Night was seldom silent in the city. Even in the quietest of
spaces, the clamor of a million souls packed together beyond reason found its way
through the cracks and crevices to fill every moment with a hum of life and
death.

The long cold hallway in the Empire Bank seemed as quiet a
place as one was likely to find. The narrow path that led to the building’s
main doors stood darkened and deserted. The buzz of a single bulb rang from
somewhere high above, its quiet sizzle of white noise reaching farther than its
wholly inadequate light ever could. From somewhere far down the hall the steady
stomp of heavy boots could be heard. Feet that fell with a strong but
purposeless step let their careless echoes ring down to the levels beyond. They
were the footfalls of a forgotten man. A guard left on duty long after such
vigilance had ceased to mean anything. A hundred feet away, deep in the
shadows, a fleeting form heard those echoes ring and knew well what they meant.
He was far, far too late.

From where he stood, the shape in the darkness could just
make out the deep and growing voice of the throng gathering outside the bank.
He could hear the great flashbulbs in the cameras popping. Police had the
building cordoned off, and had guards on the rooftops three buildings in every
direction to keep photographers at bay. Departmental spokesmen would manage the
growing army of news-hawks as best they could, doing their utmost to reveal
nothing, if for no other reason than that their obfuscation might convince the
press that they had a single lead to work with.

For the moment, the man in the shadows was less than
concerned with the police, or the press, or what any of them thought they might
know. The guard at the far end of the hall lumbered briefly into view and
turned back to the foyer again, his thoughts far away. For an instant, the
shadowy form resolved itself into a tall man in a long grey coat as he flitted
through the narrow space of semi-light and vanished again into the deeper
shadows on the far side of the great hallway.

From doorway to doorway he moved quickly and silently until
he found himself deep within the great building’s heart at the lip of a mighty
steel door, now standing open and unguarded. The air was still thick with the
aroma of a dozen police officers and their superiors that had been, until
moments earlier, crammed in this small vault space. The cigar smoke that yet
clung to the air told the form in the darkness that Police Chief O’Mally had
been here himself. If one knew to listen, one could just have heard a small
sigh. There would be little evidence left by that many officers, each trying to
catch the Chief’s eye.

The man moved his hand, and a deep red gauntlet touched
itself briefly to the edge of a matching domino mask. For an instant the blank
eyes set within the mask seemed to blaze with an unearthly light that quickly
faded from view. The masked man pushed his fedora back on his head as he
surveyed the room, now rendered bright as day by the remarkable night-vision
lenses in his mask.

The door of the vault was pristine. No mark upon it
suggested that either force or cunning had opened the door. The masked man
smiled slightly at the volumes of fingerprint powder that blazed before the
unique illumination of his mask. As if any intruder capable of such a feat
would be careless enough to leave fingerprints.

He stepped within the vault room. Against each of the walls
hung a half dozen small doors, each with a space for their own heavy key. These
were the most secretive of the many safety deposit boxes within the main branch
of the Empire Bank. They were reserved for the exclusive use of some of the
bank’s most elite clientèle, and few but those who held them even knew of their
existence. But someone clearly had, for each of the small doors hung open in
mocking defiance of all this careful preparation.

The masked man threw a quick look over his shoulder and
swung one of the doors open a little wider. There were three small shelves
within each little chamber, each lined with a soft material, as if the family
treasures of dozens of fine old families needed to be encased in the same sort
of comfort to which their masters were accustomed. Each of the shelves stood
empty, and a quick survey of the room revealed that every chamber was in the
same state. Someone had walked away with untold thousands – perhaps
millions – and had done so under the very noses of some of the city’s
best security, and before the sun was long down by the look of it.

He came at last to a door that bore a number that was
familiar to him. He raised an eyebrow above the edge of his mask as he slid the
thick steel door open wider. The chamber was as empty as the others. And with
that, the smile on the face of the Red Panda burst into a mocking grin, and
laughter escaped from his lips in spite of himself. The laughter might well
bring the guard, and the police behind him, but they would find no trace of
this second intruder. By the time they reached the vault he would have long ago
retreated into the darkness.

It was nine o’clock. Within a half an hour the streets of
Toronto would be full of barking newsies selling special editions, with banner
headlines blazing about the daring robbery at the Empire Bank. The perpetrator
of this crime might well believe themselves to be beyond the power of the law.
But he now faced a sterner justice. One that fought tirelessly and possessed
powers beyond which he could have ever known.

