by Gregg Taylor
Tennutti had watched as the new self-proclaimed protectors of the city had eliminated his competition one by one. Indeed, in the early going, he had profited greatly from the elimination of his rivals, and for his own part he was careful not to provoke the wrath of the masked marvels directly.
Big Joe Tennutti was an old hand at this game, and the mere mention of his name carried with it such dread that few would dare to cross him. As a result, his operation was not as freshly steeped in blood as others which had only recently clawed their way up. Tennutti controlled the rackets in the city core, and many other gangsters who considered themselves independent paid him tribute for the right to operate. Illegal scam or legitimate business, everyone paid Tennutti eventually. But since he never took everything, he was able to flatter himself that he was generous. And since he rarely had to enforce his rule with violence, he spoke as if he were a man of peace.
But in his heart, he knew the truth: to rule through fear was as great an act of violence as any committed by those up-and-comers who paid him tribute. Every piece of the profit of honest labor that he took from those who needed it was equal parts theft and murder. He knew that a reckoning would come. And he was ready.
The High-Hat had long been secured by force. Now, every window and door that could not be watched around the clock was bricked over. And those that remained were each covered by a half-dozen hidden machine gun nests, ready to pour hot leaden death into any who dared to step across his threshold. Tennutti only traveled in an armor-plated limousine, and then only when necessary. Such a moment was now upon him.
Five hours ago, Morton Nye had disappeared without a trace. Nye had been the bookkeeper for the Tennutti operation for more than ten years. He was the only man besides Big Joe himself who could decode the books on the operation. The only man alive with the knowledge to slam a prison door behind Joe Tennutti for life. If the law had taken Nye, they couldn’t hold him long. They’d threaten him, maybe knock him around. They’d done it before and come up zeroes. Nothing permitted by the law could force Morton Nye to turn pigeon.
But that wasn’t why Big Joe was worried enough to venture out of the High-Hat Gentleman’s Club. The cops might not be able to make Nye sing, but the man in the mask didn’t play fair. He played by his own rules and took no quarter. The word on the street was he could reach inside a man’s mind and take what he wanted by force. Some said he wasn’t human. Big Joe had seen too much to accept that, but he knew that if the Red Panda truly did have some sort of hypnotic power, then Morton Nye’s loyalty meant nothing. Tennutti’s secrets would not be safe. He was the only man in the world other than Nye who knew where the books were kept, and he’d be a fool to put his entire operation into anyone else’s hands. Even the most trusted of his lieutenants could be expected to turn to blackmail when they realized that they held Big Joe’s freedom, his operation, his very life, in their hands.
It was now a race against time, and Tennutti was already late.
“Where in the blazes is my driver?” he snapped to no one in particular.
A half-dozen gorillas snapped to attention and exchanged a series of hasty looks. When it was clear that none of them had an acceptable answer for the big man, a thin, rat-faced tough piped up quickly,
“If he don’t show, Big Joe, I can take you where you–”
Tennutti cut the offer short with a growl. “I’m not in the mood to improvise! What do I pay you mugs for, anyway?”
Suddenly, to the immense relief of Tennutti’s boys, a cry went up from near the main doors of the club.
“Here he is! Hey, boss… he’s here!”
“‘Bout time, too.” Big Joe spat the words out past the cigar wedged in his teeth and jammed his hat on his great, sweaty head. “Where have you been?”
The Tennutti mob was ringed by a circle of vaguely associated gangsters that frequented the club; they watched intently. They knew Big Joe was angry about something and were hoping for a free show. A dark-haired man pushed his way through the crowd to face his boss.
It was Clyde Darby, his face ash-grey and no hat upon his head, but otherwise none the worse for wear after his recent rooftop tour. His brow was beaded with sweat, and he seemed distracted somehow. He came face to face with Tennutti.
“Well?” Tennutti screamed, chewing his cigar with rage.
“…Sorry… Sorry, Big Joe,” Darby stuttered. “I got a little hung up.”
