Jack yanked off his mask to stare at the burning spot where the car was once parked, and the dissected shadow now lay. “Bollocks, Brick, is that supposed to happen?”
“Um. Not so far as I know.”
Pretty Amazonia twirled a cautious circle out on the street, just as the police and the crowd surged forward, and then suddenly she was standing over her partners. “What the blazes happened?”
“Me an’ SC been askin’ ourselves the same thing.”
There was another blinding light, this time a flashbulb instead of a bomb — reporters had surrounded them.
“Get your mask back on,” Pretty Amazonia urged. “Move it!”
A moment later, the miniature zeppelin was hailing them from afar. “Brick! Pretty Amazonia! Southern Cross! Report in!”
The Brick’s clenched fist eased up and he instead popped a thumb into the air for all to see. The thumb sank, as he replaced it with a raised index finger and saluted the blimp. More camera flashes ensued. “A-okay, El Bastardo.”
“Bastardo’s a usable epithet here?”
“Sure, since it’s bogus French.”
The police began assembling their hardware and pushing the crowd of onlookers away from the museum entrance and the smouldering parking spot. Amidst a sea of grey, brown and black fedora and bowler hats, Jack noticed a red Stetson.
“I want one of those,” he mumbled, straightening his mask. “You too can stand out in a crowd.”
#120
The following afternoon, Jack loitered on a corner next to the bank, hoping to meet Louise Starkwell on her way out — if only to shake things up and avoid another Twilight Over Hoboken episode.
Back still aching from the ‘Arabesque’ kick Prima Ballerina had kindly shared — there was dark bruising around his coccyx — the Equalizer wondered why Heropa’s overnight Reset hadn’t fixed that up.
He’d ended up leaving the Southern Cross get-up back at HQ. The thing chafed in general; he felt liberated without it.
And this time, when she came out the front door of the bank — wearing a simple black dress and a big black bonnet wrapped by a beige silk scarf that dangled down past her left elbow — Louise recognized him. Her face lit up, making his heart skip in ridiculous manner.
“Jack, you’re a breath of fresh air,” she decided, as she straightaway linked her arm through his. “I wasn’t sure I’d see you again.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No, actually, I’m not.”
Louise peered up at him with a shy smile, while Jack was sure he responded with a dopey look. She remembered?
“You are here to see me, aren’t you? This isn’t an evil coinci-dence?”
“None that I’m aware of. But let me think some.”
“Watch out, or I’ll start harassing you with obscure art.”
“Oh, no!” he laughed, beginning to relax. Confused he might have been, but there was no mistaking the happiness that washed through that. She remembered him.
They trudged slowly along the sidewalk, crisscrossing shadows and twilight. “Are you hungry?” Jack finally found the courage to ask.
“Famished.”
“I know of a restaurant near here — this place comes highly recommended, though I’m not a hundred percent sure the person who recommended it can be trusted.” True, since he’d filched the information from the Brick. “Name of the Holyoke. D’you know it?”
“No, but I’m already intrigued by the contradictions.”
The restaurant actually wasn’t half bad, a cosy establishment on a quieter street, down a flight of stairs, tucked away in a basement. Booth tables were separated from one another by Japanese-style partitions made of wood and paper, and the place was romantically lit — difficult to see anything further than three feet. Given Jack was half that distance from his date, he was hardly going to get upset.
He did wonder, however, why the Brick would patronize this eatery alone — or if the man dragged along someone special. The thought of the Brick as a concrete Romeo brought a smile to his mush.
“What are you thinking about, with that grin?”
Jack looked straight over at the girl. “How beautiful you are.” This sounded like the right thing to say, was partially true, and even in the miserable light, he could see her blush.
They proceeded to gasbag aplenty, not just about art. The conversation turned to food, cooking, fashion, music, cinema and the workplace. Louise had insight into each of these topics — seemingly from a practical perspective — whereas Jack had only read up on most and fanaticized about others.
He learned the girl loved going to see an ensemble led by popular Heropa bandleader and radio personality Cake Icer, and her favourite movie was The Long Kiss Goodnight. Jack hadn’t heard or seen either. The novel she’d read the most times was Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness.