Mystery Men (& women) Volume 1

by B C Bell

  She proceeded down the hallway until she saw a light on, the glow coming from under a door. She pressed her ear to the door. It was the sound of a shower, turned on, that she had heard.

  Samuel Falk stood under the hot water, rinsing the soap from his body. The anger he had felt after the call from Jasper was beginning to subside as the shower washed away not only the soil on his body but the tension in his mind. He smiled to himself. So what if the hired killer was getting antsy about his payment? It didn’t change the fact that they had gotten away with murder. Falk was smug, sure of himself, prideful.

  He jumped as the sound of wood cracking roared over even the loudness of the water that rained down upon his shoulders in the shower. He tore open the shower curtain and found himself standing there, naked, dripping wet and vulnerable, face to face with a thing unlike any being he had ever seen before. He turned pale; he felt his heart begin to thump, louder and louder, harder and harder, inside his chest. It was a woman; a ghastly image of red and black and shadows that stood before him, long chestnut colored hair flowing out from behind a terrible red mask of gossamer webbing. Behind her, Falk could see the splintered remains of the bathroom door. How could a woman have broken the door like that, he wondered? Could any person as slim and small as that one, no matter how frightfully attired she was, have generated enough force to kick that door apart? What wrath had motivated such an action?

  Falk backed up, his spine touching the wet shower wall. The nightmare woman took one step closer to him.

  “Turn the water off!” she hissed in a voice that cut to the core of Falk’s soul like a freshly honed scalpel.

  He reached down and shut the shower off, pulling his wits together; reminding himself that he was a cop, and a tough old captain at that. “Who the hell are you? What kind of a getup is that? Are you insane waltzing in here like that?”

  “You call me insane!” the Red Veil shrieked at Falk. “Perhaps I am. But a worse form of insanity is to prey upon the innocent and let evil deeds go unpunished. I see the need for justice on this night. In that sense, I am saner than you shall ever be.”

  “What do you want?” Falk roared.

  The left hand of the Red Veil shot out from under her cloak. The speed was such that Samuel Falk did not even see the pistol or hear the shot ring out before he felt the terrible, shocking pain of the bullet ripping into his kneecap, smashing bone and letting loose blood that ran down his leg to mingle with the water that was still making its way down the drain. He fell to his uninjured knee and looked up at the shrouded face that mockingly stared down at him.

  “What did Tommy Carter find out that made you hire a killer to murder him? You were up to something, weren’t you, Falk? Corruption! What were you doing? Officer Carter stumbled onto you, didn’t he? So you hired Jasper and you promised him money to kill Tommy and he lured Tommy to that apartment and shot him in cold blood! That’s how it was, wasn’t it, Falk? Wasn’t it?”

  “Yes!” Falk shouted back at the Red Veil, his rage and pain drowning out his fear. “That stupid kid couldn’t take a hint. He would have blown his chances of ever moving up in the department, would have thrown away his career just to satisfy his childish sense of right and wrong. So what if I was taking a little on the side to see that some embezzlers and counterfeiters didn’t get charges pressed against them? So what? But Carter overheard some stoolies talking about it and he started to snoop around and got a little too close. I had to take him out of the picture. I had no choice. Do you know what would have happened to me if they’d caught and convicted me? Do you know how many guys I put away before I made captain? Do you know what they’d do to me if I joined their cellblock? So the little rookie got shot! Big deal! He was just a little fish. I’m the big shark, you see? I’m still out here in the open seas!”

  The Red Veil stared down at him, not speaking, not moving.

  “What’s it matter to you, anyway?” Falk said. It would be the last question he would ever ask.

  The left hand put the gun back into the cloak. It reached up and lifted the veil from the face. A pair of bright blue eyes was revealed, containing a curious mixture of hatred and sorrow. The skin was like porcelain, the mouth twisted in a savage smile of bloodlust and grief. Falk was mesmerized by the unexpected beauty of the face that looked down at his pain-wracked body. He stared into those eyes and never knew the right hand had moved until he felt the talons cut into his throat and end his life.

