“Gawd, don’t get her started,” the Brick whined. “She’s talkin’ anime — but not decent mecha robots. Girls’ stuff. Ouch.”
“I get why you don’t appreciate PreCure,” Pretty Amazonia cut back, “since they destroy monsters like yourself every other week.”
#102
The three of them had swapped the boardroom for a patio — stretched out on tri-colour banana loungers on a panoramic balcony overlooking the city. Jack’s seat was a ’70s fusion of orange, tan and brown. Behind him rose the bullet-shaped pinnacle of Timely Tower, while in front, beyond a flimsy guardrail, was a view and a half.
Catching whiff of Jack’s interest, the Brick edged up. “Three hundred an’ four point eight metres t’ground zero.”
“That’s how high we are?”
“Give or take a few feet. Never measured it meself.”
While soaking up the sun they drank sham mint juleps served in pewter cups, the Brick having advised that he swapped the usual Bourbon whiskey for chilled, flat lemonade. Jack never experienced a day anywhere near as perfect as this.
“If I were a cat,” Pretty Amazonia mused, finishing her latest round and placing the mug on a small table beside her, “I’d purr. Looks like you brought the good weather with you, SC.”
“As if. And call me Jack.”
After over-theatrically sweeping off black, Manhattan-style sunglasses to ogle at him, the woman huffed.
“In case it slipped beneath your radar, babe, I was being sarcastic weather-wise. And we don’t use real names here — even if Jack is a fake.” She raised a freshly filled cup in his direction. “Cheers?”
Jack frowned but returned the gesture. “Cheers.”
“I have another gripe,” interrupted the Brick as he sat up completely, leading PA to stick her sunnies back on her nose.
“You’re full of them.”
“No wonder, out in this balmy weather and with this body — the problem bein’ I don’t sweat, meanin’ my inside temperature don’t regulate itself. I’m bakin’.”
“Perhaps we should acquire glaze? You’d look a treat with some funky colours.”
“Ha-de-ha. Don’t you know it’s be-nice-to-gargoyles week?”
“Was that your actual gripe, or did you get distracted?”
“Yeah, I did, actually.”
The Brick stood and threw a pail of water over his head. Jack was surprised to see a light veil of steam thereafter, and even more surprised to glimpse the Equalizers’ logo on the bucket.
“It’s the name o’ the group,” Brick was saying, “the Equalizers. I never did like the stupid moniker — what, we’re only ever fated to play catch-up? We’re never supposed to be leading? Geddit? Equal?”
“I get it,” PA said. “What’s your point?”
“C’mon, dollface, why don’t we change now the Big O’s gone?”
“Meh…Too much bother. Plus we’d have to update the stationery.”
“So,” Jack said in a loud voice while he reached over to a glass jug and refilled his cup, “you two ever considered sorting things out with a marriage counsellor? Much as I enjoy the bickering.”
Both laughed, the reaction he’d been praying for.
“Cheeky,” decided the woman.
“I try. And, since I have your attention, can you fill me in on some of the blanks?”
“Shoot,” said the Brick.
“Well, for starters, you mentioned Stan — the Doorman — being a ‘Blando’, and I’ve heard the word lobbed about other times. What is that?”
Pretty Amazonia swapped merriment for boredom. “The Blandos are the Blandos.”
“I feel a whole lot more enlightened.”
“They’re little people. Fodder,” the Brick took over. “I mean look at ’em, even the Doormat, bless ‘im — no superpowers, no personality. They’re just plain bland.”
“You’re saying they’re not important?”
“Damn straight.”
“Like Christmas decorations,” Pretty Amazonia helped out.
“Now you’re losing me.”
“Well, this’s a huge city, right? Room enough fer millions of souls? Includin’ the Rotters, there’re about fifty o’ us,” advised the Brick. “It’d be pretty damned mundane an’ empty if the Capes were the only inhabitants.”
“And wouldn’t be so much fun without an audience?”
“Somethin’ like that.”
“The Capes being people like us? Heroes.”
