Snatch and Run
by Lucy Gillam

The lady looked like the kind who carried cash.

It had taken Dick a while to develop that instinct, and he was still wrong at least two times out of five. Being wrong really sucked, because credit cards weren't any good to a kid unless you were willing to let a sleaze like McDover take a fifth of everything, not just the credit cards. Sometimes Dick wondered if it wouldn't be easier just to hook up with one of the many grownups who were perfectly willing to "watch over" a kid in exchange for a cut, but he'd been in Gotham long enough to know that in this city, the kindly Fagin from that movie his mom had loved was more likely to be a nut case with a weird name and probably a costume. And that he could live without, even if it meant sometimes being left with a purse full of stuff he couldn't use.

He was pretty sure about this lady, though. There was something about the skirt, too short and tight to be a work outfit, but not tacky like those the women on Vine Street wore, that made her seem like the type to pay cash for things. Really expensive things. The super-high heels meant less worry about being chased, too.

Dick carefully worked his way up through the flow of people in the sidewalk. When he first started this, he'd made what he later learned was the common rookie mistake of thinking it would be easier to grab stuff from people on less crowded streets. Turned out people actually held purses and packages tighter when fewer people were around, which didn't really make sense to him.

A few more steps, a calculated stumbled, and he slid the purse off the lady's arm. He took off running to the sound of the usual "Hey!"

In nearly a year doing this, Dick had never been caught, or even come close to it. The reason was simple: when everyone else ran away, he went up.

Getting up to the lowest level of a fire escape wasn't actually that hard when you knew how (and, okay, when you could launch yourself off a dumpster and be reasonably assured of catching the support bar six feet away and four feet up), but most people never bothered to figure it out (since, after all, they were usually more concerned with getting down them). So Dick was taken completely off-guard when a strong hand grabbed his ankle as he headed up the second set of steps.

"Hey!" He looked down to see the lady he'd taken the purse from smirking up at him.

"I think that's my line, junior."

Dick yanked his leg up, trying to get free, but her grip was firm. For a half-second, he considered kicking her, but he was pretty sure she'd fall down the stairs, and a purse wasn't worth seriously hurting someone.

Which was not to say he was going to give it back.

Grabbing the railing, he flung himself with over the side, letting the full weight of his body pull at her hold on his ankle, giving her no option but to let go unless she wanted to follow him over. Before she could react he'd swung over to a support bar underneath the platform at the top of the steps. Another swing had him to the side of the platform, and he scrambled up to continue running up the stairs a level above her.

The words he heard coming after him more creative than anything he'd heard since the Gotham Youth Facility.

Dick reached the roof, and the clanking of the fire escape told him she was still coming after him. In those heels? What kind of freako lady… Sometimes he hated Gotham.

The buildings in this part of the city were densely packed, which was one of the reasons he'd chosen to work here. The other reason was that they were of varying heights, so it took a certain amount of skill to get from one rooftop to the next, so that on the very, very small chance that someone did follow him up, one good flip to a surface ten feet below would lose them. And if that didn't work, the shimmy up the pipe to the top of the Wensler Apartments would.

Unless, of course, he was being chased by this lady.

"This," he grunted as he used a laundry wheel to give him the momentum to get across a gap between buildings, "had better," a rough landing caused him to stumble a bit, "be worth it."

He ran to the other end of the roof and ducked behind the stairwell before looking back to see if she was still following.

"Ha!" He allowed himself a brief moment of triumph. The laundry wheel trick always got 'em. Even Jimmy Turkle hadn't been able to do that one when he'd been chasing Dick over that small misunderstanding about a missing roast beef sandwich. Freako Lady hadn't stood a chance.

Still, there was nothing saying she wouldn't try to get here another way, or just call the cops, so Dick took the opportunity to move a few buildings down and use a conveniently placed clothesline to get across the alley to the next street over.

Dick collapsed on the edge of a rooftop, resting his back against a small rise in the bricks that seemed to serve no real purpose except to give tired purse-snatchers something to lean against. Gotham was full of things like that; it only reinforced his opinion that people in this city weren't always real smart.

He began rooting through the purse, pushing aside lipstick and powder and he was pretty sure he didn't want to know what that was, finally finding a wallet. Sure enough, it was stuffed with cash. And not just fives and tens and the twenties everyone had since they were all the ATMs gave out. There were some fifties in here, and how much of a jackpot was this.

