Who is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa?

  “Wait, wait, wait. What about our girl?”

  “Our girl? Don’t ever use that expression round me again. I swear, I’ll knock you out — I don’t care how old you are.”

  “You’re right. Of course, you’re right. Yet she remains in grave danger.”

  “I’ll handle it.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Not for your sake, for hers.”

  The old man nodded, his head bowed and eyes on the table. “Jack, a piece of advice,” he said in a small voice. “You should not judge people so quickly, without first taking a long, hard look in the mirror.”

  Jack exhaled, short and sharp.

  “Don’t worry yourself, mate. I’ve done my fair share of that.” In spite of better ideas, his anger diminished as he first glanced at the mirrored window on one wall, and then down at the miniscule man at the table. “Listen, give the cops what they need to know. Tell them you didn’t kill the Capes — hell, maybe even tell them the Big O stuck you in hiding. But leave Louise out of the yarn. The police might go easy on you, if they believe your story and Gypsie-Ann doesn’t press charges. But I’ll tell you one thing — this will be all over the news, and people won’t forget anymore. If he’s still in Heropa, Major Patriot would know about you by now and he doesn’t sound like the forgiving kind of guy. I’m not sure I like your chances, but we’ll try to keep an eye out.”

  “That’s fair enough. I understand. Please find Louise. Please protect her.”

  Crossing to the steel door, Jack nodded.

  “I will.”

  #159

  Jack zipped straight past Kahn, the other cops, plus Gypsie-Ann —“All yours,” he breezed — and then thought twice and doubled back. “By the way, the guy you’re looking for isn’t the Professor. The real trickster wears a brown coat and a red hat, a Stetson.”

  “The old man told you this?” Kahn asked.

  “No, I knew already.”

  “You did? Could’ve saved us some trouble by disclosing this a quarter hour ago.” The police captain was eyeballing his busted-up recording equipment.

  “Sorry — I wasn’t sure then.”

  “But you are now.”

  “Yep.”

  “Great. And Sekrine isn’t our man?”

  “Nah, he’s a couple of generations too long in the tooth.”

  “So,” piped up Detective Forbush, rounding out the commentary with a sneer, “what fancy shade of red are we s’posed to keep our eyes peeled for?”

  “Fire engine. You won’t miss it.”

  “Hard to,” Kahn agreed. “What do you have on him?”

  “Saw him kill Bulkhead, and possibly he planted the bomb that did in Sinistro. The others I’m not so sure about.”

  “Working alone?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Bop or civilian?” That was Forbush, lobbing in his two cents again.

  “I’d put even money on this being a Blando.”

  “Blando…Pfft.”

  “Civilian, then. But I haven’t asked the fella.”

  Kahn poured himself coffee from a nearby vacuum brewer. “Nothing else to go by? No silly walks or — better yet — facial scarring? No eyepatches like mine?”

  “Hard to tell. The hat’s always running interference, and the only time I saw him without it was in a darkened street. Average height, average build. Average everything, aside from the Stetson. Didn’t see a patch.”

  “Okay, I’ll put out an APB on the red hat. Round up all the usual milliners.”

  Jack grinned, but kept the applause in check. “Funny. One thing, though — maybe keep it on the sly. Tell only officers you trust.”

  Pushing forward from his place by the door to stand toe-to-toe with the Equalizer, Detective Forbush tried his best at intimidating. “What’s the matter, bub? You don’t trust Heropa Police?”

  “Sure I do,” Jack muttered, unimpressed. “More worried the bastard will ditch the hat, if word gets out regarding a public witch-hunt for his peculiar headwear. Then he’ll be just another—”

  “Blando?”

  “Face in the crowd.”

  Throwing up chubby hands, Forbush grimaced. “Boss, this’s ridiculous. You really going to have us buskin’ round town for a red-coloured boater?”

  “Bet your bottom dollar I am.”

  “Next thing, these Bops’ll have you lunging through loops.”

  “Enough, Irv. You have a job to do.” Kahn’s subordinate backed away, catching hint of the impatience. “All righty, we’ll keep it under the hat.”

  Gypsie-Ann let out a groan. “Can we ditch the Panama puns?”

