DC Comics novels - Harley Quinn: Mad Love E-Book

Paul Dini

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Seitenzahl: 420

Beschreibung

The definitive story of Harley Quinn by her co-creator, Paul Dini, and Pat Cadigan, revealing the secrets of her history even as she seeks to kill Batman.When she was only seven years old, Harleen Quinzel witnessed her father being beaten up by thugs, and then arrested by the police. That night she ran away to the safest place she could think of: Coney Island amusement park. But there, pursued into the Funhouse by the men who brutalised her father, she beheld unimaginable horrors.Years later, Harleen has put her past behind her, and used her intelligence and ambition to escape her childhood of poverty with a career in psychiatry. Assigned to her first position at Arkham Hospital, she will discover, deep in the asylum, something dangerous and alluring, something quite unlike anything else she has ever known before: The Joker. Because why would you settle for love, when you could have MAD LOVE?From the moment that Harleen finds a rose on her desk, to the moment she dons her harlequin hat, this is the definitive story that chronicles the obsession, the burning desire, the manic laughter, and the birth of one of the most controversial and popular comic book supervillains ever created: Harley Quinn.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Cover

Also Available from Titan Books

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

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Acknowledgments

About the Authors

ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS

BATMAN: THE KILLING JOKE by Christa Faust and Gary Phillips

BATMAN: THE COURT OF OWLS by Greg Cox

HARLEY QUINN

PAUL DINI AND PAT CADIGAN

Based on the comic book by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm

Harley Quinn created by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm

TITAN BOOKS

HARLEY QUINN: MAD LOVE

Hardback ISBN: 9781785658136

Ebook ISBN: 9781785658143

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First edition: November 2018

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Copyright © 2018 DC Comics.

BATMAN and all related characters and elements © & ™ DC Comics.

WB SHIELD: ™ & © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (s18)

TIBO41544

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

Designed by Crow Books.

This is for all the womenwho met Mr. Wrongand said,This is the man for me!(Hey, it coulda been worse—it coulda been forever.)P.C.

To Arleen Sorkinfor giving Harley Quinnher voice, heart and soul on screen,and to Pat Cadigan,who gave her the same in this book.P.D.

PROLOGUE

The story of Harley Quinn begins with a heist in a New York nightclub.

Given whom the world knows Harley Quinn to be, this may seem only fitting, perhaps expected. But as it happens, Harley Quinn wasn’t involved. She wasn’t even there at the time. Nonetheless, each life touches another. Nothing happens in a vacuum; the effects of every deed ripple outward.

The nightclub in question was called Pulsar and it was the place to be after dark on a Friday—noisy, crowded, jumping. Good music, good company, good feelings, good riddance to another work-week—it was all so good, nobody noticed the crew breaking into the owner’s office. The owner herself was having a good time, not in the club but several floors up in her private apartment, with a particularly attractive gentleman caller. She didn’t worry about being robbed; she had insurance.

Robbers, however, don’t get insurance of any kind. Nor is there any compensation when a job goes wrong, as it did on this night. The robbers cracked the safe expecting it to be filled with money, bonds, and jewels; instead, they found the cupboard was bare.

The crew had had a solid plan drawn up for them by an experienced professional as payment for an outstanding debt. Said professional knew all about the safe, the office, and how to avoid Pulsar security. He also knew the owner would be more concerned with running her fingers through the long, silky hair of her gentleman caller than running the nightclub. On Friday nights, Pulsar ran itself anyway; you opened the doors and the wage-slaves came in to spend money on drinks and bar snacks till closing at three a.m. Other refreshments were also available—nothing says We’re having some fun now! like Bolivian Marching Powder or super-X—but that was someone else’s business, nothing to worry about on a usual night.

Unfortunately, the DEA and local law enforcement had picked this night to execute a raid. They swarmed in, killing the buzz along with the music just as the robbers discovered all their efforts had been for nothing.

Pointing at the empty safe and shrugging isn’t a get-out-of-federal-custody-free card. The robbers had no choice but to shoot their way out, which was the last thing they wanted to do. Shooting cops was the best way to summon the wrath of the entire NYC police department in all its full, unrestrained glory. The feds could have whatever was left. If there was anything left.

But nobody wanted to go to jail, either. The robbers fled with nothing to show for their efforts but regret and some painful gunshot wounds for the mob doctor.

Harleen Quinzel played no part in this; she was seven years old and it was already past her bedtime when the robbers heard the police sirens. The following day, while everyone was lying low and Pulsar’s owner was filling out insurance forms and letting her lawyer handle the cops, Harleen Quinzel was at Coney Island with her daddy.

This was the best day ever, and Harleen felt like she’d waited forever for it. She and her daddy had spent a lot more time together back when her parents had only had her. But then her baby brother had come along. The baby was cute but, boy, could he cry. Her daddy explained how he was totally helpless and needed a lot of attention, and he was sorry about that, but he and Mommy would make it up to her. She just had to be patient, be a good girl and help out.

So she was patient, she was a good girl and helped whenever Mommy needed her, and right around the time she thought Mommy and Daddy might make things up to her, they brought another baby brother home. Now there were two of them, and all she could do was go on being good and helping out. But Daddy said they were going to make it up to her. Daddy promised.

