There was, indeed, a studio, with a rotating wooden fan up on the ceiling, oak flooring, handrails attached to two of the walls, and a large, simple framed poster bearing two names (Alessandra Ferri and Massimo Murru) beneath the French words La Chauve-souris.
Otherwise the place was empty — aside from a duo dancing together across the boards, doing some kind of ballet routine in time to the music.
The man lifted his partner into the air and she affected a handstand, legs scissored; with effortless ease she wound herself around the man’s neck and their faces came close, almost a kiss.
Swivelling into her beau’s embrace, the woman was then spun several times, and she deliberately fell into his arms. He whisked his partner full somersault, landing her behind on her toes — from there to lean in for a desperate hug. Their faces again touched.
The music reached a crescendo, all clashing timpani and violins, just as the girl, perspiring, and her partner — who couldn’t sweat — clung to one another and smiled. Yes, it was moving, mesmerizing, astoundingly beautiful, and other superlatives that should not have been possible.
Jack had to drag himself away from the spectacle. The man was the Brick, and he could dance.
The Brick’s agile partner may have worn something different — a white, full-body leotard that hugged every immaculate curve — but Jack recognized the domino mask she was wearing, and her different coloured eyes.
“Snoop.”
Jack swung about, spooked, even as he felt an inordinate amount of anger.
“Think I’m bloody justified in saying the same of you.”
“Shhh. Fair enough.”
“The Brick and Prima Ballerina. How—?”
“Long? About a year.”
Pretty Amazonia had precariously perched herself on the wet, flimsy balcony railing, long hair — Tyrian purple in the evening illumination — waving in a soft breeze. She possessed something of a cheerless attitude, and Jack had to resist the impulse to push her over the edge.
“Now you know our Brick’s skeleton,” she said. “They breed like rabbits. We all have them. Soon enough you’ll hear the pitter-patter of little skeletons.”
“So I’m learning. Heropa has more secrets than a grave.”
“Oh, very pithy, Jack.”
“What’s your secret?”
“If I told you, it wouldn’t be one.”
“That’s unfair.”
“That’s life.”
“But why does the Brick keep this — this relationship — hush hush?”
“With good reason. Remember when you first arrived, and he told you the rules of Heropa? How he skipped past the third one, pretended he forgot?”
“Vaguely.”
“Number three dictates no sexual relations between members of the Equalizers and the Rotters. It’s expressly forbidden.”
“Why?”
“Don’t ask me.”
“Who conjured up these dumb rules?”
“A bunch of idiots, I agree, but we have to carouse by them. Anyone finds out, those two,” Pretty Amazonia nodded in the direction of the window and the score they could still hear, “will be given the boot from Heropa. The sad part is they believe no one knows.”
“Who does? Know, I mean.”
“Me. Bulkhead. Now you. So we keep this under the cuff — the three of us. Like our other secrets. Mister B doesn’t need to know, agreed?”
Jack could make out the rousing music inside. “Okay.”
#133
The next morning might’ve been mistaken for a showpiece of domestic bliss, since the Brick, Pretty Amazonia and Southern Cross were at a table in the big kitchen, tucking into pancakes.
The moment Jack dribbled maple syrup down his sleeve — he’d been wearing the SC outfit, without its mask, as pyjamas — he remembered to ask a question that’d been bugging him.
“Where do you lot get your costumes cleaned?”
The Brick groaned. “Didn’t yer mum ever tell you to wear nothin’ special at the brekky table?”
“Not lately.”
“Dollface, mebbe we should invest in a bib fer the kid.”
“It’d be difficult finding one to co-ordinate with the flag. Personally, I hand-wash my threads,” said PA more helpfully.
She delved into a cupboard beneath the sink, and then held aloft a box that had a cartoonish yellow face on it and purple stripes.
“I tend to find that Mr Sparkle brings out the colours. As for our Brick here, well he has a few pairs of undies he tosses into the washing machine, along with everything else. They don’t sparkle. We’re often picking off the lint for hours on end.”
