by Gregg Taylor
“Please…,” Tyler sputtered. “Please… my children–”
“Moss!” Tweed Cap called. The big man circled behind Tyler.
“Please… don’t…”
Moss hauled Tyler to his feet by the back of his coat with a single hand. Tyler squirmed. If he could just break free… push past Tweed Cap… but the big man’s hold was too strong. Moss gripped both of Tyler’s arms behind his back and held him hard. Tyler was gasping for breath now, his heart pounding in his ears, shutting out every other sound.
The tweed cap was pushed back, just a little. Tyler could see laughter in the man’s eyes, and a small smirk playing about his face. He was going to enjoy what happened next. Tyler steeled himself against the impact to come. The lanky man in the tweed cap pulled back one of his long, spidery arms and…
Nothing.
Well, not quite nothing. The man staggered slightly as he lost his footing for just a moment, like a man almost slipping on ice might. For a half second, the man seemed perplexed. Then he caught Tyler’s eyes, focused behind him where his arm still hung, poised and ready to mete out punishment. He turned his head hesitantly, as if afraid of what he might see.
There, in the shadows, he could just see his own hand, still clenched in a fist. And it was easy to see what had stopped the blow and caught Dan Tyler’s eye. The man in the tweed cap saw in horror that his wrist was caught in the powerful grip of a red gauntlet!
The three men froze. The moment couldn’t have lasted longer than a second or two, but it felt like an eternity. There was movement forward into the spill of half-light that came from far above. The gloved hand was revealed to have an arm, sleeved in a grey overcoat. Half a second before the body resolved itself, the dull flash of two empty white eyes appeared, like a wolf’s eyes, hunting by moonlight. The man in the tweed cap gasped. Tyler felt Moss’ hands grip his arms harder behind him, as if in fear.
An instant later, a mask appeared around those eyes, in the same bright red. The man himself followed at last, like a Cheshire Cat melting back into existence, complete with an utterly disarming toothy grin. The man in the mask was clearly about to enjoy himself.
“The Red Panda…,” Tyler breathed without meaning to, his heart filled with both a sudden thrill and dread. No one knew much about this masked man. Some said he was just a legend, a story. But the legend had stepped from the purple prose of the newspaper headlines and intervened in favor of Dan Tyler.
All four men stood, frozen. Between the mask and the fedora, Tweed Cap could see the Red Panda’s left eyebrow rise, just a little. A tiny gesture, but one that spoke volumes. Together with the confident smirk the crime-fighter wore as he towered over them, the look asked Tweed Cap how he wanted to do this, and made sure he knew that the ending was in no doubt.
The frozen moment was shattered. If it was to be fight or flight, Tweed Cap would choose flight. He tried to pull his arm out of the vice-like grip in which it was held. Instantly, and seemingly without effort, the Red Panda pulled Tweed Cap clear off his feet and hurled him to the ground. Tyler felt himself thrust out of the way, back to the pavement, as Moss moved to aid his partner. As he fell, Tyler could see the Red Panda, still holding Tweed Cap’s arm, jam his left foot into the throat of the prone hold-up man with great force. Tweed Cap sputtered and choked. It wouldn’t keep him down, but it kept him out of the way.
Tyler landed in a heap, cutting the palms of his hands against the gravel and pavement. He didn’t see what happened as the man in the mask leapt over him to close the distance with Moss, but he could hear the result. A crack so sharp – Tyler couldn’t believe that it was caused by a punch – and then another. Tyler rolled to his left to get clear of the melee. He could see the masked man working Moss over with blow after blow from the red-gloved hands. Moss’ nose was already broken, and the Red Panda paused, as if to give the thug the opportunity to fall. But Moss was too stubborn. He even flailed his arms a little in a vain, punch-drunk attempt to fight back.