"Excuse me." A sharp-nailed hand gripped his shoulder like a vise, and Dick looked up into a smirking face.

"That," the woman said, taking the purse, "would be mine. Oh, sit down," she added as Dick started to yank away. "I already have to get this jacket repaired, and the skirt is probably hopeless. If I have to chase you again, I'm going to be annoyed. And when I'm annoyed, I'm not quite so careful about dropping little boys off of rooftops." She punctuated the last word with a hard squeeze to his shoulder.

Dick started to object to the "little boy" part, but decided now might be a good time not to talk.

"Now," she said, releasing his shoulder to sit beside him, "why don't you tell me where you learned to do those things? The flip was particularly impressive, by the way."

For a moment, Dick could only stare. He'd seen a lot in the two years since his parents' death, but sitting on a rooftop with a beautiful woman who he'd just tried to rob, being complimented on his acrobatic skills, was a new one.

"Gym class." He was pretty sure no one from Tony Zucco's outfit was still looking for him – at least the police hadn't seemed to think so when they'd closed the case after Zucco's death – but it never hurt to be careful. At least that's why he told himself he hadn't talked about the circus since he'd run away from the Gotham Youth Facility.

The lady rolled her eyes. "Sell it to someone who's buying, kid. Moves like that are wasted on snatch-and-run, you know." She looked him up and down, from the faded flannel shirt and T-shirt Rucky had given him last month to the sneakers he'd found at Goodwill that might last him until March if he didn't mind his toes being squashed. "Foster home?"

"Huh?"

"You run away from a foster home?"

Dick frowned. "Group home."

"Oh, even better." She looked him up and down again. "How old are you, seven?" His outrage must have shown on his face, because she grinned and added, "Okay, too low. Ten? Twelve?"

"Eleven," he responded grudgingly.

The lady snapped her purse closed and stood, primly straightening her skirt. "C'mon" she said, holding out her hand to help Dick stand. "I'll buy you lunch. And you can tell me where you really learned that flip."

Dick eyed her warily. It wasn't the first time a stranger had offered to buy him a meal, and it didn't always lead to something that involved him kicking the person and running away. Even in Gotham, there were people who just wanted to be nice. And although he was pretty sure this lady wasn't some amateur social worker, he was also pretty sure he wouldn't have to run away again. Not that he was at all sure he could.

He let her pull him to his feet and started walking with her across the rooftop towards the stairway door. Just before they got there, he stopped. "Hey."

She turned back with a questioning look.

"You don't, like…wear a costume, do you? You know, at night?"

The lady winked. "Oh, kid. Do we have things to talk about. C'mon."

She opened the door and waved him through. "By the way, my name's Selina."

They walked down the stairs in silence, except for the muttering Freako Lady -- Selina -- did as she brushed dirt off her skirt and tried to arrange her jacket to hide the tear in the sleeve. When they reached the lobby level, she grabbed his hand again and strode across the room, nodding at the building's doorman. He wasn't the kind in the fancy uniform, paid well to know every person who came in and out of the building, but his carefully blank expression said he knew Dick didn't belong here, and if Selina weren't there, he'd be doing something besides just nodding back and holding the doors open.

Selina continued walking as they exited the building, still holding Dick's hand and pulling him into a pace she shouldn't have been able to set in those shoes.

"Murphy's Diner is three streets over," he offered. Mrs. Murphy never let kids hang around if they weren't buying, but she always put a big portion of fries on the plate when they did, and she didn't ruffle his hair like most of the waitresses who were nice to him.

"Oh, I think we both deserve something a little better than that," she replied. "This way."

She led him a few blocks west, the buildings getting gradually more upscale from the middle-class neighborhood he usually worked. In the middle of one block, she stopped, not at a restaurant, but at a seven-story building that had offices over the usual collection of shops.

"See that window there?" Selina pointed to a window in the middle of the fifth floor. "How would you get in there?"

"You mean besides the elevator?"

She rolled her eyes. "At night. When no one is around."

Ignoring for the moment why he would want to do something like that (no point in making trouble before he'd gotten lunch out of the deal), Dick thought about it. "Are there stairs from the roof?"

"They have an alarm. So do the windows from the fire escapes."

Dick looked at the building. There was no ledge for the fifth floor windows, but there was one on the fourth. "If you could get to that ledge there, could you go in one of the other windows and then up the stairs?"

"That ledge can't be more than six inches wide."

Dick just shrugged, and she looked at him for a moment before nodding.

