The skyscraper the old man pointed out was dozens of storeys high. It ascended into a bullet-shaped peak a thousand feet up, with a glossy white exterior finish and mirror windows that caught distorted reflections of the neighbours.
“Come on then. I’ll take you over. I am, you know, the building’s doorman. Your first port of call,” he chuckled.
“Handy. One thing, though — other people don’t appear to see me.”
“Give it time. The transition takes an hour or so. The Capes will have no problem.”
Canvas awnings billowing in its doorways, a shiny, green, wood-panelled W-Class tram clattered past before they crossed a thoroughfare on which 1930s and ’40s Packards, Buicks, Morris Minors, even a two-tone tan and chocolate-brown Summit Tourer from the 1920s, moved slowly.
These vintage jalopies honked one another while a traffic cop in jodhpurs, knee-high riding boots and white gloves, standing with rod-straight posture at the next intersection, used his whistle and energetic arm movements to control the flow.
After passing the crossroads they proceeded through a grassy square lined with elms and decorated by the occasional fountain and miniature pagoda, leading the two men to the tall, rocket-like building in question.
Stan grabbed a brass lightning bolt handle in order to push open a glass door that bordered on monstrous, and stood aside allowing entry.
“Welcome to Timely Tower.”
“That’s appropriate,” Jack said as he brushed past.
“You get the inference?”
“I think so. Timely was the publishing company that predated Marvel Comics, right? From around World War II — they call it the golden age of comicbooks.”
“I must say I’m impressed.”
“Why so?”
“Many of our residents wouldn’t have an inkling.”
“Not that big a deal.”
Stan scrutinized the other man as he closed the door with a quiet swish. “Sir, it’s never wise to doubt any knowledge.”
“Fair enough. Call me Jack, by the way.”
“Don’t mind if I do.” Again with that debonair smile.
White marble paved the foyer inside, while shiny white walls were indented with chrome fixtures. Suspended above a bank of four separate metal concertina elevator doors sat a woven square banner several metres in size, showing a circle pierced by a simplistic lightning bolt that cut diagonally down from the top left corner to the bottom right.
Whoever designed the thing had been sparing with the colours, since it was cast only in black, white and grey.
“The symbol of the Equalizers,” announced Stan, “designed by the great Israel Schnapps.”
“Nifty — but shouldn’t it then have an ‘E’ in the logo? That lightning bolt looks like an ’N’ and,” here Jack cocked his head to the right, “there’s a ‘Z’. Something Zorro would conjure up if he had a set of tapestry tools, don’t you reckon?”
“I wouldn’t know, sir.”
“Jack. And you must have an artistic bone somewhere.”
“None I’m aware of — at my age the osseous matter tends to accelerate into disrepair.” Stan also crooked his neck. “However…now you mention it, I can see the ‘Z’.”
“But no ‘E’.”
“Sadly amiss.”
“So, these people are expecting me, you say?”
“Certainly are.”
“Which floor?”
“The Penthouse Suite — of course.”
“Top of the heap, huh? Inside the bullet?”
“All the better to keep an eye on the city.”
“Is that a good thing?”
Stan didn’t respond. Either he’d missed the question or preferred not to offer up his two cents.
A half-moon shaped reception counter stood nearby. The guard sitting behind it would’ve been somewhere in the vicinity of forty to sixty — hard to tell — and his gaunt, expressionless face ignored them, so Jack ignored it back.
The guard was cradling a softdrink can of something called Dixi-Cola with red and blue ovals on a white background. He had his gaze fixed on a portable telly.
Jack stared at this small contrivance. “I thought TV wasn’t invented till after the period we’re supposed to be in — given the décor outside, I mean. Isn’t this the 1930s?”
“Is it? I have no idea. But there is some debate about the true inventor of the television: Vladimir Kosma Zworykin, John Logie Baird, or Philo Taylor Farnsworth.”
Having heard of none of these people blessed with three names, Jack remained mum.
“It was commercially available from the late ’20s,” the old concierge went on, “so television wouldn’t be out of place here by any means. The TV dinner, on the other hand, wasn’t invented until 1945.”