Pretty Amazonia went to the barrier and crouched there, looking out over the city. A late afternoon sun was creating big shadows thrown by nearby skyscrapers. “The villains are also Capes — it’s anyone endowed with a special gift.”
“A gift?”
“Power.”
“And these villains are members of the group you mentioned earlier — what was it, a League of Unrequited Rotters?”
She glanced over her shoulder. “Unmitigated Rotters.”
“Unmitigated, yeah.”
“Think I prefer unrequited,” said the Brick. “Better bookend fer Equalizers.”
“So what’s the story with them?”
“The usual pleasantries — world domination, oppression o’ the innocent, an’ lust fer a bucketful o’ gold doubloons.”
“Led by Black Owl and his right-hand femme fatale Babushka, owner of outrageously bad Russian pronunciation.” Pretty Amazonia stood up straight and stretched her legs. “You think her accent’s real, Mister B? Sounds phony to me.”
“If it’s real, I’m Rock Hudson — boom-boom!”
The Brick laughed to himself, and then checked in the chuckles when he espied a blank expression apiece.
“Geddit? The actor? Rock Hudson? …Oh, come on! You peeps need t’brush up on yer old movies — Sheesh.”
“Don’t worry about Mister B,” PA confided. “His jokes are forever falling flat.”
“Right,” Jack said. “So let me get this straight — the Rotters are the bad guys? And our job is to stop them?”
“Mostly. Sometimes we play poker together when things get humdrum. Watch out fer Iffy Bizness — he’s a devil with a deck o’ cards. Cheats a lot.”
“Yep, the arsehole’s always trying to convince me to play strip-poker,” Pretty Amazonia threw their way. She was waltzing toward the building, hefting several empty jugs.
The Brick paid too much attention to the woman’s derrière, and then looked at Jack with what he took, amidst the rubble, to be a conspiratorial expression.
“She likes you, kid.”
Jack leaned forward on the seat, fingering his lower lip between thumb and forefinger as he thought. “Is that a good thing?”
“Why ask me? Ain’t nothin’ more than a rollin’ stone.”
Jack held his gaze. “I have a feeling you know a helluva lot more than you like to admit.”
“Awright, awright. Maybe yer onto somethin’, or mebbe I’m thick as a proverbial brick — you decide.” The man nodded in the direction of the open door while his voice dropped to a surprisingly soft level. “But be careful.”
“Dangerous?” Jack quizzed with equal subtlety.
“Very.”
“Neither of you boys knows how much.”
Jack leapt up just as the Brick very nearly toppled over — where an instant before there was open space and furtive camaraderie, Pretty Amazonia had placed herself between the two men, a hand on each of their faces.
“Fu—!”
Far quicker than a flash, the woman’s fingers covered Jack’s mouth.
“Hush. No swearing, darling, you know the rules. You’ll get kicked out of here.”
Those intensely purple eyes were close to his, wandering up and down. Yes, she was beautiful. Yes, she also scared the willies out of him. This performance made Jack wonder if people had queued up to leave the Equalizers.
“Flippin’ heck!” the Brick grouched as he pulled himself together. “I hate it when you do that!”
“You’ll live,�
� Pretty Amazonia said, still staring at Jack. She carefully removed from his lips one finger at a time. “No cussing?”
“Zero.”
Jack backed away several inches, heart still racing.
“So, anyway,” he said, shakily at first, “the Big O disbanded the Equalizers, hanging on to a skeleton crew to keep up appearances. What happened to the others?”
Pretty Amazonia considered for a few seconds, and then sighed. “They’re still around, freelancing. Pop up now and then.”
“No hard feelings about being given the flick?”
The Brick glanced at PA; she maintained a cool expression. “None that I know of.”
“Everyone likes a grumble,” added her teammate.
Just then Jack noticed something over the Brick’s shoulder, high up in the sky. It was some kind of laser-light display visible even in daylight hours, and it painted there a huge, quivering circle with a lightning bolt through it.
“What the heck is that?”
After taking a look-see, the Brick swung back around. “That, kid, means it’s showtime. Saddle up.”
“Please don’t tell me you have flying ponies.”
