It was worth a try. Wasn’t it?
He took a deep breath, and then the one stride followed. He walked out into the hallway, and the residents gathered around Julie Saufley’s door saw him and every one of them recoiled as if they’d just seen a man from Mars. He didn’t hesitate; he went past them to the elevator. The little numerals above the door were on the upward march. The policemen were coming up, he realized. It would not be wise to let them see the Green Falcon.
“Hey!” Mr. Gomez shouted. “Hey, who the hell are you?”
“He must be nuts!” Mrs. LaPresta said, and her husband—in a rare moment—agreed.
But Cray was already heading toward the door marked STAIRS. The cape pinched his neck and the mask was stuffy; he didn’t remember the costume being so uncomfortable. But he pulled open the door and started quickly down the stairway, the matchbook clenched in his hand and the smell of Julie’s blood up his nostrils.
He was puffing by the time he reached the ground floor. But he crossed the cramped little lobby, went out the revolving door and onto Hollywood Boulevard, where the lights and the noise reminded him of a three-ring circus. But he knew full well that shadows lay at the fringes of those lights, and in those shadows it was dangerous to tread. He started walking west, toward Vine Street. A couple of kids zipped past him on skateboards, and one of them gave a fierce tug at his cape that almost strangled him. Horns were honking as cars passed, and ladies of the night waved and jiggled their wares from the street corner. A punk with his hair in long red spikes peered into Cray’s eyeholes and sneered. “Are you for real, man?” The Green Falcon kept going, a man with a mission. A black prostitute jabbed her colleague in the ribs, and both of them hooted and made obscene noises as he passed. Here came a group of Hare Krishnas, banging tambourines and chanting, and even their blank eyes widened as they saw him coming. But the Green Falcon, dodging drunks and leather-clad hustlers, left them all in the flap of his cape.
And then there was the Grinderswitch Bar, jammed between a porno theater and a wig shop. Its blinking neon sign was bright scarlet, and out in front of the place were six big Harley-Davidson motorcycles. Gray paused, fear fluttering around in the pit of his stomach. The Grinderswitch was a place of shadows; he could tell that right off. There was a meanness even in the neon’s buzz. Go home, he told himself. Forget this. Just go home and—
Do what? Vegetate? Sit in a lousy chair, look at clippings, and reflect on how lucky you are to have a job sweeping the floor at a Burger King?
No. He was wearing the armor of the Green Falcon now, and why should he fear? But still he paused. To go into that place would be like walking into a lion’s den after rolling around in fresh meat. Who was Julie Saufley, anyway? His friend, yes, but she was dead now, and what did it matter? Go home. Put the costume back on its hanger and forget. He looked at the door, and knew that beyond it the monsters waited. Go home. Just go home.
4
One-Eyed Skulls
HE SWALLOWED THICKLY. Walk tall and think tall, he told himself. If he did not go in, the very name of the Green Falcon would be forever tainted. Pain he could take; shame he could not.
He grasped the door’s handle, and he entered the Grinderswitch.
The six motorcycle owners, husky bearded men wearing black jackets that identified them as members of the ONE-EYED SKULLS gang, looked up from their beers. One of them laughed, and the man sitting in the center seat gave a low whistle.
The Green Falcon paid them no attention. Bass-heavy music pounded from ceiling-mounted speakers, and on a small upraised stage a thin blond girl wearing a G-string gyrated to the beat with all the fervor of a zombie. A few other patrons watched the girl, and other topless girls in G-strings wandered around with trays of beers and cheerless smiles. The Green Falcon went to the bar, where a flabby man with many chins had halted in his pouring of a new set of brews. The bartender stared at him, round-eyed, as the Green Falcon slid onto a stool.
“I’m looking for a man,” Cray said.
“Wrong joint, Greenie,” the bartender answered. “Try the Brass Screw, over on Selma.”
“No, I don’t mean that.” He flushed red under his mask. Trying to talk over this hellacious noise was like screaming into a hurricane. “I’m looking for a man who might have been in here tonight.”
“I serve beer and liquor, not lonely-hearts-club news. Take a hike.”