Hearing about any kind of dinner made Jack’s stomach growl.
Over on the TV in the here and now, the monochrome picture rolled occasionally, but on it was an old guy in a clown suit with a ventriloquist doll on his knee. The wooden figurine was crooning a sad-sack jingle:
‘Be a Top Man, flee the Bop Man, and drink a bottle or can of Tarax Top Ten flavours!’
By the end of this, Jack decided he’d had enough viewing time, so he turned around.
Inset beside one of the elevators, a little plaque read ‘The Foundation Stone of this Building was laid by Mr William Eisner, President, Leland Baxter Paper Company’.
“Huh. I thought foundation stones had dates on them.”
“Well, now, as I think we’ve established, dates don’t matter here,” said Stan.
The traction lift was one of those antique movie jobs with teak panelling and bulbous globes; these announced each floor as it passed in sluggish fashion. Jack had left Stan the Doorman in the lobby to do his real job, and after a month of Sundays and the piped-in, mind-numbing instrumental sounds of ‘A Walk in the Black Forest’, the cubicle reached the Penthouse Suite. This had its own private globe with a ‘P’ marked on it.
There was a lovely leviathan awaiting him.
Shoving aside the metal concertina door like a shower curtain, she smiled down with something Jack would have called benevolence, if he knew what it looked like. He took in a face composed of strong cheekbones; enormous eyes with purple irises, long lashes, and tiny, swollen lips that in most cases would infer a mild food allergy.
A full twelve inches higher than Jack, this particular giant was gift-wrapped in frills and ribbons, most in plum, with a big periwinkle bowknot on her bosom, a pair of long white satin gloves and one very short, voluminous miniskirt.
She also had a headband holding in check lavender hair spiralling down to her ankles — a touch of Wonder Woman interbred with far too much Sailor Moon, making her resemble someone dragged out of a manga comic and stuck on a pair of towering legs.
“I’m Pretty Amazonia,” the woman announced with a tight smile that nullified the sultry effect of her mouth. “And a quick warning — before you conjure up any unwisecracks, I could break both your legs in quite the jiffy.”
“Nothing comes to mind.”
“Oh, dandy. You must be Southern Cross. We’ve been expecting you.” Pretty Amazonia gave him the once over. “To be honest, I thought you’d be taller.”
“Sorry to disappoint.”
“I’ll live. Well, come on now.”
He followed the woman down a brightly lit passage along which were framed monochrome and primary colour pictures of heroes in action and/or hamming it up for the artist.
There were dozens of these; no photos, but drawings in black and white or red, yellow, green and blue — heavily outlined in black — with names attached like Lord Evolve-A-Lot, Kardak Da Mystic, Slam-Dunk Ninja, Babe Boon, The Soldier, Big Game Hunter, McBlack, Vesper, Mister Sniffer, Ace Harlem, Fraulein Helmet, Captain Atom, Cowboy Sahib, Flasher Lightning and Kid Squall, Sans Sheriff, Curvaceous Crustacean, Vege-Might, That Bulletproof Kid, Trick-Or-Teet, and Yarko the Utterly Greatest.
Some of the monikers fitted the c
ostumes, while others looked like they were sorely mismatched and the designers colour-blind. Most made Jack want to chuckle.
Tucked in amidst the visual mayhem was a portrait of his newfound hostess, a classier rendering in black ink, pencil and minimal watercolour that accentuated her traits, including the nonplussed demeanour.
“Our rogue’s gallery,” said Pretty Amazonia as she sauntered ahead.
“That was you,” Jack mused, in hot pursuit. “Huh.”
Having passed a metal door with ‘G.M.R.’ initialled across it and the Equalizers’ logo beneath that, Jack thought twice, doubled back, and was about to take a peek.
“Don’t go in there,” the woman warned.
“Why, is it dangerous?”
“No, just a white elephant — the Giant Map Room. Has a layer of dust as thick as my heels. C’mon — this way.”
They came to a set of double doors that the woman pushed open, revealing a huge inner sanctum, mostly white.
