Read Online The Further Adventures of The Joker by Martin H. Greenberg - Free Book Online Page A

of flesh-colored latex over his chin and left cheek. I only see him in profile, but as each piece is affixed, he looks less and less like the Joker, and more and more like someone else. Someone I know.
    “You gave me some very bad moments there, Doctor Lewis,” he says. “For a full twenty-four hours you had me believing I’d misjudged you, underestimated you. Self-doubt is most unpleasant, even in a minuscule dose. I don’t know how other people put up with a lifetime full of it.”
    I try again to speak but the result is still gibberish.
    “Don’t bother,” he says. “One of the effects of that injection is a disorganization of the speech centers of the brain. But let me get back to the story of my brief episode of inner turmoil. You see, all through these past few weeks I’ve been thinking that I had you, really had you. For instance, you kept the Mercedes. I mean, if you’d really wanted to show me up, you could have sold it, bought another old Toyota junker, and given the balance to charity. That would have put me in my place. Same with the engagement ring. Oh, I know I put you in a tough spot then, but if you really had the courage of your convictions, you’d have told the lovely Dina the truth. But you didn’t. You were willing to let the very first step of your marriage be a false one. Oh, I was sure I had you.”
    He pauses as he begins brushing makeup over his latex mask, then continues:
    “Then you go storming into the staff conference and drop your bombshell. I was shocked, believe me. A pre-frontal lobotomy, Doctor Lewis? How audacious! It would have worked, I’m sure. I was almost proud of you when I heard. None of the other incompetents here had the brains to think of it, or the guts to suggest it. But you charged right in and told it like it was. I like that. Reminds me of me.”
    I try to speak again, with the same results.
    “What’s that?” he says. “You’re not like me? Oh, but you are. A while back you took me to task for being indifferent to the consequences of my actions, their tragic effects upon the individuals directly involved and upon society at large. And I told you, quite honestly, that I didn’t care. You were so self-righteous. And then what did you go and do? When you discovered that I had something you wanted, you tried to turn the staff away from your ‘definitive therapy.’ Up to that moment. I’d planned simply to disappear and, as usual, leave you all wondering how. But now I see that you weren’t concerned with what was best for society; you weren’t concerned with the responsibilities of your position here. You were concerned only with what Doctor Harold Lewis wanted. And you weren’t even honest with yourself about it.”
    He lifts the mirror and holds it before his made-up face as he turns toward me. Hidden behind the mirror, he says, “See? Didn’t I say you were just like me?”
    And in the mirror I see the pale, distorted features of the Joker grinning back at me.
    Horror rips through me. I try to scream but it’s useless.
    “That injection contained a nonlethal variation on my tried-and-true Joker venom,” he says, staying behind the mirror. “So, besides scrambling your speech areas, it has also pulled your lips into a handsome smile. I’ve completed the picture by bleaching your skin and dying your hair and fingernails green.”
    Then he lowers the mirror.
    I gasp as I see my own face on the Joker’s body.
    “How do I look?” he says.
    I struggle frantically with the manacles, trying to pull free, trying to break the arms of the chair so I can get my hands around his throat.
    “Guards!” he calls in my voice. The two uniformed men rush in and the Joker says, “The patient has become violent. I think it best to carry him back to his cell as is, chair and all. I’ll order a sedative that will hold him until his surgery tomorrow morning.”
    The lobotomy! Please, God! Not the lobotomy!
    As they drag me from the room, I hear his soft voice