Cray glanced to his left. There was a mug on the bar full of GRINDERSWITCH matchbooks. “The man I’m looking for is blond, maybe in his early or mid-twenties. He’s got pale skin and his eyes are very dark—either brown or black. Have you seen anybody who—”
“What are the hell are you doin’ walking around in a friggin’ green suit?” the bartender asked. “It’s not St. Patrick’s Day. Did you jump out of a nuthouse wagon?”
“No. Please, try to think. Have you seen the man I just described?”
“Yeah. A hundred of ’em. Now I said move it, and I’m not gonna say it again.”
“He took one of those matchbooks,” Cray persisted. “He might have been sitting on one of these stools not long ago. Are you sure you—”
A hand grasped his shoulder and swung him around. Three of the bikers had crowded in close, and the other three watched from a distance. A couple of go-go dancers rubbernecked at him, giggling. The bass throbbing was a physical presence, making the glasses shake on the shelves behind the bar. A broad, brown-bearded face with cruel blue eyes peered into Cray’s mask; the biker wore a bandanna wrapped around his skull and a necklace from which rusty razor blades dangled. “God Almighty, Dogmeat. There’s somebody inside it!”
The biker called Dogmeat, the one who’d whistled as Cray had entered, stepped forward. He was a burly, gray-bearded hulk with eyes like shotgun barrels and a face like a pissed-off pit bull. He thunked Cray on the skull with a thick forefinger. “Hey, man! You got some screws loose or what?”
Cray smelled stale beer and dirty armpits. “I’m all right,” he said with just a little quaver in his voice.
“I say you ain’t,” Dogmeat told him. “What’s wrong with you, comin’ into a respectable joint dressed up like a Halloween fruitcake?”
“Guy was just on his way out,” the bartender said. “Let him go.” The bikers glared at him, and he smiled weakly and added, “Okay?”
“No. Not okay,” Dogmeat answered. He thunked Cray’s skull again, harder. “I asked you a question. Let’s hear you speak, man.”
“I’m…looking for someone,” Cray said. “A young man. Blond, about twenty or twenty-five. Wearing a T-shirt and blue jeans. He’s got fair skin and dark eyes. I think he might have been in here not too long ago.”
“What’re you after this guy for? He steal your spaceship?” The others laughed, but Dogmeat’s face remained serious. Another thunk of Cray’s skull. “Come on, that was a joke. You’re supposed to laugh.”
“Please,” Cray said. “Don’t do that anymore.”
“Do what? This?” Dogmeat thunked him on the point of his chin.
“Yes. Please don’t do that anymore.”
“Oh. Okay.” Dogmeat smiled. “How about if I do this?” And he flung his half-full mug of beer into Cray’s face. The liquid blinded Cray for a few seconds, then washed out of his mask and ran down his neck. The other One-Eyed Skulls howled with laughter and clapped Dogmeat on the back.
“I think I’d better be going.” Cray started to get up, but Dogmeat’s hand clamped to his shoulder and forced him down with ridiculous ease.
“Who are you supposed to be, man?” Dogmeat asked, feigning real interest. “Like…a big bad superhero or somethin’?”
“I’m nobo—” He stopped himself. They were watching and listening, smiling with gap-toothed smiles. And then Cray straightened up his shoulders, and it came out of him by instinct. “I’m the Green Falcon,” he said.
There was a moment of stunned silence, except for that thunderous music. Then they laughed again, and the laughter swelled. But Dogm
eat didn’t laugh; his eyes narrowed, and when the laughter had faded he said, “Okay, Mr. Green Falcon, sir. How about takin’ that mask off and…like…let’s see your secret identity.” Cray didn’t respond. Dogmeat leaned closer. “I said, Mr. Green Falcon, sir, that I want you to take your mask off. Do it. Now.”
Cray was trembling. He clenched his fists in his lap. “I’m sorry. I can’t do that.”
Dogmeat smiled a savage smile. “If you won’t, I will. Hand it over.”
Cray shook his head. No matter what happened now, the die was cast. “No. I won’t.”
