Who is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa(75)
From within what he sussed out to be a metal locker, through the grille beside his face, Jack could espy partial glimpses of a big room proper, filtered with red light.
First thing he made out was Bulkhead.
The Rotter was settled in the same interview chair Jack’d occupied days before at the headquarters of the League. Those decorative chains from the ceiling had been put to good use — binding Bulkhead’s metallic torso, arms and legs dozens of times over.
There was another individual walking around him.
This man wore an innocuous tan trench coat that made him look like just about every other male Blando in the city, but the hat on his head — a pillar-box red, wide-brim Stetson — stood out a mile.
He had the hat pulled down low, so that shadows played around his cheeks and eyes.
Even when this individual occasionally faced the locker during the course of his circular route, Jack could not see any features clearly.
The man in the red hat stopped for a moment, his back to Jack, and clicked a lighter. A plume of smoke headed towards the high ceiling.
“Man, oh, man,” his voice remarked, as he took up looping the loop again, “I’d swear these were real.”
Bulkhead sounded disgusted: “You’re a tobacco-fiend.”
“Yep.”
“On ya.”
“Hard to find the real McCoy back in Melbourne.”
“Then you’re a Cape?”
“Nup.”
Ineffectual as it was, the Rotter writhed a lot and there was the scraping of metal on metal. “Yeah, well — enjoy the experience, arsewipe.”
“Oh, I will.”
“Get me outta these chains, and you’ll enjoy a whole new ballgame.”
“Think I’ll skip out on that particular pleasure, mate.”
“What d’you want? The other Rotters will be back shortly. They’ll fry your balls.”
“Yeah, I reckon they would, so time to end this. Besides, I reckon our prize spectator,” the man in the red hat nodded in Jack’s direction, “has likely woken up by now.”
“What happened to the Peter Pan policy?” Bulkhead demanded, swivelling one eye and then the other to ogle his captor. “You abiding by it?”
The man in the red hat chuckled.
He leaned in close to Bulkhead, all cosy-like, and said something Jack couldn’t make out.
At the same time, he saw the man push a small, cylindrical object into the midriff area of the bound tin-man, and then he strolled away whistling a tune Jack thought he recognized — what was it?
The door slammed shut.
Gone.
Jack breathed easier, getting set to kick open the locker, when he heard Bulkhead shout out, “I do believe in fairies! I do, I—”
The roar and flames of an explosion consumed everything, flipping Jack’s cabinet several times — and causing him to black out for the third time in two weeks.
When the Equalizer came to, something hard was cradling the back of his head. It took him a moment to realize this was a handful of small bricks. His eyes burned, a stench of smoke seared his nostrils as he dragged in for breath, everything spun.
Strangely enough, prior to oblivion settling back in to roost, the Equalizer had a flash and thought he remembered the name of the whistled tune: Ary Barroso’s 1939 number, ‘Aquarela do Brasil’.
“Kid! Kid!” the Brick’s voice pleaded, somewhere very distant. “Goddammit, are you awright—?”
6 ° 0F TREP1DAT10N
#147
Louise Starkwell had been happy.
For the first spell in any time she could recall, contentment had channelled her way. Then again, Louise supposed she’d been happy in the past, but any experience of that kind remained strangely removed.
This often left the girl wondering if some illness — dementia, Alzheimer’s, attention deficit disorder or a variation of it — were playing havoc with her brain. She’d heard that symptoms of ADD included forgetting things on a daily basis, misplacing keys, locking oneself out, and leaving the lights on — none of which she did.
But chronic forgetfulness in general? Most certainly this, and there was the subconscious procrastination about leaving her job.
Yet things she’d evidently studied, like art and accounting, also the basic act of whipping up a pasta dish off the top of her head, remained fresh and accessible. Louise wished she could remember having boned up on these in the first place.
There was a time, close to the moment she met Jack, when things that happened the day before were shrouded in mystery. The feeling had declined as their relationship bloomed, and it was only the more distant past that was now beyond her.
A time involving a husband who appeared in dreams — even if she was not so sure this man was Lee. There were no pictures to check, no memories to tick off, nothing to compare or contrast.