He now faced the justice of the Red Panda!

Two

Joshua Cain was not a pleasant man to look at. His face was
not actually ugly – indeed, it was well formed. But his dark eyes had a
habit of looking a person up and down with a cold stare, as if he were
appraising them. He would unexpectedly hold a gaze too long for comfort, as if
testing the resolve of each and every person that he met beyond any reasonable
need. Having done so, his eyes would then shift back and forth, impossible to
pin down, impossible to read the opinion he had just formed.

He was forty-five, with a body running slightly to seed.
Immaculately dressed as always, he lounged in a black leather chair behind a
mahogany desk. He looked comfortable to the point of indolence, but to even the
most casual observer, even one who had come to him for aid as so many did, he
gave the same emotive reaction as one of the more deadly serpents. Joshua Cain
was aware of this reaction, but he did nothing to try and change it. After all,
it was true.

Cain was known in circles of crime as a master fixer.
Whatever problems a person could create for themselves, Cain could make them go
away, for a price. Need a new face? Ask Cain. A rock-solid alibi? Ask Cain.
Need to break up a rally by your political rivals? Need a small army of
enforcers that can’t be traced to you? Want to buy a judge, a crown prosecutor
or still worse? Want to eliminate the competition once and for all? Cain
provided every service crime could imagine, except the actual execution of the
crime itself. Every member of the underworld knew him, and no one got close to
him. Everyone paid him, and everyone still owed him. He was untouchable.

He lived in a fine house, in a respectable neighborhood. His
neighbors may not have liked Cain, but they never would have guessed what he
did for a living. His record was clean, partly through his own efforts, partly
because even when his clients lost their battles with the law, they were too
afraid to implicate Cain in any way. He had the goods on every crook in the
city, big or small. To bring down Cain would invite a storm of reprisals that
no one could have survived.

For this reason, Cain was able to keep his household staff
discrete. He kept a manservant, whom few would have guessed was a lethal shot;
a driver, who was as skilled with a knife as any assassin; and a male secretary
who formed the nexus of Cain’s connections to the underworld and had untold
volumes of blood on his own hands from the days before Cain found him. The
staff was small but lethal, and in the end it didn’t matter. Cain knew himself
to be untouchable.

Which was why it was currently so difficult for him to keep
an inscrutable expression on his face as he sat in his black leather chair
behind his great mahogany desk. His driver lay crumpled on the floor by the
French doors into his study. His secretary sat in the corner and stared at the
gaslight that lit the room, seemingly entranced, horrified by whatever he saw.
And his manservant stood stock still, eyes straight ahead, unblinking. As if he
were a tuxedoed terracotta warrior made flesh.

“I suppose you think I ought to be impressed,” Cain said at
last.

“You ought to be,” hissed a voice from the shadows. “But I
am not certain that you have the brains for it.”

“All right,” Cain said, the serpent’s smile creeping back
onto his face. “You clearly have skills. I’m sure I can find uses for you.”

A tall form inched forward from the darkness. Cain could
just see the smile playing around his guest’s face. “Is that what you think
this was?” The intruder made no effort to conceal his amusement. “An audition?”

“Yes,” Cain deadpanned. “And you’re hired.”

“No, Mister Cain. You are.”

Cain arched an eyebrow in spite of himself. “I have a very
exclusive clientèle,” he said. “Talented you might be, but I doubt very much
you can afford me. And I don’t work for people that I don’t know.”

“Very well.” The voice from the darkness became less of a
sinister whisper and resolved itself into a clear, well-spoken tone, with just
a trace of an accent that defied analysis. The darkness that surrounded him
seemed to fade away, to fall back into the corners of the room where the
gaslight could not reach and shadows might be expected to live.

Cain shook his head a little, as if trying to convince his
eyes that they had to be mistaken. The tall, thin man who stood before him must
have stepped forward into the flickering light. He gauged the distance to his
visitor once again. The man had not moved. He glanced nervously at the gas lamp
mounted on the wall. If it was burning brighter than it had a moment ago, Cain
could not understand how, as neither he nor his catatonic secretary had touched
the controls.