The words seemed to come slowly, hesitantly. To the High-Hat’s patrons it simply looked like Darby feared Tennutti’s wrath, as well he might. No one watching could have known the war Clyde Darby’s own consciousness was losing, the futile struggle he was engaged in, like a drowning man in his final throws. Big Joe’s brow furrowed deeply as he met the gaze of his trusted driver.
“Look at me,” the gang lord said sharply. “You ain’t been drinkin’, have you? We got work to do.”
Suddenly, Darby’s face cleared and he relaxed. Colour began to return to his cheeks. He looked quite like his old self, but in reality, his old self had finally lost the battle.
“Naw, Big Joe. I’m fine, I swear. Where we headed?” he said with a smile.
Tennutti held his lieutenant’s gaze for a moment longer.
“I’ll tell you in the car. Let’s move.” He looked back at Darby. “Where’s your hat at anyway?”
Darby’s hand reached up and touched his head by reflex. For a split second, a vision flashed before his eyes of his old hat falling from his head and drifting away as he stared down into an endless black abyss. The moment passed with a shiver.
“I dunno,” was all he replied.
A moment later, Darby and Tennutti entered the High-Hat’s underground garage under the gaze of a dozen armed guards. As was Tennutti’s custom, his driver entered the car first, while Big Joe remained a discreet distance away. Darby pressed the starter and the car roared to life. In this armed camp, there was little chance of the vehicle being booby-trapped, but Tennutti was a man who preferred safe to sorry.
The armor-plated limousine purred like a kitten. Tennutti stepped into the back, closed the door and the car roared away into the night.
Tennutti leaned forward and growled the address into the limousine’s speaking tube. Through the bulletproof glass that separated him from even his driver, Tennutti could see Clyde Darby nod his understanding. Big Joe settled back into the deep leather seat and lit a fresh cigar. Soon the books would be back in his hands and the Red Panda could do what he liked to Morton Nye, for all the good it would do him. As soon as he had those books…
Tennutti’s eyes settled on the seat next to him and he bit through his cigar in surprise. Sitting next to him in the back of his limousine were the very books and ledgers he was on his way to recover. A complete record of rackets, money laundering, hidden accounts, legitimate businesses – a career retrospective of brutal crime and intimidation packaged up neatly for the prosecutors.
Big Joe stammered in shock. He yelled for Darby, not thinking to use the speaking tube. There was, atop the pile, a thin green ledger Tennutti did not recognize. He tore it open and saw the fine, spindly hand of his trusted bookkeeper, detailing in full the keys needed to interpret the code in which the books were written, together with a full confession for the role that Nye had played in the crimes.
Big Joe gaped wild-eyed at the ledger in his hand. He turned quickly to the last page of the book. There, staring back at him, written in a bold hand were the words Courtesy of the Red Panda! And underneath, a second hand had added the postscript –And the Flying Squirrel xoxo.
Joe Tennutti snarled with rage. Why would those masked freaks have done this? Why gather up this pile of evidence and then leave it to be discovered in his own car? Were they simply trying to prove that they could get to him? Did they expect to be paid off for their trouble? And how did they even get into his car? In the armed camp that was the High-Hat Club, the only person who could open the doors of the limousine with impunity was…
…His
driver, Clyde Darby.
Tennutti looked up with a start and realized that his car was far off its planned route. Darby was headed somewhere else, driving calmly, unconcerned.
“Darby!” Tennutti screamed, pounding on the soundproof glass. “Darby!”
Big Joe quickly realized his folly and pulled the speaking tube from its hanger. But before he could even open his mouth to fill the tube with expletives, he heard a strange hissing sound coming back at him. Gas! The sealed rear chamber of the limousine was filling with a translucent white gas that had started to flow through the tube from the front of the car. Tennutti’s head swam. His arms flailed for the handle to open the door, the window… anything to clear the air and give him time to escape, but neither would budge. Tennutti felt himself slumping forward… forward… down…
An hour later, two uniformed police officers were walking towards their prowl car, preparing to leave for an evening patrol, when they made a most unexpected discovery. There, in the division garage, they found Big Joe Tennutti unconscious in the back of his limousine, beside the most damning pile of evidence anyone could recall. And in the front seat, his driver still sat quietly, a peaceful smile upon his face, and no hat upon his head.
