The streets were empty, to be expected this time of night, riot or no riot. The Brick locked up his car and the two Equalizers walked over to the flats, where they met Pretty Amazonia by a broken postbox. Sporting the beginnings of a nasty black eye, the woman toyed with sheepish.
“This bastard had some fight in him,” she muttered, “even while I was moving at 299,792,458 metres-per-second.”
“I give up. Can’t begin to get me head round how fast that is,” the Brick confessed.
“It’s fast. But he still hit my face, and the idiotic mojo works against me in that situation.” The woman smiled anyway. “Don’t worry, speed does have its advantage. The loser is trussed up like a Christmas turkey in apartment 3-D — all yours, boys.”
Jack glanced at her. “Where’re you going?”
“Home to bed. I’d prefer not to witness what happens next.” She was off like a shot.
“Smart lady — gal got that right,” the Brick chuckled.
“Now you sound sinister.”
“C’mon. We’re late fer a very important date.”
The two Equalizers headed upstairs, stopped at the third floor, and paraded to a door marked 3-D. It was open. Jack diplomatically stood aside while the Brick barged through.
An empty living room welcomed them. In the adjoining bedroom, amidst a chaos of overturned furniture and several abandoned handguns, carefully positioned next to a single bed, they found their quarry: a man in a red Stetson on a kitchen chair, arms tied with rope, and a pair of men’s blue underpants stuffed in his mouth.
“Classy,” Jack decided.
The Brick had the gag off in a second.
“Yer the prick that offed Bulkhead!” he boomed.
“That sad-sack metal tosser?” The man in the red hat rotated his jaw, testing it out. “Jerk believed in Never Never Land.”
“How many other Capes?”
“Huh?”
The Equalizer grabbed him around the throat. “How many others’ve you killed?”
“Brick?” said Jack. “Maybe take it easy.”
“Lemme paste ‘im one — lemme use ‘im as me very own ninety-nine cent giant, life-size karate practice dummy.”
Their prisoner pulled free from his fist. “Ow! Leggo! I’ll talk. Fuck.”
Suspicious, the Brick stood back.
“Let me think now,” the man deliberated, hardly appreciative. “Gotta be at least one dozen I know about. Tin man. Guy in a bath, another in a billboard. The man we roasted, and the one we refrigerated. That was funny — oh, you haven’t found him yet? Called himself Bonfire, so we thought it ironic.”
Jack was staring at him. “We?”
“Me. Me. I’m crazy. Always mixing up my pronouns.”
Fed up, the Brick leaned in again and shoved forward the man’s head, making his hat fall off onto the floor.
“Shite, you were right again,” Jack’s partner said, indicating the three-by-two ‘p’ just below the shirt collar at the back. “Bloke’s a bloody Blando. Think me whole belief system’s gone bust.”
“Hold on,” Jack responded.
He stuck a finger in his mouth, and then reached over. The man formerly in the red hat looked horrified —“Keep your saliva to yourself,” he yelped — as Jack rubbed at the ‘p’. It smudged, like all good tattooed letters don’t.
“Counterfeit.”
“Fuck you!” Their prisoner spat back, a globule hitting Jack’s boot, and then he peered at the ceiling. “Googly!” When nothing changed, his face skidded from a sneer to a close cousin of crestfallen.
“Lemme guess,” Jack said. “Password doesn’t work.”
“Yer tellin’ me ‘Googly’ is the creep’s open sesame? Corny as.”
Jack forced a smile. “Since things’ve been screwy here in Heropa over the past few days, I guess it goes both ways — for them, as much as us.”
The Brick glanced his way. “But who’s them, kiddo?”
In return, the other Equalizer raised one eyebrow. “Let’s find out. No emergency exits for this bugger, Mister B.”
“Lovely.”
Straight away, the Brick cuffed the man across the face. Jack could hear a cheek bone snap.
“Who the flyin’ fig are ya?”
Their prisoner merely glared back, some of the defiance returning. “Say…don’t you losers know what your little world has become?”
“Pray enlighten us,” muttered the Brick, and then he slapped again.
“Hurts,” the prisoner said in a small voice.
“Don’t worry, tough guy. It ain’t gonna hurt fer long.”
