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"Happiness is the key," he said.
"Good afternoon, joy seekers." An announcer's voice spoke from off-screen: "Here are
some words of truth from the Reverend Joey Droll."
A crowd, also unseen, applauded and cheered wildly. The reverend, apparently, was
talking to an audience of his followers. He waited politely for the adulation to subside.
He nodded once it was silent, and, still smiling, began to speak:
"Could your life be more than it is today? Do you feel, somehow, that you are missing
something? Maybe you never finished high school, are stuck in a dead-end job, and never
seem able to get ahead. Or perhaps you graduated from that good school, and got that
good job, and try to buy the good things in life. But you find once you buy that new car
that it never goes fast enough. The new house has a leaky roof. And your husband, or
your wife, why don't they treat you like they did before you were married? Why don't
your kids treat you with respect? Why can't your parents understand that you're old
enough to make your own decisions? If only you'd get those few things straight, you could
be truly happy, couldn't you?"
The Reverend Joey Droll paused to smile even more benignly than before as he surveyed
the audience.
"But is any one of us, you may ask, any one of us rich or poor, ever truly happy? Well,
perhaps you weren't before you had the good fortune to turn on this program. But now that
you have discovered the Church of Perpetual Happiness, that's all about to change."
"Tell the truth, Reverend!" someone yelled from the audience.
"Share the joy! Share the joy!" a couple of female voices began to chant.
Droll nodded his head magnanimously. "Real happiness, pure joy, the end to all your
troubles; that's the very thing I'm here to provide."
Three bright yellow lines were superimposed over the lower third of the screen:
CALL NOW
1-600-555-1600
YOUR KEY TO HAPPINESS
Gordon hit the freeze button again.
"The Reverend Droll showed up in Gotham City about six months ago. His half-hour
show began to appear at odd hours on UHF and cable outlets. Within a month, he'd
bought an old elementary school and converted it into the church's headquarters. The kids
showed up on the streets about that time, hawking the flowers. We believe, incidentally,
that the street hawkers are only one small part of Droll's organization. As Droll's money
situation improved, his show went to better and better outlets, at better and better times.
And he kept on buying Gotham real estate."
The commissioner looked back at the smiling, frozen image in the screen, then put down
the remote control. "The rest of the tape shows the highlights of Droll's show---happiness
testimonials from the audience, repeated instructions on where you can send your happiness
donation and receive the reverend's blessing---"
"I get the idea," Batman replied.
"We tried to plant a rookie in the organization a little while ago. He reported back to us
once---the day after he went into the church. That was almost three weeks ago. We
haven't heard from him, or seen him, since. We even managed to trump up a building
inspection and searched the church headquarters. It was like he vanished from the face of
Gotham City."
"Why haven't you told me about this before?"
"I would have, if I thought there was some way for Batman to help." Gordon stood up
and turned off the monitor.
Batman considered what he had seen. The commissioner was right. There were no
cops and robbers here. This looked like a whole new kind of crime.
He stared down at his gloves for a moment. "There must be some way we can get inside
their organization."
"How?" Gordon asked. "We can't very well go in and ask. And I don't dare risk
sending in somebody else undercover."
Batman searched his mind for some ploy they had used in the past to get inside
someplace that was supposed to be impenetrable. He could arrange for Bruce Wayne to
give the church a bequest. He dismissed the thought immediately. He wouldn't want to
give the scam any publicity.
"I could join the church myself," he said.
Gordon dismissed the suggestion with the wave of his hand. "In some sort of disguise, I
assume? You're too old. They'd take all your money and leave you outside the
organization. The church takes their real recruits from the young and impressionable.
They're easier to train, easier to indoctrinate with the church's true mission."
Gordon sighed and slumped in a chair. "These cults are everywhere in
Gotham---everywhere in the country, I suppose."
Gordon's statement didn't surprise Batman in the least.
"Maybe I could get somebody with a couple more years of experience to volunteer,
somebody that we could keep better tabs on. In good conscience, though, I don't know if I
can expose anybody to that kind of manipulation without the proper training."
The proper training? Batman thought. It might be almost impossible to find the right
combination of youth and mental toughness. Batman knew of only one very special
person who might fit that assignment, and that person very likely would never talk to
Batman again.
"Do we have to wait here all night?"
Big Mike shook his head. "Couple more minutes. Then we go in and steal the
paintings. It's simple."
"Yeah," the other guy said. "It would have to be."
The other three gang members laughed.
"What do you mean by that?" their leader demanded. "Are you making fun of Big
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