"Okay, you could get into the building that way, but the office doors probably have alarms, too."

He thought some more, trying to remember every time he'd had to hide or get away, trying to remember the TV shows he'd watched with Mom and Dad, or the ones the other boys at the Youth Facility had always wanted to watch. "Can you go up through the ceiling? Maybe the air, what do you call 'em, vents?"

Selina nodded again. "Not bad. It's all wrong, but good instincts."

"Huh?"

"Never mind. Let's get lunch."

The place she eventually did turn towards led Dick to resist being led for the first time.

"Here?" He couldn't even pronounce the name.

Selina winked at him. "Live a little," she said as she dragged him towards the waiter-guy at the front. "A table by a wall, I think, Geoffrey."

"Of course, Miss Kyle," he replied, his eyes sliding off of Dick with careful lack of expression. The other diners weren't so careful, staring as the man led them to a table that was not only against the wall, but next to a large plant, pointedly gesturing Dick to the nearly-hidden chair while holding the other out for Selina.

Dick fidgeted in his seat as the man handed them opened menus and left. He looked around to make sure he knew where and how far away the exits were (through the front door, but that meant going through the whole dining room; the fire exit was closer, even if it would set off the alarm; the kitchen was closest, and there was probably a back way out if he wanted to take a chance).

He twisted his napkin in his lap and stared miserably at the menu, trying to make sense of things like "champagne goat cheese salad" and "Romano crusted cod."

"If you like tomatoes, the grilled cheese is very good," Selina said, not looking up from her own menu.

Dick didn't even recognize the names of the cheeses, but decided to take the help where he could get it, and nodded. When the waiter arrived (a different guy, but one who favored Selina with the same warmth and Dick with the same blankness as the other one had), he ordered the grilled cheese and a Zesti.

When he was gone, Selina folded her hands on the table, leaned forward, and said, "Why don't we start with your name? Or a name. Any name will do; I just want something to call you."

Dick thought for a minute about making a name up, but all he could think of was "John," and that made his stomach twist a little. "Dick."

"No kidding? So, tell me, Dick, what's your average take in a week?"

Dick blinked. "My take?"

"Yeah. How much do you usually manage to get in a week?"

"I…it depends." He felt his heart sink a little even as the territory grew familiar. This was where she offered "protection," or told him she could help him fence stuff, for a small percentage, of course.

"Kid?" She caught his eye. "Do I look like someone who has to take money from kids?" She waved a hand at the room. "Really?"

Well, maybe if she took it from a lot of kids, but then he'd have heard about her, probably, and… He grudgingly shook his head.

"I'm betting you get maybe, what, fifty when it's not Christmas season, if you're lucky? Maybe less. And if you've been doing this more than a year or two, you've probably noticed it going down. People don't carry as much cash, ever since banks thought up debit cards. And you're not connected to anyone who can make those cards work for you, or you wouldn't be here with me, now. You'd be afraid of getting punished for it."

Dick just stared.

"Fifty a week probably keeps you fed, maybe. You probably still end up watching for when Burger Duke throws out the five-hour-old burgers. I'm sure you've had some better offers, ways to make more money." She gave him another one of those appraising looks. "Depending on how you define 'better offer.'"

Dick sighed, once again feeling on familiar territory. "I get it, okay? You've been where I am, you know the score, there's something better, blah, blah, blah. Is this where you tell me to go home, it can't be that bad?"

Selina laughed. "First you think I'm out for a take, now you think I'm a social worker. Keep it up and you're going to kill the good first impression you made. But since you bring it up, what was up with home? How did you end up in the system? Daddy hit you? Mommy drink?"

"They never!" Dick realized too late that he'd shouted, bringing the attention of the dining room back to him, and his face flushed. "They're dead," he added quietly.

Selina nodded, the faint hint of sarcasm gone from her face. "Sorry, kid. I shouldn't have said that, not that way. But there's no one to look after you, no family?"

Dick just shook his head miserably as the waiter approached with their drinks. How could he explain that the only family he'd ever known besides his parents was deemed unfit to take care of him, and that instead, he'd been left in a youth facility in a strange city where the cops and everyone else had lost interest in him once his parents' murder had been solved, where no one knew him and no one cared whether he was happy or loved or whether the bigger boys picked on him except when he fought back and broke one boy's nose, or about anything except whether the rules were followed? He poked at the ice in his cola with his straw and took a deep swallow past the lump in his throat.