“What’s it matter?” the Brick piped up from behind the pages of the Patriot, pretending to be otherwise occupied. “None of this is twenty-four-carat anyway. Back in reality you’re plugged into an idI machine, prob’ly napping in a pool o’ pee since yer ceroscopy bag’s broke.”
“Colostomy bag — and unbelievable. You know that tact is a lost art?”
“Just tellin’ it like it is.”
“Telling it like a crusty degenerate, you mean.”
“Say, lookee here,” the Brick ignored her, “there’s a special on athletic iron boots, only $6.95 a pair.”
Jack wasn’t listening to the old married couple.
A big electronic doohickey in the corner — all stainless steel, black plastic knobs and bulb diode lamps — had grabbed his attention. It had the letters ‘XZ-12’ in bold black on the top.
“So what exactly does this worrisome-looking contraption do?”
“It’s our coffee machine.”
“Oh, well, that’s all right then.”
#134
At eleven o’clock, Jack was summoned from his quarters. For the past two hours he’d been fighting a losing battle inside the pages of The Well of Loneliness, and gratefully made the descent to the boardroom.
There was a tall stranger next to Pretty Amazonia — not quite her height, but somewhere in the vicinity of six and a half feet. He had a pouter pigeon’s swollen chest and wore a costume rather like a nineteenth-century cavalry uniform.
This consisted of a pale blue short jacket with heavy horizontal white braid on the front and braided knots on the sleeves; a matching over-jacket slung on one shoulder, royal-blue-coloured trousers, and black riding boots. He also had a fur busby hat tucked under his arm. Topping all this off? Short, curly black hair, a waxed moustache, and sideburns that complimented a ruggedly handsome face.
“SC, this is Saint Y,” Pretty Amazonia said, by way of introduction.
If he didn’t know better, Jack would say she was smitten — she didn’t even offer him a chance to shake the tall man’s hand, since she was clutching onto his right elbow, fondling the busby beneath it.
“He’s here to do your picture,” she added in breathy fashion. “The man is handy with his inks. Do you have time? Say you have time.”
While she spoke, the woman’s eyes remained on their guest — making Jack wonder which man she was addressing.
“Well, sure,” Jack relented, deciding he was the recipient. “Nothing planned today, so no hurry. I’d hate him to whip out a $1.98 draw-any-person-in-one-minute Magic Art Reproducer.”
“Mmm,” PA agreed, obviously not listening.
“Pleased to make our acquaintance,” Saint Y finally drawled in an accent pushing eastern European, possibly Russian.
Jack frowned. “Yeah, ours too.”
“You are the dummy?”
“Eh?”
With a fabricated smile on her mush, PA leaned closer. “Mannequin, darling.”
“I guess.”
Saint Y broke free from his hostess’ grip, suddenly conjured up a set of pens from some unseen pocket in his uniform/costume, and then flourished them about like he’d rediscovered his missing sabre.
“Huzzah! Then we are ready to do the art.”
“I’ll leave you boys to it,” PA murmured, having trouble tearing her gaze from the
Hussar with the pen set. “Don’t forget to come see me before you go, Saint. Upstairs.”
“Uvidimsya, pretty one.” Saint Y delivered up one of the more urbane, possibly most devastating grins Jack had witnessed — and then the man reversed course. “Now, my young friend, to do the art,” he commanded, serious. “Mask on, if you please.”
The Equalizer was directed by the Hussar to the centre of the room, positioned before a bare wall. Once there, he stood sheepishly, arms dangling by his sides.
“Strike the pose,” the Hussar commanded.
“Huh?”
“I am wanting to draw you as a hero, not the wallflower.”
Jack thought some, and then mimicked the fighting stance from his favourite comicbook cover — one composed by Jack Kirby for Captain America issue 109, fists clenched, bursting through a newspaper and ready for action. He hadn’t cottoned on that this would be a difficult one to maintain in repose, since he had to balance on his right foot, thrust forward, while the left, behind him, touched the floor with only the toes.
“Ahh, that is good. Please do not to move.”
