Asprin, Robert Lynn – Catwoman – Tiger Hunt (With Lynn Abbey)

“I got nothing to do with you,” the scarred man said with a sneer. “You ain’t king of the jungle around here.”

Batman wasn’t entirely surprised that his quarry was unimpressed by appearances. It took a certain kind of man to live with scars like that; it took a certain kind of man to survive the getting of them. “You were working on the pier. Loading that freighter for Bangladesh?”

“No, I was checking my yacht for a friggin’ regatta.” He took a step sideways; Batman moved with him. “We don’t keep regular hours,” he explained, as if talking to an exceptionally dense child. “The boats come and go with the tides. That one’s going to leave about four A.M.—if that’s all right with you, I suppose.”

“I’m looking for someone who ships a lot of freight to places like Bangladesh—places where the people are poor and needy and the customs inspectors are conveniently blind—“

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.” He veered the other way; again Batman stayed with him.

“Let’s say I’m trying to make a certain . . . connection.”

The light on the empty street came from a single halogen lamp at the far end of the block. But Batman was angling for a reaction, so he was watching when the dark eyes lost focus and pulled sharply to one side. He didn’t need a polygraph to know when a man was getting ready to lie. He began feeling very, very lucky.

“What kinda connection? There’s things come into port sometimes. Maybe I hear about them. Maybe I don’t. It depends.” The scarred stevedore shrugged his shoulders and slipped a hand under the waist ribbing of his wool sweater.