“Get your mask back on,” Pretty Amazonia urged. “Move it!”
A moment later, the miniature zeppelin was hailing them from afar. “Brick! Pretty Amazonia! Southern Cross! Report in!”
The Brick’s clenched fist eased up and he instead popped a thumb into the air for all to see. The thumb sank, as he replaced it with a raised index finger and saluted the blimp. More camera flashes ensued. “A-okay, El Bastardo.”
“Bastardo’s a usable epithet here?”
“Sure, since it’s bogus French.”
The police began assembling their hardware and pushing the crowd of onlookers away from the museum entrance and the smouldering parking spot. Amidst a sea of grey, brown and black fedora and bowler hats, Jack noticed a red Stetson.
“I want one of those,” he mumbled, straightening his mask. “You too can stand out in a crowd.”
#120
The following afternoon, Jack loitered on a corner next to the bank, hoping to meet Louise Starkwell on her way out — if only to shake things up and avoid another Twilight Over Hoboken episode.
Back still aching from the ‘Arabesque’ kick Prima Ballerina had kindly shared — there was dark bruising around his coccyx — the Equalizer wondered why Heropa’s overnight Reset hadn’t fixed that up.
He’d ended up leaving the Southern Cross get-up back at HQ. The thing chafed in general; he felt liberated without it.
And this time, when she came out the front door of the bank — wearing a simple black dress and a big black bonnet wrapped by a beige silk scarf that dangled down past her left elbow — Louise recognized him. Her face lit up, making his heart skip in ridiculous manner.
“Jack, you’re a breath of fresh air,” she decided, as she straightaway linked her arm through his. “I wasn’t sure I’d see you again.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No, actually, I’m not.”
Louise peered up at him with a shy smile, while Jack was sure he responded with a dopey look. She remembered?
“You are here to see me, aren’t you? This isn’t an evil coinci-dence?”
“None that I’m aware of. But let me think some.”
“Watch out, or I’ll start harassing you with obscure art.”
“Oh, no!” he laughed, beginning to relax. Confused he might have been, but there was no mistaking the happiness that washed through that. She remembered him.
They trudged slowly along the sidewalk, crisscrossing shadows and twilight. “Are you hungry?” Jack finally found the courage to ask.
“Famished.”
“I know of a restaurant near here — this place comes highly recommended, though I’m not a hundred percent sure the person who recommended it can be trusted.” True, since he’d filched the information from the Brick. “Name of the Holyoke. D’you know it?”
“No, but I’m already intrigued by the contradictions.”
The restaurant actually wasn’t half bad, a cosy establishment on a quieter street, down a flight of stairs, tucked away in a basement. Booth tables were separated from one another by Japanese-style partitions made of wood and paper, and the place was romantically lit — difficult to see anything further than three feet. Given Jack was half that distance from his date, he was hardly going to get upset.
He did wonder, however, why the Brick would patronize this eatery alone — or if the man dragged along someone special. The thought of the Brick as a concrete Romeo brought a smile to his mush.
“What are you thinking about, with that grin?”
Jack looked straight over at the girl. “How beautiful you are.” This sounded like the right thing to say, was partially true, and even in the miserable light, he could see her blush.
They proceeded to gasbag aplenty, not just about art. The conversation turned to food, cooking, fashion, music, cinema and the workplace. Louise had insight into each of these topics — seemingly from a practical perspective — whereas Jack had only read up on most and fanaticized about others.
He learned the girl loved going to see an ensemble led by popular Heropa bandleader and radio personality Cake Icer, and her favourite movie was The Long Kiss Goodnight. Jack hadn’t heard or seen either. The novel she’d read the most times was Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness.
“Critics hated it,” Louise announced, while adjusting her glasses, and then she lit a cigarette. “One British journalist said he’d much rather give a boy or girl prussic acid than let them read this novel. To be honest, I’m not sure I like the book either, but there’s something in there that captures my attention.”
“What’s it about?”