A Spartan, unadorned milky ceiling was far above them, along with a second-floor balcony that steered close by the walls and gave a view from up there to the room proper, where they stood.
Hanging from a picture rail that did a circuit of this space were a series of replica white, lifesize plaster of Paris faces, cowls, visors and helmets, likely lifted from those jokers in the passageway. They looked like death masks. The way in which the decorations stared down at them made Jack lose count after a quick tot-up to twenty.
There was also a capacious, round white table with a carbon copy of the Equalizers’ symbol in the centre. From this angle he made out the ‘Z’.
Two-dozen chairs wrapped around the table, and next to that sat a couple of comfy ivory-coloured couches beside a glass-topped coffee table. On the table was a collection of cardboard cup-placemats with the same lightning bolt logo.
“Home, sweet home.” She scrutinized Jack again. “You certainly travel light. No luggage. Just that mask in your hands you flaunt so nervously. Relax — I won’t bite. Not yet.”
“Who are you people?” he decided to ask.
“Haven’t you heard? Thought Stan would’ve filled you in. We’re the Equalizers — sworn protectors of Heropa City, guardians of the peace, et cetera, et cetera, blah, blah.”
She laughed — making him decide straight away he liked her. Sure she was formidable, but she also had a solid sense of humour.
“This place is impressive,” Jack said, as he wistfully struggled for more meaningful dialogue.
“What, Heropa? You’ll get over it.” The woman looked him over once again. “You know, you remind me of someone.”
“I do?” Jack’s tone was edgy. “Who?”
“The actor George Peppard, when he was younger — circa Breakfast at Tiffany’s. If he’d excessively worked out, I mean.”
“Okay.”
“You have no idea who I’m talking about, do you?”
“No.”
“Sad. So, take a seat. The others will be here shortly.”
“What others?”
“The other Equalizers.”
“Okay.”
Jack eyed one of the couches and went on over.
There was an attractive hardback tome nearby, something about 1930s automobiles, which he reached over to grab. As he did so, a huge shadow appeared across the table’s surface and someone tossed a newspaper onto it.
The broadsheet grabbed more of his attention than the shadow or the book.
A headline was splashed across the top, each word several centimetres in height and in thick caps.
PEOPLE’S SAVIOUR
SLAIN!
Beneath the by-line — trumpeting that the article was written by some journo called Chief Reporter Gypsie-Ann Stellar — sat a sub-header in unnecessary inverted commas:
“Shots Fired From Grassy Knoll.”
The paper was called the Port Phillip Patriot, with the price five cents and credits including Donald Wright (publisher), Jean-Claude Forest (editor) and Arthur Simek (designer). Its huge front-page sketch came close to inciting Jack, again, to burst out laughing.
In black and white, this one showed an advertising billboard of two happy, smiling kids with a superhero crouched between them. A mask covered the top half of the hero’s face, shades of Captain America. He had a toothy, honest grin as he gave the thumbs-up beneath a slogan that read Royal Vendetta, for Strong White Teeth! and positioned just above his giant brow was the letter ‘O’.
Impacted dead centre in this fifteenth letter of the alphabet was a ragged hole with two tiny legs dangling out, apparently lifeless.
“Bull’s-eye,” Jack muttered.
“An’ the same guy.”
“Huh?”
He glanced up to see a ton of bricks stuck together in the shape of a person. There were even patches of white cement smeared between the ochre-coloured bricks.
This arrival had on a giant-size trench coat that was open, displaying more paving across the torso, and propped up on the back of his great, stony skull was a small hat at a jaunty angle. The charcoal-grey straw number had an indented, fedora-style crown like every other man Jack had seen here, but contrarily sported a narrow brim, only about two inches wide, making it more 1960s than 1940s.
“The guy on the billboard an’ the one inside it,” the rock man was saying. “They’re one an’ the same. The Big O, as you can see from the symbol on his mask — a.k.a. Sir Omphalos. Not sure if we should be labellin’ it irony, coincidence, or damn well freaky.”