Sure, the Hussar’s English grammar left much to be desired, but at least he spoke the language. If he resorted to his native Russian, Jack would’ve been stranded without a linguistic paddle.
“You’re kidding?” the Equalizer mumbled.
“I am not.”
Taking out a sketchbook, again from some place Jack couldn’t perceive, Saint Y started drawing in quick fashion.
“Your mind, my young friend — it is elsewhere. On the woman, perhaps?” the artist inquired.
“None of your business.”
“Suit myself. Do you mind if we do the listening to the Beatles? I find their harmonies help me to make the art.”
“Okay — I guess.”
Jack had no idea who he was talking about and, seconds later, realized he wouldn’t find out on this occasion.
Having stuck on a pair of earphones, the Hussar’s shoulders affected a repetitive spasm in time to music Jack couldn’t hear at all. The man even did a spot of out-of-tune harmonizing, singing something about a sky with diamonds in it.
Every time Jack swayed or tottered, the Hussar yelled at him. This one-sided harassment went on for quarter of an hour, then thirty minutes.
An hour later, obviously unable to bide her time waiting in her quarters, Pretty Amazonia wandered back with the big bow on her bosom shoved down, displaying a fair amount of cleavage.
“Well, that’s subtle,” Jack muttered.
“Please to not move,” barked the Hussar, a fraction kinder in front of the lady.
“Sorry.”
Working at a frantic pace now, paying absolutely no attention to PA’s attempts to distract him, the artist leaned against a wall and stared hard at Jack.
“We need some filler, some — how do you say? Props?”
“Well, there’s this.” PA tossed a newspaper onto the table. Jack saw it was the one announcing the Big O’s death. “Published the same day SC arrived in Heropa, and captures the changing of the guard. Appropriate enough, I’d say.”
“Enough,” Saint Y agreed, licking his lips as he thought.
Much tearing of the newspaper subsequently took place, along with more frenzied sketching and inking, and then the Hussar ripped off a page and held it up for all to see.
“Is it not magnificent?”
Pretty Amazonia beamed. “You can do anything with words and pictures,” she gushed, while Jack more simply stared at the finished depiction.
“Do I really come across that menacing?”
“I took the liberty to adding fire in your eyes,” the artist said, “otherwise you would be looking like the little boy lost.”
#135
In the early afternoon, after Saint Y left and Pretty Amazonia hung the picture, the Brick whisked Jack away on his Coca-Cola bottle motorbike. They wound up at a grandiose park that covered two city blocks and was forested with oak trees, wattles, maples and gums.
There was a pond, dead centre, where children played with toy boats, and ducks canoodled. The temperature would’ve been around twenty-three, the sky blue, sun perfect. The two men sat together on a wooden bench, partaking of hotdogs in their civvies.
“Christ, I never thought the simple act of sitting down would constitute bliss,” Jack sighed.
“That’s why you get yer picture done relaxin’ in a settee — like I did.”
“I think the Hussar would’ve blown a fuse if I tried.”
It still surprised Jack that people didn’t spot the Brick when he played incognito in his trench coat and hat. Nothing could hope to disguise a round, paved patio that constituted his face — the sunglasses sat there like outdoor furniture.
“I love the food here,” the Brick announced as he scoffed down the first of his three dogs. “Never ate so well back in Melbs. Most of this stuff is impossible to find these days.”
“Even if it’s not real?”
“Tastes real ‘nuff.” Number two disappeared.
“There is that,” Jack agreed, focusing on his single hotdog. The mustard created a minor nose-rush and the bread seemed stale. His teammate was right. This was eating like a goddamned king.
The Brick had already finished his third round and sat back to observe the kids over by the water.
“Y’know, we have this game I like t’play when I’m bored — which can be too bloody often in this stuffy glen.”
“Go on.”
Jack ring-pulled a can of Tarax Dixi-Cola while the Brick tore open a pack of something named Cracker Jack.
“It’s Whaddaya Reckon This Person is Really Like Out There? — a mouthful, I know, but by that I mean the authentic, real-deal us.”
“Back in Melbourne?”