“Lesbianism in Edwardian England, class differences, Christianity, spiritualism, World War I, cross-dressing.” Louise winked. It seemed to Jack everyone was doing that in his general direction. “A smorgasbord, really.”
The girl went on to say she despised red roses but loved yellow ones, she smoked 16mg Paul Jones cigarettes — only at night, Jack recalled — and liked to drink Bollinger champagne. She had two glasses over dinner. Her preferred toothpaste was Ipana, and she adored fashion designer Walter Plunkett.
“You know, I have a Walter Plunkett suit,” Jack decided to bring up.
“Really? The man is an illusionist with his sense of line, harmony, and of challenging both. Oh, my — you’ll have to show it to me.”
He neglected to mention it was an overlarge hand-me-down from a dead man (the Big O), that he’d worn the threads on the first occasion they met, when Bulkhead attacked the bank — a time Louise appeared not to remember at all — and that the suit had been summarily destroyed.
After a lengthy hesitation, Jack’s hand fell onto the girl’s, and they entwined fingers.
Louise found out Jack had no particular preference for toothpaste, dress-sense, music, film or flowers. He didn’t smoke or drink. He had too many books he loved to narrow down specific examples, and favourite food went unanswered.
An entrée of California rolls and a generous serving of pasta intervened, but Jack bypassed the seventy-two-ounce King Henry VIII steak the Brick had suggested.
“You don’t like talking about yourself, do you?” Louise decided, well into the evening.
“Not really,” Jack admitted. “I also don’t have much to say.”
“I’m not sure I believe you. That would make you the complete antithesis of most of the men I’ve known.”
“That many, huh?”
“A fair few.”
“Are you disappointed this time round?”
“No.” She squeezed his hand. “It’s a nice change.”
“Thanks. I think.”
The conversation then pivoted to childhood toys, something Jack felt he could participate in. After mentioning some plastic rocket ships and anonymous toy soldiers he’d owned — recycled hand-me-downs from the neighbours’ kids — Louise nattered on about her favourite soft toy tiger, Mister Hobbes, a velveteen cat called Perri-Purr, and a doll named Tarpé Mills that still took up prime real-estate on top of her bed.
Jack couldn’t help wondering if she’d had a childhood — he very much doubted this — and the notion made her ‘memories’ far more tantalizing than his genuine experience of growing up.
Not that he told her much about this. Jack kept almost everything under the cuff, since he recognized there was nothing with which to dazzle the girl. To the contrary, she’d likely do a runner. So, instead, he encouraged Louise to talk about herself, and every minor such detail made him more enamoured.
After the dinner plates had been cleared, Jack placed his wallet on the table-top and decided to teach Louise how to play an old game that’d kept him sane on long, lonely nights by himself in his box in Melbourne: Three Coin Hockey.
While their waiter simmered nearby — either he fretted about the surface of the table, or the unnecessary delay in his tip — the girl first frowned, pondered, and then smiled. Within five minutes, she giggled a lot as they played, and inside fifteen minutes started to
win.
The ideal proposition to work off their excess culinary baggage was another meandering walk to the girl’s apartment. Their conversation had trickled off. Louise’s right hand was in Jack’s left; they looked at one another and beamed more often than they needed to speak.
On the way, the two of them passed a shop with its shutters down. Painted across the metal, in slaphappy manner, was the second batch of graffiti Jack had seen:
BOPS GO HOME!
Nonsensical tagging appeared to be a growing fad in the city of Heropa, although they saw no more over the next thirty minutes, and finally Louise’s brownstone reared above.
Jack counted the stairs to the front entrance: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Ten steps were nothing to fear.
“Can I come up?” he ventured, braver still this time.
“I’d love you to. But I wonder if my father-in-law will be in bed. Hard to say — he works such odd hours.”
Jack stopped dead in his tracks. “Father-in-law? Then that would mean you’re—”
“Widowed.” The girl shrugged. “Not all of us are old hens.”
“Really? Christ…I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. My husband died some time back, stupidly, in the middle of a Bop fight.”