  The police captain grinned. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Sorry — slipped out. Moving right along, we’ll get on it.”

  “Thanks,” Jack said. “And one more thing — be careful. From what I’ve seen so far, he packs everything from explosives to a blackjack.”

  Kahn chuckled softly. “Understood. If push comes to shove fireworks-wise, we’ll hand-pass him to you lot — once we succeed in tracking him down, I mean.”

  “Fair enough. D’you have a phone I can use?”

  “Corridor. Try not to break it.”

  The Equalizer left them outside the Professor’s interrogation room and located an old, boxy Western Electric 234G 3-Slot payphone on one wall in the passage.

  After pushing in a coin and dialling the operator, he was put through to Louise’s apartment address.

  Jack had a half-baked idea about what to say, but the girl had left no delusions of patching up their short-term romance. He’d decided to play it business-like instead, warn her of possible danger, and offer to lend a hand.

  Conflicting with this in his head was the revelation that, in all likelihood, Louise didn’t need his help — especially if she recovered her memories. He wasn’t sure the Vita-Rays had a permanent effect, and hadn’t thought to ask.

  Once again, however, the Equalizer dithered while the phone continued to ring. Should he tell her everything? ‘Hi, just found out you were once a Cape yourself, even though you’re a Blando’? She’d hang up in his ear — hell, he would do the same if the tables were reversed. But the danger to the girl could be far more than merely possible. Whatever the telephone discussion, he needed to see her urgently.

  After the twentieth ring, the operator squeezed back onto the line.

  “I’d say the lady isn’t home, wouldn’t you?” she offered in a cheeky drawl, and then severed the connection. Jack placed the phone back on the hook, mulling as he retrieved his coin.

  “So the Aerialist is still with us?”

  Jack turned to find Gypsie-Ann leaning back against the beige plaster wall, legs crossed in a relaxed pose, but a dark look in her eyes.

  “You heard?”

  “Didn’t need to — an old talent, one I picked up once upon a time when I worked as a rehab officer at a school for disabled kids.”

  “Lip-reading.”

  “You’ll make reporter yet.”

  “You told Kahn?”

  “Surely you jest? I don’t want to kill the story before it has time to unfold. What is this woman to you, Jack?”

  “It’s complicated. Can you drive us over to Hymie Heights?”

  “Back there? I’m not overly fond of the place — in case it slipped your mind, that’s where Erskine shot me.”

  “Are you in or out?”

  “Sure I’m in. Nothing wrong with a whine every now and then. Besides, you’ll be able to bring me up to speed regarding everything on the way over. About time, too.”

  #160

  There was a large metal box under the glove compartment, pressed against Jack’s leg, and this suddenly started to ding-a-ling.

  “Can you get it?” asked Gypsie-Ann, hands on the steering wheel, a stiff breeze ruffling her hair.

  “Get what?”

  “The annoying ringing thing next to your knee.”

  When Jack bent over to peer closer at the box, he saw the words ‘Motorola Bell System Puls
ar IMTS Mobile Car Telephone’ and discovered a chunky handset. Upon lifting this, the clamour and vibration ceased.

  “Hello? …Hello?” emitted a tinny voice.

  “You’re supposed to speak into it,” the woman beside him muttered, as she turned a corner close by Swanson’s Garage and Sam’s Market. “The wonders of modern science.”

  Jack smiled at his own stupidity and stuck the handset against his ear. “Gypsie-Ann’s car speaking.”

  “Kid?”

  “Brick.”

  “Did you nail ‘im?”

  “False lead.”

  “Rats! That’s crummy.” Jack heard some kind of crunching on the line. “Was a report on the radio,” the other Equalizer remarked, between what sounded like mouthfuls of food. “Mmm! Not bad. Anyhow, seems there’s a full-on riot happenin’ on Marty Goodman Drive, over near the harbour.”

  “A riot?”

  “That’s what I says. Capes — heroes fightin’ Rotters, and by all reports trashin’ the place.” Louder chewing ensued. “Prob’ly bad blood over the unsolved murderin’. We’re talkin’ massive casualties to Blandos in the surroundin’ area.”

  “Crap.” Jack had twisted in his seat, felt a stabbing pain in the stomach, and flinched.

