Batman Page #14

ALFRED:

I'm sorry, Miss Vale. I've given him

your messages. That's all I can do.

ANGLE WIDENS. BRUCE is sitting mere feet away, obviously

distraught, locked in some sort of internal struggle.

INT. VICKI'S APARTMENT - THAT MOMENT - DAY

VICKI:

Please tell him... I'm not trying to

make his life difficult. I'd just --

I'd just like to know what's going

on.

A KNOCK at the door as VICKI hangs up. She goes to open it,

finds KNOX -- wearing a big, cheshire-cat smile.

KNOX:

Hiya, peanut. I got something I'd

like you to see.

INT. LIBRARY - DAY

A MICROFILM MACHINE. As VICKI looks on curiously, KNOX --

all eagerness now -- threads up a roll of film and begins

cranking through back-issue newspapers.

KNOX:

Okay, here we go. Check it out.

He steps back. VICKI stares down at the display screen. A

FRONT-PAGE BANNER HEADLINE reads:

THOMAS WAYNE MURDERED

Prominent Doctor, Wife Slain in Robbery

Unidentified Gunman Leaves Child Unharmed

Beneath it, a PHOTO: cops kneeling over corpses. Medics

with stretchers. And off to one side, a YOUNG BOY -- BRUCE

WAYNE -- his arms wrapped around the waist of a BEAT COP.

The BOY stares straight at the camera. His face is a mask

of UNFORGETTABLE AGONY. You can't take your eyes off it.

VICKI:

Oh my God... I've seen this picture.

KNOX:

I guess so. Pulitzer Prize, 1963.

VICKI:

His face. Allie, look at his face.

TIGHT ON THE BOY'S contorted face, staring out in shock and

disbelief, his features recognizable across all the years

-- permanently, indelibly traumatized. The same face VICKI

saw in Halliday Plaza.

KNOX:

Yep. He watched the whole thing

happen. -- Recognize the beat cop?

Jim Gordon.

VICKI:

Oh, Bruce...

KNOX:

Something like this -- what do you

suppose this could drive a guy to?

INT. RESTAURANT - DAY

A greasy spoon off the lobby of the Globe building. KNOX

and VICKI in a booth.

VICKI:

Alexander, you are on drugs.

KNOX:

He walks out on his own party. Half

an hour later, the Caped Crusader

turns up in full bat-drag.

(beat)

Sees an execution, freaks out in an

alleyway. No place to change.

(smiling)

Yeah, Vicki, he's "married" all

right.

VICKI:

You're pissing me off, Allie. I know

exactly why you're doing this.

KNOX:

(leaning forward)

Oh? Why is that, Vicki?

VICKI wilts under the challenge. She holds her silence for

a second, then changes the subject.

VICKI:

He's best friends with Jim Gordon

and Harvey Dent. They would know.

KNOX:

... Okay, Vicki, I have a confession

to make. I'm the Batman.

VICKI snorts, rolls her eyes impatiently.

KNOX (cont.)

Don't believe me? Why not?

VICKI:

Alexander... I know you.

KNOX:

Right. And they know him. And

that's why it would never occur to

them for a minute that their old

buddy Bruce puts on a cape at night

and goes out looking for --

VICKI:

This is pointless. I'm leaving.

KNOX:

(grabbing her arm)

Your little chum is out of his mind.

(relaxing his grip)

Next time you call him up and he

can't go out Friday night -- think

it over.

CUT TO:

INT. ACE CHEMICAL CO. - DAY

LOW ANGLE on the JOKER. He stands on a catwalk high above

the refinery floor, lord of all he surveys, overseeing

production like a demented middle manager.

INT. STOREROOM - DAY

A dank, windowless room in the bowels of Ace Chemical,

which the JOKER has converted into a makeshift lair. SAP-

LIKE GOO drips in puddles from exposed pipes overhead.

CAMERA DRIFTS across the JOKER's cluttered desk. Shipping

manifests. Ledgers. PSYCHOTIC DOODLES scrawled in crayon.

More significantly: an old CONTRACT dating back to the mid-

seventies. It's half-obscured by other papers, but the

initials 'CIA' are plainly visible.

Then:
a BOUND REPORT with the title 'DDID NERVE GAS:

RESULTS OF PRELIMINARY EXPERIMENTATION.' Across its title

page, a diagonal rubber stamp: 'DISCONTINUED January 1977.'

And finally:
a sheaf of PHOTOS. Laboratory apes, chimps and

orangutans, all DEAD. Their LIPS are drawn back, exposing

HIDEOUS, CHEMICAL-INDUCED GRIMACES.

ON ONE WALL:
POSTER-SIZED BLOWUPS of the grinning apes.

ON THE OPPOSITE WALL: a large-scale photographic

reproduction of the Gotham City skyline, its bottom half

HIDDEN FROM VIEW by the JOKER's desk.

The PHONE RINGS. The JOKER -- who has been sitting on the

floor by the cityscape -- POPS INTO FRAME and picks it up.

JOKER:

How's that first shipment coming?

VOICE ON PHONE:

Right on schedule. Oh, we got that

address for you -- 79 East End,

#12-C.

JOKER:

Mmm. How'd you find it?

VOICE ON PHONE:

Called her agent.

The JOKER nods in satisfaction and resumes his place on the

floor. Like a happy kindergartener, with paste pot and

scissors, he's CLIPPING PHOTOS from a magazine -- horrible

scenes of death, destruction, panic, mutilation.

One by one, he's PASTING these shots on the blowup of

Gotham city -- all along sidewalk level -- creating a

massive photomontage of ANARCHY IN THE STREETS.

We've seen these photos before. VICKI VALE took them... in

Corto Maltese.

INT. PHOTOGRAPHER'S STUDIO - DAY

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