“So which doctor do I have to thank for saving my life?”
“My sister.”
Jack raised his eyebrows. At least that didn’t hurt so much.
“Pretty Amazonia. Yes, we’re sisters — go figure. She was a surgeon once, before being struck off for what the government said was unethical behaviour.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, what kind of unethical behaviour?”
“Saving the life of someone the authorities had blacklisted. Anyway, back to the here and now, PA stitched you and me up both.” Gypsie-Ann shrugged. “Me, she didn’t need to sew. As I mentioned, I would’ve healed all by myself — but I think she got her jollies sticking in the needle.”
Precisely then, Pretty Amazonia strode into the room, still in costume, but with a medical smock tied over the top.
“Ahh, my two favourite patients are awake.”
“Your only patients — since we were unconscious when they delivered us to you.”
“You never looked prettier.” PA squinted her eyes in the reporter’s direction and delivered up an insincere general-practi-tioner’s smile. “By the way, I pinched some of your blood.”
“What are you, a vampire?”
“Not for me, idiot — it was for SC — to help speed his recovery.”
“Like I don’t need to speed my own.”
“What’re you complaining about? You’ll live.”
“I hate doctors.”
The taller sister glowed triumphant.
“Oh, there’s something else, before I forget,” she said, as she came back to earth, delved into the single pocket on her smock, and held up a silver object between two fingers. “Here’s the bullet. Thought you might want to keep it.”
“I’m not one for sentimental jewellery.”
PA ignored the comment to stroll over to Jack’s bed. “How’re you feeling, hon? I can imagine there’s still some pain.”
She slapped his forehead with the back of her hand, possibly checking for signs of a fever, and then shoved a thermometer under his armpit. The woman had the bedside manner of a bear.
“Yeah, I’m aching all over — but thank you. Really,” Jack mumbled during the rough check-up. “Where are we? A hospital?”
“Are you kidding? The Blandos won’t allow us anywhere near a regular hospital — too afraid of reprisal attacks by other Capes, they say, but I suspect they think we’re dirty or something. We’re in a side-wing of Equalizers HQ, a clinic the Big O put together. Never thought we’d need it.”
“I need to use the loo,” Gypsie-Ann piped up.
“Go ahead. You’re not getting a bed-pan from me — out in the corridor, second door on the right.”
After the reporter left the room, PA dragged over a chair to sit beside Jack.
“You know you had us worried for a while there? The shrapnel wound, smoke inhalation, two busted ribs, a punctured lung. Quite a collection.”
“Thank you.”
“You keep saying that. For what? Worrying?”
“For saving my sorry arse.”
“We’re a team.”
“We are.” Still, the man sighed. “By the way, you were right. About Louise, I mean.”
“I’m often wrong. You sure, hon?”
“She hates me.”
“Only if you let her.” The woman put her large, elegant hand over his and she granted him a minor smile. “Get some sleep. You need it.”
“Okay. But tell me something.”
“What now?”
“Anything.”
“You want a bedtime story?”
“That’ll be the day.” Jack pried himself loose and smiled back from the pillow. “So. Tell me about your Pretty Cure shindig — Brick’s warned me I’ll be bored stiff, but I’m up for the grand master challenge. Might help me sleep, anyway.”
The woman shook her head, laughing. “He’s right. And you do want a bedtime story.”
“C’mon, why not? It’s about time I learned something more about you — in the name of trust and all that jazz.”
“You sure about that?”
“The evening is young.”
“That sounds disturbingly suave. Don’t you have better things to do, like roll over?”
“Right now, there’s nothing better than getting to know a teammate who sweetly patched me up not so long ago.”
“All right, all right — don’t make me ill.”
PA leaned back, hands clasped behind her head. She blew her cheeks out, and then sighed.
“When I was a little kid, my dad was transferred to Tokyo on business. He was a specialist in beetles — don’t you dare laugh — and the Japanese islands had a lot of these. My mum, my sister and I went with him. We ended up spending several years in Japan. This was way before the Catastrophe.”
