Then he kicked himself.
What was he going to say? ‘There’s something I need to tell you about. It’s called the Reset.’ Sure. Would he end up confessing everything about Heropa — including her own intransience? So that she would sit there, desolate, and say, ‘That’s it? I’ll forget everything? Go on working at the bank, putting up with Henry Holland, smoking cigarettes thereafter, on a twenty-four-hour cycle forever? My whole world is a sham, a game?’
And what would Jack do in return? Protest, ‘You don’t understand. This world has so much more than mine. Mine is a place on its last legs, one single city left, and we can’t see it surviving long. People have no rights, oppression is everywhere, and we have no heroes. Nothing, aside from ever-present rain and a daily grind of death, dying, loss — and of trying to find scraps of food in rubbish skips.’
No. He couldn’t tell her.
Couldn’t destroy what she’d achieved in so short a time, all in the name of sharing the burden. Couldn’t degrade her opinion of him with a few short sentences.
#141
When Jack opened his eyes in the morning, some time round sunup, Louise was awake. She was naked — discreetly covered by a sheet — and they’d swapped positions overnight. She had her head propped up in one hand, watching him with a mysterious half-smile.
“More bad dreams?”
Jack nodded. “Always.”
“Can you remember what?”
“Prefer to forget.” He pushed fingers through the girl’s golden hair and gently held the back of her head. “Good morning. How’d you sleep?”
“Like a rock, darling,” she said, before pecking his lips, “though I too get nightmares, from time to time.”
“How is that possible?”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
“I guess.” Jack straight away regretted his comment. It’d slipped free prior to thinking it through — insensitive stuff. “What do you dream about?”
“Mine usually involve a building falling on me, or being buried alive.”
Jack rubbed his face. “Not surprising — in Heropa.”
“And I dream of him sometimes.”
“Who?”
“My husband. Lee.” Louise sat up, her back to Jack, started to pull on a white bra. “I’m sorry,” he heard her say.
Jack placed a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t be. I have no problem with you dreaming of him. I don’t have a problem with you dreaming, period.” He reached over with his other arm and pulled her close. “You have to go to work?”
“Don’t you?”
The man briefly put his hug on hold. “Sure.”
Louise manoeuvred away.
“Funny. You know what I do and where I live, you sleep in my bed. You know I smoke, what kind of flowers I like, my favourite champagne. You know I drink too much coffee, I have pet seahorses, I hate my boss and have an eccentric father-in-law. But I’ve no scoop on you — have you noticed you’ve told me so very little?”
Jack struggled with the right thing to say. “Hey. You know I like Roy Lichtenstein.”
“You also told me your parents are dead. Maybe. I’m not sure that story is true. It seemed like a convenient way to shut me up.”
She stood, went to a dresser, and pulled out a slip and underpants. Then she flicked through clothes hanging in the wardrobe.
“I’ve noticed. The sweet nothings, I mean. I thought these little details would come naturally — but they haven’t. Lichtenstein isn’t enough.”
She was right. Jack understood that. The girl had every right to be frustrated and annoyed. He grabbed his undershirt from the bed-end.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. I’ve been so wrapped up in you that I didn’t think it through. What do you want to know?”
“Everything.”
“Where do I start?”
“Your problem exactly.”
Louise had zipped up an ivory crepe and chiffon dress, adjusted her stockings, put on a pair of death-defying pumps. All the while, her eyes stayed off the man sitting on her bed, and when she was finished she went to the doorway.
“I’m in love with you, Jack — but I have no clue who you really are. Anyway, I’m late. You can show yourself out.”
The door slammed.
#142
When Jack stepped out of the elevator at Timely Tower around eleven o’clock, bad news had apparently inscribed itself into the carte du jour.
“Congratulations — you’re famous.”
Pretty Amazonia shoved a copy of the Port Phillip Patriot into his hands and, upon unfolding the paper, the Equalizer discovered his sketched mug on the front page, sans mask.
A good likeness.
There was a huge headline he barely noticed, asking:
WHO IS SOUTHERN CROSS??
Beneath was an obligatory sub-header in speech-marks, like always.
“Equalizers not available for comment.”
Jack rubbed his jaw as he twisted his mouth sideways (to the right), kicking round this newspaper revelation — while trying to kick the repetitive melody of ‘A Walk in the Black Forest’ and still overwhelmed by Louise’s behaviour that very morning.
“Oh, boy,” he finally put out on the line. “Bad?”
“Bad?”
In return PA was fuming, blood having fled her generous lips — which she compressed into a horizontal line in between spurts of dialogue.
“You’ll be lucky if you’re not thrown out of Heropa,” she lashed. “You broke one of our cardinal rules. Bollocks. You idiot. I warned you, did I not?”
“You did.”
PA seemed to run out of steam. She flopped onto one of the couches. “Dammit, SC, I told you to stay in costume while on duty out there.”
“You don’t wear a mask.”
“I don’t need to.”
Jack peered along her length. “How do you hide seven feet?”
“As I mentioned once before, you’d be surprised. I look completely different in my Sunday best. No one would have a hope of recognizing me. But you — with those golden locks and the perfectly chiselled chin — people will finger you straight off the bat.”