The Red Panda responded to this sign of life with a blindingly quick flurry of blows. He was working Moss’ body with a series of crushing uppercuts, almost holding the big man up in the process. Suddenly, from the corner of his eye, Tyler could see the lanky form of Tweed Cap pull himself to his feet, a found length of pipe in his hand. He spit and threw an angry look at the Red Panda’s back. Tyler drew a breath to cry out a warning to his rescuer, but before a word came from his lips, he heard a strange sound, like the wind in a sail, or a kite moving quickly.
Tyler saw her before Tweed Cap did, descending rapidly from the gaping darkness above. An unmistakably female form clad in a grey catsuit, her fall from one of the nearby rooftops turned into a controlled glide by two membranes that ran down the sides of her costume starting at her wrists and running beneath her arms and along the length of her legs.
Tyler’s heart was in his mouth. Could she possibly control this glide? At the last moment, he was answered by a burble of laughter from the girl. Tyler stared in amazement. The expression on her face was one of pure joy and exhilaration.
Tweed Cap heard the laugh and jerked his head up, but it was far too late. At the last moment she rolled her legs forward beneath her, the impossibly strong silks of the gliding membranes billowing forward as she turned her glide into a fall. At the precise moment, the Flying Squirrel thrust forward a boot and turned the full force of her motion into a kick to the face that sent the tweed cap flying from the man’s head.
The girl turned with the force from the kick, bringing her other leg around in mid-air to smash against the man’s face from the opposite direction. Still moving forward through the air with the energy of her glide, she kept pace as the man fell backwards, bringing up her first foot to make contact with a short, jabbing kick that sent the front teeth of the would-be robber clattering to the pavement.
She was almost out of kinetic energy now. She threw her arms out to either side and sent her whole body into a spin in mid-air. Tyler couldn’t be sure, but for a moment he thought he saw some sort of power sparking from the soles of her feet, as if some energy in her boots gave her an extra boost to keep her aloft. As she completed her spin, she thrust her left foot out, breaking Tweed Cap’s jaw with a terrible crack.
The lanky man fell to the ground like a sack of wet cement. The Flying Squirrel landed softly, almost as if she had been lowered to the ground. As she smirked at the prone form before her, she extended her arms to the sides and made a small motion with her fingers. The gliding membranes retracted into her suit smoothly and noiselessly, leaving no trace that they had ever been there. They even passed through her belt, suggesting that it was not the solid piece it appeared to be.
Tyler turned his head to the right and saw the Red Panda, standing over the long-forgotten unconscious form of Moss, watching the girl closely with a smile on his face. He seemed to catch Tyler’s eye, and suddenly the smile disappeared.
“We should go,” he said.
“Roger that,” said the girl, drawing something small from a pouch on her belt. It was a police whistle. She blew on it three times, hard. Tyler could imagine the sound of police boots on their way from every direction.
The Red Panda struck a flare, bathing the alley in an eerie red light. Swiftly, he pulled Moss by the arm to where his partner lay and fastened the two together with a pair of handcuffs. The Squirrel blew the whistle again. The masked man turned and his eyes met Tyler’s.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
Tyler could only nod. The Red Panda pressed something into his hand. It was a small key.
“For the bracelets. When the police arrive,” he said seriously.
“Police?” Tyler could barely speak, his mouth was so dry. He looked around. The girl was stamping a small symbol in red ink on the foreheads of each of the unconscious toughs. It appeared to be a red paw print.
“Whaddya think?” she said.
“I’m not completely sold on it just yet,” the Red Panda said with a slight grim
ace.
“I think it looks cute,” she said, cocking her head.
“That’s part of my problem with it. Besides, do we really need to sign our work? There’s a witness.”
Dan Tyler found his voice. “Witness?” he said. “I don’t want any trouble–”
His voice trailed off suddenly as the two masked heroes turned their heads towards him in unison, their eyebrows arched.
Tyler swallowed hard. “I-I’ll wait for the police.”
The Flying Squirrel batted her eyelashes. “You’d better,” she said with a smile.