Jack wasn’t comfortable with this, no matter how much he pretended otherwise. “Just tell us ‘real men’ what we want to know.”
“Okay, okay.”
Silence.
“We’re listening.”
Nothing.
“Still listening.”
No word at all. Jack looked at the Brick. “The man’s whistling Dixie, wasting our time. Rearrange his face.”
“Okay! Okay! Stop!”
“So — why’re you here?”
“Why? Why, you ask?”
“Brick.”
The man latterly in the red hat shook his head. “It’s a testing ground. The bigwigs at security services must’ve stumbled across the place ’cause, next thing you know, we get a memo at Management Control Division, yacking about a new direction in road-testing for its agents, something a little offbeat and fun to boot — offing superheroes with offensive taste in dress-sense.”
“Ouch,” the Brick muttered, attitude channelling bored. His eyes, however, told Jack otherwise.
“You lot are pathetic. What, you thought you could trade off Melbourne for this dumb, walking/talking board game? You’re nothing more than goons, canon-fodder to improve our killing skills.”
“Sonuvabitch…” The Brick glared, quickly raising his giant mitt to strike again. Jack stopped him.
“He must have an insider,” he said.
“He must?” The Brick looked confused.
“Someone here. Someone to help — remember how disorienting it can be, when people first arrive in Heropa?”
“True,” Jack’s teammate agreed.
“Plus, he needs a private stomping ground to lay low, stock weapons, whatever. Somebody is helping him. We want names, places.”
“Why the fuck do you reckon I’ll tell you anything?” piped up their man tied to the chair.
The Brick glowered at him. “Don’t see anyone talkin’ yer way. D’you?”
“Besides,” Jack threw in, “we have a little bartering tool called the Brick’s fist.” He glanced at his teammate, who now beamed. “Well, maybe not the fist per se — we don’t want to kill him,” Jack changed his mind. “A bit of open-hand surgery instead.”
“Oh, goodie-me. Fun.”
The Brick used just two fingers, one wave left, one wave right. Thereafter, blood gushed from a broken nose and a couple of shattered teeth spilled to the carpet.
Jack winced. This looked real enough. “Okay. Let’s start with who you are.”
The loser folded quickly.
“Yeah, name’s Colt. Denny Colt,” he mumbled, pronunciation now a little off. “MCD Services, registration number 01042011 back in Melbourne. I’m staying at the Hobart Arms, on Franklin Avenue near North Kenmore Avenue.”
“That’s the spirit. Who’s your point person here?”
“Fuck you.” The Brick flexed his fingers, and Colt winced. “I don’t care one way or the other.” The Brick formed a fist. “Please don’t hit me again!”
“Aw, gee. After all this is over I’ll send you a crying-towel size no-prize — that way mebbe you’ll forgive us while you wipe yer baby blues. Fair ‘nuff? The name, bozo.”
“Donald Wright.”
“Wright? The newspaper head-honcho?” Jack’s teammate glanced at him. “Bloke behind the Port Phillip Patriot.”
“I know. Blando or a Cape?”
“I thought
Blando — tho’ I’m beginnin’ to realize it’s easy t’get one’s wires crossed. How d’we even know this bastard’s on the level? Mebbe it’s a red hernia.”
“Herring,” Jack said. “And maybe you’re right. Why don’t you have some more fun with his face, Brick?”
“No, no!” Colt cried, writhing inside his ropes. “Wright is the bloke we report to! Honest! Swear to God!”
“Yer not convincin’ us, dickwad.”
That was precisely when they heard a faint noise from the next room, the sound of metal on concrete. At the same moment, their prisoner’s expression switched to crafty.
“What…What time is it?” he quizzed, gazing at the flattened red hat on the floor. The Brick had obviously stepped on it.
“Oh, you’ll like this,” the Equalizer announced, cracking rocky fingers. “Ding-dong — time t’do the Mussolini head kick. Why? Expectin’ an audience?”
“Just him.” Colt nodded past them. “You turds might wanna meet our self-styled Cape,” he yammered through broken teeth, a red mouth, and much unnecessary laughter, “something we call the Kapitän ‘cos of all the Kraut munitions. Perfect timing, Dolan.”
While nowhere near as fast as Pretty Amazonia, Jack did get the split-second chance to look over his shoulder.