Her partner carefully sat on a stool next to the coffee table. He focused on the death masks up on the walls and felt like they were laughing at him.
He was guessing the big reveal had happened at the Museum of Antiquities, when he’d removed his mask after the explosion that ripped Sinistro in half. Alternatively, it was the doing of that cop Kahn. Or Gypsie-Ann? She worked for the Patriot. Jack’d definitely been liberal in his many reveals — aside from showing anything substantial to Louise, who mattered most.
“Look, I’m sorry.” Jack shook his head. “I wasn’t thinking. I took off the mask after a man was blown up right there in front of me. Yes, it was a stupid thing to do. I’m new at this.”
“Sinistro wasn’t a man, he was a shade.”
“Same end result.” He glanced at her. “So what happens now?”
“The powers-that-be—”
“The mayor?”
“Course not. That man’s a nobody. The real powers — the leaders of the Capes and the Rotters — would usually get together with Donald Wright and one of the four other Chief Justices to hash out the misdemeanour. They’d decide whether you stay or go. In the past, this kind of thing always resulted in expulsion, and it’s not going to help your case that you clipped Black Owl’s wings and the Great White Hope is dead.”
“They’ll expel me?”
“I don’t know. Probably.”
“So what do I do in the meantime?”
“There’s nothing to do. You’re suspended.”
Pretty Amazonia grabbed back the newspaper from him and tossed it across the living space. Her anger then subsided and she slapped back down into the couch.
“Crap. The Brick and I talked about this. We tried to work out some way to salvage the situation, but rules are rules. All we can do is wait. Dammit.”
“Where is the B
rick?”
The woman nodded her head in the direction of the next floor. “In his room, brooding. He’s overly fond of you. God knows why.”
#143
Jack was all prepared to rap on the entrance to the Brick’s private quarters — one part of Equalizers HQ where he’d never before set a single toe — when he became aware of music drifting from within.
The same score he’d heard at the Satori Dance Studio the other night.
Unsure why he again intruded on the man’s privacy, Jack pushed the door slightly ajar. The music came out of archaic Hallicrafters Model R-12 console speakers in each corner of the suite.
The Brick was hunched over on a big, reinforced couch, dabbing his eyes with a pale blue handkerchief that had a pink cherry-blossom design.
The seated man didn’t notice his partner’s intrusion, Jack felt like a fool, and he silently closed the door.
#144
When Jack popped into the bank an hour later, Louise closed off her till.
He thought she did that in order to dash out into the foyer and meet him, but after he’d been waiting twenty-five minutes, he realized she wasn’t coming.
So the man joined the queue to Mister Winkle’s window. Once he got there, the old coot smiled in wan fashion.
“Miss Starkwell refuses to see you, sonny.”
“I kind of realized that. But — if possible — I’d like to know why. Or talk with her.”
Mister Winkle looked past Jack to the next customer. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid that won’t be possible. We’re very busy today.”
“Look.” Leaning on the counter, Jack lowered his voice. “I don’t want to start a commotion. I just want to talk to Miss Starkwell — straight after that, I’ll be out of your hair and commotions will be a thing of the distant past. But if you refuse to let me see her, I promise you’ll have the mother of commotions on your hands.”
The old man leaned away. “Are you saying you won’t cause a ruckus?”
“You meet my terms? — Cross my heart.”
“Hope to die?”
“Sure,” Jack frowned, feeling like he was back on the playground, “if that makes you feel any better.”
“Try the smoking room. Down the corridor over there, third door on the left.”
Jack walked along a narrow hallway obviously intended only for staff, straight past Henry Holland — who had his jaw wired and looked miserable. The Equalizer knocked on the third door.
When no one answered, he pushed it open.
As promised, Louise was in there, alone, next to a barred window. She had one arm, her left, crossed over her chest as she dragged in on a cigarette she’d recently lit. Several drowned brothers were stashed in a small bowl of water on a table in the centre of the room.
Jack could see the girl had been crying, the telltale signs some screwed up tissues lying abandoned next to the improvised ashtray.
“Congratulations — you’re famous,” Louise said.
This was the second time he’d heard the very same words, on both occasions bearing a certain degree of venom.
“No wonder you told me nothing about yourself. I’m so stupid. So naive. I can’t believe you’re a Cape.”
Walking straight over to her, Jack held her arms and looked into those vivid greens. “What difference does it make?”
“We can’t — I don’t —” Louise broke away from him.
She stared out the window at a yellow Plymouth parked on the other side of an alley, in front of a warehouse with signage that read Carson Chemical Laboratories.
“I want you to leave.”
“What difference does it make?” Jack repeated, voice now flat.
“Just go.”
“Louise.”
“Go.”
“Listen to me—”
“I said, just go!”
By the time she would’ve finished the current cigarette, Jack was out on a busy street, pushing through an ocean of people he didn’t know.
BLACKJACK
#145
“Psst — mister!”
He’d been walking the streets of Heropa in relatively aimless fashion, dodging other pedestrians and avoiding the occasional glance of recognition — despite the fact he wasn’t in costume.