Then they went to the hospital and brought home yet another baby brother, for a grand total of three. Three baby brothers.

It was hard to believe that her parents really thought her having so many baby brothers was a good idea. But then, grown-ups could be so weird.

If they’d asked Harleen, she’d have suggested going to the movies or seeing the Ice Capades at Madison Square Garden. But what she really wanted was for Daddy to take her to Coney Island for the day, just the two of them. Daddy never got all bent out of shape about how many hot dogs and caramel apples she ate, and he wasn’t afraid to go on the Wonder Wheel with her. When Mommy was there, she’d get after Harleen for dripping mustard on her shirt or having sticky hands from cotton candy or not wanting the rest of the apple after the caramel part was gone.

She knew Mommy couldn’t help it; it was how mommies were. Daddy was different. But now that they had all those baby brothers, it seemed like he was always working and never got a day off. He would apologize to Harleen and tell her they’d have some fun together as soon as he could make the time, something really, really good. He usually said it as he was going out the door.

At least he and Mommy had quit giving her baby brothers. That was something to be glad about. But now Harleen was starting to think that Daddy was working so much, he’d forgotten how to do anything else. And worse, maybe he would rather work than be with her and Mommy and the three very loud baby brothers.

This morning she had been resigned to another Saturday changing diapers and pretending she didn’t hear Mommy muttering about being trapped (which didn’t make any sense because they didn’t even have mousetraps), when suddenly Daddy told her to hurry up and get dressed or they wouldn’t get to Coney Island until noon.

Harleen had actually wondered if it would really happen, afraid that as soon as they left the house, Daddy would get a call and he’d have to go to work after all and she’d be marooned on the dark side of disappointment, changing diapers.

But she and Daddy rode the Q Line on the subway all the way to Coney and got there hours before noon. Daddy told her if he got a work call, he wouldn’t answer it. He wasn’t even going to say the word “work” for the rest of the day.

And it was a wonderful day. Just her and Daddy, riding the carousel, the Wonder Wheel, and the roller coaster, and going through the Funhouse. The Funhouse had been completely repainted and done over. There was new stuff, too, like the big, fat cushioned rollers hanging vertically that pushed you through them like you were cookie dough, and a place where sections of the floor moved separately under your feet, going back and forth so you stumbled and staggered, and lots of funny mirrors that made you look short and squashed, or tall and stretched out, or warped and weird.

Even the long slides were new, bigger and longer. She was too afraid to go down one by herself so Daddy went with her, holding her tight as she screamed with the thrill of it.

For lunch, they had Nathan’s hot dogs washed down with something called coconut champagne, which wasn’t really champagne but it sure was sweet; she couldn’t finish it. Daddy didn’t mind—he couldn’t finish his either. Later, when she had a caramel apple for a delayed dessert, he didn’t mind her leaving the apple for the birds after all the caramel was gone. He said he didn’t want to eat an apple without any caramel either, and they both laughed.

Daddy said he couldn’t go on any rides right after eating so they played games—skee ball, ring toss, Lobster Pot Pyramid Smash, and Grab A Duck. Grab A Duck was best—she and Daddy both won stuffed animals. She won a funny monkey and Daddy won an ostrich. They were small but still wonderful because she and Daddy won them together. Daddy asked her to take care of his ostrich for him because he worked so much and he didn’t want Ozzie to get lonely. Harleen loved that Daddy had already named him.

They were walking past the roller coaster when Daddy stopped and showed her the framework structure, the way the wood boards crisscrossed. It was called a lattice, he said, and it made a special pattern of light and shadow—if you stood inside and held very still, you’d be so well camouflaged that you’d be practically invisible to people passing by.

“Not that you’d ever need to do that,” Daddy added as they walked on. “Not in a place like Coney Island.”

Harleen nodded, holding his hand and looking back over her shoulder at the lattice.

When the shadows began to stretch and the sunshine turned a soft gold, Harleen thought Daddy would say they should think about going home, but he didn’t. Instead, they went to some of the sideshows, where Harleen saw a lady on an electrified throne with thousands and thousands of volts running through it and she never felt a thing, even though she lit a torch from her tongue.

Another lady was so flexible, she could twist herself into positions that made Harleen’s eyes water. She’d never seen anyone so limber, not even her gymnastics teacher. Then there was a guy who hammered a nail right into his face and didn’t even bleed.

Daddy took her back to the Funhouse after that and they went down the big slide five more times together. By the fifth time, she wasn’t scared anymore and she was shrieking with laughter as she and Daddy sat on the little rug and slid down the long curve. Having his strong arms around her made her feel like nothing bad could ever happen to her.

On the way out, she and Daddy opened a door they thought was an exit and found themselves in a small, stuffy, and very messy room. There were cans of paint and varnish all over the place, like whoever had finished with them had just left them lying around for someone to trip over. Sheets of plywood leaned against one wall. Nearby were big bottles of carpenter’s glue and pieces of blue chalk. A very large sheet of plywood lay over two sawhorses, with a power saw on top of it.