“We’re not the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” Pretty Amazonia grouched. “I wish. At least then we’d have an element of style and I could play Valkyrie. We’re going in the Rose instead — follow me. Hopefully the GWH got over his temper tantrum and is here to pilot it.”
#103
There was a gaping crater where once upon a time, according to Pretty Amazonia, a jewellery store called Harvey’s Gems stood on the corner of Crestwood and Standard.
The place specialized in diamonds so had been frequently targeted by the city’s marauding evildoers, though never before completely destroyed.
Around the crater was much debris including the shells of burned-out automobiles, blackened signage, and a lot of dead people.
Police officers busied themselves cordoning off the living with bright yellow tickertape. The blood splashed around — from inert, mostly dismembered bystanders — looked real enough. With carefree abandon the Brick and Pretty Amazonia played hopscotch amidst body parts while their recently returned leader, the Great White Hope, tried to find a parking spot for his blimp.
Looking about, Jack felt his stomach lurch and he eventually threw up brown bile, only partially a compliment of the imitation drinks.
Trouble was the mask.
Since the Capes were in public, hardly incognito, Jack had been instructed to wear the thing. This was a tight, full-face hood with holes only for the eyes, so he had to — out of necessity — roll it up fast to vomit.
On top of these travails, the mask made him feel a bit of a sore thumb, since he was the only person in the posse whose costume included one. The Brick got about in salmon-coloured undies, Pretty Amazonia had her frills, and the GWH his stainless whites. No masks. Sir Omphalos wore a mask — but he was dead.
“My, my. If it ain’t little Miss Nancy Drew.” The Brick nodded his great skull in the direction of a skinny woman who’d arrived at the scene in a mandarin-orange car, registration GEN 11. “1940 Ford 11A Super Deluxe Convertible Coupe. Neat-o.”
“You and your wheels,” Pretty Amazonia sighed.
“Them’s enough to drive you mad, eh?”
“No — but your poorly steered wordplay drives me to distraction.”
They watched the approaching woman while Jack pulled his mask back down, a sour taste in his mouth. She flashed an ID at a police officer and promptly marched over.
Around thirty or thirty-one, this lady had short, straight brown hair shaped like a 1920s Hollywood actress’s bob. On top was a small hat with minimal veil that didn’t reach further than the forehead. She had hazel-coloured eyes, looked workably attractive, and wore very little in the way of cosmetics.
To make up for the lack of attention to her face, the newcomer wore a smart, box-cut chartreuse tweed suit and pumps.
Her face grabbed Jack. There was a mix of honesty and obsessiveness there, plain to see — and in profile she had a striking aquiline nose that’d give Sherlock Holmes a run for his money.
“Hello, Brick. Pretty Amazonia,” the woman said as she stopped before them.
The Brick paved a smile. “Gypsie-Ann.”
“Who’s your kewpie doll?”
“His name is Southern Cross,” muttered PA, annoyed.
“Well, I guess the flag’s a giveaway. Bit obvious. But isn’t there a star missing?”
“Who cares? SC’s our replacement for Sir Omphalos.”
Gypsie-Ann presented the three with a birdlike expression, more hawk with that nose than sparrow. “Is he now?”
Jack couldn’t put his finger on exactly why, but he felt this woman was hiding a certain amount of distress beyond the window dressing.
“Well,” she barged on, “what’s the scoop on Sir O’s demise?”
“We were hoping you’d tell us,” Pretty Amazonia said in a voice very flat.
“Why me?”
The Brick shrugged. “Yer the ace reporter.”
The woman considered both Capes, and then settled her frigid glare on Jack.
“No leads I haven’t already written about in the Patriot. Three spent cartridges by a grassy hill, right in the area witnesses say they saw a muzzle flash around the time O bought it. He was flying overhead, waving to kids on the cricket oval, apparently winged — and flew straight into the billboard, breaking his neck. No positive IDs for the shooter. Police Forensics believes the weapon used was a Tavor TAR-21 assault rifle.”
“I don’t even know what that is,” PA said.
“Something exotic for these parts.”
“Own a firearm yourself, dearie?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, it’s common knowledge the Big O was having it off with the Aerialist.”