Tyler really could hear the sound of police boots approaching now. He wouldn’t have long to wait. He saw each of the masked heroes produce what looked almost like a long pistol with a small grappling hook emerging from the barrel. The Red Panda fired his into the blackness. Tyler could hear it catch far above, playing the rope out behind as it flew.
“Let’s go,” he said.
The Squirrel fired her Grapple Gun in the same direction, with the same result.
“I sure hope we didn’t miss our appointment over these two clowns,” she said with a shake of her head.
They each wrapped a loop around their wrists and depressed a small catch on their Grapples. The ropes retracted quickly, pulling the guns and their operators up into the night at great speed.
“I don’t know,” said the Red Panda as they rose out of Dan Tyler’s sight. “Sometimes you just have stop and smell the roses.”
Tyler could still hear them laughing as the policemen arrived.
Four
An hour later, the Red Panda stood on a high ledge and stared down into a black void, his brow knitted in concentration. Normally, the experimental lenses he had fitted into his mask would cut through the darkness, but a heavy fog had rolled in over downtown, rendering the streets below invisible even to his eyes. He frowned. Perhaps he could work out a secondary function. Perhaps one that would detect temperature fluctuations, like the radiant heat of a human body. Something to work on when he had the time. He smiled grimly at the thought. One thing he had not been overburdened with since he launched his war on crime was excessive amounts of spare time.
To his right, hanging almost over his shoulder, was a jutting gargoyle in the shape of a pouncing lion. Wrapped around the lion’s neck was a thick loop of heavy wire, within which there hung a strange device, like a miniature winch. The Red Panda looked at it from the corner of his eye. He had checked it twice, and was determined not to check it again. He stared down, out into the blackness, looking for any sign, any signal, any movement. Nothing. Another half minute passed. He glanced at the winch. Maybe he could check it one more time.
From far below he heard a muffled cry of surprise, suddenly cut short. That would be the Flying Squirrel, making her dramatic entrance. There was a moment of silence, followed by what might have been a large object, like a body, upsetting some trash cans at great velocity. A smirk began to play about his face, but was quickly erased by the ringing of two pistol shots, echoing up the steel canyons to his ears.
Instantly his hand reached for his Grapple Gun. It was already poised to fire at the rooftop across the street when he paused, his finger tight upon the trigger. She’d be upset if he came riding to the rescue. She hated to be upstaged. And he knew she sometimes felt that he didn’t trust her abilities. It wasn’t true, but he undermined that argument if he didn’t wait. He stood, frozen, his ears straining to hear any clue over the drone of the city. At last he could just make out the sound of a Grapple Gun firing. The echoes playing between the buildings made it impossible to guess where it was fired from, but she knew where he was waiting.
He didn’t have long to wait. A split second later he could just make out the form of a bolt, stripped of its grapple, emerging from the fog at tremendous velocity, trailing a thin cable behind. A red-gloved hand snapped out and caught it in mid-air. He smiled. He hadn’t even had to move his feet, her targeting was so precise. Not bad for a shot in the dark.
The hands moved quickly. He detached the cable and fed it through the winch hanging around the gargoyle’s neck. He fitted a small container of compressed gas to a nozzle built into the winch, turned a safety valve and flipped a toggle beside it. The mechanism within the device fired with explosive force and spun the cable through the winch at rocket-powered speed. He turned to watch the cable playing up from the darkness below. Over the grinding of the gears he could clearly hear a sound that brought a smile to his face. It was a man’s cowardly shriek, almost hysterical with fear.
All at once the screaming man rolled up from the looming fog bank below, racing feet first into the sky. He bit his lip to keep from laughing. She had hog-tied their quarry by the ankles. If there was anything worse than dangling over downtown, it was doing it upside-down. And hitching a ride into the sky, balanced atop the soles of the terrified gangster’s feet as she held the rope in one hand, was the Flying Squirrel, looking just as pleased as punch. She sang loudly and tunelessly at the sight of the approaching rooftop, and at the last moment threw herself backwards into the open expanse between the buildings.