Jack glanced at her. “A what?”
Maybe he asked too softly, or possibly she wasn’t listening. Either way, Louise continued as if Jack hadn’t spoken.
“Ages ago. I remember him, and I know I was in love, but mostly the memories seem like they belong to someone else. I don’t feel much — strange, I know. The Prof says it’s one way of dealing with the trauma.”
Jack tried again. “I hope you don’t mind me asking, but what’s a Bop?”
“A Bop?” Louise regarded him with an expression close to amazement. “You know, Jack — a Cape, of course. Everyone knows that.”
“He was a Cape?”
This time, she laughed in husky fashion. “God, no! He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, when those awful people decided to have a brawl.”
Obviously.
When would Jack get it through his thick skull? If her husband were a Cape, he more than likely wouldn’t be dead — at least according to the old rules. Jack nodded, but had other things in mind. Killed in a battle between Capes? He had to think about that, and played for time.
“What was his name?”
“His name?” A shadow passed across Louise’s face, as if she’d been caught sleeping. “Honestly? It’s the past. I’m all for the here and now. C’mon. You really do want to meet the Prof.”
“The what?”
“Not the what, silly, the who — Professor Sekrine, my eccentric inventor-cum-father-in-law.”
“Don’t you mean father-in-law-cum-inventor?”
“Hah! What a silly slip-up!” She laughed again. “Although, p’raps, he might’ve invented me. I should ask.”
Jack studied her. “Louise, I doubt anyone could invent you.”
“Are you dissing or flattering me?” The girl blushed. As far as Jack was concerned, she looked still prettier while doing so. “Well, what’s the verdict?”
“Both?” he hedged.
“Humph! Perhaps I should turn you away.”
“Homeless again,” he said, with a smile belying how close to the truth it felt.
For her part, Louise seemed to sense some of that. “Of course I’m kidding!” She leaned over and kissed his cheek.
“Care to repeat that?”
“Maybe.” Her eyes held onto his.
“You mentioned this professor’s name was Sekrine, but yours is Starkwell.”
“Starkwell’s my maiden name. I stopped using Sekrine after my hubby passed away. Seemed like a good idea at the time.” She blinked a few times. “So, hop to it — otherwise we’ll fall asleep here in the stairwell!”
“Now?”
“No, tomorrow.” Louise edged the glasses down her nose in order that Jack could better observe as she rolled her eyes. In any case, she still had a smile.
“Well,” he said, lacking any solid argument, his byte of bravado having scarpered, “didn’t you say this professor would be caught napping?”
“I think I said likely. Sometimes he works all night, pottering away on his devices. The Prof runs the antique shop here during daytime hours, though often I discover him kipping at the till. Come on, you’ll like him. And if he’s hit the sack, well, we can play quiet. Right?”
“Right.” Jack had to laugh. “What kind of play are you talking up?”
“The mind boggles.”
Louise took his hand in hers; they ascended the ten steps, whereupon the girl opened the letterbox. Finding nothing, she unlocked the big front doors, they pushed one of them inward, closed it as silently as possible, and proceeded up a set of extremely squeaky stairs.
“Well, I think it’s safe to say we’ve woken up the entire building,” Jack decided.
“Shhh.”
On the landing, the door to his right swung open and a man with seriously competitive tall/dark movie-star looks drilled him from inside its gateway. This neighbour had on a purple satin dressing robe with a swirl pattern and tassel-end belt.
“Everything all right, Louise?” he asked.
In spite of the effete dinner wear, the man looked ready to bludgeon Jack to death — if this turned out to be the girl’s father-in-law, he decided he was in serious trouble.
“All perfect, Mister Phillips.” Louise presented him with a charming smile that seemed to tame the beast. “Sorry for disturbing you. Good night.”
“G’night.”
Once the door closed, Jack followed the girl to its partner on the left.
“Friendly neighbour,” he remarked, grateful the man was just that.
