Read Wayne of Gotham for Free Online

had best find someplace pleasant .”
    Bruce reached for the keys in his jacket, pulling out a large, tarnished padlock key and stepping to the door.
    The lock was open … the door slightly ajar.
    Bruce froze, his senses heightened.
    â€œTing-a-ling-a-ling-tum, ting-tum, ting-tum …”
    Singing. Someone is singing in my mother’s garden.
    â€œTing-a-ling-tum, ting-tum-tae …”
    I know that song … I remember that song.
    Bruce put the key slowly back in his jacket pocket. He reached forward with his left hand, pressing it against the door gently and testing its resistance. It moved with surprising ease, the hinges only popping twice as the door swung open before him.
    The garden was dead. The roses had gone wild and died during the succession of winters without care. Their gnarled limbs reached up like claws from the edges of the footpaths, which were covered in dead leaves decomposing into dirt. The prize lilacs his mother had been so proud of now reached up menacingly over the walls. The garden had gone native, weeds choking and obscuring the careful planning that now lay buried and barely recognizable.
    The gazebo was still there. Its wood was rotting and one side of the roof had collapsed, charred, it seemed, from either a lightning strike or a flaming branch falling from one of the surrounding trees, which may have been struck during a storm. The stone benches around the gazebo’s inner perimeter were still standing.
    A woman sat with her back toward the door.
    Bruce set his teeth.
    The woman’s hair was a platinum blond.
    Her hair was a platinum blonde. She had always adored Kim Novak, changing her own dark hair to imitate Novak’s look. She wore a camel-hair coat with a high collar turned up at the back.
    He could still hear his voice when he said it. “Martha, that coat looks stunning on you!” She never wore another coat after that …
    â€œTing-a-ling-a-ling-tum, ting-tum, ting-tum …”
    Hand mother a baby and she would break into that song. She sang that to me as early as I can …
    The woman swayed back and forth on the bench, her voice listlessly murmuring the lyrics. “Ting-a-ling-tum, ting-tum-tae …”
    Mother in the garden … Mother in the garden to think …
    Bruce lunged forward. He crossed the dead garden in five quick strides, reaching for the woman even as he passed between the cracking posts of the gazebo. He grabbed the woman by her coat, hauling her to her feet in front of him.
    â€œWho are you?” he shouted into her face. “What the hell are you doing here?”
    Her skin startled Bruce at first. Her face was a creamy alabaster that registered in his mind as being almost ghostlike in its pale complexion. She may have been in her mid-thirties, yet her face had a quality of timeless beauty that made placing her age difficult. Her eyes were large and gray, but as he looked into them they were unfocused and slightly dilated. Her nose had a slight upturn with an almost imperceptible dimple at the end, and her eyebrows had been carefully plucked. Her hair was long but pulled back into a tight bun. She was beautiful and elegant, but in a way that was completely out of fashion with the times.
    â€œPlease,” she said. “Help me. Help me find Bruce.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou’re hurting me—”
    â€œYes, I am. Who are you?”
    â€œI don’t—please, help me find him.”
    â€œHelp you find who?”
    Her eyes suddenly focused on him with a bright intensity. “Bruce!”
    She knows me? I’ve never met this woman before.
    â€œI told you, I have to find Bruce,” she continued glancing around her. “Please, he’s lost … he’s lost and he’s frightened and I have to bring him home. Whoever you are, can you help me?”
    More than you know … I hope. Bruce relaxed his grip on her shoulders slightly. “You don’t know who