Superhero Universe: Tesseracts Nineteen (6 page)

It’s like there’s a vigilante out there. But instead of beating punks up, or swinging down in a cape and tights, he tricks people into giving themselves up, or manipulates other people into stopping the crimes. I don’t know. Maybe he’s only 4’8” and has a club foot or something but has got this amazing voice. It’s like he’s a super-mimic and a super-ventriloquist all in one.

It’s like, not so much that there’s a new vigilante in town, so much as there’s simply a hint of one— a Rumor.

* * *

As Mr. DeMulder’s attorney I will neither confirm nor deny any criminal activity or concede my client’s connection to anything of an illegal nature. However, I will acknowledge that Mr. DeMulder had been under increasing stress in the weeks leading up to the incident in question. His varied business enterprises — upon which I will not elaborate — had suffered a number of strange setbacks.

Associates of his had found themselves being arrested in the course of certain activities— of which Mr. DeMulder maintains he had no prior knowledge and disavows any connection. Apparently anonymous tips to the police were responsible. This meant that Mr. DeMulder was finding himself somewhat starved for reliable manpower in his various day-to-day enterprises.

Other incidents just seemed like sophomoric pranks bordering on harassment.

An entire liquor order for a bar in which he had an interest never arrived. And a bar without liquor doesn’t keep many customers. When the supplier was contacted, it was explained that a man presenting himself as a representative of the bar had phoned to cancel the order earlier in the day.

Employees of Mr. DeMulder would fail to make arranged rendezvous, or would arrive at incorrect times— all supposedly because of calls rescheduling those meetings, allegedly from Mr. DeMulder or other acquaintances whose voices the tardy employees insisted they recognized.

Aside from the stress and frustration of this pattern of puerile persecution, the impact on Mr. DeMulder’s finances was not inconsiderable, what with ordered supplies not arriving, employees being redirected from where they were needed— and, of course, employees being incarcerated by the authorities.

It is fair to say Mr. DeMulder was being pushed to the breaking point.

* * *

Please understand that I am rather restricted by doctor-patient confidentiality— even if I am technically employed by the province. But I hardly need explain that to you. However— well, I suppose it won’t make much difference in a few minutes, will it?

I had six sessions with Anthony DeMulder, three prior to his trial and three after his conviction for homicide. I found Mr. DeMulder to be a reasonably articulate man, particularly considering his education and occupation. But he also seemed to be suffering from paranoia and what I might designate shell shock, or at least battle fatigue— if he had been a soldier. But, of course, he wasn’t a soldier. But he had experienced a great deal of stress leading up to the incident. Apparently he had endured weeks of orchestrated harassment that affected his business, his life, and ultimately his relationships. I’m not telling you anything that isn’t part of the public record or wasn’t brought up in court.

Mr. DeMulder had come to believe that someone was deliberately trying to destroy him, to bring down his business empire. All right, yes — why mince words? — his
criminal
empire. Anonymous tips to the police. Misleading messages. One of his warehouses even developed a reputation for being haunted, prone to what were described as “Banshee wails” in the night, and he was unable to get anyone to staff it. He became convinced this was all the work of some unknown adversary. Sheer paranoia, of course, but in his mind it became a floating fact just waiting to hitch itself to a foundation— any foundation.

And it found that foundation when Mr. DeMulder’s paranoia settled on one Joey Markinson, a man more commonly known to his friends and associates as The Book.

This was particularly ironic since, according to all prior accounts, The Book was Mr. DeMulder’s most trusted employee. Unfortunately, that just made him a prime suspect in Mr. DeMulder’s mind as whoever was undermining his enterprises would’ve needed a great deal of insider knowledge. The Book also had a reputation both for cold-blooded ruthlessness and high intelligence— both characteristics that dovetailed with Mr. DeMulder’s notion of a canny traitor in his organization.

Apparently it was a phone call from another employee that finally set Mr. DeMulder on his fatal course— an employee who warned Mr. DeMulder that The Book had been heard asking some men about whether they would be interested in switching loyalties. Given Mr. DeMulder’s own experiences with employees accepting unverified phone calls, it is perhaps unfortunate that he did not question the veracity of this call. But, as I said, he was under profound stress and already prone to paranoia.

