LOOSE ENDS by Gaggy Rimshot “There comes a time in every man’s life, when he must move on.” “What are you talking about, Rimshot?” bellowed Rupert Thorne. Gaggy Rimshot, Gotham’s legendary henchman, stood in front of the desk of the city’s most powerful crime lord. It had been no secret that the midget mercenary was an intricate part of Thorne’s ascension, as well as the ascension of numerous so-called “super criminals.” “Mr. T,” he always addressed employers as such for anonymity, “I’m quitting the henchman scene. I’ve already notified my other employers; I’m coming to you to ask you not try to contact me with jobs anymore.” Thorne seemed a little shocked, but picked up a poker and walked to his fireplace, “Why do you want out, Gaggy?” The midget smiled and fixed the lapel of his blue zoot suit, “I don’t know. I just had a feeling like I had accomplished almost everything I set out to do. I just have to close business with one more person and I won’t have any strings left.” Rupert Thorne smirked, “Always tying up the loose ends of other people’s plans?” Gaggy returned the gesture, “Always.” Thorne turned around, but his loyal henchman had vanished and the window stood open. As Gaggy got into his red convertible, he thought hard about his decision. He had helped so many people achieve fame. Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, Penguin, Roxy Rocket, Scarecrow, and most notably, the Joker. He smirked. It was strange really. Everyone knew who Gaggy was, except for his public. He could walk down Crime Alley and be asked for an autograph. An autograph! But then again, he could walk right up to a police man, do cartwheels in front of him, and he wouldn’t be arrested. And why? Because he stayed out of the limelight, had taken all the precautions, and more. His employers went to prison and he always got away. Why? He was so good at being bad that no one knew who he was. Well, there was only one person left to settle up with. Batman. The murders began. The first was an alley way murder. Someone had lured a man to an alley and savagely beat him to death. Across town, a woman was shot execution style with a .22 caliber bullet. A little girl was killed in an elementary school rest room. She was decapitated and her blood used to paint the mirrors red. At Gotham State University, a cheerleader was found poisoned and raped. The police were unsure in what order. An elderly couple’s night out was ruined when they were mowed down in the street by a hit and run. Three men were killed walking out of a gym by a drive-by shooting moments later. A bomb went off in the baseball stadium. An elevator crashed fourteen stories. A sniper took out half the high school track team. A woman’s entrails were found decorated a store lot Christmas tree with her head on the top. “All different victims, all different methods of demise....different times, no prints, no trails, no hairs, no clues. We wouldn’t even know it was the same murderer if he didn’t leave his calling card. We normally say ‘calling card’ and mean a certain style. This guy’s is ACTUALLY leaving calling cards!” Batman listened to Gordon’s rant as he took the extra copy of the file of the newest murder. Batman replied coolly, “And we still don’t know where Rimshot has gone to?” Contrary to the midget’s understanding, the police knew a lot about the henchman of Gotham. He could not be hunted more than his clients because for public relations, the star criminals had to come first. Besides which, he was not an easy man to reach. For police or clients. There was a better chance of Gaggy simply showing up like a ghost when a job was needed. Gordon sighed, “We know he’s in Gotham, simply because we know he wouldn’t let anyone else put his name on a business card. He’s really starving for attention now. ..... Batman?” But Batman was gone already, in the same way that the midget mobster had disappeared right in front of Thorne. In the Batcave, the Dark Knight fed the new information into the computer. The projected pattern was incomprehensible. It made no sense. Batman rubbed his eyes and sipped on his coffee. Gaggy was certainly starving for attention, like Gordon had said. They were denying the press the information on the cards. It was like a game of chess, trying to figure out what your opponent was thinking. Gaggy had to have known that the cards would be denied to the press. In his twisted mind, he was driving for attention, but couldn’t abandon his secretive ways. His murders had been the cleanest Batman had seen in a while. And completely random. Gaggy knew that only Batman and the police would know it was him. But it wasn’t like Gaggy to just kill for no reason. Especially for his own publicity. Who was he working for? Who? The Dark Knight checked one of the midget’s old hideouts. It was only the only one of the known three that the midget hadn’t destroyed to hide evidence. But it was barren as Batman knew it would be. A shattered crate in the corner, a pigeon in the rafters, a cockroach crawled threw the cracks in the floor. He had checked all the wall for secret passages. He looked through ever inch of the place before going back to where he first stood. The cockroach crawled threw the cracks of the floor again. He tapped his foot. A part of the floor was hollow. The Dark Knight pried up a floor board to find an underground staircase. It was built for Gaggy’s minuscule