  ***

  The man called Jasper sat on a barstool and stared at the day’s paper. Two articles had caught his eye. He knew, though the writers of the pieces did not, he assumed, that the news in both was related. Captain Samuel Falk had been found brutally slain in his home, his throat slashed, his knee shattered by a shot. Also in the paper that day, a retired police detective, one Douglas Brown, had been committed to the city’s primary mental hospital after breaking down and reporting being visited by a “terrible devil woman with a red face and black hide and claws as long as butcher knives.” According to the paper, Brown had been under sedation after trying to throw himself off a rooftop so that “God could take me up to Heaven before that Bride of Satan drags me down to Hell.”

  Brown and Falk were connected. Of that, Jasper was sure. He was not a stupid man. After all, he’d killed at least a dozen men in his time, never been caught, and made a damn good living doing so. He credited himself as being a pretty smart fellow, clever enough to figure this situation out. Some crazy dame had dressed herself up in a creepy costume, visited Brown, found out about Falk, murdered him, and disappeared. Jasper figured it was a safe bet that whoever the dame was, she might come to see him next. He didn’t want to take any chances; she might be a real psycho for all he knew.

  He put down the paper, found a phone booth, popped some change in, and called for a few guys to watch his back for a few days. He knew enough people and was owed enough favors that it wasn’t a hard task for him to round up some pretty decent hired muscle until things cooled down. He would wait in the bar, safety in numbers, among the crowd, until the boys showed up to escort him home. He felt inside his jacket for the comforting weight of his .45.

  ***

  The Syndicate had sent Milo, Cassius, and Bud. The three goons sat playing cards, smoking, and shooting the breeze while Jasper sat in the corner and thought. He had forbidden his three borrowed guards from drinking while on the job and that had caused them to be a bit grumpy, but they’d get over it when they received their tips, Jasper was certain. The three of them seemed to be enjoying the poker game and they were loud and jovial. Jasper was in the opposite mood; he didn’t think his three companions understood the possible seriousness of the situation. He did. He was edgy, on the defensive, restless. He sat and listened to their thuggish banter and tried to think about the races, the last girl he’d spent the night with, the money he’d make on his next hit, or anything else, anything but what had happened to Captain Falk and that detective they’d locked up in the padded room. He knew he shouldn’t have been so nervous. After all, who would even know where the little room they were hidden away in was located?

  At just past midnight, a knock came on the door. Bud put down his cards and walked to the door, gun in hand. “Who’s there?” he called out in his rough, backstreets voice.

  The responding voice was drenched in honey, sweet, feminine, coy. “Are you the handsome fella who called for a little company tonight?”

  Bud glanced back at his poker buddies. “I am now,” he joked in their direction. His hand made contact with the doorknob.

  Jasper was on his feet in an instant. “Bud, no! Don’t open that…”

  It was too late. The door swung open and the shot rang out. Bud’s pistol dropped from his big hairy hand. The gun, unfired, hit the dirty, beer-stained carpet first, soon followed by the fresh carcass of Bud, a smoking hole ripped in his barrel-chest by the hot slug.
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  Milo and Cassius jumped up and stepped towards the door, then froze in their tracks, neither of them prepared for the vision of Hell-On-Two-Legs that greeted their stunned eyes. Milo raised his gun; Cassius lifted the steel pipe that he always kept close. Milo fired, but the Red Veil had executed a perfect stage fall, letting her body fall backwards and catching herself with her palms down as the bullet zinged over her head, harmlessly sailing through the open door and embedding itself in the wall across the corridor.

  Before Milo could get another shot off, Cassius had charged ahead like a brazen bull, heading straight for the mystery woman who was now rising to her combat booted feet. She raised her cloak, tearing it loose from the fasteners that held it around her shoulders, throwing it over Cassius’s head like a matador in action, blinding the big brute and slamming her hand, the clawed glove hand, into his ribs. The sound of those blades scraping bone made Jasper cringe from across the room. Cassius fell.