He thereby glimpsed a tall figure in the shadows by the open door, took in the black Kerberos Panzer Cop-style body armour — its varying angles, abundant grooves, detailing and perfect symmetry — that completely covered this person’s body, dolled up with four Model 24 Stielhandgranate ‘Potato Masher’ stick grenades, a Luger pistol in a holster, an antenna, backpack, metallic gasmask with breathing tube, a German World War II army helmet, and glowing red eyes.
While he or she carried no kitchen sink, there was a huge piece of hardware in the newcomer’s hands, some kind of demented machine gun well over a metre in length, with an endless belt of cartridges attached.
The man formerly in the red hat had taken to sniggering. “Dolan and I swap turns carting this stuff round. I get to sit it out today. Lovely. Say hello to the good Kapitän’s 1,200 rounds-per-minute 7.9mm Maschinengewehr 42.”
Jack realized he’d been acquainted with the gun before — this was the brute that’d butchered Baron von Gatz and General Ching.
“Oh, crap,” he squeezed out.
Just as the Kapitän clicked a switch and opened fire, the Brick stepped between Jack and the gun. Pieces of cinderblock joined bullets ricocheting across the room.
“Whenever…yer …ready,” he heard the Equalizer yell above the ruckus.
Jack’d been stunned, too surprised to think, but his teammate’s comment — and the selfless act of placing himself in the way of the barrage — reminded him that he wasn’t unarmed.
Quickly steeling himself, Jack appraised distance and trajectory, and then jumped clear of the cover offered by the Brick, to fire one bolt. Something tore through his thigh, but the other person’s shooting ceased.
Having blown the Kapitän — or Dolan, or whoever he damned well was — clear through the wall, Jack doubted this terror would be stepping back any time soon.
The Brick was on his knees, Colt cut to ribbons. So much for the cavalry.
After quickly wrapping his leg with a handy towel, Jack placed a hand on the Brick’s broken shoulder. “Bloody well saved me, B. You all right?”
“Yeah, sure, sure,” the Equalizer said, head down. “Yerself…?”
“Leg’s fucked. Looks like the bullet went right on through. Hope so. Hurts like buggery, but I’ll live — I’m way more worried about you.”
“Our…whacko prisoner?”
“El Bastardo won’t be telling us anything else.”
“Bollocks.” The Brick collapsed heavily onto his backside. Jack could now see the extent of damage that’d been done to the Equalizer’s torso — entire bricks were missing or shattered. “Silenced…you think?”
“Maybe. Killed by his own mate.”
“Then it’s up to you, kid.”
“What d’you mean? — I can’t do this alone.”
“You’re gonna have’ta.” The man grabbed Jack’s fingers in his big mitt. “You owe PA an’ me nothin’,” he said, and then coughed. “I’d like yer t’do it fer us…But if not us, do it fer yerself. An’ Louise.”
Jack finally nodded, a slight smile on his face. “For love, eh?” “Zip it. Fer you, her…fer everybody.”
“All right, all right. Where does Wright live?”
“Gimme a moment…the world’s spinnin’. Prick has a pretentious mansion, named Hatfield House, somewhere on South San Rafael Drive. Rich prats round there…Not up on where, precisely, since I’m not one of ’em. Wanker cruises about in a ’48 Talbot Lago T-26 GS Saoutchik coupe — one o’ those crates that won Le Mans, in 1950 I think it were, blue…two-tone…” Even in his bullet-riddled state, the Brick realized he was losing his audience so he pulled up stumps. “Ahh, crap it. Get Stellar t’help ya find ‘im.”
“But she works for this particular prick.”
“No matter — y’can trust her. Pay no heed to PA’s jealous tirades.” Jack could see his partner was vagueing out, becoming distant. “We had fun times, right-o…?”
He wasn’t sure if the Equalizer meant during the short period he was here — something he very much doubted — or the other man’s over all stay in Heropa.
“You need me to get you to hospital? I can take you there now. I’ll call PA.”
“Can still walk, kid…an’ methinks I need a stone mason instead o’ some silly quack. Don’t you worry yerself, I’m not ready to start praticin’ Banquo’s ghost just yet — but I need’ja to get the hell outta here…do our job. Now. Pronto, like…”
#164
After contacting Pretty Amazonia to urgently come collect the Brick, and then popping into a chemist’s to grab bandages and a quart of Cream of Dixie Straight Rye, Jack piled into a taxi, numberplate 7077.