“Either way, this puts a dampener on proceedings,” put in Pretty Amazonia, who’d settled on the divan next to Jack. He hadn’t noticed the woman doing that — thought she was still on the other side of the large room. She propped her face in her hands, elbows resting on her knees. “Especially after what happened to the Aerialist.”
“Think there’s a connection?”
“They were definitely shagging.”
“That so?”
“You know so.”
“Do I?” The big man contracted cobbled shelving around his eyes. “Jealous rage? D’you reckon Stellar’s capable?”
“That cow? Gypsie-Ann is one clever lady.”
“Somethin’ you don’t have to worry yerself about.”
“Precisely.”
Jack lifted his gaze over both their heads and stared at the death masks. He’d been tuning out to this gossipy exchange between the two heroes, but after the rock man nodded he swung around.
“Oh, yeah — who the flying fig’re you?”
Leaning too far forward, shuffling his mask from hand to hand, Jack failed completely any attempt to play it laid back. “Southern Cross,” he said.
“How corny can yer get? Why the stupid name?”
“Tongue-in-cheek? We can’t exactly see the Southern Cross anymore.”
“He means back in Melbourne,” Pretty Amazonia kindly interpreted.
“I know what he bloody well means.”
“Course you do.” She rolled her eyes.
The newcomer eased himself into the couch on the other side of the table, which groaned. Jack was surprised the thing didn’t break in two.
“Reinforced,” the man said, no doubt tipped off from the expression on Jack’s face. He shoved his massive, fifteen-inch-long, shoebox-shaped right foot on the table on top of the news. “Yeah, all right, fair enough. ‘Scuse the manners. I’m the Brick.”
“So why the stupid name?” Yes, it was well-nigh impossible to resist the flip.
“What d’you reckon — yer nursin’ an eyesight prob? Captures the spirit o’ my charming good looks.” He leaned over, holding forth a massive, four-fingered mitt as big as a pizza. “You seem okay, bub.”
“Likewise.” Jack thought the handshake was going to break every bone, but it was gentle. Apparently the walking/talking footpath again caught scent of the concern.
“Not invulnerable, eh?”
“Nope.”
“Powers?”
“Some kind o
f weird blast thingy that comes out of the hand you nicely didn’t crunch.”
“Ah.” The Brick took out a paper bag, rummaged, and stuck a long, dirty-pink stick of something into the slit of his mouth. He then offered one. “Big Boss Cigar?”
“Huh?”
“Big Boss Cigar.”
“What the heck is that?”
“Caramel-flavoured candy — since we ain’t able to indulge in the real McCoy here, figured I’d pretend to smoke.”
“Think I’m fine without.”
“I also have old school Fags. Ta-dah.”
He conjured up a box, smaller than the size of a twenty-pack of cigarettes, painted in garish blue, red and yellow with a couple of cartoonish kids running across it.
“Tobacco?” Jack asked dubiously.
“Lollies from Melbourne’s distant past, bub — we’re not in Kansas anymore. In the shape o’ wee li’l cigarettes. See?”
The Brick flourished a hard white stick in the air before Jack. It had a red tip, looking for the entire world like, yes, a cigarette.
“Oh, yeah.”
“Our Mister B does love his sweets,” remarked the Pretty Amazonia woman beside him.
“Ain’t nothin’ better, ’cept the ridgy didge originals.”
The Brick looked over with liquid blue eyes, the only part Jack could see of the brute that was wet. He wondered about the inside of the gravelly mouth.
“Nah?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“Suit yerself.”
Jack then broached a subject he’d been too overawed to mention before. “Do you guys have a toilet?”
“No,” Pretty Amazonia said in a singsong tone, “we use our pants.” But when Jack thought about this, the woman swapped to irritated. “Course we do — just over there, the door behind the staircase. Have fun.”
Jack stood up, hesitated, and hovered.
“Problem?” asked the woman, still annoyed.
“No, not really.”
“Then, what is it?”
“Speak up, junior,” the Brick encouraged behind him. “We won’t bite’cha.”
“All right. Um — how do I get out of the costume?”
Something resembling disgust crossed Pretty Amazonia’s face. “It’s a loo, not a bathtub,” she said.