****************
Chapter 9 - Racetrack Dining

The meeting wasn�t going well.

Dick knew Holly was nervous. She had a hard time making eye contact and her pulse increased noticeably, throbbing away in her neck as the small diner filled up with Bludhaven officers on their lunch breaks. Dick decided to take things outside, for both their sakes. He felt a little uncomfortable around other officers himself.

They moved through the small run-down core of the �Haven, empty office buildings gaping at them like broken teeth in a mouth that had once held gold fillings. Unlike Gotham, Bludhaven had never known a golden age of economic boom or cultural expansion. Since the death of the fishing industry along the polluted Avalon River, commerce in Dick�s adopted city was limited mainly to off-track betting and the drug trade. The brief period of development after the Gotham �quake was dying out, the empty buildings and long unemployment lines souvenirs from that period.

�Nice city,� Holly said, shivering at the gray, overcast sky and dull buildings. �I think this place would have to improve to be condemned.�

�Oh, it�s not all bad,� Dick told her. �There are some really pretty places in the �Haven. And the people are great.�

�What, the whores and the druggies?� Holly asked, watching him for a change in expression. Dick kept his features carefully neutral.

�They�re people too,� he said.

Holly shook her head, giving him the once-over. �Not to someone in that uniform.�

Dick didn�t try to argue. Instead, he decided to show her that not everything in Bludhaven was gray and ugly. They walked six blocks west and as the business core fell away the city blocks gave way to a stretch of urban bareness poised for development. The stench of the river was blowing in the opposite direction, and Dick�s favorite spot in the city waited just ahead.

The Hasnot Race Track had been built a quarter-century ago by one of the Gotham crime families in order to escape local restrictions on gambling. The grandstands and betting offices were architectural wonders, beautifully designed and lovingly crafted by a contractors who were, most likely, bribed or blackmailed into doing the work. Dick loved the track, a long stretch of warm brown sand encircled by a white fence and a shock of emerald-green grass. Even in early winter, the brown, barren landscape was almost magical, the pure beauty of the track and sculpted lawns adding grace to the cold, dead season.

Holly was quiet, introspective, and Dick kept up the small talk hoping to discover more about her presence in his city. They watched an early heat from the sidelines near the finishing post, leaning their forearms on the white barricades.

�You like horses?� Dick asked her.

Holly shrugged. �They�re okay, I guess. Never spent much time around them.�

�What about dogs?�

Holly wrinkled her pert, upturned nose. �Yech! I like cats much better. More personality.�

Dick smiled. �I like dogs myself. Cats are the lap-dancers of the animal kingdom: they�re only interested as long as the food or the money holds out.�

Holly continued to stare off into the distance, watching as the horses were paraded for the crowd. Their jockeys, flashes of color in their bright silks, were dwarfed by the quality thoroughbreds. Bludhaven was not a cultural beacon or a city with a great deal of financial influence, but only the best horseflesh in the country raced at the Hasnot.

�Do you have one?� Holly asked, her breath coming out in a puff of white.

�A dog?�

Holly nodded.

�Nope,� Dick replied. �I�m never around. Wouldn�t be fair to the pup.� He�d wanted a pet since he was a kid, but it hadn�t been practical. There�d been so many animals in Pop Haley�s Traveling Circus that getting a dog seemed redundant. Dick�s parents had promised that, when he was old enough and they�d made it to Florida for the off-season, he could get a puppy. But they�d died soon after, and Dick had never thought to ask Bruce about a pet.

�Want to watch the greyhounds?� Dick asked. �They run indoors. It�d be warmer there.�

Holly nodded, still eyeing him with naked suspicion. Dick wondered what she thought of him. They had exchanged names and a few pleasantries at the diner but no information, dancing around the purpose for the meeting as if neither of them had wanted to go first. Dick was accustomed to beating information out of suspects or paying for it, but actually working with someone from Gotham�s underworld was something new.

�Look,� Dick began, just to get them started, �I know you don�t trust me. No reason why you should. But I can help you find your friends and-�

�What did you find out?� Holly asked him, cutting him off sharply. She had the feeling he talked too much.

Dick blinked in surprise and handed her a CD in a blank case. Holly looked at him expectantly, eyes narrowed.