  “You all right?” Gypsie-Ann asked, having glanced over from watching the road.

  “I’m okay.”

  “Wuzzat?” That was the Brick.

  “Nothing. We’ll meet you down there, yeah?”

  “Yep. PA is headed over. Prob’ly already made it, the way she clocks in her sprints.” A loud click, and both the munching and the line went dead.

  “Meet whom, where?” the reporter quizzed.

  “The Brick and your sis — d’you know Marty Goodman Drive? Apparently, there’s a crazy Cape riot underway.”

  “Do tell? Thought we were going to check up on the Aerialist.”

  Jack pondered that. “I know. But she wasn’t home when I called from City Hall — can I try her now on this phone?”

  “Sure, I’ll charge it to my boss. Work-related, and all.”

  Going through a thankfully different operator, Jack let the phone ring ten times, before hanging up.

  “I’d say she’s out for an evening of champagne and cigarettes.” Jack half-snarled this remark, a sour taste in his mouth, brewed with memories of Karl Burghos at the restaurant across the road from Louise’s place and ‘Handsome’ Harry next door. There were plenty of fish to trawl, just outside her window.

  “You really have it bad, don’t you?” the reporter said, bearing half a smile as she drove.

  “Doesn’t matter how I feel. To Louise, I’m nothing more than a Cape.”

  “Have you told her anyway?”

  “I tried.”

  “Obviously.”

  Looking out at the shop fronts they passed, Jack sighed. “I think she’ll have to wait until this blows over. The Brick said there’re a lot of innocent people being hurt.”

  “Your call, but there’s nothing like a good bout of street anarchy to help sell papers.”

  Gypsie-Ann suddenly put her orange convertible in tyre-squealing reverse, and then did a U-turn — right in front of a truck that had to slam on its brakes.

  #161

  Having parked overly close to the corner of Newton Place and Maxwell Avenue, Gypsie-Ann Stellar shoved open the driver’s side door and was all prepared to climb out, but then stopped and instead craned her neck. “Is it going to rain?”

  “Why’re you asking me?” Jack complained. “I have no idea.” He hopped gingerly from the car, pausing at the kerb next to a waist-high portable pole. It was shaped like a lollipop, with signage on the bulbous round bit at the top reading NO PARKING FROM HERE TO THERE, and someone had scratched into its paintwork that ‘Heidi Sladkin loves Frederick von Frankenstein’.

  “Think I’ll bring my brolly just in case,” decided the reporter, just as Jack noticed the lollipop sign had started to wobble unassisted.

  “Um…can I ask a question?”

  “Not sure that’s fair — you weren’t so friendly with mine. But go on.”

  “Heropa doesn’t cop earthquakes, does it?”

  “No stress there.”

  “Really? Ground’s shaking.”

  The reporter stepped up with a man’s black umbrella over her shoulder and slowly looked about at other vibrating signage. “Oh. Yes.”

  “Not my imagination?”

  “Not unless you’re sharing it round.”

  “There’s your reason.” From out of nowhere, Pretty Amazonia had flashed to Jack’s side and pointed to the sky. “All hell’s about to bust loose and kick in some poor sucker’s false teeth.”

  “Ye gods.”

  Roaring over the skyscrapers were a collection of magnificent flying machines.

  Jack spotted three huge dirigibles, an overlarge biplane with ten propellers, a Botanachi DRHC Tilt Rotor, several anti-grav two-seaters, and a baker’s dozen of individual Capes with jetpacks, rocket suits, strap-on helicopter hats, or jerry-rigged hang gliders. There were two distinct waves coming from north and south, and they were headed for one another — directly overhead. More would undoubtedly be approaching on foot.

  “Heroes there,” PA nodded in a northerly direction, “Rotters in the south-east. Looks like Rocket Scientist has been busy.”

  “He made all those contraptions?” Jack asked, stunned.

  “I guess so.”

  “This doesn’t augur well.” Gypsie-Ann had been busy counting. “At least forty people — not including however many are inside those blimps.”

  “Getting together for a fun-filled reunion?” Jack optimistically suggested.

