Who is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa?

  The Brick found him near dawn, wandering the streets downtown, raving at the heavens like a madman. The Equalizer weathered a wild plasma blast, and then pulled his partner to him, hugging for all he was worthwhile Jack plucked out hair and howled.

  Eventually, the Brick drove to Heropa City General Hospital where — after much protest, followed by Brick-like intimidation — they x-rayed Jack, patched the ballistic trauma (stitching the entry and exit wounds in his thigh), shot him up with antibiotics and a merciful amount of painkillers, and placed the man in a private room far from other patients, unconscious, on an intravenous drip of isotonic fluids.

  Precariously seated in the waiting room, dressed only in his undies, the Brick caught up on fretful sleep for an hour or so, and then rifled through old dailies and frayed magazines sitting in a wire rack.

  One in particular caught his fancy when he recognized a pair of costumed legs on a folded newspaper. The Equalizer opened up the broadsheet, written in some foreign lingo like Hungarian, and took in another drawing of Southern Cross in action — without his mask, precisely as Jack preferred.

  The Brick smiled.

  Local artists seemed to like the whole headline-ripping theme — and in this case he couldn’t make any sense of the headlines. This would cause the kid to laugh, surely.

  Or not.

  Carefully refolding the paper, the Brick breathed out noisily. A sourpuss old lady, across the aisle, acted annoyed by the sound but what did he care? Silly battle-axe.

  The Equalizer’s body ached all over. Still alive, which was surprising. PA said he had Stellar to acknowledge for the small mercy, thanks to that miracle blood of hers. Blood that’d do nothing to thaw this heart or fix up the kid’s broken one.

  Call in.

  He needed to call in, let Pretty Amazonia know that Jack had been found. She could tell Kahn and Stellar.

  The Brick felt like he was pinioned to the flimsy chair, which squeaked as he shifted — probably it was about to collapse anyway, so no choice. After rising to his feet, the Equalizer stomped along a wide, cream-coloured corridor with many staring people and found a payphone, an old AMT with Russian lettering on it.

  The problem with the underpants was no space for a dime.

  #170

  When he opened his eyes, Jack found Pretty Amazonia hovering over him.

  “Don’t you get altitude sickness?” he mumbled.

  The woman smiled in a roundabout way — an expression as forced as it was relieved, while she cupped his face in both her hands, and then leaned in close.

  “You’re okay?”

  Jack blinked, removed the fingers, and turned his head away to stare at venetian blinds that were open by the window, allowing in strips of sunlight. “Sure. Yes. No.”

  He could hear the rustle of her costume behind him.

  “I understand.” She blew out air. “You really did some damage, by the way. Took them hours to put out the fire at Hatfield House.”

  “Is he dead?”

  “We don’t know. They’re still sifting through the ruins there and at the Patriot. Gypsie-Ann’s on it.”

  “You heard about Wright?”

  “Yes. We’ll get him, Jack. I swear it.”

  The man slowly peered over his shoulder. “I like the hair. Short suits you.”

  “Thanks.” PA looked through the open doorway into the hospital proper, obviously uncomfortable, skittish. “She’s here.”

  “I know.” Jack’s tone revealed nothing.

  “Then you know she’s—?”

  “I know. The Brick told me.”

  #171

  Jack found his suit hanging in a small closet. One trouser leg may have been caked in dried blood, but given it was navy blue, you’d barely notice. Other specks — from Wright’s dead lookalike — peppered the jacket and shirt. He didn’t care. After changing, the Equalizer grabbed a pair of crutches and made his way, thanks to various nurses’ directions, to Intensive Care.

  The Professor was in a chair beside a bed upon which Louise lay.

  She was plugged into an ICU monitor, an arterial line and IV catheter, and had a fat tube coming out of the side of her mouth that connected with a ventilator.

  “Our girl is brain-dead, Jack. She’s left us.”

  The little old man’s wrinkled face was whiter than ever as he leaned in to kiss the hand of a girl who looked — despite the medical paraphernalia — like she was simply sleeping.

  “Turn off these machines and she slips away from us forever.”