“Well,” Dogmeat said softly, “I’m really sorry to hear that.” And he grasped the front of Cray’s tunic, lifted him bodily off the stool, twisted and threw him across a table eight feet away. Cray went over the table, crashed into a couple of chairs, and sprawled to the floor. Stars and rockets fired in his brain. He got up oh his knees, aware that Dogmeat was advancing toward him. Dogmeat’s booted foot drew back, the kick aimed at the Green Falcon’s face.
5
The Star and Question Mark
A SHRIEK LIKE THE demons of hell singing Beastie Boys tunes came from the speakers. “Christ!” Dogmeat shouted, clapping his hands to his ears. He turned, and so did the other One-Eyed Skulls.
A figure stood over at the record’s turntable near the stage, calmly scratching the tone arm back and forth across the platter. The Green Falcon pulled himself up to his feet and stood shaking the explosions out of his head. The figure let the tone arm skid across the record with a last fingernails-on-chalkboard skreel, and then the speakers were silent.
“Let him be,” she said in a voice like velvet smoke.
The Green Falcon’s eyes were clear now, and he could see her as well as the others did. She was tall—maybe six-two or possibly an inch above that—and her amazonian body was pressed into a tigerskin one-piece bathing suit. She wore black high heels, and her hair was dyed orange and cropped close to her head. She smiled a red-lipped smile, her teeth startlingly white against her ebony flesh.
“What’d you say, bitch?” Dogmeat challenged.
“Gracie!” the bartender said. “Keep out of it!”
She ignored him, her amber eyes fixed on Dogmeat. “Let him be,” she repeated. “He hasn’t done anything to you.”
“Lord, Lord.” Dogmeat shook his head with sarcastic wonder. “A talkin’ female monkey! Hey, I ain’t seen you dance yet! Hop up on that stage and shake that black ass!”
“Go play in somebody else’s sandbox,” Gracie told him. “Kiddie time’s over.”
“Damned right it is.” Dogmeat’s cheeks burned red, and he took a menacing step toward her. “Get up on that stage! Move your butt!”
She didn’t budge.
Dogmeat was almost upon her. The Green Falcon looked around, said, “Excuse me,” and lifted an empty beer mug off a table in front of a pie-eyed drunk. Then he cocked his arm back, took aim, and called out, “Hey, Mr. Dogmeat!”
The biker’s head swiveled toward him, eyes flashing with anger.
The Green Falcon threw the beer mug, as cleanly as if it were a shot put on an Indiana summer day. It sailed through the air, and Dogmeat lifted his hand to ward it off, but he was way too late. The mug hit him between the eyes, didn’t shatter but made a satisfying clunking sound against his skull. He took two steps forward and one back, his eyes rolled to show the bloodshot whites, and he fell like a chopped-down sequoia.
“Sonofabitch!” the brown-bearded one said, more in surprise than anything else. Then his face darkened like a storm cloud and he started toward the Green Falcon with two other bikers right behind him.
The Green Falcon stood his ground. There was no point in running; his old legs would not get him halfway to the door before the bikers pulled him down. No, he had to stand there and take whatever was coming. He let them get within ten feet, and then he said in a calm and steady voice, “Does your mother know where you are, son?”
Brown Beard stopped as if he’d run into an invisible wall. One of the others ran into him and bounced off. “Huh?”
“Your mother,” the Green Falcon repeated. “Does she know where you are?”
“My…my mother? What’s she got to do with this, man?”
“She gave birth to you and raised you, didn’t she? Does she know where you are right now?” The Green Falcon waited, his heart hammering, but Brown Beard didn’t answer. “How do you think your mother would feel if she could see you?”
“His mother wouldn’t feel nothin’,” another of them offered. “She’s in a home for old sots up in Oxnard.”
“You shut up!” Brown Beard said, turning on his companion. “She’s not an old sot, man! She’s just…like…a little sick I’m gonna get her out of that place! You’ll see!”
“Quit the jawin’!” a third biker said. “We gonna tear this green fruit apart or not?”
The Green Falcon stepped forward, and he didn’t know what he was about to say, but lines from old scripts were whirling through his recollection like moths through klieg lights. “Any son who loves his mother,” he said, “is a true American, and I’m proud to call him friend.” He held his hand out toward Brown Beard.
The other man stared at it and blinked uncertainly. “Who…who the hell are you?”
