This made Jack think again of Louise.
“Getting acquainted with the city.”
About their second kiss, once more on her doorstep, longer, but on this occasion initiated by both at the same time. He felt overwhelmed with his bravery — never thought he had such enterprise in him. His face overheated just rewinding it.
She hadn’t recognised him again — this was like dating Groundhog Day style. They’d once more discussed Twilight Over Hoboken and he’d reissued the invite, this time with more confidence since he now knew she liked him.
“Do tell,” PA said in the same flat style — a worrying one. Jack glanced at her.
“All aboard?” hollered the Great White Hope from a comfy, leather-bound captain’s chair up front. His passengers were forced to content themselves with unpleasant canvas seating.
“Nah, bwana.” The Brick crossed and then uncrossed his gnarled, rock-ribbed legs. “I left me stomach at the breakfast table. Whaddaya reckon? Course we are. Let’s go.”
“So — the game is afoot!” their leader declared in an over-energetic, gleeful manner that made Jack more tired.
The ceiling slid across with loud grating that could be heard inside this iron carriage suspended beneath the blimp’s rubberized cotton fabric, and in seconds their transport lurched through the exit and hung above a shining city of cement and glass.
When Jack took a glimpse out of a small round window, at the drop to the pavement thousands of feet below, his stomach churned. He tightened the seatbelt and again looked across the aisle at Pretty Amazonia.
“PA?”
“What?” The woman had moved on from rivets and was preoccupied with the passing outside world.
“Are there any Capes who’ve gone missing?”
Silence. Then, “How do you mean?”
“Like, well, disappeared.”
“God — dozens of them.”
“Huh?”
Having sighed loudly, the woman peeled off her white satin gloves, took out a nail-trimming kit, and began to file. “Haven’t you checked how many heroes there are in the rogue’s gallery?”
“You mean that hallway with all the pictures at HQ?”
“Yes. So, haven’t you?”
“Haven’t I — what…?”
“Counted? Darling, sometimes you have the attention span of a gnat. I have. Totted them up, I mean.”
PA honed in on a particularly troublesome nail on the ring finger of her left hand.
“Bugger,” she said with a frown, and then her eyes darted over to her teammate. “Yep, well, there’re eighty-nine people on the walls. Eighty-nine previous and current members of the Equalizers. You’ll be number ninety, once we get your mug shot sketched up.”
The woman placed the nail file in a plastic sleeve, and straight after took out several different bottles of coloured varnish. One big flask had the words ‘Miracle Liquid Nail Formula #35’.
“We’ve kept track of thirty-seven of those people. Five are dead, and only one of them an accident so far as we know — Little Nobody. Capes come and go; I guess people get bored or find new ways to entertain themselves…and they stop coming back. More recently, they simply die.”
The blimp was drifting a hundred metres above the crater they’d explored a few days before, the one on the corner of Crestwood and Standard, where Harvey’s Gems once stood.
The Brick whistled — Jack had no idea how the man did that with a gob full of stones.
“Well, well. Will ya lookit that.”
All of them were already gazing downward, even the pilot.
“Looks like the same hole to me,” Jack said, stifling a yawn. “Cleaner, maybe.”
“That’s precisely our problem, dodo,” PA snapped, slipping into one of her intemperate moods precisely as she stuck the gloves back on.
“The cleanliness?”
“No! — What am I going to do with you? The problem is the hole itself. See? Everything in Heropa is supposed to Reset after twenty-four hours, always in the middle of every night. It’s how we’ve been able to lay waste to most of the city, get some kip, and wake up to the renovations.”
“Then that crater shouldn’t be there?”
“Nope,” said the Brick. He winked at Jack and subtly made two horns on top of his head with his thumbs, as he nodded at PA. “We ought’a be navel-gazin’ Harvey’s Gems again. Reckon Harvey’ll be put out.”
“Who exactly is Harvey?”
“Dunno — the Blando that runs the joint?”
PA rolled her eyes. “I think it’s just a name — like Tiffany’s.”
“Got one more question,” Jack said.
“God. What now?”
