Tales of the Red Panda: The Mind Master (10 page)

The air was crisp and cool, and whispered of the false
promises of spring. In the streets, men who had dressed with the recent warm
nights in mind hurried to their homes, their thin coats huddled around them,
their hands thrust deep into their pockets and their eyes on the ground. If any
of them had thought to look up, it is unlikely that they would have seen the
man on the roof of the six-story office building. He clung to the shadows and
stood stock-still, watching the street below and waiting like a statue.

It is entirely possible that a passerby, were they oblivious
to the cold and staring dreamily at the moon, might have noticed the sudden
appearance of a dark shape darting across the glowing lunar light high above
the same six-story office building. But had they noticed such a thing as a
lithe but very female shape in the midnight sky, they would have put it down to
wine, imagination or other follies of springtime.

Ten seconds later, after a quick firing of her Static Shoes,
the Flying Squirrel landed noiselessly on the rooftop. She settled into a
crouch atop the small shed that housed the counterweights for the building’s
elevators and froze instantly. She could just discern the shape of the Red
Panda’s back as he watched the dead-end street below, and only because she knew
what she was looking for.

She waited a full minute, until she was certain that he had
not heard her, and then promptly rejected the thought.

“Of course he knows I’m here,” she thought, cupping her face
in her hands as she watched him. “He’s just waiting for me to blink first.”

Thirty more seconds passed.

“Geez he’s stubborn,” she thought.

Another minute passed.

“Have I ever told you that you’re a very stubborn girl?” he
asked at last.

“I had a good teacher,” she said, forgetting her annoyance
at having jumped slightly when he finally spoke. She leapt down and sauntered
over in his direction.

“You stood me up,” she teased.

“I did nothing of the kind,” he protested seriously, though
still distracted. “I thought that you were on patrol.”

“And I thought that you were going to come find me when
you’d met with Sampson?” she needled. “I was all set to make you chase me an’
everything.”

He chewed the inside of his lip to keep from smiling. “Kit
Baxter, behave yourself,” he scolded, not meaning it.

“Yes, Boss,” she promised, not meaning it either. “Just out
of curiosity, how were you plannin’ on finding me?”

“I thought I might listen for the sound of purse snatchers
sobbing in terror,” he smiled, in spite of himself.

“No dice tonight,” she grinned. “The bad guys all forgot
their winter coats and went home early. It’s duller than dishwater out there.”

“Well, it’s riveting up here,” he deadpanned. “Pull up a
stool.”

She stood beside him and peered at the shabby entrance on
the street below. The sign above the door read
Private Club – Members Only
, but both masked fighters knew
that membership was wide open for the city’s small-time underworld players, and
that the only undesirables whom the management would refuse to admit would be
agents of the law.

“No Sampson yet?” she said, sounding only slightly worried.

“No sign,” he said calmly.

Gregor Sampson was known within their network as Agent
Thirty-Three, a deep cover agent who had assumed the identity of a deceased
con-man named Miles Grant in order to provide them information within the
city’s rackets and gangs. He was brave, fiercely loyal and generally as
punctual as a man living a carefully staged lie could possibly be.

“Think something’s up?” she said, noticing that she could
now see wisps of vapor when she breathed.

“Possibly. Mother Hen’s message said that Sampson was to
meet an informant who promised a lead on who was fencing several unique items
from the Empire Bank job. He wanted to meet us right after.”

“If he wanted to risk his cover with a face-to-face, he
must’ve thought this was something big,” Kit said excitedly.

“I should say so,” the Red Panda said gravely. “And yet here
we stand.”

“Who was he meeting?”

“Larry Beckett.”

“Larry Beckett? He’s pretty small time.”

The masked man nodded. “What is it they say about little
fish?”

She pursed her lips in thought. “They tend to get eaten by
big fish?”

The knit of his brows told her this was not quite the
response he was hoping for, but he seemed to be giving it more thought than
she’d intended. Though he had yet to move his eyes from the doorway below.

She sighed. “For this, you leave a girl alone in the cold.”

At last he turned his head towards her and touched the side
of his face, activating the special lenses in his mask. Looking at his partner
in the infrared spectrum, he could clearly see by her thermal signature that
she had worn her winter-weave suit, which was temperature regulated up to
thirty degrees below freezing. He was just about to mention this when she cut
in.