�It�s a list of names,� he explained. �Incomplete, lots of Jane Does,� he admitted, �But they are the girls you�re looking for. Twenty-three in all. Some might have disappeared for reasons not related to the case, but they all vanished from the East End or Desolation Row in the last six weeks.�

Holly looked at the disc, light bouncing off the case and reflected onto her face. �This must have taken serious computer work,� she pointed out, watching him. It took a lot for Holly to look a cop in the eyes. She still remembered her first trick, how much it hurt, how it felt like being torn up inside. She hadn�t made much that first time and later that night, two Gotham uniforms had rolled her for the money. She�d fought and one of them had broken her cheekbone with his nightstick, telling her she wasn�t worth the yard she�d gotten for the night�s work. She had been ten years old. She wouldn�t meet Selina Kyle for another year.

Richard Grayson was not, as Slam had said, �your typical cop�, and she found it easier than she�d thought possible to meet his intelligent, concerned gaze. He�d been patient, curious and hadn�t lied to her once. Until now. When Holly asked him about the disc, Grayson�s eyes wavered slightly. If she hadn�t been watching him so closely for some lapse into cop cruelty, she would have missed it. As it was, she filed it away, reminding herself to ask Slam what he thought of it.

�I�ve got a friend with links to the FBI,� Dick told her. Holly shook her head.

�My friend already checked that out. Those girls were ghosts: no one was looking for them, not even their pimps or dealers. I checked out a lot of leads on them and the ones from the FBI were the last to pay out.�

�There was still a record of them,� Dick explained carefully. She was smart. �Birth certificates, driver�s licenses, school records�everyone leaves a trace. And most of those girls left somebody or something behind. You just have to know where to look.�

Holly watched his reaction. �You and your �friend� at the FBI must be close.�

Dick grinned. �Yah, you could say we are. Want to place a bet?�

Holly shook her head. �Not my thing.�

Dick nodded and excused himself, heading towards the betting office. Once out of sight, he made for the top of the grandstands, the thin crowd of early afternoon track junkies partying like the Red Sea before his Bludhaven uniform. Dick attracted a few hostile glares but, for the most part, his badge granted him unfettered passage. He arrived at higher ground and located Holly by herself at the far corner of the barren field. He waited, watching, knowing he wasn�t wrong. In a few minutes, he figured it out.

She wasn�t alone. A tall, thickish man with the face of an ex-boxer and a fighter�s stance had tailed them from the diner. He was good, able to shadow them for the six block walk almost unnoticed. Had Dick been anyone else, raised by anyone else, the man would have watched them unnoticed all day. Even now, he didn�t approach Holly, watching the next heat casually from a crowded vantage point near the winner�s circle as he waited for Dick to return.

Dick went to the concession and ordered two hot dogs, hoping Holly wasn�t a vegetarian. He was finishing up with the cashier when he heard the soft scrape of wheels on the pavement.

�Hello, son,� the Prophet greeted from the vicinity of Dick�s kneecaps. Dick stepped out of line and the little man reached up, neatly snatching one of the hot dogs. �Your offering is appreciated,� the Prophet thanked him, downing the dog in record time. Dick shook his head, moving to the condiment bar to slather mustard and ketchup on the remaining hotdog.

�I didn�t expect to see you again,� Dick muttered. The Prophet wheeled himself closer and Dick realized that the Prophet probably had full use of his legs. The wheeled board was a prop, a weapon in grift, the illusion so practiced and perfect that even Dick�s trained eye had failed to see through the ruse. Bruce might have been able to, but Dick had never hoped to equal his adopted father�s skill.

The Prophet looked out through a sea of legs to the track below. �You have spoken with the child,� he intoned. �And it is a long, low road to the mountain, son.�

�Have another hotdog,� Dick suggested. �Maybe you�ll make more sense after you�ve eaten.� He handed the meat and bun to the Prophet, who accepted the food with a smile and a nod. His teeth flashed bright and perfect in the sun. Dick thought the only street-people who had teeth like that bought them in the store. The Prophet�s were real, and Dick wondered at the need for the lie. Why did the Prophet pretend to be a transient? Was he hiding from something? Or was he just as crazy as he looked?