“How many years are we talking?”
“Don’t be cheeky. You want me to stop?”
“No. Understood.”
“Good. The most popular girls’ anime series on TV when we arrived was a show called Pretty Cure, or PreCure.”
“Based on a manga comic?”
“No, they skipped that route.” She pursed her substantial lips. “At the time — I later learned — things were dire for televised animation in Japan. Most of the innovative studios were stuck in hibernation or kept their claws sheathed. Looking back now, it’s clear the industry was going through a rough patch like that which crippled the newspaper, magazine and music industries — but I’ll leave appraisal to better qualified people.”
“Ancient history,” Jack said. Before he was born.
“Still. There was a bright note here, one series on the telly that kept me amused and more than a little infatuated.”
“Pretty Cure.” Jack frowned, suddenly less confident. “PreCure? — Which one should I be using?”
“Either is okay. I tend towards PreCure in spite of my name. Anyway, the series had different story arcs and my favourite, the one I first watched, was HeartCatch PreCure!”
“How old were you again?”
“Four.”
“Ah-hah.”
“Don’t mock, SC — it doesn’t suit you.”
He laughed, and then grimaced. “Ouch. Point taken. Physically as well.”
“Karma.”
“I know, I know. But it’s your fault. I’m still awake.”
“Then prepare to be bored senseless as I run through the season synopsis of HeartCatch.”
Pretty Amazonia untied her smock, took a deep breath, and plunged straight in.
“The yarn started with our shy, upright schoolgirl heroine Tsubomi, who is suddenly magically endowed with special powers and becomes Cure Blossom, swathed in a pink costume. Trusty neighbour and fashion-minded sidekick Erika, as the all-blue Cure Marine, joins her. Five months into the series, the third heroine emerged with the gold-hued, androgynous Itsuki, Cure Sunshine, who dressed in boy’s clothes but shone in her girly Pretty Cure persona. Later on, a reticent, quietly cantankerous and quite possibly bitter senior high-school student, Yuri, was revealed to be the purple-shrouded Cure Moonlight — the predecessor of our other three champions. Turns out she lost her powers in a big battle with Dark Pretty Cure. That’s a long story for another day — or not.”
The man’s light snoring was her only response.
“Mister B was right,” she muttered, “it does bore people senseless.” That was when she noticed the hand on her right shoulder, and she looked up.
“I never thought you had it in you,” Gypsie-Ann said. “You do care.”
Hesitantly, Pretty Amazonia placed her fingers around her sister’s. “He’s a good kid.”
“You’re not too shabby yourself.”
“Quiet, you.”
#154
“Junior — wake up.”
Jack came to with a pile of shoddily paved cobbling and a pair of blue eyes six inches from his face.
“The stuff that dreams are made of,” he muttered.
“Awright,
wiseguy. Rise an’ shine.”
With some assistance from his partner, Jack sat up on the cot. The sun outside the window was low on the horizon, mostly obscured behind other skyscrapers.
He noticed Gypsie-Ann standing in the doorway to the room, fully clothed and completely recovered. She raised her small felt hat as a greeting.
“Where’s our erstwhile doctor?” Jack asked.
“Off checkin’ into some leads,” said the Brick. “Broad saved yer life, y’know.”
“I know. But I seem to remember you coming to Rotters HQ to get me.”
“Yeah, well.” Jack believed the Brick would have blushed, if that were possible. “Gave me ample opportunity t’knock some heads together an’ souvenir their flag. Shame ’bout Bulkhead — we had some classic tussles in our time, levellin’ entire city blocks.” He looked around the room. “Now I wonder how many Blando casualties ended up in a hospital or morgue. But we have news, big bloody news, that I been itchin’ t’share with ya both.”
The Equalizer paced the room, footfall reverberating.
“They’ve had the bastard locked up overnight at City Hall. You hear me? That bastard. The one we’ve all been lookin’ fer. Kid was blamed well right — it is a Blando responsible.”
“The man in the red hat?”