“Are you undressing me with them fancy eyes of yours again?”
she said without looking back or cracking a smile.

He made several sounds of flustered outrage and turned back
to face the street, his face turning the colour of his mask as he did so.

Kit grinned. She didn’t get the better of him often and had
no intention of letting up. “I didn’t say you had to
stop
,” she said quietly.

“Kit Baxter–” He was turning back to her to give her a
proper scolding that neither one of them would have believed at all, when
movement from below caught his eye. Several men pushed the front door open and
headed in separate directions. Two headed back towards the main drag of Yonge
Street, the third cut left and across the alleyway.

On the rooftop above, all was suddenly dead serious. “Tell
me that isn’t who I think it is,” the Red Panda said, knowing what the answer
would be.

“That’s Larry Beckett all right,” the Flying Squirrel
growled. “Looks like he’s in his cups. He’s leavin’ more than an hour late, and
with no sign of Gregor anywhere.”

“Follow those two,” the Red Panda pointed. “See where they
go, just in case.”

“Right, Boss,” she said, and she was gone.

The Red Panda fired his Grapple Gun into the darkness above
the alleyway. Larry Beckett’s evening was about to become much less festive.

A garbage can rattled and rolled down the dark of the alley.
From somewhere high above a light was turned on in response to the racket, but
no voice was raised. Larry Beckett smiled as he stepped gingerly through the
darkness, weaving erratically as he did so. He carried on in this manner for
another dozen yards, during which he suffered another three collisions with
small inanimate objects. Beckett came to rest with one hand against a brick
wall. His head was spinning and he was sweating more profusely than the cool,
damp evening would seem to dictate, but he smiled for all that. Nothing was
going to spoil his fun.

Things hadn’t been this easy for Larry Beckett in a long
time. He was a small-time grifter and occasional underworld operative when the
mood struck him, which wasn’t very often. Like so many others, Beckett had got
into crime because it seemed simpler and easier than working for a living, and
if there was one thing that Larry Beckett despised, it was anything that
smacked of work.

These days, though, the field was crowded, and there were
just as many dishonest as honest men left without a chance to ply their trades.
Small-time hoods were in every dive, hanging around, hoping to catch on with
one of the city’s remaining gangs. There had been a time when a man like
Beckett could attach himself to an outfit and hang on for the ride. These days,
even the hangers-on needed ambition, and ambition had always been the one thing
Larry Beckett was most singularly lacking.

But today had been a good day, and he had cash in his
pockets and a belly full of liquor to prove it. So what if he’d had to sell out
that chump Grant to get it? If he was any judge of horseflesh, Miles Grant
would have turned the same favor for him given half the chance, or so Beckett
told himself as he lurched forward deeper into the alley.

He jumped for a moment as something scurried across his
path. His heart was still pounding a moment later as he chuckled at himself. If
he was going to jump at rats, he really shouldn’t have cut through this alley.
But he knew he wouldn’t be able to stay on his feet much longer, and he just
wanted to get home. It had been a long time since Beckett had enough money in
his pockets to drink his fill, and he was clearly out of practice.

He staggered forward and cursed a little under his breath.
This was taking too long. He tried to force his feet to move faster, but ended
up tripping over his own heels and sprawling forward into the darkness. He
cursed again, and felt the stinging of the gravel cutting into his hands and
chin. He pulled himself to his hands and knees and suddenly froze as a
paralyzing chill ran up his spine.

He heard nothing. He saw nothing. But somehow, through his
drunken stupor, Larry Beckett felt a presence behind him in the darkness. Still
on all fours he whipped around, falling backwards as he did so. The sight that
met his eyes so far exceeded his worst fears that Larry Beckett could only
sputter and gasp. Looming above him was a tall, solid mass of man in a long
coat, his silhouette just silvered by the light from far above. It was him; it
could only be him. Beckett felt the warmth of the liquor wash away as he gaped
up, his eyes adjusting to make out the line of the domino mask that hid the
man’s face, and the barest of illumination that came from the mask’s horrible
blank eyes.