  Milo fired again. The bullet came closer this time, ripping through the blackened lace of the wedding gown that had become the Red Veil’s guise. It missed the tender flesh, though she could feel the heat of the projectile as it singed her shoulder. A second round left her pistol and ended the career, and the life, of the hired gun called Milo.

  Jasper stood alone in the corner. He stared intensely at the veiled figure that advanced in his direction. Then he glanced away and realized that he had left his jacket, still containing his gun, hung over the back of the chair that sat, waiting and taunting him, ten feet away. He watched the Red Veil aim at his chest, but she hesitated. She tossed her gun onto the floor and raised her now empty hand to her face, tearing off the crimson shroud that covered her countenance. The blue eyes flashed in Jasper’s direction. The ruby lips smiled sweetly but dangerously.

  The door swung open and the shot rang out.

  “Hello, Jasper. My name is Alice, and I’m going to kill you.”

  Jasper’s hand dropped to his side as he bent his knee to bring his ankle up to meet his hand. In a blur of skill, practiced a thousand times in preparation for such a moment of desperation, he produced a long dagger from its concealment in his pants leg. He let out a battle cry of pompous ferocity and charged at Alice, dagger flashing wildly from side to side, intent on gutting her where she stood.

  Jasper advanced, Alice dodged. She tried to spin around and catch him with her clawed glove, but he was too fast, too experienced a fighter, too skilled a killer. She missed. She felt a sudden pain in her forearm as Jasper drew first blood. She glanced down. Red ran from out of her sleeve and dripped onto the floor, but it was just a trickle, only a surface wound, no need to panic. She backed up, Jasper coming at her again. He slashed at her, she dodged this time. She swung the taloned hand back to try to generate speed and force for a killing strike, but she misjudged the room she had to maneuver in; the glove struck the wall, the improvised attachments broke loose, and the five claws made from the remnants of the shorn badge fell away; she was disarmed.

  Jasper struck again, narrowly missing Alice’s jugular. Careful, Alice, careful, she warned herself. She ducked as the dagger flashed over her head. The advantage, she realized fearfully, belonged to Jasper now. It was only her agility that had kept the last two moves from cutting her to the bone.

  Alice’s mind flashed back, as it had so often since she had begun to engage in her strangely costumed nocturnal escapades, to the rough years she had spent on the East End, watching the street brawlers and avoiding both the rape gangs and the authorities. Go low, her instincts told her. She kicked her feet out in front of her body, letting gravity take hold of her and fell into a seated position on the floor, a jarring impact but a well executed move. She placed her hands on the floor at her sides and spun around, legs sweeping out and kicking the balance out from underneath Jasper. He began to fall, his face coming down and plummeting toward Alice’s. She could see his eyes, red with rage and bloodlust. She rolled clear of his falling body. He landed flat on his stomach, the dagger still in his outstretched hand.

  Alice stood, springing to her feet like a cat. She brought her heavy, thick-soled boot down on Jasper’s hand, breaking his fingers and his grip on the knife. The hired killer cried out in agony.

  Alice stood there and looked down at the pathetic creature on the floor. There he was: Tommy’s killer, at her mercy. She thought of the ways in which she could end Jasper’s life. Which would satisfy her lust for revenge the best? Rage and hate for that man flashed in her eyes until, suddenly, something stopped that train of thought. In her memory’s eye she could see Tommy, tall and handsome and alive. She could see him polishing his badge and cleaning his gun and heading off to walk his beat and protect the innocent and see that justice was done and always do the right thing. What would he have done had he been hunting for her murderer?

