Who is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa(109)
“I guess this was shock. No. No, the horror, more like it. He just sat there in the middle of the floor, staring at nothing, like he’d already given up the ghost. His face was…Bloody hell. The girl’s brain had been deprived of oxygen by the time I got her breathing again. I have no idea about Blando physiology — we needed to get her to a proper hospital, so I dialled an ambulance. And then you.”
“What about Jack?” persisted the officer.
“Jack was gone, right before I called. I looked up, after the AED got the girl’s pulse back, and he wasn’t there. So far as he knows, she’s dead. Might as well be anyway, but we have to find him, have to help him. I can’t imagine what he’s going through. No one deserves this.”
Gypsie-Ann slowly scratched behind one ear, lips compressed, before she broached another unsavoury topic. “You realized he’d been shot?”
“What? — No! Where?”
“In the leg, earlier this evening, when the Brick copped it.”
“Anyone patch him up?”
“I think he did that himself.”
“Home medicine for a bullet wound? God, more to fret about.” The police officer leaned forward, clearing his throat.
“We haven’t forgotten you,” Gypsy-Ann snapped.
“Well, we need to go back a degree, get the full details, so I can try to help.”
“How do you think a Blando flatfoot can help?” asked Pretty Amazonia, her face lacking enthusiasm of any sort — making Kahn wonder whether this was a deliberate insult or a genuine query.
“Ladies, I’m not completely useless. I know taekwondo and jūjutsu, was an amateur heavyweight champion in my twenties, I have a gun, and an entire police force at my disposal. You people need all the assistance you can get.”
The reporter nodded after the speech. “Yeah, fair enough.”
“Okay, talk to me. PA, do you know what exactly was done to the victim?”
“I told you. Someone tried to drown her. Almost succeeded, too, since she was minus a heartbeat before I arrived. Same end result — they got what they wanted. The girl isn’t going to recover from that kind of necrosis of the cerebral neurons. There were abrasions around her wrists, so I’m guessing she’d been tied up at one point. Also bruising on the collarbone and neck, skin beneath her nails. Kid put up a fight.” PA looked at her sister. “By the way, I did notice. She’s the Aerialist. I have no idea why I didn’t see that before, whatever the hair-colour. But how can this be? She’s a Blando — I double-checked.”
“I know.”
“Why didn’t anyone bother telling me?”
“Long story. Only found out tonight, but we don’t have time to go into it. Later, okay?”
“All right. But you better fill me in. Who put the bite on her?”
“Good question. I’m thinking the security guard downstairs,” Stellar mused. “There was something off about him — and he’d scarpered when I came back.”
Kahn jotted more notes. “Give me a description. I’ll get my boys on it.”
“What’s the point? We all now know who’s ultimately respon-sible: Donald Wright.”
“Our very own fucking Lex Luthor.” Pretty Amazonia wandered away to pick up a stray fedora from the floor; recognized it as Jack’s and almost cried on the spot. She was trying desperately hard to avoid doing that. “The perennial arsehole.”
Kahn frowned. “And a former Cape.”
“Don’t remind me.”
“Wright will be a challenge,” appraised Gypsie-Ann, “since we still don’t know how many of him there are.”
“Perhaps we do.” The police officer edged forward on his seat, eyes slit. “Did Jack share with you the Big O’s final effects?”
That snagged the reporter’s attention. “No — well, not with me. PA?”
“Not us either.”
“Maybe he forgot. It was a small matter, and I mean that literally, just a tiny, folded-up piece of paper with an obscure message written there. We found it in a secret pocket in the Big O’s costume.”
“Well?” asked Gypsie-Ann, impatience making her voice shrill.
“It said ‘There are 6’. Nothing more.”
“Six? Six what?”
“That’s what Jack asked. The note didn’t say.”
“Then why are you telling us this?”
“It could be a clue as to how many duplicates Wright has.”
“Lordy — clutching at straws, aren’t we?” The reporter shook her head. “Does this mean we’re completely desperate?”