“You did good, Jack.”
“You too.”
“Eventually.”
“Fat lot of help any of it was, though.”
“Don’t beat yourself up. You were right to coerce us into making the stand.” PA looked down to the red and white chequered tablecloth, carefully sliding a fork next to a butter knife. “I think Mister B and I learned something from you — yeah, I’ll admit it, you showed us our prejudices, and now we’re trying to play catch-up.”
“Glad we’re together on this.”
“Even so, learn something from us. About the girl — Louise. You have to let her go.”
This subject again. The last thing he needed to hear right now. “Why the blazes would I do that?”
“Why? Because one day soon, the hopeless techs back in Melbourne will fix the Reset — and because when she forgets, it’ll break your heart.”
Next to him, the Brick fussed over a serviette but said zero. Agreement hung in the air.
“PA,” Jack muttered, “just drop it.”
“All right.”
The unmasked Equalizer looked around this bar, thinking hard about nothing in particular and trying to shake the gloominess. “I doubt any of it matters, anyway — I’m pretty sure we’re washed up.”
“Still,” PA insisted.
“I get you.”
“But you don’t like our lectures.” She sighed.
“Shoo, Jack — go on, then, scoot over!”
Before the three knew what was afoot, Gypsie-Ann had muscled into a seat beside Southern Cross, and she turned to examine his face.
“Why the moping? You’re alive, aren’t you?”
“Debatable.”
“Well, you look reasonably functional, more so than my poor umbrella.”
“So your investment in yubiwaza didn’t include accessories?”
The reporter tilted her head to one side. “Appreciate the moment. You could easily be one of those corpses out there — speaking of which, we missed the fun and hastily organized games of the funeral for all those dead Capes.”
“They did that already?” Pretty Amazonia frowned. “The fight ended only, what, two hours ago?”
“I’m guessing the locals think good riddance to bad rubbish. I got this from a reliable source — they tossed the bodies into a mass grave in an abandoned lot that’s stuck away on a no-nonsense back street at the edge of town. Witnessed by a miniscule crowd who gave no shit. Or so I hear.”
“Classy,” decided the Brick, as he began to tear a paper napkin into neat strips. “Least they would’a skipped them annoying musical interludes.”
“Not all they skipped. No tears, no flowers, no car horns, and definitely no love lost. Another eight Capes are in intensive care — yep, at a hospital. The rules were bent. Have their own wing to themselves, but I do wonder about any ‘priority’ they’ll be granted.”
PA shifted closer. “Anyone we know?”
“Nana Mouskouri’s Spectacles, Dick Drone, Atomic Autocrac, Callous Claude. A couple of others I hadn’t heard a peep from before.”
“Word on Prima Ballerina?” delicately prodded the Brick.
“She wasn’t on the list.”
“Saint Y?”
“Nope.”
Jack sighed. “Civilian casualties?”
“Last count, six hundred odd — two thirds of that number dead.”
Gypsie-Ann spotted a waitress, hailed her over, and ordered a bottle of Les Gouttes de Dieu merlot with four glasses.
“Hard to say how many for sure. The police’re still counting and playing jigsaw with the remaining pieces. Bob Kahn’s in a rage and Chief of Police O’Hara is on the telly, demanding new legislation to control Cape activities — basically pitching to lock us all up. By the way, I do love this relaxing of the stupid rules. Haven’t drunk this much in years.”
She grabbed the bottle from the waitress, before the woman could pour, in order to do a faster job herself. “Here we go. To the end of a stupid era.”
They clinked glasses filled to the rim, but before she drank PA stared into the red wine. “You reckon there’ll be others?”
“Stupid eras?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Other fly-by-nighters from Melbourne?” Jack asked after a big sip.
“Yeah.”
“Always more suckers back there,” said the Brick.
After finishing off her drink in a few quick gulps, Gypsie-Ann shook her head. “Oh, I doubt it. The system’s down, Blandos waking up. Heropa is not exactly attractive now. I’m loving it, but fact is we’re the stragglers, along with a handful of other bozos out on the streets.”