#123
At the chief reporter’s prompting, Jack changed into costume before he went to the archive — she said it’d give extra-added kudos to her request to allow him permission to see the files.
Spot on.
The middle-aged guard very nearly bowed down to the ground when he saw a Cape alight from the lift, and his hands were shaking as he accepted the letter.
But Jack found nothing in the archives, even after five hours’ sifting.
Gypsie-Ann was right — there would never be enough time in a week to find what he searched for, especially given the slipshod manner in which filing of fatalities had been done. There were thousands of names in there, sometimes listed alphabetically by first name rather than family name, and often files were thrown in without any order at all.
Having a surname alone was next to no use.
Jack wondered if it would be a good idea to quiz the Professor — he’d know his son’s given name and perhaps a specific date of death. But wouldn’t that make him suspicious? And, on second thought, the guy couldn’t recall his own first name.
What exactly was it Jack was trying to uncover here?
After checking the physical files, he turned to older newspapers over the past six months, preserved on 35-millimetre microfilm, using a clunky, motorized 16/35mm roll film reader.
While the Equalizer researched, he grabbed several paper cups of coffee and had to roll up the lower half of his mask to drink. Now he understood why heroes like Batman, Daredevil and Captain America opted for the half-masks that exposed their mouth and nose — it was far easier to drink, eat and breathe. Jack, Spider-Man and the Black Panther had it hard.
When he settled up for the day and locked the door to the archive, a younger guard awaited. This individual appeared to be less deferential, almost bothered.
“Mister Wright wants to see you,” he announced.
“Who?”
“Mister Wright — the owner of this paper and the archive you just ransacked.”
Jack looked at the guard for a moment. “So, what does this mean to me?”
“It means you go to his office and you pay your respects.” Touchy.
“All right.” Jack didn’t have anything planned till he was supposed to meet Louise at eight. “You friendly enough to give directions?”
#124
The quarters of Donald Wright were a stark contrast to Gypsie-Ann Stellar’s.
For starters, they were plural — several rooms joined together — with the main office ten times the size of his employee’s. Jack guessed Wright had taken over two entire floors. He checked in through a receptionist named Mavis, a personal assistant (Smedley), and then another couple of security guards.
The plaque outside this head honcho’s personal abode was glistening gold, the door made of cedar — with intricately cut, gorgeous patterns that hurt Jack’s eyes.
When he opened it up he found a stadium-sized space with a sweeping spiral staircase to the next level wrapped around a three-metre tall mess of twisted nuts, bolts, steel and rubber on a marble pedestal and the title ‘Clobber Creation’ on a brass nameplate.
Otherwise this was full of smaller knickknacks: statuary, paintings, rugs, tapestries, chandeliers, antique sideboards and well-dusted sofa chairs. Over by one grand window was a tall, antique wooden stand that had six identical black bowler hats propped at random angles.
Half of a wall, the one to the right as you entered, was crammed floor to ceiling with 1960s memorabilia. Attached to the plaster were old vinyl 45s by Henry Mancini, Quincy Jones, the Animals, the Easybeats, Dionne Warwick, Horst Jankowski, Nancy Sinatra, the Peanuts and Cilla Black. Hung from a curtain rail was a large plastic ‘Twister’ game mat, sandwiched between one of Twiggy’s miniskirts (signed by the model in black texta), a poster for the World War I film The Blue Max starring George Peppard, and a framed DC comic of Showcase #4 featuring the Flash — with the subtitle “whirlwind adventures of the fastest man alive.”
Opposite that was a contrasting diorama covering two walls, sourced from the 1930s and ’40s, articles like old shop signage, a vintage taximeter, Japanese matchbox labels, pages torn from old newspapers with comic strips like Dick Tracy, Flash Gordon, Ginger Meggs and Li’l Abner.
A centrepiece spread was a black-and-white movie poster for Joan Crawford and Walter Huston in Rain, with these words dashed across it: ‘You Men! You’re All Alike! Pigs! Pigs! I Wouldn’t Trust Any of You!’.
Stretching across both walls, at head height, were a series of framed original comicbooks including Action Comics issue 1, from June 1938 — featuring the first ever appearance by Superman — and All Winners Comics No. 1 (summer 1941, price ten cents), showcasing Captain America, Bucky, Sub-Mariner, a duo of Human Torches, and two other male heroes Jack couldn’t place. Strangely stuck in the centre of the golden-age row was something else Jack didn’t recognize: Speed Comics issue 17 (April 1942), with an all-star cast of nobodies named Black Cat, Shock Gibson, Biff Bannon, and a hero on the cover that was the spitting image of Captain America — yet also wasn’t, since he had a red skullcap and mask instead of blue, and some sort of yellow shoulder decoration.