The air was dry and smelled heavily of sawdust, though there were other odors underneath it—wet paint, thinner, and something like rubber cement, only somehow more intense, like it had a lot more chemicals in it. Harleen felt her stomach turn.

“This isn’t a nice place,” she said unhappily.

“No, it’s a work-room,” Daddy said. “Somebody’s got to make the fun stuff.” He led her back out the door, shutting it behind them.

Harleen looked up at him. “I guess making fun stuff isn’t much fun.”

“You said a mouthful, kid,” Daddy chuckled as she pulled him away from the door. That awful chemical smell was still in her nose; she needed fresh air to chase it away. When they did finally get outside, it was dark.

Harleen felt a thrill of excitement. It was so late! Mommy always said when the streetlights went on, it was time to go home. If Mommy had been there, Harleen would already have had her bath and be in her pajamas.

But Daddy still wasn’t in any hurry to get home. Instead, he took Harleen to get something to eat—a real meal, he said, so when Mommy asked if they’d eaten anything besides hot dogs and candy all day, they could tell her they had. So they went to a funny little diner called En-Why, where all the waitresses had big bouffant hairdos, called everyone hon or sweetie, and popped their gum when they talked in heavy Brooklyn accents. Harleen thought it was almost as much fun as Coney Island.

Daddy let her order a bacon cheeseburger, curly fries, and onion rings while he had a meat loaf, mashed potatoes and gravy, and green beans. Mommy made that a lot, although sometimes Mommy’s meat loaf seemed like it was a lot more bread crumbs than meat.

The diner meat loaf smelled awfully good; Harleen felt guilty just thinking it, as if she were being disloyal to Mommy. She thought it was kind of strange for Daddy to order something he could have at home, although she didn’t say so. But Daddy seemed to know what she was thinking and said, “I’m just in the mood for meat loaf and I don’t want Mommy to cook an extra meal so late.”

Well, that made sense, Harleen thought, or as much sense as anything grown-ups did. The way Daddy ate, however, made her wonder. He ate slowly, like he wanted to remember how good it was. He offered her a bite but Harleen said no, thanks, she didn’t feel like meat loaf, which made Daddy laugh. Secretly, she was afraid it might taste better than Mommy’s.

When they were done—Harleen was too full for dessert—Daddy paid the bill and left a big tip for the waitress.

“Thanks, sweetie,” the waitress said, popping her gum. Her name-tag said “Millie” and she had the biggest blonde bouffant of all, almost as large as a beach ball, Harleen thought. “Ya got a big heart, I can tell.” Then she turned to Harleen and said, “You take care a him, okay, hon? Make sure he gets home safe.”

“I sure will, hon, doncha worry about that,” Harleen replied, imitating the woman’s thick Brooklyn accent. Everybody around them burst out laughing, but it was good laughing, like for a comedian on TV.

Millie kissed the top of her head with a loud smack. “You got a precious little puddin’ there,” she told Daddy as they left the restaurant.

“You’re full of surprises, Harleen,” her daddy said as he picked her up and carried her toward the subway stop. “Thinking fast is a gift. Something tells me you’ll go far.”

Harleen put her arms around her daddy’s neck and rested her head on his shoulder. She really was tired now. This was the perfect end to the best day ever, being carried home in her daddy’s strong arms. She was barely aware of going into the subway and getting on the train. Her daddy kept holding her even after he sat down and the motion of the train rocked her to sleep.

* * *

She didn’t wake up until they were back on the street and only because she heard a man’s voice growl, “So where’d you stash the haul, Nicky?”

“Yeah, Nicky, tell us,” said another man, also growling. “Inquiring minds wanna know.”

Rubbing her eyes, Harleen raised her head and saw two men standing in front of Daddy with their arms crossed, looking real mad.

Her daddy gave a big sigh. “Come on, guys, I’ve got my little girl here. Can’t this wait till I take her home?”

“No can do, Nicky-boy,” said the first guy. “We found out the hard way it’s a bad idea to wait on anything where you’re concerned.”

“Like when you told us to wait till Friday,” added the second guy. “You said we’d get in and out and no one would know? Well, guess what? Our big fat payday turned out to be a big fat goose egg.”

Her daddy put her down then, even though she was so sleepy she could hardly keep her eyes open. Harleen hung onto his pant-leg, but Daddy gently pried her hands off and made her stand back a few feet.

“That safe was so bare, it was indecent,” the first guy was saying. “Somebody beat us to the goodies. Only one person coulda done that—the only other person what knew about the job. So after we was done shooting our way out and running for our lives, we asked around. And son of a gun, we found out you were there on Thursday, having drinks with the broad what owns the joint.”

“I told everyone we shoulda known better than to trust Slick Nick Quinzel,” the second guy said. “But callin’ in a police raid—that was low even for a worm like you.”

“I had nothing to do with that,” Daddy said urgently. “I didn’t know the DEA was planning a raid—”

“You mean that was just a coinky-dink?” the first guy said. “Oh, well, that’s different.”

The second guy suddenly stepped forward and, before Harleen quite knew what was happening, he punched her daddy in the face, knocking him off-balance so he almost fell.