To prove his suspicions, Mr. DeMulder set up a secret wire recording of his erstwhile trusted right-hand man’s weekly poker game. Sure enough, he overheard The Book conspiring with the other players to take over Mr. DeMulder’s organization. Not just that, but The Book described how he intended to assassinate Mr. DeMulder the next day when the two met for lunch at Mr. DeMulder’s favorite deli on Yonge Street.

In his own mind, and according to the rules of the world in which Mr. DeMulder lived, he had no choice but to act.

When The Book entered the deli, Mr. DeMulder stood up at his table as though to greet him. And then, in cold blood, he gunned down The Book in front of a dozen witnesses— including a rabbi and an off-duty police officer.

He claimed self-defense. But, of course, no gun was found on The Book, as was made clear at the trial. And the men at the poker game Mr. DeMulder had been eavesdropping on swore that no such conversation about killing Mr. DeMulder had taken place, that The Book barely said more than “raise” and “call” the whole evening. The wire recording itself proved unintelligible when played back in court.

Mr. DeMulder was found guilty and sentenced to hang.

Strangely, his attitude changed in the sessions I had with him after his conviction. He was calmer and — apparently — now accepted that The Book had at no point been involved in a conspiracy against him. But that was where Mr. DeMulder’s newfound lucidity seemed to falter. Because he had developed another theory— one, I’ll admit, I never fully grasped.

He insisted he had been the victim of a vigilante— a mystery man like you read about in the papers these days (I would so dearly love to get one of them on my couch).

Apparently a lady reporter had earlier been asking around about someone she had dubbed The Rumor, and Mr. DeMulder, in his paranoia, had picked up on this. Others in the so-called underworld community had also begun muttering fearfully about a mysterious crimefighter who was never seen, never identified, and who never left any hard evidence— The Rumor.

Mr. DeMulder associated this so-called Rumor fellow with a popular actor named Ken Anton. Except Ken Anton had died under mysterious circumstances months ago.

When I queried this, Mr. DeMulder laughed and said, “There’s dead… and then there’s
dead
.”

He mentioned something about the actor having been electrocuted to death by a radio, and how all the incidents associated with this so-called Rumor seemed to involve some sort of electrical apparatus. Radios were always present in the vicinity when disembodied voices were heard or telephones were used to convey bogus messages. And there was that infamous wire recording of The Book.

“The ghost in the machine,” Mr. DeMulder muttered at one point in our sessions.

Look at the time! It’s just turned the hour. Assuming the usual efficiency of the Corrections services, I’m guessing Mr. DeMulder has just been hanged.

Gives you pause, doesn’t it? A bit of a hollow, sinking feeling? Though I freely acknowledge he wasn’t a very nice man, and had no doubt been responsible for many other crimes of which we’ll never know.

To be honest, I’m not fully comfortable with this phone call, now that I think about it. Even if you are from the College of Physicians. What did you say your name was again?

Hello? Hello? Is anyone still on the line?

Hello?

* * *

Based in Kingston, D. K. Latta writes fiction, reviews, and pop-culture commentary.

The Island Way

Mary Pletsch & Dylan Blacquiere

Before I turn off my alarm, I have a few seconds in which I can pretend. For that instant I can let myself believe that my memories of salt spray in my face and the schooner’s deck rising beneath my feet and the night wind howling against her sails are nothing more than souvenirs of a particularly vivid dream. Logic murmurs in my thoughts: the days of tall ships ended more than a century ago.

But I still smell of brine and brimstone, and as I slap the snooze button on my clock radio my hand bumps against an article clipped from the
Guardian
newspaper. FISHERMAN SURVIVES CLOSE CALL WHEN BOAT SINKS. A young man with a big smile and a crooked front tooth grins at me from the newsprint. The clock radio flashes 7:00.

I’ve had maybe four hours of rest. I need a shower and a coffee, in that order, before I can face waitressing the lunch shift at the Sea Star. Last year at this time I was getting up to go to high school; it still feels weird to think of myself as an adult.