“Dunno ’bout his preference fer headwear, but the cops caught ‘im red-handed with the smokin’ revolver, sittin’ next to Gypsie-Ann here’s twitchin’ body — before you recovered, I means.”
The reporter shrugged. “If twitching was all I did, that’s okay. You mean that tiny old man is the Cape-killer?” Disbelief decanted in her tone.
The comment was, however, a surprise to Jack — who remembered a face not particularly ancient beneath the brim of that red Stetson. “What tiny old man?”
“Your lead,” Gypsie-Ann reminded him. “The Sekrine thing.”
The Equalizer’s eyes widened as he shot over a look. “The Professor?”
“You knew about him? You could’ve warned me, Jack. Turns out the name wasn’t Sekrine at all — it was Erskine. The Professor’s first name is Abe. Abraham Erskine. Ring any bells?”
“Creator of the Super-Soldier Serum…and thereby Captain America.” The Prof’s liberal use of ‘Vita-Rays’ pounded inside Jack’s head. God. Louise.
“Hang on, hang on,” fussed the Brick. “Do I get a say? I thought Josef Reinstein was the bloke behind that nutty Super-Soldier whatsis.”
“Reinstein’s an alias,” Gypsie-Ann shot his way.
“Alias, schmalias. If I could just get me paws on ‘im fer a sweet second…”
“But this doesn’t make sense.” Shaking his head, Jack looked at both people. “We’re talking about a fictitious character from a comicbook.”
“In case yer forgot, cuddles — the whole damn domain’s a work o’ four-colour fiction.”
“Not to mention, this is a fictitious character so alarmed by our discovery that he put a slug in my gut.”
“He shot you?”
“From as close as you are to me now, using an old British gun, a Webley.”
“Don’t make ’em like they used to. An’ guess what? This crumb-bum Cape-killer’s askin’ fer you, junior.”
“Me?”
The brickwork on the Equalizer’s face formed a remarkably fluid sneer. “Won’t speak to no one, he reckons, ’cept fer Southern Cross.”
His partner balked. “Bloody hell.”
“Tho’ he calls you Jack, like you an’ him’re old mates.”
“Are you?” Gypsie-Ann demanded to know.
“No — not really. I mean, I guess we’re kind of friends.”
The woman bristled. “You often buddy-up with homicidal types?”
Jack stared straight ahead, confused. “I had no idea.”
“Cops’re spittin’ chips,” the Brick went on. “They already didn’t trust us — now the buggers’re demandin’ to know the connection, but more important they want a confession from the ol’ man. So. You up to headin’ down there tonight?”
“Tonight? Thought I was under suspension — about to be shipped back to Melbourne?”
Gypsie-Ann’s ire turned to laughter, like the earlier spat didn’t matter. “Right now, none of us can go back, even if we wanted to.”
“An’, even better, we got a call from head-judge Fargo an’ his lawyer buddy Paul Garrett — Erskine’s goin’ before a grand jury tomorrow mornin’, bright an’ early, and they need him talkin’ before that.” The Brick summoned up a token grin. “So, La Suspension’s waived — pendin’ yer li’l chat.”
“Convenient,” muttered the Equalizer, stretching to his right and wincing with the pain coming from his abdomen.
“Innit?”
“Still hurt?” the woman in the doorway inquired.
Jack nodded. “Like someone roundhoused my insides with a four-by-two. But I think I’m cool. No choice.” He was fretting about Louise and, to an admittedly lesser degree, her father-in-law. Even so, he did like the guy. This was screwy. “I have to get down there, right?”
“I’ll give you a lift,” the reporter said.
“Thanks, that’d be great. You coming, Brick?”
“Nah, not sure I could control meself. By the by, y’better change clothes, junior — much as you look dashin’ in them there hospital duds.”
“Suit?”
“Costume.”
“Fuck that.”
“Nada. Judge Fargo’s explicit orders, an’ even I don’t go up against that fella. He has a wrath that puts Khan’s t’shame.”
“Straight?”
“Fair dinkum.”