“Handsome Harry. Your tone makes you sound like the Prof — he says you can’t trust someone looking so good who lives in this neighbourhood. Not jealous, are you?” Louise laughed softly, a gentle guffaw. “Harry’s harmless. He watches out for me, and even better keeps an eye on the old man.”
Louise quietly unlocked, and then opened the door. Vague lighting flickered within, making the girl stop to sniff.
“I smell fire.”
“Nonsense, my dear — hardly the smell of a furnace, but the aroma of Vita-Rays! Welcome home.”
The door swung completely open, allowing Jack to feast lowered eyes on an elderly man who only reached his shoulder. Distracted as he was, he banged his forehead on a dangling lightshade. Now he understood how Pretty Amazonia perceived the world — like a clodding giant.
“Nothing’s broken, is it?” he worried aloud.
“Nothing important,” said Louise, with an affectionate hand touching Jack’s forehead.
The living room here had a bull’s head on one wall, a zebra rug over the floor, three-tiered shelving on a singular pole, a legion pallet table on wheels, two globe lamps either side of a huge rectangular mirror, and one claw-foot bathtub sofa. Behind the couch was a filigree-pattern, mod-style lattice partition.
In the centre of this flashy spread stood the tiny old gent.
Pushing seventy, the man had unkempt white hair, skin like parchment and wild silver eyebrows, skittish and all very mad scien-tistish — but he also had a capacious grin.
Less concerned about the crack on the skull than the mention of Vita-Rays — deployed in comicbooks as an integral part of the Super-Soldier Serum that created Captain America — it dawned upon Jack that the way the old man used the term made them sound like nothing more than incense. This had to be coincidence.
“Well, now. Hello there,” the elderly gent said, rubbernecking Jack’s way. “Please, come inside, and do mind your head.”
“Once bitten,” Jack agreed as he absent-mindedly loosened his necktie. “It’s sweltering in here.”
“That would be the Vita-Rays.”
“Prof, this is Jack. Jack, this wonderful gentleman is the Professor.”
“Nice
to meet you, sir.”
“Please, please, call me Prof. I haven’t the faintest idea what my real name is — forgotten ages ago. Paul? Fred? José? Truman? …nothing rings a bell.”
Louise’s father-in-law shook Jack’s outstretched hand and continued to smile, but he felt some kind of searching going on in the man’s gaze.
“Jack, was it?”
“That’s right.”
“And you know Louise how? Through the bank? You’re a fellow employee.”
“Not exactly.”
“Prof!” The girl gave out an exaggerated sigh while she bolted the door, and then hung her jacket. “Leave the grilling for later. Please?”
“Yes, of course — perhaps I should parboil my questions?”
“I have a soft spot for stir-fried,” Jack said.
“Ahh, but without the parboiling the carrots may not be completely cooked when seared with the other vegetables. If the carrots are subjected to parboiling first, they will be tender along with the rest of the stir-fry. The soft spot you prefer.”
“Can’t argue with that.”
“The Prof,” Louise said, as she deftly removed Jack’s coat, “is an amateur chef, among other talents.”
“Don’t let her fool you. Louise applies the term ‘talent’ so loosely.” The Professor continued to study his visitor’s face. “Definitely not a banker,” he mused, “since you have a chin. I’d say a detective, but one of those canny fellows would have avoided the lightshade.”
This discussion was becoming too personal for Jack’s liking. “You mentioned Vita-Rays,” he politely cut in.
The Prof suddenly clapped his hands —“I did!” he shouted, while Jack backed away — and, straight after, the man’s eyes slit with a blend of understanding and mischief. “A detective, after all,” he decided, and then poked his guest in the chest. “For Heaven’s sake, take a seat. Put your feet up. We’re not heathen here!”
“Better do what the Prof says, Jack,” Louise whispered in his ear. “My lovely father-in-law has a robot sofa chair over there that he made, with retractable arms and hooks — it forces people to sit down. Really uncomfortably.”
Jack flopped onto the nearest settee, of which there were quite a number. Luckily there didn’t appear to be gadgets attached to this particular choice.