Six
It was all that Kit Baxter could do to keep from whooping for pure joy as she raced through the blackness towards a speck of light in the distance. Feet first she blazed forward, riding a cushion of air as she streaked over the smooth walls of the tube at great speed toward a hidden lair, far below a fashionable district of the city.
The first time she had ridden one of these man-sized pneumatic tubes, the Red Panda had left the emergency service lights on for her. They bathed the tube with an eerie blue glow through its clear walls, and certainly demystified the process. But she didn’t want the Boss to treat her like a baby, and insisted ever after on riding with the lights off. Besides, the sight of the earth and rocks beyond the narrow confines of the transport was actually a little more claustrophobic than racing through the pitch darkness, though she’d have never told him that.
She felt the pressure of compressed air flowing up to meet her, to slow her descent. She pointed her toes to eliminate the drag and keep as much of her speed as she could for a few more seconds, which he had expressly told her not to do. The tide of air rolled up her legs and buffeted against her face for a moment until she finally flexed her feet and accepted the deceleration. Seconds later, she slowed to a crawl, just at the very moment that her feet reached the waiting bottom of the tube.
She smiled as the tube opened with a hiss. Kit was born fearless, but if anyone else in the world had tried to tell her that a giant pneumatic tube was a perfectly safe way to travel…
“Anybody but him,” she smiled to herself, with a sudden skip at the thought.
She caught herself just as suddenly and composed herself slightly. She straightened the jacket of her chauffeur’s uniform and stepped forward at an even clip.
“Behave yourself,” she reminded herself by rote.
Kit walked away from the tube marked “Mansion” she had just exited, and past a half dozen more, each bearing a sign that indicated its destination: Hangar, Boat Launch, Downtown and so on. She walked out into the hall. There was a light under the door in the Crime Lab, which was slightly ajar. Kit bit her lip a little. Should she change into her Squirrel Suit before joining him? She changed her mind twice before smiling and stepping forward to the open door. She wanted to show him the papers.
She slid through the Crime Lab door as quiet as a mouse. He was seated at the large worktable at the end of the room, his back turned toward her. She grinned and crept forward silently. She could see from the strap around the back of his head that he was wearing his magnifying goggles as he bent over some intricate piece of work. Her eyes scanned the workbench near him, and sure enough, the bright red domino mask lay within easy reach. Even here, in their sanctuary, he was seldom without it.
It was strange. Even after all these months of dual identity, she always thought of herself as Kit Baxter. And he used both of her names interchangeably, as they seemed appropriate. But when she thought of him, which was often, it was always as the Red Panda, and usually with the mask, as fond as she was of the face that it hid. She could never be sure what he was really thinking, but it seemed to her that even in his own mind he had become the Red Panda completely, and the man he had been born was now little more than a mask.
Perhaps it was just a matter of having been at the game longer. Or perhaps every hero dealt with duality in different ways. But Kit believed that in his heart her Boss felt as much contempt for the spoiled, arrogant rich boy that he was supposed to be as she had displayed at their first meeting. She smiled again at the memory.
Kit had only taken the job as his driver because she suspected his secret. Before long, she was certain she was right, that August Fenwick truly was the figure of mystery who risked his life to protect those in the city who most desperately needed a champion. For weeks, perhaps months, she had played the game, pretending to believe the paper-thin excuses he always gave for having her drive the limousine to the most unlikely neighborhoods. She accepted his strange behavior with nothing more than a, “Yes, Boss,” and turned a blind eye to his occasional mysterious injuries. As much as she had wished she could do more to help in his crusade, she feared her open assistance would be unwelcome. That he would send her away rather than risk her life. Or worse, use the hypnotic power the Red Panda was reputed to have to erase her memory. She had hated the thought of that, and had assisted him as best she could while playing dumb.