size, but with fluid breathing and by relaxing his muscles, Batman was able to crawl through. At the bottom of the staircase was a room with nothing save a dilapidated old wooden table with three legs. He scanned the room. No more hidden passages. After searching and frustration and thinking of all the murdered people, people murder by someone he should have caught YEARS ago and had had the chance to catch a hundred times over, he was so full of rage, he just lashed out in this little room and began destroy the broken table. That’s when he found the key in the hollowed out table leg. That’s when he found the key in the hollowed out table leg. A quick reference with the local fifty-four locksmiths turned out that it had been privately made. Damn. A quick reference to the hundred and forty-three manufacturers and distributors of the needed equipment unveiled fifty-six machines sold in Gotham City. Fifty-four to locksmiths and two to individuals. And the two individuals had nothing to do with Gaggy. Damn again. But one had sold it at a garage sale. So after two days of tracking and thankfully no more murders, Batman traced the lock smith machine to a company called Gotham Cleaners and Waste Disposal which had gone out of business. At the warehouse, Batman received a welcome of barb wire fences and attack dogs. Bingo. Batman stood in the shadows and studied the warehouse. It was surrounded by fencing, barb wire at the top, attack dogs looming, security cameras, motion sensors, and metal plated windows. The whole place seemed to say, “Go Away!” But Batman would not. Batman swooped onto the roof. After deactivating the window’s alarm, he was hit with shrapnel from the motion sensing bomb he set off. His chest armor protected him, but he was blown off the ledge and down to the dogs. The blast had been muffled somehow, by some unknown means so as not to draw attention to the blast. The dogs attacked him and he gave them his arm to chew on while he slipped the sleeping gas from his utility belt and knocked them out. Denied entrance on the top floor he settled for the skylight. It was dark inside, presumably no one was inside. He double checked the skylight entrance for traps and lowered himself down. About ten feet from the skylight, there was a loud CLICK followed by the skylight shutting and then a CLANK as the metal sheet covered the skylight and cut his rope. He started to fall and shot out his grappling hook. It caught into something and he hung still there. He switched on his heat vision goggles and saw nothing but red. It was only then he noticed how hot it was. It felt like his summers in the Caribbean as a child. And that was a hundred degrees. Batman lifted his goggles and lit a flare. He would give up his cover of darkness to find this killer. The sight was terrifying. On a bench in front of him, Robin laid with his costume on, but cut down the front. His body looked as though an autopsy had been performed. Ghastly images shot through Batman’s head of Jason Todd, the second Robin dying in his arms. He moved towards the corpse when it suddenly jumped at him! It was only a dummy that had been launched from a spring. Batman had had enough, “WHERE ARE YOU, RIMSHOT?” The lights blasted on and Batman now saw the entire room. He was on a court of some kind with doors along the walls. Above him was a cage when a voice, presumably from that announcer’s cage, came over the system. “I’M RIGHT HERE BATMAN.” Batman looked up at the cage and readied his grappling hook when the voice, distinctively Gaggy’s, bellowed again, “I WOULDN’T DO THAT IF YOU WANT THE INNOCENTS TO LIVE.” Batman looked as one of the doors opened and a metal birdcage with three people came out on a rail. Batman heard the hum of electricity in the rail and quickly assumed that Gaggy held a switch to electrocute the cage and the family. “Now, Batman,” the voice stopped booming, “Now that I have your attention, you can play a little game I call, ‘Death of the Dark Knight’.” Batman bit his lip and said sarcastically, “I love the title.” Gaggy’s image now appeared on a big screen next to the announcer’s cage, “I thought you would.” --------EPILOGE Gaggy took a step out from the alley and left his tools and bomb making utilities in the sewer drain. He cautiously walked forward to survey the wreckage with the other onlookers and rubbernecks. A second explosion, probably some gas fumes, spooked everyone, but Gaggy found solace to look inside and see the charring corpse of his enemy. He had lost a lot of robots to kill him, including his own body double, a robot so good that the world’s greatest detective couldn’t tell it was fake. Gaggy retreated to the shadows and turned on his radio to contact his employer. He spoke into the microphone, “Mission accomplished. We have a body visual as requested. The target has been eliminated. You are in no way suspected.” There was a pause and static filling the speaker until the employer spoke in a high pitched squeal, “YEA! Now Mr. J will have more time for me! Over and out, Roger Wilco, and 10-4, little buddy!” Gaggy turned off his radio and threw it under a passing truck so the buffer couldn’t be traced. He then set about the task of collecting the 13 major contracts, totaling one hundred and fifty three million dollars, for the death of Batman. And also there was the task of finding all his old employers and telling them he was back.