“Hey!” said the first guy. “Don’t do that!”

“Why not?” the other guy asked.

“I got first dibs.” Then he punched her daddy in the face, knocking him to the sidewalk.

Harleen screamed for them to stop. They ignored her as they hauled her daddy to his feet. The first guy held him with his arms behind his back so the second one could punch him again and again. She kept on screaming, but it was like they couldn’t hear her, like she wasn’t even there.

“I’m getting the cops!” she hollered at them and ran back toward the subway, where Mommy said you could find a cop if you needed help. But just as she got to the corner, she saw a patrol car and ran into the street, waving her arms and yelling.

Red and blue lights snapped on as it stopped. The cop who got out of the passenger side was a big guy, bigger than her daddy. Trying to pull him up the street was like trying to drag a tree out of the ground. The other one followed slowly in the car, the lights on the roof still flashing red and blue and red and blue.

The bad guys were gone by the time they got to her daddy; Harleen felt her heart break at the sight of him lying on the pavement like a heap of bloody rags. “Help him, help him,” she begged as the other cop stopped the car and ran over. He was shorter and a little younger but he seemed just as solid as his partner. Their expressions were all concerned and worried, the way her mommy’s was when Harleen skinned her knee or bumped her head. But when they saw her daddy’s face, they changed completely.

“Well, if it isn’t good old Slick Nick Quinzel,” said the taller cop as he and his partner lifted her daddy to his feet.

“Be careful, don’t hurt him!” Harleen shouted.

“Pipe down, kid, your old man’s okay,” the taller cop said. “Hey, Nick, you got any idea how many people are looking for you?” He pulled her daddy’s arms behind him.

Thinking the cop was going to hold Daddy so the other cop could punch him, Harleen leaped at him, flailing her fists wildly.

“Take it easy, kid,” the shorter cop said as he pulled her away. “We’re just cuffing him so we can take him in. Nobody’s gonna hurt him.”

“But he’s already hurt! You’re supposed to help people!” Harleen sobbed.

The cops looked at each other, then at her daddy. “Are you hurt, sir?” the taller cop asked in a stiff, formal tone. “Do you require medical attention?”

Daddy spat blood and said, “It’s just a scratch.”

“He says it’s just a scratch,” the taller cop told Harleen.

They put her daddy in the back seat of the squad car and let her sit with him. She held him all the way to the police station. But he couldn’t put his arms around her, and that was scary.

* * *

At the police station, the cops handed her and Daddy over to a couple of detectives. One was older, with dark brown skin and watery eyes large behind the lenses of his black-framed glasses. Here and there in his short, curly black hair were single white ones, like someone had sprinkled little white threads all over his head. He introduced himself as Detective Jack Thibodeau. His partner, Brian Li, was Chinese. He had longer hair tied back in a ponytail and, under other circumstances, Harleen would have had a crush on him. He was kind to her but his face was so serious, she couldn’t help being a little afraid of him.

Neither detective was dressed very well. Their clothes were so rumpled, Mommy would have said they must have slept in them. Maybe they didn’t know about how to dress for an important job, like Harleen’s teacher said you were supposed to, or maybe they just didn’t care. If so, none of the other detectives did, either.

Worse, though, they said her daddy was a bad guy, and that couldn’t possibly be true. A bad guy wouldn’t take her to Coney Island for the day and ride all the rides and play all the games with her. Millie at the diner said her daddy had a big heart—no one would say that about a bad guy. And a bad guy wouldn’t carry her all the way home. Bad guys never did that stuff; they were too busy doing bad things.

The detectives kept calling her daddy a “con man.” Harleen had no idea what that was; she suspected it was something the cops had made up just to be mean. They claimed her daddy was behind a series of robberies and had planned one at a nightclub owned by a rich lady. But then he double-crossed the other bad guys and now everyone was looking for him, bad guys, good guys, any guys. All the guys.

Harleen tried to tell them her daddy couldn’t have done anything wrong because he’d been having fun all day with her at Coney Island. She started to tell them for what seemed like the thousandth time about everything they’d done together. Her daddy was sitting on a chair next to Detective Thibodeau’s desk and he suddenly pulled her onto his lap.

“Let me talk to her,” he said to the detectives and swiveled so they were facing away from them. Harleen wrapped her arms around his neck again, glad he wasn’t handcuffed anymore so he could hug her back. “Honey, these guys are just doing their job,” he said, speaking barely above a whisper. “But they can’t do anything if you keep interrupting.”

“But—” Harleen started.

“But nothing.” Daddy pressed his finger against her lips. “This is going to take a little while so you have to be my good girl and be patient, okay?”

“You want me to call your wife to come get her?” Detective Thibodeau asked.

Daddy turned back to him with Harleen still on his lap and shook his head. “No, Sharon needs her sleep. We’ve got three in diapers at home.” He looked around, then pointed at an empty bench along the nearest wall. “Harleen, how about you sit over there and wait for me?”

She heaved an enormous sigh. “Okay.”

“And maybe the detectives could find someone to sit with you?” Daddy added.