“Yep, merrily kippin’ while connected up into them idI machines.”
“In a pool of pee.”
“Got it.”
Jack followed a radio-controlled yacht tacking across the glassy pond, which narrowly avoided a water lily. “How does this game go?”
“All about hypothesizin’, really. Fer starters there’s our Pretty Amazonia. Towerin’, voluptuous, gift-wrapped, tresses down to her toes. In actual fact, prob’ly a mousey, frail little librarian lezzo, with short hair, glasses, an’ tiny tits — sportin’ a name like Lula Mae Barnes.”
“Man. You are a terror.”
“Did I ever tout otherwise?”
“Not really, except for when you bat your baby blues.”
The Brick leaned back, a triumphant look on his face. “Part o’ me effervescent charm.”
“Part of something, that’s for sure.” Jack glanced at his partner. “Anyway, speaking of PA, you know she was all eyes on Saint Y? A man. There goes your theory.”
“Really now? Good t’see the dear move on.”
The lapidarian Equalizer stuck into his gob a great handful of molasses-flavoured, candy-coated popcorn and peanuts. Jack had to look away from the bedlam.
“Back to this guessing game. What about the Great White Hope?”
“Weak-sister nobody, cruddy dress-sense — oh, wait, that described ‘im perfectly well here in Heropa, rest his blamed soul. Well. Whaddaya know?”
The Brick held aloft a plastic ring he’d apparently found in the box of snacks.
“The prize in the Cracker Jack. Want it?”
“Uh-uh — you’re more likely to need a ring than me.”
The Brick’s blue eyes flicked over. “That so?”
“I’m poking fun,” Jack said, perhaps too quickly.
“Go lightly, kid. Not sure either comment soothes me soul.”
“Brick, what do you think about love?”
The Equalizer didn’t blink as he gazed at his partner. “There’s somethin’ socked outta leftfield. This some kind’a Bizarro World test?”
“No. Just curious.”
“So it’s legit? Nuts — I reckon the thing’s overrated.”
“You don’t beli
eve in love?”
“Hard to. Makes me feel ill, thinkin’ ’bout the implications, let alone saying the word out loud.”
“Well, yeah, yeah, I know it can come across pathetic. But seriously, if we look at the general concept, do you think it can overcome — well, barriers?”
The Brick narrowed his eyes. “What kind o’ barriers?”
“In general, like I said.”
“Then lemme give you a general response: hippy shit. And yer defo askin’ the wrong slab o’ cement.”
The man shoved the ring into his overgrown coat pocket.
“Gettin’ back to the game, which is far more fun, there was this Rotter before yer time, name o’ El Stencho. Pretty crass. As his name implies, he used obscene odours to win friends an’ influence people, got round in a stinky sombrero. Had very li’l in the way o’ teeth. Prob’ly he’s a dentist in Melbourne. Dunno what happened to him — haven’t seen ‘im in a while. I’m wonderin’ if dentistry got more attractive than Heropa.”
“How about you in the real world?”
“Hmm. Lemme get back t’you.”
“That’s cheating.”
“Not really — the game’s all ’bout guessing. I know who I am. You give it a shot.”
“I wouldn’t know where to begin, unless the main idea is to be insulting.”
“Ahh. Quick learner.”
Jack remembered the drinks his partner had put together the other day, the cocktail recipes he’d flouted. “Bartender?”
“Brother is. Go on.”
“Okay. Weedy and couldn’t fight your way out of a wet paper-bag. Desperately craving a cool car, but the only wheels you have are a hand-me-down bicycle from that brother.”
“Interestin’ deductin’,” said the Brick in noncommittal fashion.
“Thanks.”
“Nothin’ else?”
“Nah. Still working on it. And me?”
“You? Easy. Young — yep, I already had insider tradin’ on that particular nugget — but yer obviously a babe in arms lookin’ for somethin’ you’ll prob’ly never find. You seen a lot, but who hasn’t in this day and age? Still have hope round your neck, chokin’ like a garrotte.”
Who is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa? Page 17