“Is it now?”
“And seeing as how they’ve both kicked the bucket only a few weeks apart, one could get to wondering.”
“As one does,” the reporter mused. “Like why Sir Omphalos disbanded most of the Equalizers straight after the death of the Aerialist — yet kept within arm’s length the three members he trusted least.” She shook her head. “Anyway, enough recrimination. There’s a state funeral tomorrow. Are you going?”
“Haven’t been invited.”
“Funny, that.”
“Is she a Blando?” Jack quietly asked the Brick while the women traded barbs.
“What, Lois Lane here? No bloody way. This is her shtick — super snoop. A Cape without bein’ a Cape, so to speak.”
The reporter surveyed the carnage. “Back to the here and now, in case you’ve forgotten — there’s a crime to investigate. And I’d say, straight off the bat, this is the work of Iffy Bizness.”
“How do you figure that?” scoffed Pretty Amazonia.
“The high Blando death toll — plus he conveniently left his calling card over there.”
The woman pointed to a black, diagonal, oval-shaped sticker stuck on a street sign next to the crater. This sticker measured only a few centimetres across, with white writing, and was a fairly amateurish job.
“Could be old,” Pretty Amazonia feebly protested as she peered closer. “Huh.”
“Looks new to me — straight off the roll he carries with him.”
Some rotund city bureaucrat in a morning suit, spats, a pork pie hat and a plump red face waltzed over from the kerb, surrounded by an entourage of well-dressed cops. Their badges shone.
“Oh crap, it’s Big Bill,” observed Gypsie-Ann. “I’m out of here now. Service — tomorrow.”
As the reporter scuttled away on her heels, the fat man walked straight up to the Brick.
“Mayor Brown,” PA whispered to Jack.
“That’s his name?”
“Well, yeah, I suppose partly — the Brown bit — but he’s also the mayor of Heropa, dummy. Keep your ears open. You may learn something trivial.”
“He’s one of us?”
“Are you kidding? Blando-city. Shut up and watch.”
“Brick, Mister Brick,” Big Bill wailed like a Greek grandmother at a funeral. “The city needs you to bring to justice the fiend that did this!”
A swarm of cameramen had arrived and started taking pictures with large flashbulbs.
“In this moment of need,” the mayor now yodelled, holding two yellow-stained fingers heavenward, “we need the Equalizers!”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” the Brick muttered, unmoved, but then he rolled his baby blues once coerced into shaking the mayor’s hand before the press corps.
Mayor Brown edged closer still, and when he did Jack noticed the round, lightning bolt logo of the Equalizers on a small metal button affixed to his lapel. There were lots of small pinhole marks in the material around it, leading him to suspect the mayor frequently threw the badge on and off.
“Was that Miss Stellar I saw just now? Listen in…You couldn’t put in a good word with her, could you, on my behalf? She seems hell-bent on ruining my reputation. Some of the lies she prints — scandalous!”
“Same song and dance at every crime scene,” Pretty Amazonia was saying in a low voice. “Usually we let the Great White Hope handle Big Bill. Where is that loser, anyway?”
Jack wasn’t listening.
He was watching the so-called Blandos — police and ambulance staff — as they went about cleaning the surrounding mess. He’d seen something pass between these people, and could’ve sworn there was a scowl and a dark look or two thrown the Capes’ way.
Then he noticed it — a small black sphere, two-thirds the size of a soccer ball, on the ground a few yards away, with the same ‘if?’ from the sticker plastered on it. Jack went to pick up the ball, but recoiled before he touched its surface.
“Uh, guys…”
“What now?” PA complained when she, the Brick and the mayor looked his way.
Jack pointed out the object on the ground. “I think I found this Iffy Bizness.”
“Well, well,” the woman muttered, realization settling in. “Heads will roll…”
G0 WEST
#104
The Brick had set about making tea in the expansive kitchen of Equalizers HQ while he absent-mindedly chewed at one his Big Boss Cigars. The teapot was a vintage number — square-shaped, brown and beige, with hand-painted geometric designs.
Who is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa? Page 4