“You seem nervous, Mister Cain,” the man said at last. “That
is not your reputation.” The man was narrow without being gaunt, with a
predatory set to his eyes and the impassive stare of a hawk. His attire was
simple, nothing that might attract attention, but unusual in its cut and
design. There was a look to him, perhaps it was just a manner, that seemed
foreign. Elements of his countenance seemed Asiatic, but Cain found it
impossible to pinpoint. Perhaps he was of mixed ancestry, but if so it was a
breed that Cain had never encountered. It was one more thing that made his
guest seem so unnerving. Joshua Cain had made his way in the world by being
able to break a man down with a glance. To tell just who he was, where he had
come from and what he was capable of doing. And now an enigma stood before him,
proud and inscrutable.

“Allow me to introduce myself,” he said. “My name is Ajay
Shah.”

Cain’s brows furrowed still deeper. “What kind of name is
that?”

Shah frowned. “It is mine own,” he said gravely. “And you
would do well to hold it in the greatest possible respect.”

“Or what?” Cain snapped, tiring of this posturing.

Shah said nothing, but merely extended his right hand to the
side, to the limit of his reach, where his fingertips brushed lightly against
the frozen form of Cain’s own manservant. The contact was slight, but it was
enough. The man began to fall forward, making no motion or attempt to save
himself from damage. He landed on the hardwood floor with an unhealthy sounding
smack.

Cain leaned forward in his black leather chair slightly. He
could see a small pool of crimson forming around his manservant’s head, as
though his nose had been badly broken in the fall. The man had not moved
– his arms stayed frozen at his sides, like a wooden Indian in a cigar
store.

Cain leaned back and locked on to Ajay Shah with his
serpent’s gaze. “It’s an interesting point,” he conceded. “Will you have a
drink with me, Mister Shah?”

“Perhaps,” a smile played about his guest’s thin, mustached
lips, “when I have given you reason not to poison me.”

“I am pleased to hear that such a reason is forthcoming.”
Cain opened a box of cigars on his desk and pulled one out under Shah’s
watchful gaze. He lit the cigar and puffed on it irritably as he gestured for
his guest to begin.

“You are, Mister Cain, a man who arranges things.”

“Is that a question?”

“It is not. You have many connections within the criminal
underworld, and you will please not insult my intelligence or waste my time by
bothering to deny it.”

“I’ll just sit here quietly then, shall I?” Cain sneered.

“That might be best,” Shah smiled graciously. “I am, what is
the expression, not from around here, as you say.”

“That’s one thing we say, yes.” Cain was feeling decidedly
like the second banana in this routine, and it was a role with which he had
little experience.

“I mean for a time to make this city my base of operations.
I have certain business to conduct, and find myself in need of… well,
everything
, frankly.”

“Everything?”

“Indeed. I have little patience for the games one plays when
blending in with one’s surroundings. I need an identity that I might use during
my stay. One which leaves me free to travel in certain rarefied circles, for
that is part and parcel of my mission. I have also need of a suitable residence
and clothes which might befit the man you will create for me.”

Cain blinked in amazement. “Anything else?” he stammered.

“I will need an able and adventurous crew which I feel
certain you will be able to provide through your underworld connections,” Ajay
Shah continued. “They must be well connected and versed in the operations of
illegal activities within your city, and yet unaffiliated with any possibly
competing interests. Including,” he smiled, “your own good self.”

“That’s quite a bill of goods, Mister Shah,” Cain snapped.
“Even if I could provide such a list of amenities, they would surely cost a
pretty penny.”

Shah smiled and turned to lift a large satchel which Cain
had not noticed before. He strode forward confidently, opened the satchel and
dumped its contents unceremoniously on the mahogany desktop as Cain looked on
in wonder.

Thousands of dollars in bills, rare coins of a dozen
countries, jewels and gemstones all rushed forth, until a torrent of rich
treasures and heirlooms from the finest of families all lay strewn before
Joshua Cain.

“Is that quite pretty enough?” smiled Ajay Shah.

“Where did you–,” Cain began.

“From the safety deposit vaults of your Empire Bank,” his
guest said, the smile frozen on his lips.

Cain was awestruck. “I heard about no such robbery.”

“It was rather less than two hours ago,” Shah said,
inclining his head slightly as if taking the bow he was due. “And I assure you,
Mister Cain, it is only the beginning.”

Joshua Cain blinked in wonder at the riches before him.

“Mister Shah,” he beamed, “I think we can do business.”

BOOK: Tales of the Red Panda: The Mind Master

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