Who is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa(62)
The Equalizer was directed by the Hussar to the centre of the room, positioned before a bare wall. Once there, he stood sheepishly, arms dangling by his sides.
“Strike the pose,” the Hussar commanded.
“Huh?”
“I am wanting to draw you as a hero, not the wallflower.”
Jack thought some, and then mimicked the fighting stance from his favourite comicbook cover — one composed by Jack Kirby for Captain America issue 109, fists clenched, bursting through a newspaper and ready for action. He hadn’t cottoned on that this would be a difficult one to maintain in repose, since he had to balance on his right foot, thrust forward, while the left, behind him, touched the floor with only the toes.
“Ahh, that is good. Please do not to move.”
Sure, the Hussar’s English grammar left much to be desired, but at least he spoke the language. If he resorted to his native Russian, Jack would’ve been stranded without a linguistic paddle.
“You’re kidding?” the Equalizer mumbled.
“I am not.”
Taking out a sketchbook, again from some place Jack couldn’t perceive, Saint Y started drawing in quick fashion.
“Your mind, my young friend — it is elsewhere. On the woman, perhaps?” the artist inquired.
“None of your business.”
“Suit myself. Do you mind if we do the listening to the Beatles? I find their harmonies help me to make the art.”
“Okay — I guess.”
Jack had no idea who he was talking about and, seconds later, realized he wouldn’t find out on this occasion.
Having stuck on a pair of earphones, the Hussar’s shoulders affected a repetitive spasm in time to music Jack couldn’t hear at all. The man even did a spot of out-of-tune harmonizing, singing something about a sky with diamonds in it.
Every time Jack swayed or tottered, the Hussar yelled at him. This one-sided harassment went on for quarter of an hour, then thirty minutes.
An hour later, obviously unable to bide her time waiting in her quarters, Pretty Amazonia wandered back with the big bow on her bosom shoved down, displaying a fair amount of cleavage.
“Well, that’s subtle,” Jack muttered.
“Please to not move,” barked the Hussar, a fraction kinder in front of the lady.
“Sorry.”
Working at a frantic pace now, paying absolutely no attention to PA’s attempts to distract him, the artist leaned against a wall and stared hard at Jack.
“We need some filler, some — how do you say? Props?”
“Well, there’s this.” PA tossed a newspaper onto the table. Jack saw it was the one announcing the Big O’s death. “Published the same day SC arrived in Heropa, and captures the changing of the guard. Appropriate enough, I’d say.”
“Enough,” Saint Y agreed, licking his lips as he thought.
Much tearing of the newspaper subsequently took place, along with more frenzied sketching and inking, and then the Hussar ripped off a page and held it up for all to see.
“Is it not magnificent?”
Pretty Amazonia beamed. “You can do anything with words and pictures,” she gushed, while Jack more simply stared at the finished depiction.
“Do I really come across that menacing?”
“I took the liberty to adding fire in your eyes,” the artist said, “otherwise you would be looking like the little boy lost.”
#135
In the early afternoon, after Saint Y left and Pretty Amazonia hung the picture, the Brick whisked Jack away on his Coca-Cola bottle motorbike. They wound up at a grandiose park that covered two city blocks and was forested with oak trees, wattles, maples and gums.
There was a pond, dead centre, where children played with toy boats, and ducks canoodled. The temperature would’ve been around twenty-three, the sky blue, sun perfect. The two men sat together on a wooden bench, partaking of hotdogs in their civvies.
“Christ, I never thought the simple act of sitting down would constitute bliss,” Jack sighed.
“That’s why you get yer picture done relaxin’ in a settee — like I did.”
“I think the Hussar would’ve blown a fuse if I tried.”
It still surprised Jack that people didn’t spot the Brick when he played incognito in his trench coat and hat. Nothing could hope to disguise a round, paved patio that constituted his face — the sunglasses sat there like outdoor furniture.
“I love the food here,” the Brick announced as he scoffed down the first of his three dogs. “Never ate so well back in Melbs. Most of this stuff is impossible to find these days.”
“Even if it’s not real?”
“Tastes real ‘nuff.” Number two disappeared.