At last the day had come when she could pretend no longer. When the only way to save his life was to crash the limousine through a warehouse wall, running over the goons that had him tied to a chair in the process, and cold-clocking the gang leader with a right cross to the nose, just like her old man had taught her.
She hadn’t said a word after she’d freed him. Just stood there with her chin out, daring him to object. They had stood like that, wordless, for nearly a minute. In the end, all he’d said was, “We should go.” For a week, neither said a word about it, each of them waiting for the other shoe to drop. She still didn’t understand why he hadn’t fixed her little red wagon when it would have been so much easier for him to do so. She liked to think it was the punch.
In the end, it had been him who blinked first. He finally asked her what she wanted to keep quiet, as if he expected her to name an amount. He didn’t expect her to ask for a mask of her own, and the right to fight at his side. He had protested, of course.
“I would think it would be easier to share a secret with someone if they had a secret too,” she had said coyly.
“Are you blackmailing me?” he said, suddenly grave.
“If that makes it more exciting for you,” she chirped, her heart in her mouth. It was at that moment that Kit Baxter learned that there was one single way that she could catch the Red Panda off guard and leave him momentarily flat-footed. He knew a dozen martial arts, but flirting wasn’t one of them.
“Kit Baxter, behave yourself,” he stammered after a moment, and said no more on the subject.
The next day she had opened the door to the car and found a cowl on the front seat. It was plain black and unadorned by ears – the codename came later, with the gliding membranes he’d designed for her – but it had thrilled her at once. Beneath the cowl was an envelope with directions to the secret entrance to the pneumatic tube she had just exited. And so had begun the long hours of training, the thrill of the danger, the pride in making a real difference to people who needed her help desperately. The first step on a journey of adventure that few young women would have welcomed, but for Kit Baxter, it was a dream come true.
The learning curve is always steep for a sidekick, but even the Red Panda had to admit she was a natural. Crime detection and theory, safe-cracking, lock-picking, code-breaking, she ate it up and asked for more. Stealth, acrobatics and every combat style he had spent y
ears perfecting – he had never seen her discouraged by failure, and had never seen her fail at something twice. And if he had the slightest notion that she might have had more than one reason for working so hard to earn a role in his life larger than chauffeur, he had never betrayed a sign of it.
“Ah, well,” she thought, her mind returning to the task at hand as she crept up behind him in the Crime Lab, “where there’s life, there’s hope.”
He was completely engrossed in his work. He could have no idea she was even here.
“The question you should ask yourself is,” he said suddenly, nearly making her jump out of her skin, “did I hear your footsteps, the newspaper or can I actually hear that impish grin spread over your face?”
He turned around in his chair to face her, wearing a smug little smile, but neglecting to remove the magnifying goggles, which made his eyes look gigantic, like a cartoon owl. She burst out laughing in spite of herself. His face fell, just a little, and he turned back to the table.
“Sorry, Boss,” she said, biting her lip. “I brought the papers.”
“Oh yes?” he said, removing the goggles at last, but not yet looking back. He seemed to be putting the finishing touches on some new gizmo. Kit never did appreciate competition from inanimate objects.
“There are pictures,” she said, sliding up behind him and placing the morning Chronicle before him on the worktable. Instantly, she thought this might be overplaying things just a little. She felt herself getting flustered at the sudden proximity, but she was never one to call her own bluff.
“This is Big Joe Tennutti being hauled away on a stretcher. He slept like a baby for five hours. Almost missed his own bail hearing.”
“I’ll bet he wishes he had,” the Red Panda smiled.
She could see the tiny hairs on the back of his neck stand up as she breathed. Her pulse was running a quick foxtrot. She turned the page.
“Here’s Chief O’Mally refusing to confirm that we signed our work.” She pressed on, feeling a little hot under the collar. “Looks happy, don’t he?”