�The dark man with the angel comes soon,� the Prophet announced with authority. Dick nodded, pretending to understand. �He brings with him the seed of mistrust, sown in fertile soil. The path ahead is dark.�

�You always talk like a fortune cookie?� Dick asked with a rookie cop�s cocky attitude, watchful and worried beneath it all. Barbara�s search on the Prophet yielded no information. Discovering the identities of the missing girls was easy in comparison. As it was, it took Barbara�s best processors and two days of work to find what little they had on the missing women in Gotham and Bludhaven. Bruce had trained them to always start with the victim of a crime and develop their profile of the killer afterwards. In this case (assuming it was a crime) their target was a complete blank. And Dick couldn�t shake the suspicion that the Prophet knew something about the disappearances that they had somehow missed.

�There is a dark place,� the Prophet was saying, his hushed delivery laced with fear. Dick wanted to compliment him on his acting ability, but the strange little man began to wheel himself away. �Trust the child!� he cautioned.

Dick watched him go, shaking his head. �I hate cryptic warnings from dubious sources,� he muttered, going back to get a few more hot dogs.

***************************

Dick collapsed in bed, his eyes falling shut almost as soon as his head hit the pillow. It had been busy at the station in the last week. The limited resources of the Bludhaven Police Department were overwhelmed by the slightest increase in criminal activity and the recent snowfall and cold spell in the city had forced many of the �Haven�s homeless into petty crime in order to secure a warm place to sleep at night.

Dick mentally plotted out the schedule for the next few days. He and Holly had been patrolling together during the afternoon, doing research on the missing street girls. Dick made a mental note to go into work early in the morning and hit the Missing Person files for the fifth time that week. They�d spoken to a lot of transients in Desolation Row who remembered the missing girls, but no one had any theories as to what had happened to them.

And when homeless street people didn�t have a conspiracy theory or two, you know you�ve hit a dead end.

Dick sighed. His shift began at ten: he had at least four hours of uninterrupted sleep to look forward to before a new day dawned. Dick struggled to remember the last time he�d had more than three or four hours of sleep a night. Early childhood rung a bell, but Dick wouldn�t place money on it.

Tonight wasn�t his lucky night. Just as he was beginning to doze off, the phone rang. Not Dick Grayson�s phone, with the cheerful message recorded on the answering machine, but the hard line which Oracle, Robin or Batman used when making a secure call. It had to be Babs - Barbara. Tim would try to call later when he knew Dick would be up (Dick blessed the sympathy of his fellow sleep-deprived Robin) and Bruce usually didn�t call unless it was an absolute emergency.

�Hello,� Dick mumbled into the receiver. �Babs, I just hit the sack, and while it�s nice to know you�re thinking about me��

�I�m afraid to disappoint you, Master Dick, but I am not Miss Barbara,� a cultured English voice informed him. Dick smiled, closing his eyes and lying back down.

�Hey, Alfred,� Dick mumbled, drifting inexorably towards sleep despite his best efforts. Something in the butler�s tone finally registered, and Dick�s eyes shot open. He sat up quickly. �Is something wrong? Is Bruce?��

Sixty miles away, within the cavernous confines of Wayne Manor, Alfred Pennyworth smiled softly at the concern in Dick�s voice. He often thought it remarkable that young Mr. Grayson had retained such affection for Master Bruce, who was not an easy man to love.

�The Master is fine,� Alfred assured him, nervously twining the phone cord around his fingers before catching himself. He forced the errant digits to still. �That is,� Alfred corrected, �I assume he is fine.�

�Al, I�m running on next to no sleep. It�s been a crazy couple of days. Can the stuffy British stalling and tell me whatever it is you�re trying to tell me.�

In Bristol, Alfred�s mouth jumped again. �Master Bruce has not slept at home the last few nights. He rarely takes meals here, either. When I do see him, he is rather distracted.�

Dick closed his eyes and sank back into the soft bed. �Alfred, please tell me you didn�t wake me up because Bruce is acting�well, like Bruce. You know how he is when he�s working a big case. I remember back in high school-�

Alfred coughed, politely interrupting Dick�s recollections. �Master Dick, there is no �big case�. I have spoken to Miss Gordon, and Master Bruce�s schedule is clear of the usual serial murders and extortion schemes beyond the Bradshaw disappearance. By all rights, he should be spending this lull resting and preparing for the next intense period of after-dark shenanigans, not staying out past dawn and working himself to exhaustion.�

�What exactly are you worried about, Al?� Dick finally asked, deciding that there was no shame in surrender.