“You mentioned the city rejigging—”
“Resetting.”
“Resetting, yeah. Do the Blandos also reset? I mean, do they rejuvenate or reanimate themselves, or whatever, like the city does every night?”
“Pfft. Who knows and/or cares?”
“Me,” the Brick complained. “Never thought ’bout that before — I’m gonna get zombie nightmare creeps after you tuck me in tonight.”
“Once they’re dead, they’re dead,” the Great White Hope spoke up from the nearby cockpit. “Blando casualties get rebooted, like we do, but the fatalities stay put. Same with the Capes, actually.”
“So — in what way do you tell if someone’s a Blando?”
“Let me think now,” Pretty Amazonia said in a mocking tone. “P’raps, maybe, by how yawn-inspiringly boring they can be?”
“Any other way?”
“I’d say that’s sufficient, wouldn’t you?”
“Well, sure thing,” interrupted the Brick, “there is the obvious ID. They all have a lower-case ‘p’ tattooed between their shoulder blades.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Nup. Right here…” The beast struggled to point out an exact spot; unlike PA, flexibility was not his forté.
“Why?” Jack asked, feeling more than a little horrified.
“Dunno. Guess it’s a quick an’ easy reference t’see if someone’s bona fide or not — when they’re picking up the pieces at fight scenes, I mean.”
“You say it’s a ‘p’. If you call them Blandos, and you’re going to resort to that kind of crap, why not use a ‘b’ — for Blando?”
“Mebbe depends what angle you look at ’em. Like, if yer upside down, it’d read as a ‘b’, right?”
“Actually, that would make it a ‘d’.”
“Don’t get all pedantic, kid.”
A Citizens’ Band radio set, positioned in the single alcove above their pilot’s head, beeped hysterically, causing the Great White Hope to snap up the mic.
“Top of the morning to you,” he declared in jolly manner. Jack realized this was the man’s painful attempt to kid around.
“The Equalizers?” crackled a familiar, whining voice over the communal speaker.
“Roger.”
“This is the mayor. We have a situation.”
“Check that,” said the GWH.
“A diabolical situation!”
“Er — What kind of situation, sir?”
“Yeah, tell ‘im to get to the bloody point,” the Brick grumbled.
“The League of Unmitigated Rotters,” the single speaker squawked, “is laying siege to the Museum of Antiquities.”
“The museum?” Pretty Amazonia, who’d taken out a mirror to check her eye makeup, paused mid-burnish. “That lot are getting cultured on us.”
Jack was surprised they bothered with a museum dedicated to antiquities, considering Heropa was only about five years old.
“I believe the fiends are after the treasures of Pharaoh Rama-Tut,” nattered the mayor.
“Understood. F.A.B., sir.” Their pilot hung the microphone back on its hook.
“F.A.B.?” Jack queried, leaning forward to see out the front window.
“Full Acknowledgment of Broadcast,” the Great White Hope said.
“That’s not what F.A.B. means
— the Big O told me it’s ‘Fully Advised, Briefed’,” cut in the Brick.
“And here I was thinking we meant ‘Fabulous’.” Pretty Amazonia had apparently finished her makeup repairs and inspected the job. “Not bad.”
“Regardless, flight path set in for the Museum of Antiquities.”
“Which means,” said the Brick in a low voice, “he’ll be steerin’, since there’s no on-board autopilot.”
Fifteen minutes later, they descended into a wide boulevard on which most of the traffic had stopped and people were outside their cars, staring in one direction at a big building on a small hill. A ring of blue-clad police officers and their cars, bulbous roof lights swirling, surrounded the slope. They barely noticed the arrival of this big, white dirigible.
“Heads up.”
Pretty Amazonia seemed to be finally paying attention as she leaned over next to Jack and looked at the building.
“I see Chop Suey and Sinistro. Down there, loitering next to that — what kind of car is the Mediterranean-blue number, Brick, the one with all the curves?”
“Late 1930s. Chrysler.”
“Yeah, I think it’s a ’39 Chrysler Royal.”
The Brick and PA stared at Jack.