Things were unravelling so damned fast.
His career as a Cape was, according to Pretty Amazonia, pretty much on the rocks; his relationship with Louise finished before they’d had the chance to truly begin.
At some stage in this ramble, Jack bumped into Gypsie-Ann Stellar on an intersection near the offices of the Port Phillip Patriot.
She walked beside him, head down, nose almost to the ground, and her eyes occasionally glancing at her colleague as they walked.
“Wasn’t me who published the picture,” she said, like it mattered and Jack cared. “I tried to block them using the image, but I only have so much pull. I know the rules, and I realize this could seriously imperil your career.”
“So I’ve been hearing,” Jack muttered, hoping she couldn’t keep up with his pace.
He may have had longer legs, but the woman was better on high-heels than he figured.
“Look, I know Chief Justice Fargo is in consultations with my boss and Black Owl re: your case. Unfortunately, you didn’t make a good impression on either Wright or the Owl, but don’t fret — everyone knows they’re dipsticks. Joe Fargo is a fair man, maybe the fairest in this city.”
Gypsie-Ann punched his shoulder.
“Hang in there, okay? I’ve been snooping about a fair bit regarding your Sekrine lead…figured you’d need a professional hand. Nothing to report — as yet — but ’tis early days.”
“Forget about it.”
“I’m never one to forget a budding story. Anyway, must go. Good luck.”
With that, she crossed the lights against the traffic and had a bunch of old cars honking and swerving.
In a side-alley next to a bookshop with elegantly flowing writing on its signage, a man caught Jack’s attention when he stumbled past.
“Psst — mister!”
Jack looked over and saw a tall figure in a buttoned-up brown trench coat that hung down over grey wool trousers with red pinstripes. What grabbed him most was the red Stetson the man had down low over his eyes, so he couldn’t see the face clearly.
“C’mon, mister!” the stranger urged. “Step over here. Just for a sec. I won’t bite. You’re that Cape — Southern Cross, right?”
Jack came marginally closer. Hell, at least he’d have someone to whine to.
“Supposedly. Like the hat. Seen it before.”
“It’s a pre-war Bross and Clackwell. Only one of its kind in town.”
“That so?”
Jack didn’t see the blackjack until the thing had passed across his eyes — on the way, a split second later, to dance a frolicsome jig on his left temple.
#146
The Equalizer came to inside a cramped, dark place he quickly realized he’d prefer not to be. His legs were folded up, wrists tied together, suit crumpled, and his head ached.
From within what he sussed out to be a metal locker, through the grille beside his face, Jack could espy partial glimpses of a big room proper, filtered with red light.
First thing he made out was Bulkhead.
The Rotter was settled in the same interview chair Jack’d occupied days before at the headquarters of the League. Those decorative chains from the ceiling had been put to good use — binding Bulkhead’s metallic torso, arms and legs dozens of times over.
There was another individual walking around him.
This man wore an innocuous tan trench coat that made him look like just about every other male Blando in the city, but the hat on his head — a pillar-box red, wide-brim Stetson — stood out a mile.
He had the hat pulled down low, so that shadows played around his cheeks and eyes.
Even when this individual occasionally faced the locker during the course of his circular route, Jack could
not see any features clearly.
The man in the red hat stopped for a moment, his back to Jack, and clicked a lighter. A plume of smoke headed towards the high ceiling.
“Man, oh, man,” his voice remarked, as he took up looping the loop again, “I’d swear these were real.”
Bulkhead sounded disgusted: “You’re a tobacco-fiend.”
“Yep.”
“On ya.”
“Hard to find the real McCoy back in Melbourne.”
“Then you’re a Cape?”
“Nup.”
Ineffectual as it was, the Rotter writhed a lot and there was the scraping of metal on metal. “Yeah, well — enjoy the experience, arsewipe.”
“Oh, I will.”
“Get me outta these chains, and you’ll enjoy a whole new ballgame.”
“Think I’ll skip out on that particular pleasure, mate.”
“What d’you want? The other Rotters will be back shortly. They’ll fry your balls.”
“Yeah, I reckon they would, so time to end this. Besides, I reckon our prize spectator,” the man in the red hat nodded in Jack’s direction, “has likely woken up by now.”
“What happened to the Peter Pan policy?” Bulkhead demanded, swivelling one eye and then the other to ogle his captor. “You abiding by it?”
The man in the red hat chuckled.
He leaned in close to Bulkhead, all cosy-like, and said something Jack couldn’t make out.
At the same time, he saw the man push a small, cylindrical object into the midriff area of the bound tin-man, and then he strolled away whistling a tune Jack thought he recognized — what was it?
The door slammed shut.
Gone.
Jack breathed easier, getting set to kick open the locker, when he heard Bulkhead shout out, “I do believe in fairies! I do, I—”
The roar and flames of an explosion consumed everything, flipping Jack’s cabinet several times — and causing him to black out for the third time in two weeks.
When the Equalizer came to, something hard was cradling the back of his head. It took him a moment to realize this was a handful of small bricks. His eyes burned, a stench of smoke seared his nostrils as he dragged in for breath, everything spun.