“I’m the Green Falcon. Defender of the underdog. Right-er of wrongs and champion of justice.” That’s not me talking, he realized. It’s from Night Calls the Green Falcon, Chapter Five. But he realized also that his voice sounded different, in a strange way. It was not the voice of an old man anymore; it was a sturdy, rugged voice, with a bass undertone as strong as a fist. It was a hero’s voice, and it demanded respect.
No one laughed.
And the biker with the brown beard slid his hand into the Green Falcon’s, and the Green Falcon gripped it hard and said, “Walk tall and think tall, son.”
At least for a few seconds, he had them. They were in a thrall of wonder, just like the little children who’d come to see him during the public-relations tour in the summer of 1951, when he’d shaken their hands and told them to respect their elders, put up their toys, and do right: the simple secret of success. Those children had wanted to believe in him, so badly; and now in this biker’s eyes there was that same glimmer—faint and faraway, yes—but as clear as a candle in the darkness. This was a little boy standing here, trapped in a grown-up skin. The Green Falcon nodded recognition, and when he relaxed his grip, the biker didn’t want to let go.
“I’m looking for a man who I think is the Fliptop Killer,” the Green Falcon told them. He described the blond man who’d escaped from the window of Julie Saufley’s apartment. “Have any of you seen a man who fits that description?”
Brown Beard shook his head. None of the others offered information either. Dogmeat moaned, starting to come around. “Where is he?” Dogmeat mumbled. “I’ll rip his head off.”
“Hey, this joint’s about as much fun as a mortician’s convention,” one of the bikers said. “Women are ugly as hell too. Let’s hit the road.”
“Yeah,” another agreed. “Ain’t nothin’ happenin’ around here.” He bent down to help haul Dogmeat up. Their leader was still dazed, his eyes roaming in circles. The bikers guided Dogmeat toward the door, but the brown-bearded one hesitated.
“I’ve heard of you before,” he said. “Somewhere. Haven’t I?”
“Yes,” the Green Falcon answered. “I think you probably have.”
The man nodded. Pitched his voice lower, so the others couldn’t hear: “I used to have a big stack of Batman comics. Read ’em all the time. I used to think he was real, and I wanted to grow up just like him. Crazy, huh?”
“Not so crazy,” the Green Falcon said.
The other man smiled slightly, a wistful smile. “I hope you find who you’re lookin’ for. Good luck.” He started after his friends, and the Green Falcon said, “Do right.”
And then they were gone, the sounds of their motorcycles roaring away. The Green Fal
con glanced again at the bartender, still hoping for some information, but the man’s face remained a blank.
“You want a beer, Greenie?” someone asked, and the Green Falcon turned to face the tall black go-go dancer.
“No, thank you. I’ve got to go.” To where, he didn’t know, but the Grinderswitch was a dead end.
He had taken two steps toward the door when Gracie said, “I’ve seen him. The guy you’re after.” The Green Falcon abruptly stopped. “I know that face,” Gracie went on. “He was in here maybe two, three hours ago.”
“Do you know his name?”
“No. But I know where he lives.”
His heart kicked. “Where?”
“Well…he might live there or he might not,” she amended. She came closer to him, and he figured she was in her late twenties, but it was hard to tell with all the makeup. “A motel on the Strip. The Palmetto. See, I used to…uh…work there. I was an escort.” She flashed a quick warning glance at the bartender, as if she just dared him to crack wise. Then back to the Green Falcon again. “I used to see this guy hanging out around there. He comes in here maybe two or three times a week. Asked me out one time, but I wouldn’t go.”
“Why not?”
She shrugged. “Too white. Amazin’ Grace doesn’t have to go out with just anybody. I choose my own friends.”
“But you remember seeing him at the Palmetto?”
“Yeah. Or at least somebody who fits that description. I’m not saying it’s the same guy. Lots of creeps on the Strip, and those hot-springs motels lure most of them one time or another.” She licked her lower lip; the shine of excitement was in her eyes. “You really think he’s the Fliptop?”
“I do. Thank you for telling me, miss.” He started toward the door, but again her husky voice stopped him.
“Hey, hold on! The Palmetto’s about ten or twelve blocks east. You got a car?”