She arched her back and rolled, firing her Static Shoes to propel her still higher and away from the building, and with a smooth motion born of long practice, unfurled the gliding membranes on her costume, rolling up and over through the air.
He tried not to watch her as she looped down to him in lazy circles. The winch had pulled its cargo to the very top, and the Red Panda smoothly detached the spent gas canister, slipping it back into the folds of his long coat.
She landed atop the gargoyle just above him and settled down into a crouch, like an animal ready to pounce. He glanced up quickly. She was beaming her broad, slightly crazed smile in every direction.
“Hi,” she said, with a casualness that neither of them quite believed.
“Hello,” he said, with a concentration on his task that neither of them quite believed either. He pulled the cable taut and pressed the final switch on the winch. The cable was instantly welded in a tight loop around the gargoyle, cutting the bulk of the cord free with the winch, which he returned to his pocket.
He looked up. She hadn’t moved. Nor had the smile.
“Didja miss me?” she grinned, still racing with adrenaline.
“I was starting to feel decidedly stood up,” he said casually.
“Me?” she said, lowering her chin a little and locking eyes with him. “Never.”
A very small pause hung in the air. Neither of them moved. She did this from time to time, and he could never quite decide if she was teasing him or just watching for a reaction. He could also never quite decide just what reaction she was watching for and just what she might do if she ever saw it. In any case, getting into a staring contest with a man whose night-vision mask-lenses made his eyes appear completely blank was generally not a winning proposition. Her cheeks flushed brightly under her cowl and she turned away, just a little.
The momentary spell broken, and both masked heroes became aware of a sputtering, gasping sound not three feet away. Their guest had stopped screaming when his skyward progress had halted, but he was clearly still incoherent with fear. He spun slowly, counterclockwise, high above the streets he had so recently been strutting down. His eyes were wide and staring. The small bleating sounds that spilled from his lips could not be described as words, but their meaning was clear. He was begging for mercy.
His spinning slowed and finally stopped.
“Clyde Darby,” the man in the mask intoned, all levity now forgotten. “Your many sins have caught up with you at last. The time has come to settle your account.”
Darby’s gurglings became higher in pitch. He began to sputter. Here was something he feared more than the sixteen-story drop to the pavement below.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way, Darby,” the Red Panda said gravely.
Behind him, the girl on the gargoyle grinned a vicious smile.
“Please choose the hard way,” she
said sweetly.
Clyde Darby began to sob.
Five
The High-Hat Gentleman’s Club might very well have been the most ironically named venue operating in the city limits. Once, more than three years ago now, it had operated under a fine old name and catered to the city’s elite. But hard times were hard times, and when the club was beset by financial trouble after the stock market collapse, its members were too preoccupied with their own losses to ride to the rescue. The building had been briefly shuttered, and then sold by the bankruptcy court to a company which was known throughout the city as a blind for Big Joe Tennutti.
But knowing such a thing and proving it were two very different matters, and despite the howls of protest from the Mayor’s office and the Citizen’s Committee for Public Decency, the old standard was torn down and the flickering neon top hat that now graced the building’s edifice was erected. Officially, the High-Hat was a private club, with a membership every bit as exclusive as the Club Macaw. But to gain admission, one only needed to be a well-placed racketeer or gangster. Since the change of ownership, the High-Hat had been regarded as neutral ground – a place free from the life-and-death rivalries of gangland. Business might be discussed, but only in civil terms, which for the criminal scum who frequented the High-Hat had meant only that no weapons were allowed.
Those days of mock civility were over now. Those who remained atop the food chain of Toronto’s underworld knew that they could never let their guard down, and that they would never be truly safe. But as long as Big Joe held the High-Hat, there was still one place they could retreat to and plan their vile strategies, hunted though they might be. The nightclub was as wild as any could be, for the police had long known that it was death to set foot on the grounds. Tennutti’s reputation held the High-Hat as an oasis of sorts, for the moment. An island against the rising tide of justice that threatened to sweep away all that a generation of criminals had built.