  Jack put his head into his hands, turned a circle, and ripped the curtains from the window.

  “No!” he shouted at the wall, and then, with far less intensity: “No.” The anger and the rage vanished. All that remained was an overpowering exhaustion. Annoyed looks were tossed his way by nearby medical staff, before they went about their business. Jack felt he’d keel onto the linoleum floor in the middle of the ward.

  “Bring yourself over here, son.”

  The Professor patted a chair beside him, lined up next to the cot and closer to Louise’s face. Jack didn’t argue. He collapsed into it to stare at the girl for a long time, thinking but saying nothing.

  “You were right,” the Prof said in a quiet voice. “Miss Stellar refused to press charges, bless her. The police considered going with unlawful possession of a firearm, but I have a licence for the Webley since it’s an antique and part of the shop’s inventory. Instead, they may press charges related to false identity. We’ll see. Captain Kahn gave me the time-worn missive not to leave town — our brave police don’t appear to realize yet that Blandos cannot leave Heropa, even if one chooses to do so.”

  “Neither can we.”

  Aside from his clutch of exclamations at inanimate objects, this was the first time Jack had spoken in almost twenty-four hours. The process felt odd, the pitch wavered while he rubbed his jaw, and he felt numb.

  Jack wasn’t able to tear his gaze from Louise’s face. She was so close, and yet he couldn’t touch her; he wasn’t aware when, precisely, the Professor had coerced his hand into holding the girl’s fingers.

  “Heropa has a magnifying effect on the personality traits of those who reside here,” said the Professor as he packed a pipe. “Good becomes great, bad becomes worse, and so on and so forth. Louise was a shining light.”

  “Is.” Jack squeezed her hand, smiled a fraction. “She’s still here, still alive.”

  “Of course.” The Professor patted the other man’s shoulder before leaving.

  #172

  He returned to the Warbucks & Erewhon Union Trust Bank on Fawcett Avenue.

  Initially he stood outside, staring at the grand building, almost turned on his heel. Stopping him was something distantly related to a backbone.

  He had on something old, a three-piece suit by Walter Plunkett he’d worn the first time he met Louise, the one he’d borrowed from the Big O (hadn’t that been destroyed?) and wondered if, maybe, he should’ve tried something in blue.

  Having pushed through the plate-glass door, he hoofed it up to the customer-service area. No Louise at her desk, meaning he was forced to join a long, zigzagging queue that crossed the tiled floor and had no end — but before he knew what was afoot, Jack was looming over a till occupied by the elderly Mister Winkle, never one for speed.

  Jack forced himself to smile, yet Mister Winkle looked more alarmed than pleased — perhaps because Jack’s fabricated grin had come across gruesome. No mirror to check, so he eased off on the charm.

  “I’m here to see Miss Starkwell,” he announced.

  “Really, now?” Mister Winkle said in languid fashion. “Do you have an appointment?”

  “I do.”

  “Then I will have her paged. What is your name, sir?”

  “Jacob Curtiss.”

  “Just a moment, sonny — please wait over there.” Mister Winkle lifted an ancient claw to point to the other side of the open space, which was when Jack noticed all the other customers
had vanished. Was it closing time?

  While he waited, Jack did some browsing. First there was the wall Bulkhead had crashed through — it was still an airy mess that looked out onto the street — and next up sat an oddball lump of metal on a perch over near the main entrance.

  “Twilight Over Hoboken.”

  Jack briefly closed his eyes.

  She was behind him, just like the second time they crossed paths. He could feel a cautious smile shimmy across his face and prayed it didn’t mimic the one that had scared Mister Winkle.

  “Sorry?” Jack said finally, as he turned about to face Louise — who, straight off the bat, was back to being the business-like Miss Starkwell.

  Behind tortoiseshell cat’s eye spectacles were a pair of wonderful emerald-green eyes that didn’t know him from, well, Jack.

  The girl was wearing a green and white leaf-patterned sleeveless dress and black silk shoes, with silk baby blue pom-pom ribbons on the toes. Her hair hung straight, with the ends curling upward. While she also had a smile, it was a polished and friendly number, not in any way related to recognition. She was being courteous to a complete stranger.