Detective Li took Harleen’s hand and walked her over to the bench. “I know you don’t understand what’s going on,” he said as he sat down next to her.

“Yeah, I do,” she said. “You’re being mean to my daddy.”

“That’s not—” The detective stopped, hesitated. “We don’t want to be mean to your daddy,” he said. “But your daddy has been mean to people. A lot of people.”

“My daddy’s never mean,” Harleen informed him, although she couldn’t help squirming a little because that wasn’t quite true. Sometimes he was mean to Mommy and Mommy was mean right back.

“Your daddy stole money that didn’t belong to him,” Detective Li told her. “He stole jewelry, too, and other very valuable things. Stealing is a very mean thing to do.”

Harleen’s urge to squirm vanished. The detective was trying to make her feel bad toward her daddy and that was wrong. He was her daddy. She looked up at him and she saw that he was waiting for her to agree with him that her daddy was mean. Well, he could wait forever; she’d never say that.

“It’s wrong to steal, isn’t it?” the detective prodded. “It’s wrong and it’s mean, isn’t it? Your daddy was mean to steal, wasn’t he?”

Harleen sat up a little straighter; something she’d overheard her mother say popped into her head. “They can spare it.”

Detective Li’s expression changed from serious to startled. He hadn’t seen that coming, Harleen thought. Without another word, he got up and went back to his partner and her daddy, and she knew he was telling them what she’d said, like it was some great big deal. Detective Thibodeau gave her a sidelong look; maybe he was thinking about handcuffing her, too.

But her daddy only shrugged. “She’s right—they can,” he said and winked at her, a secret wink that made her feel better, but only for a few seconds. The detectives just kept at him, asking him the same questions over and over. Harleen wanted to ask them a few questions—like, was this really their job? How did it make them good guys? Daddy still had blood all over his face and his clothes and it was getting later and later and she felt like her eyeballs were coated with sand. And now she had to go to the bathroom.

She probably had to get special permission for that. Maybe they’d want to handcuff her, even though the Ladies’ was really close—she could see it from where she was sitting.

Harleen tried to get someone’s attention but everyone was too busy. Even her daddy was facing away from her, talking to a third detective. Finally, she just couldn’t wait. It was probably a crime to pee your pants in a police station anyway. Nobody tried to stop her as she went into the bathroom, which smelled like it had just been hosed down with double-strength bleach.

Afterward, Harleen started to go back to the bench, then hesitated. No one seemed to have noticed she wasn’t there anymore; they were all too busy. Detectives were bringing in other people in handcuffs and sitting them down next to desks. Once she would have taken it for granted people in handcuffs were bad guys, but now she knew better. Cops made mistakes. But they never owned up to being wrong; they just kept saying they were right until they forced everyone else to say they were right, too.

Harleen looked over at her father and the detectives. How many times would they ask him the same questions? Were they going for a world record?

This wasn’t how the best day ever was supposed to end. Her daddy was supposed to take her home and put her to bed. She’d be so knocked out she’d sleep through the argument he and Mommy would have about his keeping her out so late.

Instead, her daddy got punched out by some bad guys and when she’d brought the police, they’d treated him like he was the bad guy. None of them cared her daddy was hurt. No one had said, That was wrong. They shouldn’t have done that to you.

Everybody said cops were supposed to protect and help people. Harleen saw now that they only helped some people; whoever those people were, she and Daddy weren’t included.

The swinging double doors marked “exit” weren’t locked or even guarded. Cops and detectives were going in and out, sometimes with prisoners. Harleen remembered her daddy saying you could go anywhere you wanted as long as you looked like you knew what you were doing.

I’m supposed to do this, she said silently as she headed for the double doors. I’m right where I should be, I’m official, don’t worry. I’m not the droid you’re looking for.

No one gave her a second look as she went downstairs, out the front entrance, and onto the street. Harleen made herself walk at the same confident, unhurried pace until she was almost a block away from the station house. Then she broke into a run.

Years later, when Harley thought back to that night, she never wondered what had made her go back to Coney Island. She had found out the good guys weren’t really as good as everybody thought and she was still afraid the bad guys would come back, so she’d hidden from all of them in the one place where only good things happened. Surely she would be safe where she’d just had the best day ever. In a perfect world, she would have been.

* * *

Going back to Coney Island really wasn’t a bad idea. It would never have occurred to the cops that she’d go there, not at that hour. The thugs who had tuned up her father wouldn’t have thought to look for her there in a million years. Thinking was not their strong suit. But they were really good at following. They followed Harleen to Coney Island, one of them on the subway, the other in a car, because they were sure she would lead them to where Slick Nick had stashed the haul from the nightclub safe, the payoff they felt was rightfully theirs. It only made sense—now that Slick Nick was busted, he’d want to make sure the stash was safe. Naturally, he would send his daughter. His seven-year-old daughter. At three a.m.

Thinking really wasn’t their long suit. They clearly weren’t parents, either.

But even broken clocks are right twice a day, just as stupid adults have been making kids miserable since the dawn of mankind. Some things never change.

* * *

Harleen knew Coney Island wasn’t going to be all lit up and happy but she hadn’t realized it would be this spooky.