I shower, throw on my work shirt and some black dress pants, then walk down to the Arcade for some coffee. The Arcade isn’t what mainlanders think of as an arcade, even though there’s a decrepit pinball machine and Ms. Pac-Man in the back room. It’s more like a grill and snack bar, and it’s the closest thing to a coffee shop that my village has. If you want a full breakfast, you go to a restaurant, but if you just want a hot drink you go to the Arcade.

The coffee in the Arcade is weak and always served far too hot. I could save money and drink better coffee if I made the stuff I had at home. I rarely do. I had to explain to my last boyfriend that it wasn’t about being too lazy to make my own coffee, or liking the Arcade’s coffee better. It’s about supporting local business and keeping my neighbors employed. That’s the Island way of doing things. If we don’t help each other out, who will?

He didn’t get it, and our relationship didn’t last long. He also didn’t like that I went out at night without telling him where I was going, and I guess I can’t blame him there. I do blame him for acting like he was better than my friends and family just because he was from Toronto. He was only in PEI for a summer job anyway. He went back to Ontario to start college a couple weeks ago, and I’m surprised at how little I miss him. That’ll teach me to date somebody from away.

I notice the autumn chill in the air as I walk the few blocks from my basement apartment in Uncle Lennie’s house to the Arcade. The village is quiet. The tourists are long gone. Fisherman’s Quay is closed, not that anyone local ever eats there. There’s better lobster to be had at Andrea’s Restaurant. Andrea’s is shut now, too, like the fishing museum and the Albatross’s Nest gift shop. They’ll open up again in May for the summer season.

Only the Sea Star Family Diner and the Arcade stay open year-round, for which I’m grateful. The Arcade gives me my coffee, and the Sea Star gives me my paycheque. The Sea Star used to belong to Papa, my dad’s father, and then his second son, my Uncle Lennie, took it over. Now, just like them, I’m in the family business.

I shove open the front door of the Arcade and Gracie Gallant behind the front counter greets me. Gracie’s run the Arcade for as long as I can remember. Candy lines the area below the counter, while bags of chips hang from clips on the wall. In the corner, cans of pop have been wedged into a cooler originally designed to hold bottles. Old-fashioned white boards with clip-on letters spell out the menu: coffee, fries, pizza by the slice, ice cream. Gracie’s pouring me a large coffee before I get the chance to speak.

I pay for my coffee, stir in some cream and sugar from the containers at the side of the counter, and then I go see who else is in the Arcade this morning. I walk to the end of the counter and turn the corner, where tables line a long, narrow room running the length of the building. The place is packed, but in the back corner Uncle Lennie raises his arm and waves to me. He’s sitting at a table with Papa, Art, and Preston. Art is married to Lennie’s wife’s sister; Preston works for Art on his fishing boat.

“Good morning, Maggie,” Art says with a wink. He borrows a chair from the people at the next table so I can sit down.

“Look at this shit,” Preston growls by way of greeting, dropping the day’s newspaper in front of me.

OTTAWA ASSEMBLES THE CONFEDERATION GUARD, NEW CROSS-CANADA SUPERTEAM, screams the headline, right above the date: September 28, 2018.

I skim the article while my coffee cools to a drinkable temperature. Point of national pride … role models for the youth … blah, blah, blah. I’m not really into superheroes or any other kind of celebrity nonsense, but anyone with an internet connection has heard at least a little about Canada’s metahuman defenders. Personally, I think it’s a funny coincidence that the provincial and federal governments started promoting our metahuman heroes right after Alberta’s economy tanked and dragged the rest of the country down with it. Everyone look up at the flashy superheroes in their colorful suits. Don’t look down at the quagmire you’re sitting in.

I open up the paper only to discover that most of the front section has been devoted to superhero news, most of it centring on the new team. True North has been selected leader. That’s hardly news. True North has been running around Ontario since the 1930s, and Ontario still thinks it’s the centre of Canada. Technically, there’ve been at least five True Norths, more if you count the body doubles, and they long ago gave up the fiction that it’s been the same guy all these years. Me, I’ll personally punch anyone who says the body double who took a bullet for the Prime Minister last year doesn’t count as a true True North. If you make the sacrifice, you deserve the credit.