Who is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa(26)
Too high to have been done by a child’s hand unless the tyke had a step-ladder, just above their heads was a silly plastic knocker that looked like a lightning bolt — far newer than the ancient door — so he swung it twice, and then a third time for the hell of it.
Nothing happened for a minute or so. Jacob had no idea how long, exactly, since he didn’t own a watch.
“Password?”
The question had come from the other side of the thick door, so soft the boy barely heard it above the ruckus of the rain. “Huh?”
“Password.” That voice, louder now, had a hint of irritation.
“What password?”
“Come on, come on, haven’t got all day.”
“Heropa?” Jacob guessed.
“Bzzzt—! Push off.”
“The Hippy sent me.”
“I don’t care if the Green Lantern gave you an invite. Get lost.”
Jacob walked carefully in a circle out there on the verandah. “Wow, you’re a wanker, aren’t you?” he said in a loud voice as he dodged holes.
The voice inside sounded angry. “Beat it!”
Jacob turned to go. “So much for comic fantasies.”
“—Bingo! Comics it is. Why didn’t you say so before?”
“What?”
“The password: comics.” The voice had taken on a warmer, conspiratorial edge. “Okay, one more question, a doozie, but if you get it, I’ll open up. What was the Red Skull’s real name?”
“Depends. Johann Schmidt, Albert Malick, or George John Maxon?”
“Sheesh, I dunno — I would’ve been satisfied with only Schmidt.”
The door creaked open a few centimetres and another teenage face appeared before Jacob’s glare. This boy had squinty rodent eyes, sunken cheeks, severe acne, and lips looking like they’d recently been employed to suck on a lemon.
“Was there really three Skulls? I just heard of the one.”
“You going to tell me the next address, or do I go home?”
“C’mon, lighten up,” whined that mouth surrounded by the damage — acting as if these two kids facing each other on a reprobate’s doorstep had upped the ante to chumminess. “Your journey’s over! What’re you waiting for? Come on in!”
Just through the entrance was a long passageway, one so dimly lit it was impossible to see the high ceiling above. Water dropped onto Jacob’s shoulder when he stepped inside, having fallen from somewhere high up there in the darkness, and that reminded him.
“He had a daughter, too, who used the Red Skull name.”
“Huh?”
“Sinthea Schmidt. Look into it.”
“Oh, you’ll fit right in. Follow me — or, as Igor would tell his master Frankenstein, ‘Walk this way’.” The other boy pretended to drag his left leg as he went ahead.
Jacob followed the Rat on squeaky boards. He noted a succession of tiny rooms, with people in them — dead or asleep, he couldn’t tell — lying on chesterfields and covered by tatty space blankets. Each individual had two small machines beside him or her, an IV drip, and something that looked vaguely like a lunch bag.
Cabling linked the machines, burrowing from one room to the next. Often, accommodating this communal technology, there were holes crudely punched through the brick walls.
The place looked like an opium den Jacob had seen in a Sherlock Holmes comic published by Dell — what was it called? ‘The Man with the Twisted Lip’, he remembered.
“These people high, or something?” he asked, louder than he’d planned.
“Or something. Ohhh, really something.”
The two of them trudged up a steep set of wooden steps, several of which were worn smooth or broken, and on the next floor entered a small living room with battered furniture.
The only other decoration that clung to one wall was a tattered poster for Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, rendered in some kind of cubist hand.
“I’m not sure that’s the best sales-pitch for what you’re trying to hawk,” Jacob observed, eyes on the poster.
“Dunno what you mean.”
The opposite wall to the adjoining house had a door — apparently, they were linked.
“Take a seat, tiger,” the Rat suggested.
Still suspicious, Jacob sat down.
#115
Ten minutes later, there was an addition next to the Rat.
This man had a black overcoat on its last legs, a Ralph Steadman-designed Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas t-shirt, black pants gone in both knees, and fourteen-hole Doc Martens wannabes. Thirtyish, with long, green-dyed hair and a faraway look. Jacob decided straight away to label him Gonzo.
The Rat had pulled up an ancient red and white handle-backed diner chair, a simple mix of 1950s rusted metal and vinyl, but Gonzo settled on an overturned maroon plastic milkcrate.