The day's business was not getting off to a good start. Within the costume, Bruce Wayne wished he was without it as well. He was a world away from the docks and slums of central Gotham. His confidence that he could learn anything from these wary immigrants looked like another example of American arrogance.

He heard a woman scream. Trouble sounded like trouble in every language. Without hesitation, he bolted down the sidewalk. The sound had come from a small bakery. Batman took in the whole shop with a single glance as he came through the door. A stocky woman with a bright kerchief knotted over her hair stood behind the open cash register. Her eyes widened when she beheld the dark apparition looming in her doorway. She staggered backward until the racks of fresh black bread supported her. Clutching the front of her blouse, she tried and failed to scream.

Batman saw the kitchen through the bread racks. He saw the open, swinging back door as well.

"I'll be back with your money."

She nodded as he went by, but did not seem at all reassured.

The kitchen emptied into a tenement courtyard fundamentally similar to every other courtyard jumble of concrete and weeds in the city. Relying on instinct and experience, Batman eyed the scene. There were two likely ways out: a tunnel-like alley between two buildings on the far side, and a fire-escape ladder someone had left in the lowered position. There were open windows behind the fire escape; a few were hung with curtains that lowered slowly. Since there was no breeze, Batman reached the obvious conclusion.

Batman climbed weakly, but cautiously, making as little noise as possible, especially after he heard voices on the roof above him. Now he was grateful for the costume and the options it provided. Removing a fist-sized object from his belt, he aimed it at the wall just below the roofline but several yards beyond the fire escape. He thumbed a lever, and a filament hissed out of his hand. It hit the wall with no more sound than a pebble might make. A finger of smoke extended out from the wall as the adhesive coating of the plug bonded with the brick. Batman tested the line, then leaped away from the fire escape.

The filament shortened as he swung. He braced himself for the impact, reaching up for the cement slabs at the top of the wall with his free hand. With a practiced effort, he conserved momentum as he vaulted over the cornice, releasing the filament at the last moment. He landed in an alert crouch.

Time froze.

Three men looked up from a pillowcase they held open between them. They gaped with astonishment. They smiled. The fourth man on the roof, the Batman, decided the order of attack. He folded the fingers of his right hand into a flat-knuckled fist. He'd take the first two with the energy he stored in the bunching muscles of that arm. He'd take the third, the burliest of the men and also the one on the far side of the pillowcase, with a left forearm across the windpipe.

Surging forward with a shout, Batman dropped the first with a hammer punch to the solar plexus; the man never saw what hit him. He took the second with a roundhouse blow to the chin; the victim had time to see, but no time to react. The third dropped to his knees and held out his empty hands; he spoke the same strange language as the children in the streets. Batman ignored him and reached down for the pillowcase. It was heavier than he expected. He glanced in and saw why:

They'd taken the money from the bakery---about forty dollars in small bills and change---but the object of the robbery had been the small, dark painting in a golden frame.

The first thief was beginning to move and make noise. The second remained out cold. Batman indicated that the kneeling man and the groaning man should carry their companion down the fire escape. In the distance he could hear a police siren. He hoped it was coming here. He hoped the officers would be willing and able to ask a few questions on his behalf.

The siren grew louder, then was silent. Two officers met Batman and the alleged perpetrators in the now-crowded bakery. The terrified woman ran upstairs. While the older cop went after her, the younger tried to oblige the near-legendary caped crusader. He fired off a barrage of unfamiliar sounds that were similar in language Batman had heard on the street and roof. But, apparently, not similar enough. Batman suspected the sullen thieves knew exactly what had been said, but they shook their heads and gestured in confusion.

"Can't keep up with them, sir," the fair-skinned young man said, automatically assuming that Batman outranked him in law-enforcement matters. "Used to be just Russians and Poles and they could somehow talk to each other. Now it's everything: Russians, Poles, Bulgarians, Ukrainians---you name it---and they won't talk to each other."

"He understood you, I think."

"I'm sure he did, sir. I wouldn't bet against him understanding everything we're saying. Moscow made 'em learn two languages---Russian and English. We'll take them down to the station and they'll talk. We've got a room down there now that looks straight out of the KGB headquarters. We sit 'em in there for a couple of hours, and they're ready to talk. Old habits die hard, I guess."

The older cop came downstairs shaking his head. "We can take 'em down and book 'em, but what's the use? She won't talk to us. She won't even say the money was stolen from her, or that saint picture. She doesn't want anything to do with the police." The pillowcase, the money, and the picture were spread across the counter near the cash register. He began bundling them together.

The younger cop restrained his partner. "That's icon's problably been in her family a long time. They had to hide it all those years; they could've been imprisoned or sent to Siberia just for having it. And after all that, they bring it here. I know it's physical evidence, Cliff, but if she's not going to press charges anyway... ?"

Cliff rubbed his thumb across the flaking gilt, weighing the charges. "What's this stuff worth, anyway?"

"A lot more to her than to us," the young officer said firmly.

Swearing softly to himself, Cliff put the icon back on the counter. Another car had arrived; backup transportation to the station. "Okay, let's get outta here." He turned to Batman. "You coming too?"

"Do you need me?"

"Nope." The single word contained all the ambivalence the uniformed police felt toward costumed free-lancers.

"Then I'll stay here. Maybe I can convince the woman to go to the station."

"Yeah, sure. A guy in a cape, a mask, and circus clothes. Maybe she'll think it's Halloween."

Batman stood without comment as the policeman and their prisoners left. He was still standing, hoping the woman would come downstairs, when another young man came down instead. He looked to be in his early twenties, and he didn't look at all surprised to see Batman. He was surprised to see the icon. Very surprised. Very relieved. And very quick to hide what he had revealed.

"My mother would thank you, but America frightens her," he said in accented but confident English. "America is not what nay one of us expected. But home has changed so much, too. Where else can we go?" He glanced around the room, obviously looking for something else. He found it---a velvet-covered box carelessly thrown against the wall. Batman had not noticed it before, nor had the police. The youth retrieved the box and carefully fit the icon into it. He held the closed box tightly against his chest.

Things weren't adding up. Batman's curiosity acquired a razor edge. "You're Russian?" he asked with exaggerated doubt. "From the Soviet Union... Russia?"

"This week, the Commonwealth of Independent States; yes. Last week, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Russian, yes, but Russia, no."