Alfred discovered he was playing with the phone cord again. �The last time Master Bruce seemed this withdrawn he was under the spell of that plant woman.�

�Poison Ivy? When was this?� Dick asked eagerly. Bruce and nearly every other man in a position of power in the Gotham City had been under Ivy�s control at one time or another. Usually the spell cast by pheromones didn�t last very long, thanks to an antidote Bruce had developed years ago. Despite constant pestering, Dick�s adopted father had never really explained precisely what circumstances had required the development of the antidote.

�It was before your time,� Alfred told him, offering absolutely no details with the discretion bred into men of his profession. �Suffice to say, I am concerned for Master Bruce�s well-being.�

Dick sighed, sitting up and planting his feet firmly on the floor, cursing Alfred�s skill at exploiting Dick�s weak spot for worried butlers. �I�ll be in Gotham in a half hour. Don�t tell Bruce I�m coming in.�

*******************

Barbara Gordon followed the tracking blip on her screen as it moved down green grids representing city blocks. Blackbird�s usual patrol route, she noted. And he was right on schedule. You could set your watch by his movements: she often did.

�So�what�s a nice girl like you doing in a tech-infested clock tower like this?� a warm, teasing voice asked and Barbara smiled, wondering how he�d managed to slip past her security protocols so easily.

�You need new material,� she grinned, turning in her chair to face a costumed and clearly exhausted Nightwing. �Alfred said you�d be stopping by. And I can�t tell you how reassuring it is to find out my significant other is coming into town from a guy Bruce pays to clean bat guano out of the Cave.�

Dick stuck his tongue out at Barbara and practiced a headstand. �Maybe I was trying to surprise you.�

�Oh, Dick,� Barbara rolled her eyes, unimpressed with Dick�s gymnastics. She turned back to the bank of monitors lining her command post. �I�m the Oracle. Nothing surprises me.�

Dick somersaulted out of the headstand and came to stand behind her, gloved hands rubbing her shoulders in a way that Barbara found most�distracting. �If nothing surprises you,� he suggested gently, bending down close to her ear, �why don�t you know what�s going on with Bruce?�

Barbara pursed her lips, shrugging off Dick�s warm touch and pushing her glasses firmly onto the bridge of her nose. Dick smiled as Barbara suddenly reminded him of the way she�d acted the first time he�d met her. She had been the mysterious older woman then, a freshman in college, the flame-haired daughter of the Commissioner and the face behind Batgirl�s mask. He�d just been entering junior high and had fallen hopelessly in love.

�Whatever�s going on,� Barbara said, �he�s intentionally keeping us out of it.�

�What do you mean?�

Barbara tapped a button, bringing the green tracking blip up onto a larger screen. �It�s three a.m. in about two seconds. Watch for it -� she said, just as the blip entered the East End and winked out. �He�s been turning off his transmitter and communicator every night. Alfred told you he hasn�t been coming home in the morning, right?�

Dick stepped back, frowning. �So? He might just want some privacy. I turn off my Oracom on patrol, too.�

�Not consistently. He always maintains radio contact, Dick, unless he�s in trouble. This is unusual.�

�Babs!� Dick exclaimed, surprised at her. �Don�t tell me you think Bruce has fallen victim to Poison Ivy! I thought you knew better than to give in to Alfred�s panic attacks.�

Barbara smiled at the mental image of the unflappable Alfred Pennyworth experiencing hysterics and hyperventilating into a paper bag. �I�m just worried, Dick,� she told him, her eyes dark hollows in the dim green light generated by the computer monitors. �He doesn�t exactly have a stellar record when it comes to asking for help.�

Dick gave up. The only thing he was more vulnerable to than worried butlers were concerned Barbara Gordons. �I�ll track him in the East End, if it�ll make you feel better. Who knows?� Dick grinned. �Maybe he�s got a girlfriend he�s shy about.�

Barbara arched an eyebrow in disbelief.