The rides were all shut down and the games were shuttered, except for some, where shutters were stuck halfway, including the one with the milk bottles. Harleen and her daddy hadn’t been able to win anything there.

She was thinking about crawling in and hiding there until morning (she could also check to see if all the bottles were glued to the shelves) when suddenly she heard a man laughing. She’d heard that laugh before. Automatically, she made a break for it, or tried to. Rough hands scooped her up under her armpits and held her off the ground.

“Well, whaddaya know—Slick Nick’s pretty little girl decided to come back to the park when it’s less crowded!” He turned her so she could see his face. “What a coinky-dink—so did we!” It was the shorter guy, the one who’d held her daddy so the tall one could punch him. The tall one was there, too, glowering at her.

“We never got properly introduced,” the guy went on. “I’m Tony, and—” He turned her to face the tall guy. “This is my colleague, who goes by the colorful and highly appropriate moniker, Spike.”

“She doesn’t know what ‘moniker’ means,” Spike growled.

“Do too!” Harleen said as Tony put her down. He kept hold of her shoulder. “Let go!” She put tears in her voice as she tried to twist away from him. “You’re hurting me!”

“No, he’s not,” Spike said, still glowering.

“No, I’m not,” Tony agreed. “See, Spike here is what you might call a pain expert. He’d know if I was hurting you, and if he says I’m not, I’m not. But if you keep trying to get away from me, I’ll have to. Like so.” He tightened his grip on her shoulder, digging his fingers in hard.

“Ow!” This time, the tears in Harleen’s voice weren’t fake.

“Now I know Spike would say that hurts.” Tony loosened his grip very slightly so it was uncomfortable rather than painful. “You see the diff, doncha? Thought so. You seem like a pretty bright little kid.” He laughed a little. “Hey, it’s too bad we don’t have one of those kiddie-leashes, so we could hook you up like a dog. Any time you tried to get away, I could reel you in. But we don’t, so you’re gonna haveta hold still while we wait for the boss.”

Spike let out a long, exasperated breath.

“What?” Tony said, sounding a little defensive.

“You never shut up, do you,” Spike said.

“Aw, don’t be like that,” Tony said soothingly. “You’ll scare little what’s-her-name. Say, what is your name?” he added to Harleen.

“Why do you care?” Spike said, even more exasperated.

“It’s good manners,” Tony said reasonably. “And I go for the personal touch.”

“Oh, yeah, me too,” Harleen piped up suddenly, imitating Millie’s sassy Brooklyn accent. “The poisonal touch is so impawtant.”

Both men stared at her in surprise. “Whadja say?” Tony asked her. His grip on her shoulder loosened a bit but Harleen didn’t try to get away—yet.

“Yeah, ever since I started workin’ my new job down on Toidy-Toid an’ Toid, I been goin’ for the poisonal touch,” Harleen went on, pretending to chew gum. “People really appreciate that, ya know? Sure ya do!” She gave Tony an affectionate sock on his belly. “You got class, I knew the minute I saw ya. I says to my friend, Mabel, I says, ‘Mabel, I’m just lookin’ for a guy with class. He don’t haveta be rich or handsome, he’s just gotta be classy!’”

Tony laughed heartily and slapped his thigh with his free hand. His grip on her shoulder loosened a little more, just as Harleen hoped. Spike was a big sourpuss but he wasn’t the one holding onto her. She had to get Tony laughing hard enough to put him off-guard.

“So you think I got class?” Tony said a bit breathlessly. “The feelin’ is mutual. You’re a classy kid.”

“I’m glad it shows. I went to chahm school you know,” Harleen went on, remembering a routine from TV. “They removed all my ahs. You know—Q, Ah, S, T? Now I drive a cah. It’s just like a car except it costs more to fix. But I’m woith it!”

Tony was laughing even harder, and he was leaning on Harleen’s shoulder more than actually holding it now. Spike looked like he wanted to slap her. If she could shift around so that when she pulled away from Tony he would lose his balance and fall into Spike—

“Thank God,” Spike said suddenly, looking past her and Tony.

Harleen followed his gaze. At first, she could only make out a bulky shadow coming toward them. Then the shadow became a broad-shouldered man with thick arms and legs. Even his fingers were thick; Harleen caught a gold glint from a pinky ring. He walked with his head up and his chest out—like a man who expected trouble and didn’t like to be kept waiting, her mother would have said.

She knew who he was; she had seen Bruno Delvecchio on the news and in the papers. Daddy said he was the boss of bad guys and everyone was so afraid of him, they did whatever he told them to.

Tony’s grip on her shoulder tightened again as he straightened up. He stopped laughing and wiped his eyes with the back of his free hand. “Oh, hi, boss. How ya doin’?”

“What’s so funny?” Delvecchio snapped. When a teacher asked this question at school, there was no good answer. Harleen knew this was the same thing.

“It’s the kid here,” Tony said cheerfully. “You shoulda heard her just now—”

“I don’t want to hear her,” the boss replied with even more of a bite. “I want to hear you’re taking care of business.”