Selina sighed. "Yeah, it's a rough old world, kid." She took a sip of her iced tea. "You could really walk a six-inch ledge?"

Dick shrugged again, not even trying to figure out how she got from subject to subject. "Yeah. I do it all the time on Tenth Street, the big red building? You have to watch what times you do it, though, or people think you're going to jump, and then they start shouting."

That got one elegant eyebrow raised. "I sense a story, there. Never mind, I won't ask. Did you take gymnastics at school?"

She clearly wasn't going to give up until he gave her some kind of answer, and the truth was, Dick didn't think there was much chance anyone even remembered his parents, much less him. "I grew up in a circus," he said.

That got another raised eyebrow. "Now there's one I haven't heard before. Highwire?"

"Sometimes. Mostly trapeze, but I learned all kinds of stuff. Plus you have to have good balance anyway."

"Really." That smile was back, the one that reminded Dick of the circus tigers after they got the really good steak for learning a new trick. It kind of made him wonder if he was the trick, or the reward. Maybe he was both.

They were silent for a few minutes after that. Dick could see that he was being studied, measured in some way. He just wished he knew what for. Almost everything he could think of seemed…unlikely. She had money, there was no question about that. And he had a suspicion that she hadn't gotten it on the stock market.

The waiter came back with their plates, still carefully not looking at Dick. The sandwich didn't look like any grilled cheese Dick had ever had, but it was big, and when he tried a tentative bite, it was tasty. Not as good as the kind his mom used to make, but he didn't want to think about that now.

"Satisfactory?" Selina asked, spearing a bit of a very complicated-looking salad. Dick, who had just shoved three French fries in his mouth, nodded. "Well, slow down. I'm not going to take it away from you."

Dick swallowed and took another sip of his cola. Well, the food was here, anyway, and if he had to grab it and run, he could. Here went nothing. "So, you're not a wannabe social worker, and you're not looking for a cut, and," he frowned, "I don't think you're a pervert or anything. What are you? Why are you buying me lunch?"

Selina chewed and swallowed her own food, delicately patting her mouth with a napkin. "What I am is someone who hates to see talent go to waste. Let's just leave it there for now."

They passed the rest of the meal in what would have seemed a very odd conversation to anyone able to overhear it, but was really little more than small talk. Selina asked a few more questions about his day-to-day life, the details just precise enough to convey, again, that she knew more about what that life must be like than a woman able to eat in a place like this should. She asked a few other things, too, weird questions like how far he'd gotten in school, which he had no way to answer except for an indignant "Yes!" when she asked if he could read, how tall his dad had been, which he also couldn't answer except to say taller than Pop Haley but shorter than the cat trainer.

When the last of the food was gone, the waiter cleared the plates and handed Selina the check. Dick noticed that she just signed it, didn't leave money or a credit card or anything. He was pretty sure he was supposed to notice that.

Selina stood and held out her hand again. "Shall we?"

When they reached the street, she held his hand for another minute, giving him yet another appraising look. Finally, she let him go to reach into her purse for a business card and pen. After scribbling something on the card, she handed it to him.

The card was simple enough, just "Selina Kyle" and a phone number in purple letters. She'd written another number underneath it.

"Call that one," she said. "Daytime is better, mid-morning if you can manage. If I don't answer, just leave a message telling me when you'll call again, since I assume there's no number I can call back." She looked at him again for a moment. "Call soon. Or don't. It's your choice."

"You're not going to tell me all the reasons I should?" Dick asked.

"No. If you're half as smart as I think you are, you already know them. And if you don't, you'd be no use to me anyway. So call. Or don't." She reached out and ruffled his hair. "Take care, kid."

She turned to leave.

"Hey!" Dick called after her.

"Yes?"

"You never answered my question. About the costume, I mean."

Selina just winked at him, and walked away.

Dick watched her leave, and then looked back at the card. He did know all the reasons. He might only be eleven, but he knew he couldn't keep stealing purses for the rest of his life, and he knew the longer he stayed where he was, the harder it was going to be to do anything else. He'd seen what happened to the boys just a few years older than him, and he didn't want any of those things.

He didn't know if what Selina was offering would be any better, wouldn't know until he knew just what she was offering -- but maybe it was worth finding out.

Dick tucked the card carefully into the front pocket of his jeans, the one that went deep enough to be safe from prying fingers.

He'd call. Maybe even tomorrow.

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