  “That sculpture you’re looking at. It’s Twilight Over Hoboken,” Miss Starkwell went on, “by famous Italian-American artist Pierre Picolino. Do you know him?”

  “I’ve heard the name.” Jack found it difficult to breathe, but he knew the rest by rote and allowed the words to spill out. “I don’t see it.”

  “You don’t see what, sir?”

  Throat dry, he could barely swallow. “The twilight.”

  “It’s an abstract sculpture. You’re supposed to use your imagination.”

  “Still.”

  “There’s always something there, sir, if you look closely enough.”

  Jack scrutinized the girl’s face. No, there wasn’t. Not anymore. Never would be again.

  “Please…call me Jacob.” A flailing plea was in his heart, if not in the wonderfully steady tone he used.

  In return the girl looked through him. Only seconds had passed and Jack was already losing her attention. “Mister Curtiss, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Is there something in particular you needed to see me about? We’re quite busy.”

  The truth? He wanted to see beyond her spectacles, right down into places he’d recently traversed and where he’d discovered such — what? Bliss? Bliss. Yes. He pined to hold her and kiss her and tell her everything would be fine; tell himself the exact same thing. Lie to them both.

  “Mister Curtiss?” Miss Starkwell tilted her head. She looked cagey.

  “Yes. I wanted to say thank you.”

  Jack heard a veiled exhalation of relief.

  “I’m so happy to hear we could be of assistance.” Miss Starkwell had no clue what he was talking about. As always, she covered beautifully, even held out her hand. They shook right there next to Twilight Over Hoboken.

  “Goodbye then,” Miss Starkwell said. “Please call, if ever you need our help.” The girl was turning away when Jack stopped her with a lie.

  “I want to take out a loan,” he fudged.

  Miss Starkwell hesitated. “Mister Winkle is our loans expert.”

  “But I trust you to manage my accounts. I don’t know Mister Winkle.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. Loans are not my jurisdiction.”

  “We’re talking a considerable sum.”

  “Even so.” Miss Starkwell gave the man an apologetic look.

  “Then I’ll take my business elsewhere.”

  Jack had no idea from whence all this rubbish was sprouting, but it had the desired effect — the girl appeared to be mildly alarmed, although it was hard to tell how this complete stranger really felt.

  “There’s no need to do that,” she said, as if it mattered. “I’ll talk to Mister Winkle right away, explain the situation — I’m sure I can sit in on the meeting, if that would make you more comfortable?”

  “It would. Thank you.”

  Without thinking, Jack stretched out his left hand and placed it on Miss Starkwell’s right shoulder. She stiffened, but said nothing. He noticed her lips lost their colour.

  “Is there somewhere we could go? To wait for Mister Winkle, I mean?”

  “Certainly, sir.”

  She scrutinized Jack’s hand, a clear message he should remove it. Once he did so, Miss Starkwell turned around, and the Equalizer studied a glorious pair of shoulder blades he’d once held and caressed naked.

  “Please follow me.” Her voice icy now, akin to the one he’d heard her throw at her boss Henry Holland.

  Jack followed around the staff receptacles, through a swinging butler’s door. He could smell perfume lingering behind her, peppermint mixed with strawberries and a vague scent of disinfectant.

  The slightly dipping corridor diminished into the distance, with dozens of doors to either side, composed of different shapes, sizes and colours. As they walked, Jack had to step over a two-headed brown snake coiled on the carpet. He frowned, glancing back. Meanwhile, Miss Starkwell had finally stopped, took out a set of keys to unlock a door — a white one, number 4, with ‘BOPS GO HOME!’ stencilled across the surface and this slogan surrounded by yellow roses shaped into a wagon wheel.

  They entered a shadowy cubbyhole with wood-panelling on the walls, a small, tidy pine desk, a two-tone green mohair channel-backed chair with a throw pillow on top. Jack picked up the pillow to test it — feather stuffing — and then he very quietly closed the door.

  Miss Starkwell had stopped moving.