Delvecchio was taller than either Tony or Spike, and Harleen could tell he didn’t just look down at someone, he looked down on them. His suit was like the ones she’d seen in the window of the tailor shop she passed on her way to and from school—handmade and very expensive. Daddy had told her the only people who could afford suits like that were connected. He would have looked classy, except his tacky pinky ring ruined the effect.

“The cops still have Quinzel, I take it?” Delvecchio said, his tone lofty now, as if he considered them far beneath him.

To remind them how important he is, Harleen thought, and they’d better not forget it. She looked up at Tony. He had a strong grip on her shoulder again but he was standing with his head slightly lowered and his shoulders hunched, like he thought Delvecchio might hit him. Spike was standing up straight, looking belligerent; he didn’t like taking orders.

And Delvecchio knew it, she realized, her gaze moving to him from Spike. Delvecchio knew how Spike felt and he made a point of bossing him around. It was all so obvious when you knew what you were looking at. These guys would never think she could understand stuff like this because she was a kid.

God, adults were so stupid!

* * *

“Well, don’t just stand there,” Delvecchio said to Spike in a put-upon voice. “Make the call. Unless by some miracle you’ve done that already?”

Spike looked super-sour as he held up his phone and took her photo, then walked off to lean against one of the shuttered games. The flash startled Harleen and she had to force herself not to cry. She hated having her picture taken with a flash because it hurt her eyes—hurt physically. Harleen had told her daddy always to warn her if he was using a flash so she could look away. Daddy had said it was smart to look away from any camera flash.

Now all she could see were big colored blotches in the dark. She got so distracted trying to blink them away and readjust her eyes to the night that she forgot to pay attention. Then something Tony was saying caught her ear: “…that Sharon’ll pay up, whether Slick Nick wants to or not.”

“You sound pretty sure about that,” Delvecchio replied in his lofty boss-voice. “I hope you’re right.”

“Oh, I know I am,” Tony assured him. “She only looks like a mousy little hausfrau, all shy and everything. But she used to be a doctor. In a hospital.”

“Did she?” Delvecchio tried to sound bored but Harleen heard the interest in his voice. Like maybe he hadn’t known that but he didn’t want Tony to think he’d told him something.

“Oh, yeah,” Tony said. “She passed all the tests, did her internship and residency like they do, got her license to practice. Then Slick Nick came along and bam!”

“‘Bam’?” Delvecchio said, as if it were a bad word from a foreign language.

“Yeah, bam! Now she’s got four kids and the bail-bondsman on speed dial.” Tony gave a short laugh. “Hey, she could be useful. She could be your personal physician.”

“If anyone’s gonna need a personal physician tonight, it won’t be me,” Delvecchio said darkly, just as Spike came back.

“She’s on her way,” Spike said, looking pleased with his own efficiency. “I told her to call when she gets here and we’ll tell her where to drop the, uh, package off.”

“The ‘package’?” Tony laughed. “What are you, a spy or something?”

Harleen’s vision had cleared enough to let her see the look Delvecchio and Spike gave Tony. “Always good to be circumspect,” he said. He patted Spike on the shoulder and added, “Good boy.” Spike’s sour face returned. “As long as she thinks it’s a straight trade—the kid for the package.”

Spike’s eyes swiveled from Delvecchio to Harleen and back again.

“I can’t just let this go,” Delvecchio went on. “Otherwise everyone’ll think they can get away pulling all kinds of shit on me. People gotta remember the golden rule: you make my life difficult, I make your life hell.” Delvecchio glanced down at Harleen and his nose wrinkled slightly, like he was looking at a dog turd someone hadn’t pooper-scooped. “The cops’ll hold onto Nick for a while. One of you drop by holding later and tell him why nobody’s coming to bail him out this time.”

“Will do, boss,” Tony said cheerfully, as if Delvecchio had asked him to water his plants while he was on vacation. It probably meant about that much to them. Harleen knew she had to do something fast.

At the same moment, Tony actually let go of her to reach into his pocket for something. Harleen didn’t even think about it—the moment his hand was gone, so was she.

“Get her!” Delvecchio bellowed.

* * *

This was like playing hide-and-seek backward, Harleen thought as she pelted through the park; she was It and everyone was trying to find her. Her chest was starting to tighten and burn and her legs were getting heavy but she pushed herself to go faster, faster than she ever had before. Because this wasn’t just a silly game. It was nothing like a game.

She hadn’t thought about where to go when she had taken off at warp speed, only that she had to get away. The bad guys hadn’t seen that coming. They must have thought she was too scared to move.

Well, she was scared, more than she’d ever been in her life. She hadn’t understood everything Delvecchio had said, just enough to know something bad was going to happen to her and her mommy. Which had made her too scared not to run.

Harleen could hear Delvecchio hollering somewhere behind her, ordering Tony and Spike not to let her get away. She was breathing hard now but she didn’t dare slow down. If it had just been Tony chasing her, she could have outrun him easily; he had a belly on him that showed he liked pizza and beer, not gym workouts. Spike was skinny but he stank like cigarettes—yuck! He’d have been coughing and wheezing and puking before he could even get near her. And Delvecchio probably didn’t even walk fast; he hired people to run for him.