  “I should cut you to pieces where you lay,” Alice hissed at Jasper. “I should slice you once for every person you’ve killed and then start over at one and do it all over again. But I’m not going to do that. I’m not even going to kill you quickly. You won’t die tonight. They’ll come and take you and lock you up for a long time. Maybe you’ll sit in the electric chair, but that’s not up to me. But remember this, Jasper. You may know who I am…but you also know what I’m capable of. You won’t tell anyone who I am, no matter what kind of deal they offer you, no matter how much you think that information might save your life. If you do, I’ll find a way to get to you no matter how deep down in the solitary cells they hide you, and when I get there I will make you wish you’d never killed a single human being, wish you’d never taken a job for Samuel Falk, wish you’d never even been born. Understand that, Jasper. You won’t tell anyone who I am. And remember this too: I’m letting you live because Tommy would have let you live. Think about that. The man you killed just saved your life. Just think about that.”

  Jasper heard no more, for a kick to the side of his head sent him on a long trip into unconsciousness. He would wake up days later, locked up, where he would spend the remainder of his wasted life.

  Alice picked up her crimson veil from the floor. She put it back over her face, for she knew that her voice sounded different when filtered through that lace mask. She picked up the room’s telephone.

  “Hello,” said Edward Stern. His voice was half asleep to match the rest of him. As a lifelong police officer, he was used to getting calls in the middle of the night, but that never made it easier to have a good sleep abruptly halted. “Who’s there?”

  Much to Stern’s surprise, it was a woman’s voice that he heard. It had a strange timbre, an oddness that made him uneasy, but he listened with interest to what that voice had to tell him.

  “Captain Stern. I have a gift for you at 2727 East Fiftieth Street, Apartment Five-Fifteen. It should clear up a handful of old cases that are still open…and might even make you reopen some that were prematurely closed.”

  “Thank you…Miss…” Stern paused. “I didn’t get your name. Will you tell me your name?”

  The voice on the line laughed. Stern couldn’t tell if the laughter was sweet and girlish or crazed and wicked. Perhaps he heard a little bit of both qualities in that strange laughter. The voice spoke once more before Stern heard the click of the call’s termination.

  “If I must have a name…The Red Veil will suffice.”

  The END

  A CREATURE OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS

  An Essay by Aaron Smith

  Yes, the title of this essay is indeed a reference to Roger Zelazny’s novel, Creatures of Light and Darkness, which I just discovered is finally back in print after a long, long time. It’s a great novel, unlike anything else I’ve ever read and I’d recommend it to anyone who likes good science-fantasy with mythological symbolism. I just happened to be thinking of it when I sat down to write this essay and realized that the character I’ve just finished writing about, the
Red Veil, is indeed a creature of light and darkness, a character with two distinct looks, different as night and day, different as love and hate, a being of two opposing personalities and two very different demeanors.

  Ron Fortier, the editor of Airship 27’s line of pulp anthologies had put out the call for someone to create what he called a “mystery woman,” the female equivalent of those cloaked and mysterious and ruthless and dangerous pulp heroes like the Shadow and the Spider. At the time, I had just begun work on a new novel which has not yet been completed, or even progressed very far, as I write this. The novel, a horror story, was going to be the first time I’d written anything with a female lead character. I was certain that that would be a bit different than writing about a male lead. So, I took the challenge of coming up with this “female Shadow” to sharpen my pen a little before I even introduced my female protagonist in the other project.

  Now, I had to bear in mind that the pulp story Ron needed, like most of Airship 27’s output, would have to be set in the 1930s. It’s a little different writing a female character in that era than it is in a modern setting. In today’s society, in the world of 2010, a woman is, for the most part; free to engage in almost any profession that a man can. In a modern setting, no one would doubt the authenticity of having a female police officer or military officer or private investigator or any other role that would have, in the Thirties, been considered a man’s job. The same holds true for pulp heroes. Sure, there were female pulp heroines like the Domino Lady for example, but as far as I know (not that my knowledge of pulps is as extensive as some of my Airship colleagues) there had not been one as ruthless or frightening to criminals or outright violent and deadly as the Spider or the Black Bat.