“Dear God,” the woman muttered, “not another motor-head. Stick to your comics, darling.”
Jack blushed. “I defer to the Brick, of course.”
“Whatever. See the two Rotters? Next to the blue Chrysler.”
“Spotted,” said the Great White Hope. “They will be acting as look-outs — no doubt there will be more of the devils in the museum proper.”
“No doubt.” PA blew out her cheeks.
As their blimp came lower still, settling just a few feet above the asphalt of the expansive thoroughfare, two figures that had been skulking behind the automobile took off and raced into the building via its grand portico. This place had a dazzling dome slapped on top and could’ve filled in as Everymuseum.
“Brick, Pretty Amazonia, you’re up,” their glorious leader announced. He swivelled a lever, opening a door behind the Brick. “Take Southern Cross with you. Time he learned the ropes. I’ll stay here to co-ordinate activities.”
“Course you will,” PA remarked. She looked Jack in the eye. “I’ll be brief, SC — Sinistro sticks to the shadows, literally becomes a shadow, gets his kicks scaring kids like you. And, for God’s sake, watch out for Chop Suey’s hands — they’re ten fingers of death. One time he nearly karate-chopped our erstwhile giant here in two.”
“Yeah, that wasn’t fun. Little bastard.” The Brick stood beside the door and bowed. “After you — an’, kiddo, be careful o’ any other Capes we meet out there. If in doubt, ask.”
“Or scream,” the woman behind Jack helpfully suggested.
With that, they jumped. PA and Jack landed without much ado, but the Brick’s descent was announced with the loud crunch of broken paving.
“Oops.”
“Elegant,” his tall teammate muttered.
“Mebbe I should go on a diet?”
The coppers were armed with an array of nasty-looking weapons, some of them new, but most World War II vintage — things like bazookas, Vickers machine guns and .45 Thompson submachine guns (“Chicago typewriters,” the Brick said). The officers kept these in check as the trio passed through the cordon and after that walked up a neatly trimmed driveway toward the museum, past pampas grass and palm trees.
“Mister B, you take the rear,” Pretty Amazonia instructed; apparently she was second in charge or had decided to appoint herself thus. “I’ll head straight inside. SC, you hold down the entrance. Anyone comes out, smack them one.”
“Even you?”
“You won’t see me.”
And she vanished — no password, just pure speed. The Brick lumbered away at a more sedate pace, leaving Jack on the doormat.
For a while, all was peace on earth.
Zero was happening on a front lawn that looked as well-manicured as Pretty Amazonia’s nails, and Jack could hear nothing special within the building. Eventually, however, a tall, wiry-looking individual in a baggy black leather costume approached from inside.
He wore a midnight cowl loosely covering the top half of his head, tied in a knot at the back. Incongruously, so far as Jack was concerned, he had on a pair of thick, square eyeglasses and the Equalizer could see mutton-chop sideburns poking out from under the mask.
“Hope you don’t mind me asking,” Jack said, as the man came closer, “but why the specs?”
“These are my night-vision goggles.”
“It’s daytime.”
“One does like to be prepared,” pontificated the man. “I am Black Owl.”
“Oh, hoot-hoot.”
The Cape’s mouth fell open, possibly in an attempt to catch passing flies. “How dare you! Don’t you realize who I am?”
“Some lame-arse clay pigeon in a recycled Zorro mask?”
“This is not a Zorro mask. I made the cowl myself.”
“So you’re a seamstress to boot.”
“Good Lord — who the devil do you think you are? I am Black Owl, leader of the League of Unmitigated Rotters!”
“Charmed.” Jack yawned. “Listen, mate, I still haven’t tried this out, so by all means make a report and get back to me with the details.”
He levelled his right arm and pointed it at the flying owl logo on the man’s torso. Then he thought about what he really wanted to do to the pompous arse. The recoil and pain surprised Jack most — made him think he’d dislocated his elbow — and the flash was subdued cobalt in colour.
The result? Black Owl, on the receiving end, took artificial flight and disappeared somewhere down the next street.
“Sugoi shooting.”