On the back seat headed uptown, while the cabbie nervously checked a rearview mirror, the Equalizer got changed from his partially shredded costume, mopped the blood, wrapped the wound, poured whiskey over it, drank the rest — and spat most of the rotgut out the open window. He’d steeled himself anyway by the time the Cadillac pulled up to the Port Phillip Patriot building.
Upstairs, Gypsie-Ann didn’t need too much arm-wringing.
Once Jack’d bounced through her office door and weathered a degree of abuse about smelling like a brewery, he plopped her down to brief her on the interview-cum-interrogation-cum-massacre of the man in the red hat. She sat up straight, eyes sparkling.
“I knew it,” she said, possibly more to herself. “I knew Wright had feculence hitching a ride beneath his coattails.”
Like Jack, who’d donned a suit in the cab, the reporter had changed outfits. She was wearing a grey and black tweed wool herringbone double-breasted jacket — Basil Rathbone playing up Sherlock Holmes, with a feminine flourish.
“The Brick’s okay?” she asked, at the same time as she fetched a bag from under a pile of folders.
“I don’t know. Hoping so.”
“Shit. Well. My lovely boss is here.” The woman looked heavenward. “In his offices.” A moment later, Gypsie-Ann checked inside her satchel and Jack noted the presence there of a small, silver Walther 9mm pistol.
“Think you’ll need that?” he asked.
“Even Sherlock carried a firearm — and I don’t intend on getting caught unawares a second time. Now,” Gypsie-Ann muttered under her breath, “where on earth did I put my deerstalker?” Her roving eyes caught Jack’s. “Only joking, by the way.”
“I kind of figured that.”
They proceeded along the corridor to take up the single elevator. While ascending, Gypsie-Ann put a hand to the wall of the contraption and stroked the surface.
“Did you notice the walls are inlaid with twelve varieties of local hardwood? Extravagant stuff. This building cost $2.3 million to build —$1.1 million over the origi
nal budget. That’s so bloody Wright.”
The publisher’s secretary Joanie, in the reception area, intercepted the two and she made a brief telephone call. As they waited, Gypsie-Ann pillaged a nearby umbrella-stand —“Shhh,” she whispered, “I need a new one!” — and requisitioned a chocolate-brown parasol that matched her hair.
Almost straight after, a tall man with short black hair and a boxer’s complexion came out to meet and greet.
“Hello, I’m Art Cazeneuve, Mister Wright’s personal assistant.” The man shook Jack’s hand, but ignored his companion. “He’ll be ready to see you shortly. Would you mind waiting?”
“El Presidente always makes me wait,” Gypsie-Ann grouched. “Nothing new there.”
Cazeneuve stared her way. “Should give you time, Miss Stellar, to put that umbrella back where you found it.” Then he marched off.
They sat on the padded divans and Jack instinctively crossed his legs — causing him to double-up in pain.
“You still hurting from the explosion?” the reporter asked, concerned.
“A different memento. I’ll be okay. You still want that umbrella?”
“Nah, I’ve decided it’s tainted.”
Five minutes later they were shown into the offices proper.
Donald Wright, dressed in a tan naval military jacket and pants, walked across the plush rug with a debonair grin. His monkey, Miami Beach, was AWOL. “What a surprise,” the man announced.
“Nice outfit, chief,” Gypsie-Ann said. “Very Gary Cooper.”
“Why, thank you, baby.” Wright stopped before Jack. “I have to say, I do also like the suit. Snazzy — three-piece navy wool Benham & Co double-breaster, if I’m not mistaken. Far better than the splashy superhero costume. The white cotton shirt and navy silk tie are a lovely touch. You would be Southern All Stars.”
“Southern Cross.”
“Ahh yes, of course — apologies, and all that. I recognize you from your picture in our paper.”
Jack cursed himself. So much for incognito.
“Why don’t you cats take a seat? Or separate ones, if you’re shy.”
His two visitors remained standing while the publisher circumnavigated the desk, walked behind it, and pushed back into his throne.