn’t take her long to calm down. Soon she’s sitting there, more or less herself, sipping wine and scowling.

Riley gives her a wry look. “So much for being hard on the commissioner,” she says.

“It wasn’t the commissioner who saved us,” Viti replies bitterly. “It was his daughter. She yelled at me ten minutes earlier.”

“Good for her,” Riley says.

Across the street, Barbara kneels on a ledge, looking through binoculars and listening with the directional microphone. She smiles. It’s nice to be appreciated.

Riley Beaumont is the only lead Barbara has in Amelie’s ****.

Searching the apartment as Batgirl is one option. If Riley is involved, there will be clues.

Or approaching Riley without costume could work. If Riley knows something, that might be the way to find out what it is. Should Barbara investigate Riley Beaumont as Batgirl or as Barbara Gordon?