�Well,� Dick told her, �you can be pretty nosy. So can Alfred.�

�I hope you�re right, Dick,� Barbara said. �He�s just not acting like himself.�

�I�ll stop by later,� Dick promised, already hanging halfway out the window which would lead to the roof of the clock tower. �I miss you, Babs.�

Barbara nodded absently, her mind already returning to the glowing computer screens. Dick slipped out the window, diving into the cold night air like the aerialist he was. He arched his back into a swan-dive, falling for five, then ten seconds before shooting a line and sailing a half city block. He landed perfectly on the roof of an office tower. A startled night janitor cleaning the office across the street jolted upright as Dick leapt off the roof at a run, waving casually as he sped by. The janitor returned the gesture dumbly.

Dick made record time, racing over the rooftops of Gotham to alight on an East End tenement five minutes later. He checked the GPS system with Barbara back at the clock tower, went a block south, and sat down to wait.

He watched as the streets below emptied and the moon set. Third shift workers returned home, exhausted, to the slums and broken-down housing projects of the East End. Junkies and hookers were usually local to Sprang Street two blocks west but Dick wasn�t surprised to see a few loitering in this neighborhood. The night grew quiet, the human animals of Gotham returned to their hidden dwellings, and finally the East End slept. Dick felt his own eyes grow heavy, lulled into the warm embrace of sleep by the temporary urban calm and his own exhaustion. He worried that he, or Barbara, or both of them had made a mistake just as he caught sight of the shadow of the Bat.

The man who had raised him dropped onto a fire escape down the street, the threatening darkness of his costume merging into the shadows. Another figure dropped from the night to land at the vigilante�s side, and beneath Nightwing�s mask, Dick Grayson�s eyes widened. Catwoman.

They were too far away for Dick to catch the entire conversation, but one of the skills Dick had picked up during his formative years happened to be lip-reading. Best education a boy ever had.

�Are you sure that was necessary?� Selina asked, breathless after the mad race across the city�s rooftops he had led her on. Her eyes were warm and bright with exercise despite the bitter cold of the night. �I mean, he didn�t know anything about the missing girls. He was just a kid, trying to help feed his family��

�He was selling drugs, Selina,� Bruce replied in what Dick imagined to be Batman�s low rumble of unquestioning authority. Dick recognized that voice and knew exactly when Bruce liked to employ it: it was a voice that meant the end of any argument. Bravely, or perhaps foolishly, Selina continued.

�Jesus, you self-righteous prick! Drug dealing is the economic foundation of the East End! You came down hard on that kid for doing something as normal in this neighborhood as breathing!�

Batman frowned, his posture stiff. �I made the consequences of the activity clear, Selina. If he tries it again, he�ll answer to me.�

Selina whirled, cracking her whip to emphasize her frustration and anger. The gunshot-like noise bounced off the artificial canyon of city buildings, the amplified retort lingering in Dick�s earpiece.

�What if he calls your bluff?� Selina asked. He didn�t seem to have an answer (she half-expected one of those ridiculous �So what? I�m Batman� responses he�d been so fond of three or four years ago) and Selina, catlike, chose to try another tactic. �That technique of dissuasion never worked with me,� she reminded him, biting down on her visible anger, making her voice seductive, inviting.

�You always were a difficult woman,� he grumbled, anger draining out of his voice. Dick watched in amazement as Batman pulled her close, his arm fitting comfortably around her waist. �You aren�t really angry, are you?� he asked, already sure of the answer.

Selina arched her neck back to meet his eyes, not resisting his embrace but not encouraging it either. �I just can�t see it your way. To you, Ricky Marcos is drug-dealing scum. To me�well, he�s just an unlucky kid. I�ll help pull him out of the business because he�s too soft to hold his own against the more powerful dealers, but I won�t pass judgment on him like you do.�

Batman watched her for a long moment, face immobile. Dick thought he looked sad. Finally, Bruce bent to whisper something in Selina�s ear, the movements of his mouth blocked by the pointy ears on Selina�s mask.

�Doesn�t make you right.�

Dick picked out her response and the two masked figures stared at each other a while longer, a contest of wills. Selina won. Bruce turned and slipped inside the window of an apparently abandoned apartment complex. To his chagrin, Selina turned, looked directly at Dick�s concealed position and saluted him casually before following Bruce inside the apartment. Dick returned her salute with a wave just as dumbfounded as the night janitor�s.