“All right, all right — now I’m on edge, but no mask. Everyone knows what I look like. Where the hell is the outfit, anyway?”
The Brick lobbed a plastic bag onto his lap.
“Thing was a torn-up mess after the accident, but PA got Phineas to fix a newbie fer ya. Looks better’n ever. He even added in the missing star.”
#155
They barrelled up at City Hall some time around seven-thirty and were thereafter escorted to the basement by two uniforms bearing bronze badges that read Sydney Nicholls and James Bancks. Otherwise, the duo aped mute or declined to speak.
Jack noticed the poster with its ‘Cape-Free Zone’ motif as they walked through cluttered space on the way to the holding cells. Captain Robert Kahn was awaiting them there, a warm expression planted on his face amidst the overall chill.
Nicholls and Bancks made themselves scarce, leaving the visitors with Kahn and Forbush.
“Stellar.” The police captain nodded at the woman.
“Kahn,” she said, returning the gesture, with a smile attached.
“Jack.”
“Bob.” The two men shook hands.
“Irv,” Jack added, but was greeted with silence.
Kahn moved straight on. “Thanks for coming.”
“Ta for the invite.”
“I’m his plus-one,” appended the reporter.
“Remarkably lively, for a corpse. Thought you would’ve been two feet under by now — you looked on death’s door yesterday, when the medics carted you out of that antique store.”
“I recover quick. Don’t sound so sad.”
“Freak,” Detective Forbush finally growled under the moustache, from his guard-position by a nearby metal door.
“Shut up, Irv.”
“Right you are, boss.”
“Anyway,” Kahn reflected, “one less case for us, and one less murder on the old man’s rap-sheet.”
Jack stopped before a large glass window — standard issue police interrogation room stuff, no doubt with a mirrored surface on the flipside — that looked onto a bland, Spartan room brightly lit with fluorescent globes. The only furniture there was a table, two chairs, and a pint-sized old man.
“Do you have some kind of bugging/intercom device for the room?” the Equalizer asked.
“We have this.”
Kahn opened a cupboard to
reveal a batch of wires, a single speaker, and a German Magnetophon reel-to-reel that was already recording, spooling a 7-inch reel of1 ⁄ 4 -inch-wide Fe 2 O 3 tape.
“Switch it off.”
“What?”
“I said switch it off — or I’m out of here.”
Kahn studied the other man’s face for several seconds. “I could lose my job or my other eye if something untoward goes down in there. You’re not planning to do anything untoward, are you?”
“Trust me.”
“Not the easiest thing to do when it comes to your garden- variety Capes.”
Jack nodded. “I know — so let me take responsibility.” He reached over to rip out all the wiring. The speaker fell off the wall and the Magnetophon stopped rolling.
“Untoward,” said Gypsie-Ann from over his shoulder.
Kahn inspected the damage and tut-tutted. “Judge Fargo won’t be happy.”
“Yeah, I can imagine. Think he’ll already have complaints about my choice of wardrobe — sorry.”
“Tell him that. He demanded something for the Grand Jury tomorrow.”
“I’ll get the Professor to talk to you. Let’s see what he wants with me first.” Jack went to the door but found Detective Forbush’s arm blocking his path.
“You hurt him, I hurt you,” again growled the officer. Jack wondered whether, were he to shave off the moustache, he’d still be able to do that.
“Shut up, Irv,” Kahn ordered.
“No,” the Equalizer responded as he looked at both men. “Irv’s right. I’m glad to see the Prof is being looked after. Thanks.”
With that, Jack opened up, strolled into the other room, and shut the door.
Gypsie-Ann flew straight to the looking glass, pressing her nose close.
“What’re you doing, Stellar?”
“Shhh.”
#156
In the centre of this room, Professor Sekrine was planted at the well-worn, stained pine table, his hands palm-down on top of it, wrists held close together by a pair of metal handcuffs.
He was wrapped in a baggy, beige-coloured cardigan that had leather patches on the elbows, and a white shirt beneath with the top button done up.
Who is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa? Page 23