Catwoman - Tiger Hunt

An hour went by, and traffic began to get heavier. She couldn't be certain she saw everything that came in sight of the building. She didn't see any capes; that was most important. When the rush hour slacked off she opened her second can of tuna. Most of the time she looked up Broad Street, away from the waterfront and the glare of the setting sun. It was the direction from which Eddie had appeared before; it seemed likely that it was where he'd appear this time. It was pure chance that had her looking toward the waterfront as a pair of men walked away from Pier 23. She hadn't seen enough of Eddie to be certain of his silhouette or movement pattern, but a cat had to trust her curiosity. Stuffing her mouth with the last of the tuna fish and grabbing the bag containing the costume, Selina scrambled down to the street.

Since neither Eddie nor Batman would recognize her out of the Catwoman costume, Selina boldly set her pace to overtake the ambling men once she had them in sight again. She was still a half-block behind them when they turned away from the piers. They walked directly in front of her and she got a clean look at both their faces. They were both slightly sunburned and in need of shaves. One was an older man, heavyset and grizzled; the other one was unmistakably Eddie Lobb. Their eyes met by coincidence. Selina's heart skipped a beat, but there was nothing like recognition in Eddie's glance, only a predator's evaluation of potential prey. Selina noted that she failed to rate a second glance.

There'd be time for that later.

She strained her ears to hear their conversation as she passed behind them, but they were talking too softly, or not talking at all. Taking no chances, she kept going until she reached an alley, then went topside and tried to recapture their trail. They'd disappeared, and she had to do a street-level search until she found the dingy bar where, by all appearances, they were going to drink beer and watch the playoffs until midnight got closer.

"You have a good time," Selina urged as she cased the immediate area for another perch. "It'll be your last." With Batman putting himself back into the picture, along with the Feds tomorrow, she had to take whatever opportunity she got to finish him tonight.

Making herself comfortable on another roof, Selina waited until twilight became night before abandoning her street clothes and pulling the Catwoman costume around her. The dingy bar got the lion's share of the local activity. Men came and went at a steady rate, sometimes in groups but more often alone. Cabs disgorged passengers a handful of times during the long evening, but never anyone Catwoman remembered from the other evening. Eddie was still inside, and so was his partner. She guessed it was about ten when a squadron of police vehicles zoomed along the piers. They seemed to be going somewhere in a hurry, but they weren't spi

Another hour went by. The bar door opened and the grizzled man came out and promptly began a thorough scan of his surroundings. Catwoman flattened herself on the capstones. In this light, amid these old buildings, whatever lumps her silhouette added to the roofline shouldn't be recognizably human. Eddie emerged and exhibited none of his companion's caution before starting toward the piers. With a final glance over his shoulder, the companion fell in step.

Catwoman couldn't get a handle on the older man. He seemed to be smarter than Eddie; at the very least, he was suspicious while Eddie was not. He could cause complications, but, then again, he seemed to be taking orders. Well, it wouldn't be the first time a lesser man was in charge. Catwoman went over the wall at the back of the roof and traveled overland until she was above Broad Street across from number 208. She'd traveled fast and was unconcerned that there was no one in sight, but as minutes passed and no one showed up she realized that she was in the wrong place.

She backtracked to her lookout above the bar, then down the street to the piers. The concrete filed where commuters parked their cars by day was nearly empty. There was no way across it except in plain sight. Catwoman strained her eyes, trying to convince herself that there was someplace else where Eddie and his friend were likely to be, but nothing else sprang to mind. She pumped her lungs with oxygen, then sprinted across the barren pavement to Pier 20.

The piers were new territory for Catwoman, and she quickly decided she didn't like them. The piers themselves were huge and hollow. Their floors were wooden; the boards shifted under her weight and she could hear water lapping beneath them. The water smelled of death; the remnants of her fish di

She kept going, checking out the piers in order. Pier 21 was just as bad. Pier 22 was a bit worse, with something coarse and crunchy, like cat litter, grinding beneath her feet. With each step she hated Eddie a little bit more---her was the one making her endure this---and Batman. She emerged from Pier 22 at the foot of Broad Street. There were more cats parked here, unattended, quiet, and empty. Still, she entered Pier 23 more cautiously, and was glad she did.

The cavernous building echoed with distant voices. Light shone through a gap in the wall near the back. Unidentifiable silhouettes moved within it. Catwoman worked her way to the back of the pier, concealing herself in the shadows. Halfway back the silhouettes resolved into Eddie Lobb and his unknown companion. They had hoisted a car-sized sealed and wrapped crate into the pier. As the light came mostly from outside and below, Catwoman assumed the crate had come from a boat moored alongside the pier. Remembering their sunburnt, unkempt appearances, she assumed that the two men had been on the boat earlier. They were talking as they worked, but with the echo it was impossible to decipher what they were saying.

Catwoman eased closer. Something light and fleeting struck her shoulder. She brushed herself off with short, violent strokes, cursing every bat, large or small, that had ever flown. But it was a piece of paper, not something organic and revolting. A gum wrapper, still reeking of spearmint. Her heart was in her throat as she retreated and looked up. The light was bad, and she didn't know what he should be seeing. There were a number of black, bulky shapes above her, but nothing she could interpret. She thought of Batman and made herself alert for the subtle shimmer of his cape. Something did move. It wasn't Batman's cape and at first Catwoman had no idea what it could have been, then she realized she was looking at a man from the soles of his feet on up. Once she had a coherent pattern in her mind, spotting other men was child's play. There were at least four men hiding in the jumble of rafters and catwalks some thirty feet above the pier's wooden floor. One of them might be Batman, but Catwoman wouldn't have put money on it.

The two men working on the crate gave no indication that they were aware of their audience---even the older guy, who'd been so careful coming out of the bar, seemed oblivious. The whole setup stank worse than the harbor water. It was even possible that Batman's clumsy message had been a sincere attempt to warn her away from a bad situation. It was possible that Batman wasn't here, and wouldn't be here. At another time Catwoman might have reconsidered her own presence, but not this time.

Catwoman was close enough now to hear Eddie clearly. He described the places he'd been and the jobs he'd done. If there were cops hidden in the rafters, they might find it interesting, but Catwoman found it boring. So, it seemed, did the older man. He made the right noises at the right time, without actually participating in the conversation. Between the two of them they'd gotten the wrapping off the crate. They removed the contents---smaller crates---and spread them across the floor. Catwoman took note of the military stencils covering most of the smaller crates.