Tiger hammered on the door until it cracked open and a sleepy Oriental face peered out.
“I want to talk to Khalki,” Tiger said, thrusting his weight against the door to prevent the doorkeeper from slamming it shut.
They exchanged insults. Batman was not surprised to find that Tiger knew the coarser words of several languages. But the door finally swung open. Bruce Wayne thought he’d seen the worst Gotham City had to offer, but he wasn’t prepared for the squalor inside the abandoned factory building.
“They pay rent by the square foot,” Tiger explained as he wove confidently through the hivelike structure.
“Who are they? What are they doing here?”
“Illegals. We sneak some of ’em in along with everything else, but they come from all over—for the opportunity. These ain’t the homeless or the unemployed. These are the cream of the fourth world. They all got jobs—and they’re makin’ more money than they could at home. They don’t wanna spend anything on themselves ’cause they all got families at home they’re sendin’ money to. So they come here. Some of the old-timers make their money subleasing toilets. There’s a friggin’ waitin’ list for this hellhole. What you see here, my friend, is the future of America.”
There was no electricity, no water, no sanitation. Men—there were no women here—lived cheek-by-jowl in conditions worse than any antiquated prison. Most of them were asleep in cells no larger than the reeking mattresses they slept on. The little light came from candles and open-flame lamps. Bruce Wayne couldn’t keep himself from looking into the cells, into the wide-eyed faces with their uncanny mixture of fear and hope.