But all three of them were after her. They could split up, surround her, trap her, unless she could find a way to get around them or under them or something. The problem was, she didn’t know the park very well anymore. She wasn’t even sure where she was right now; nothing looked familiar. Her heart was pounding so hard and loud, it almost drowned out the sound of her gasping for breath. Worse, it seemed to be getting even darker and there were fuzzy colored patches in her vision, like she saw when her eyes were closed.

But she couldn’t close her eyes and she couldn’t stop. Harleen tried to push herself to run even faster but her legs felt awful heavy, like they had after she’d proved to Benny who lived on the ground floor that she could run up and down the stairs half a dozen times when he’d bet her a dollar she couldn’t (and then the crumb-bum had refused to pay up).

Despite her efforts, Harleen felt herself slowing down. If she couldn’t run, she had to think. The park was big but it didn’t go on forever; if she kept going, she was bound to come to a fence or something. She was good at climbing fences. She might get over the fence and out before those guys even knew it. They’d be running around searching the park, never knowing she wasn’t even there anymore—

Except Mommy wouldn’t know, either.

Mommy was on her way and they were going to do something bad to her. She had to find Mommy first so they could both get away. How was Mommy going to get into the park? Would she go to the front gate and call those guys to tell them she was there? Harleen couldn’t picture her mommy crawling under the barrier to get in the way she had.

Should she find a hiding place near the main entrance, Harleen wondered? Or get out the way she had come in, and hope she found Mommy there? The surge of hope Harleen felt lasted barely a second before she realized she had no idea where the entrance was.

“Over here! This way!”

Spike. Harleen’s heartbeat doubled as she ran faster through the shadows, past big, dark structures, low buildings, and weird shapes that could have been trash cans or sleeping robots or other unearthly creatures. All at once, she saw a tall skinny thing she recognized as the strong-man test. Daddy called it the high striker. You hit the base with a big mallet to make the striker go up. If you rang the bell at the top, you won a prize. Her daddy had only made the striker go halfway up—no prize for that. Harleen had told her daddy it didn’t matter, he was really the strongest man in the world. Besides, no one else got the striker as high as he did.

The strong-man test was right in front of the Funhouse; and there was the word FUNHOUSE glittering in the moonlight. It was near the wooden roller coaster, she remembered, slowing down a little. She and Daddy had ridden it three times in a row before Daddy said he needed to take a break. On the best day ever. That was just today—well, yesterday, Harleen supposed, although it felt like a hundred years ago. How could everything go so bad after going so good?

Harleen remembered what her daddy had said about the roller coaster lattice being good camouflage. That probably worked even better at night, she thought, and headed toward it. She wasn’t sure how to get inside the lattice. There had to be a way, though—maintenance people had to get in, didn’t they? Daddy said everything had an entrance for maintenance. Most people simply didn’t notice.

Harleen was trying to remember what else her daddy had said about maintenance when the world exploded in a blinding white flash.

Before she could even cry out, something caught her ankle and she fell forward, scraping her hands and knees on the pavement.

“Damn, Spike,” Tony said. “You’re, like, a genius.”

“If by ‘genius’ you mean ‘not a moron,’ you’re right,” Delvecchio chuckled.

Harleen felt a familiar large, rough hand clamp onto her left arm and drag her up to her feet.

“Don’t!” she yelled, more angry than scared for the moment. She was going to get Spike for flashing the light in her eyes, she promised herself, she really was. It was like red-hot needles stabbing her eyes. And she seemed to be even blinder than she was the last time—she couldn’t see anything but great big purple blotches, no matter how much she blinked.

“If she’d gotten away, I dunno what we woulda done,” Tony was saying, holding her arm too tight. “Sharon woulda never given us the loot.”

There was a brief silence. Then Delvecchio said, “Perhaps you really are a genius, Spike.”

“Perhaps I am,” Spike said, but he sounded sulky, not like he thought it was a compliment.

“Hey, my hat is off to anyone with smarts—” Tony began.

“Shut up!” Delvecchio snapped.

“You got it, boss,” Tony assured him. He started dragging Harleen back the way she had come.

Fresh tears sprang into her eyes. Tony had to know he was hurting her now. How could he do that to her when she’d made him laugh? When you made people laugh, they felt good and they liked you—they didn’t want to hurt you. How could Tony be so mean to her?

She was going to get him for that, him and Spike both.

“…an errand to run,” Delvecchio was saying. “If I leave you two here, can I count on you to take care of Dr. Quinzel, Medicine Woman, or whoever the hell she is?”

“Hey, we always take care of business,” Tony said proudly.

But Spike was talking over him. “Consider her dead, boss. You want us to take care of the brat, too?”

“Absolutely not,” Delvecchio replied. “I want her alive and in good condition when I get back.” Harleen still couldn’t see but she felt him examine her knees, then her hands. “The man I’m bringing with me is what you might call a connoisseur of the beauty of youth, particularly in those magic, single-digit years. He’ll pay top dollar for merchandise in good condition.” Delvecchio chuckled. “He can afford it.”