  She was in the centre of this small room, staring fixedly at the desk. “Did you know,” she murmured, in a soft voice Jack barely made out, “that the pine tree symbolizes creativity, life, longevity and immortality?”

  “No. I didn’t.”

  Jack went up close behind the girl, pressed against the shoulders. He brought his left arm around her waist and with the right hand pushed the pillow to her face, so that her mouth and nose were covered. She didn’t struggle, though he felt her body tense up. After a couple of minutes, her limbs relaxed and Jack noted she’d ceased to breathe.

  He placed the pillow back on the sofa-chair while gently easing Louise onto it.

  Her lips were slightly apart, the eyes closed.

  Jack sat on the arm of the chair, looking down at her face, her hair, her neck, her arms, her hands. Almost choked on the wails he repressed, and buried these deep down inside. No need for that nonsense here. Not now. Later.

  That was when he woke up.

  Louise was asleep in the hospital bed beside him. A long slumber from which she’d never awake. Kept alive by the ventilator, with its awful sound of artificial breathing. In-out. In-out. In-out.

  Still, it was evening, and even here in the Intensive Care unit of Heropa City General Hospital — up on the fifth floor — he could hear the additional noise of cicadas. Was it supposed to be late summer in Heropa? There were no trees nearby and they were deep inside a modern structure of concrete and glass. The sound settled him, somehow buttered up his pain.

  Jack rose from the chair, wiped a film of sweat from his brow, stared in the half-light at Louise’s peaceful face. No. There had to be another way. This place wasn’t real — why did they have to stoop to real-world answers? Surely there was another way.

  Jack grabbed his jacket, along with a single crutch, and left the room.

  Decided to go for a hobble to find those cicadas.

  He took a lift to the ground floor, went out through automatic doors, crossed a sizeable carpark, and emerged into a main street that was reasonably quiet for nine-thirty.

  There was a small park a block from the hospital, only twenty square metres. About the same size as his flat in Melbourne. Three trees, elms, dominated the place above a sandbox and a slide. Jack sat down on the wooden edge of the sandbox, listening to the cicadas’ chorus from the branches above.

  He wasn’t sure when he realized one of the creatures, lime-green in
colour, had placed itself on his shoulder. He gazed at it for a long time — the oddball beauty of its bulbous shape, the tiny black eyes, the see-through wings.

  He’d never seen a cicada before. There weren’t any left in Melbourne. So much for Gypsie-Ann’s theory that creepy-crawlies didn’t inhabit Heropa.

  The insect climbed along his upper arm, and then took to the treetops. Watching it fly, Jack got to his feet with the crutch, dusted off his backside, and began to walk some more. The sound of sirens drowned out the cicadas.

  A few blocks further along was a ring of six police cars —1940s-style black numbers that the Brick would be better able to describe — with ‘HEROPA CITY POLICE’ painted on the doors and overlarge lights on their roofs flashing.

  Officers were standing behind, revolvers drawn. The object of their attention appeared to be a bar with a raucous neon image of a woman in a suspender belt, stockings, and very little else.

  “Come out! With your hands in the air!” demanded a police sergeant via a loudhailer, and then he signalled to two of his number. After some hesitation, they proceeded across the sidewalk into the building.

  Well, why not?

  Jack needed to clear his head — perhaps do a Brick and damage others. He didn’t have his Southern Cross rags, wasn’t sure where they’d got to with the bullet holes in the leg. Being a Cape seemed to take a lot of unnecessary effort and Jack pined for the Flash’s costume ring.

  Then he changed his mind. Who needed a costume?

  With his crutch under his arm, Jack ambled over to the ruckus, heading straight for the authority figure with the beaten-up loudhailer.

  “What’s the problem, officer?”

  “Sergeant,” the man bridled, pointing out the stripes on his sleeve at the same time that he gave Jack the once-over. “Donnegan, of the 31st. Nothin’ we can’t handle. Beat it, cripple.”

  The flatfoot had just full-stopped this fitting riposte when his two subordinates exited the building via a plate-glass window, sailed over the heads of their mates, and ended up on the road behind the squad cars.