  “Nah. More a second round o’ fracas an’ bloodshed.” The Brick locked up his car a few metres away and joined the others spectating on the sidewalk. “First time round, they gutted half the neighbourhood, two blocks down, an’ there were only a dozen of ’em. Now we got more’n twice that number. Nuts. Awright — clear as mud what we gotta do.”

  “Hide?” the reporter suggested.

  “Wise sentiments. That, an’ we ought’a deposit our cars some place safe.”

  Watching the forces about to converge, Jack shook his head. “No running, no hiding, and no parking elsewhere — we have to stop them.”

  “How, kid? Got yer own private army corps tucked up in yer pants?”

  “And we haven’t exactly got wings,” cut in Pretty Amazonia. “Don’t say you want us to join in this debacle — there’re only three of us.”

  Gypsie-Ann glanced up at her sister. “Four.”

  “Gee, whiz, I feel so much safer. What difference can a quartet make, one of whom is armed with an umbrella?”

  “Five minutes with me and this brolly might surprise you,” the reporter muttered. “I’ve been brushing up on yubiwaza, the secret, amazingly easy art of self-defence that turns just one finger or your hands into a potent weapon of defence without any bodily—”

  “Contact. And it only costs $1.98. For God’s sake, if you’re going to poke your head in anywhere, make it a gas oven rather than the classifieds of old comics.”

  Jack breathed out, barely listening, stumped, considering the lack of options. This was a busy part of town. There were office buildings and stores all round, cars bumper-to-bumper, and a flood of pedestrians stopped on the sidewalks, rubbernecking impending doom.

  “No choice,” the Equalizer began to say — but before anything substantial passed through his lips, a loud, rousing orchestral score drowned out everything. What the hell?

  “Well, this’s surreal,” PA shouted above the ruckus, pointing to a speaker at the top of a nearby lamppost. “They’re playing a bloody waltz on the city’s emergency siren system.”

  “I know the music,” bawled back the Brick. “It ain’t a waltz, it’s a polka —‘Hungarian Dance No. 6’, by Johannes Brahms.” He looked sheepish when he found the other three staring. “What? I seen a recital or three in me time.”


  “Fair enough,” Gypsie-Ann said.

  More proactively, Jack ventured, “Some kind of message?”

  PA shook her head. “Some kind of pisstake, if you ask me.”

  Which was when all hell busted loose, above and beyond the raucous music. The Brick was hammered by some kind of explosives charge, he toppled back onto Pretty Amazonia, and she lay flattened on her back, red in the face, pinned beneath portable cement-work.

  “Get off me, you big lug!”

  “Soz, dollface,” he muttered, trying to rise with Gypsie-Ann’s assistance. “Do me a favour an’ nail that bastard, junior.”

  Down the street Jack spotted the culprit, some kind of armoured robot on four legs, two mechanical hands sporting three fingers on extensible arms.

  “Is that bastard a person?” he quizzed the others.

  PA, who’d dragged herself free of her concrete paperweight, was busy straightening her bows but spared a moment to look in the same direction — and then rolled her eyes. “Oh, for crap’s sake. It’s Otaku Fuchikoma.”

  “Who?”

  “Don’t worry. Inside all that fancy military hardware and futuristic armour is one exceptionally dim-witted Rotter. We haven’t got time for his annoying antics. Can you take care of this, hon?”

  “Sure, I guess.”

  The Equalizer pointed his arm in the direction of the machine and blew it back the way it’d come — just as lightning bolts zigzagged between buildings, gale force winds erupted, plasma arced across the sky, and Capes of all shape, size and colour started brawling in the air.

  Straight after a shop across the road exploded, a telephone pole slapped down at the Brick’s feet the moment he regained them, forcing him to backtrack a few steps, while a crowd of people began pushing blindly past — screaming and shrieking as fire rained.

  Sheltering both in the Brick’s shadow and beneath her opened umbrella, Gypsie-Ann looked reasonably dismayed. “Um…I hate to come across chicken-hearted, but have any of you given further thought to high-tailing out of here?” she shouted to no one in particular.

  Her sister laughed without mirth. “P’raps you could use your parasol, Mary Poppins.”

  “Crap that, and dispense with the jokes,” Jack yelled back, clearly annoyed by the loud music, “we have to help these people.”