Jack turned quickly to discover a ballerina on the boardwalk.
There, in the middle of a promising ad hoc battle zone, about six metres from him, was a superbly postured, picture-pretty girl with pale, luminescent skin and brunette hair pulled back severely into a small bun that was wrapped in a floral garland.
She was dressed in a black leotard sporting a frilly tutu, with white tights and pointe shoes — looking like the goddamned Black Swan. A domino mask sat on her nose, across which were inscribed musical notes, and Jack noted she had one blue eye and one brown.
“Sugoi?” he asked.
“Japanese. It means ‘great’, impressive. That kind of jazz.”
“Okay. So tell me — are you a hero, a villain, or someone who’s misplaced their ballet studio?”
“Funny,” the girl said, plumbing sarcasm, but she was kind enough to present him with a charming smile. “Black Owl is a valiant fighter — too valiant for Prima Ballerina to allow him to be defeated.”
“You always refer to yourself in the third-person?”
“Sometimes. If it suits.”
“Well, since you’re narrating, what’s the plan? You’re going to dance me to death?”
“Oh, a comedian.”
“No, just stating the obvious.”
“More obvious that you know.”
The girl placed her arms in an ‘L’ position — the left one out straight beside her, the right pointed Jack’s way — and for a split second he believed her intention was to throw at him what he’d done to Black Owl.
Instead, she pirouetted on one leg several times, so swiftly her body became a blur. When she finished the rotation, the dancer struck a pose, her arms crossed low in front and one-foot forward.
“Bras Croisé,” she announced. Jack couldn’t help himself — he gave a round of applause.
Seconds later, she’d moved on to a series of linking steps consisting of three small hops, executed both with the back foot and the front foot in tandem, sideways, forwards, backwards, turning.
“Pas de bourrées,” Jack heard the girl say in the sweetest of voices while he followed the rhythmic footfall and began to feel drowsy. “Ichi, ni, san, ichi, ni, san, ichi—”
That was when so
mething struck his back from behind. He ended up on all fours on the cement, shaking his head to clear it.
“Arabesque,” that candy-coated tone declared. “Dō itashimashite!”
A hand grasped Jack’s arm and yanked him to his feet — he was staring up, at close quarters, into Pretty Amazonia’s purple irises.
“Don’t look at her feet, her legs, her arms,” the woman hissed, “don’t listen to her voice. Prima Ballerina uses everything she has like a Siren. Just bloody well shoot her and be done with it!”
“Understood.”
Jack swung around and aimed the dancer’s way before he had time to properly look or listen — right when the Brick blundered across his path. The cobalt blast that exited Jack’s fingertips struck the Equalizer in the shoulder and he staggered sideways.
Jack scrambled straight over. “Crap, Brick — you all right?”
“That…hurt,” he muttered. “Don’t worry ’bout li’l ol’ me, I’ll live.”
Vaguely reassured, Jack looked past the man, but the street was now empty. Glancing over his shoulder, he spotted only Pretty Amazonia hunting about for prey.
“Looks like they did a runner.”
“The sewers.” The Brick straightened, as he rotated his glenohumeral joint. “That’s the bastards’ standard escape route.”
“Not all of them.” Jack pointed over to the blue ’30s Chrysler, where a shadow on the bonnet had surprising enough dexterity to open up the driver’s door.
“Sonuvabitch — Sinistro.” The Brick made a fist, but before anyone else could move, the automobile exploded with a definitive ka-boom. It rained down fragments of engine, upholstery, whitewall tyres and a bent black fender, along with a shade shorn in half — minus its physical body.
Jack yanked off his mask to stare at the burning spot where the car was once parked, and the dissected shadow now lay. “Bollocks, Brick, is that supposed to happen?”
“Um. Not so far as I know.”
Pretty Amazonia twirled a cautious circle out on the street, just as the police and the crowd surged forward, and then suddenly she was standing over her partners. “What the blazes happened?”
“Me an’ SC been askin’ ourselves the same thing.”
There was another blinding light, this time a flashbulb instead of a bomb — reporters had surrounded them.