“You–!” was all he had time to gasp before his jaw was
met with a crushing blow from a red-gauntleted right hand. Beckett sprawled
backwards, his ears ringing, scrambling to find his feet, to get away. It
didn’t make sense. Why would he–?

Beckett’s thoughts were cut short as a booted foot thrust
upwards into his midsection, lifting him off of his hands and knees and sending
him gasping into the gutters again.

The gloved hands lifted Beckett up effortlessly and threw
him against the wall. His head cracked back against the brick, jarring his
teeth together. Beckett could taste the blood in his mouth, and the bitter
sting of the adrenaline flowing through him. Again the fist roared forth and
knocked the wind out of Beckett with a driving shot to the stomach.

“Stop…,” Beckett sobbed.

The crimson gloves seized him by the shoulders and threw him
back against the wall three times. Beckett was in a panic.

“Stop… please…,” he cried. “I’ll tell you anything you wanna
know!”

“I know you will,” the Red Panda growled, barely above a
whisper. Larry Beckett felt his knees turn to water. The things this mystery
man had already done to him were nothing compared to what that voice promised
he would do, if provoked. Beckett sputtered a little and waved protectively
towards the Red Panda’s clenched fist.

“You don’t need to do that…,” he begged.

“Oh, but I do,” the hero said with a hard smile. “It’s
sobered you up a little, hasn’t it? And made you want to talk, hasn’t it?”

Larry Beckett could only nod.

“Good,” the big man said. “That will make this a little
easier.”

“Make w-what easier?” Beckett asked, trembling.

“This,” the Red Panda said in a soft voice that seemed to
echo in Beckett’s ears like a far-off peal of thunder.

Beckett felt his thoughts clouding, felt his fear slipping
away almost into nothingness. “My mind is in yours,” he heard, and then nothing
more.

Four minutes later, Larry Beckett rose to his feet and began
to march like an automaton towards his apartment. At that moment, with the
softest of sounds, an athletic shape in grey fell from the sky and landed
beside the Red Panda.

“You’re lettin’ him go?” she said, not trying to conceal her
disappointment.

“No choice,” he said gravely. “Whoever took Gregor may be
watching Beckett. Who were his playmates?”

“Jinx Morton and that real ugly kid with the toothpick.”

“Kennedy?” he asked.

“That’s the one,” she nodded. “I don’t think this braintrust
is in on anything. They were pretty plastered.”

“I’m not surprised,” the Red Panda grinned. “Someone paid
Beckett five thousand dollars to sell out the man he knows as Miles Grant. They
ran through almost three hundred of that tonight.”

“And you know that so precisely because…”

He flipped her a roll of bills that amounted to just over
four thousand, seven hundred dollars. Even in the darkness she caught it
effortlessly.

“A little something for the poor box,” he said. “I didn’t
leave Beckett for the rats, but I wasn’t going to leave him
that
either. In any case, he won’t
remember a thing.”

“You’re a big softy,” she scolded. “Did we learn what
happened to Gregor Sampson?”

He raised an eyebrow. “In fact, we did. Come on.”

When Gregor Sampson opened his eyes, he immediately wished
that he hadn’t. It was a sensation that an agent of the Red Panda could expect
to experience more than once, but Sampson never did get used to it. His head
throbbed like it was on fire and his right eye was almost swollen shut, but he
could make out three man-sized shapes, lurking just beyond the pool of light.

His arms were pinned behind him and half-asleep from the
strain. Sampson knew at once that they were handcuffed to the hard wooden chair
he was slumped forward in. He tried to peer around as best he could, but the
only light in the room was from a single bulb burning high over his head. There
was a strange, acrid smell hanging in the air – full of must, but stale
and almost lost to sense. Were Sampson a less experienced investigator, or were
he not struggling to analyze every minute detail for some advantage, he might
never have noticed it.

One of the men stepped forward into the light. His footsteps
echoed against the hard cement floor, as if the room were much bigger than it
looked – a warehouse maybe. The man was perhaps forty, with a wiry build
and a cold smile frozen upon his thin lips. His suit and hat suggested one who
was well-placed, but not himself well-off. He stopped four paces away from
Sampson and placed his hands upon his hips as if exceedingly pleased with
himself.

“Hello, Mister Grant. Remember us?” he said with a leer.

“How could I forget?” Sampson snarled in return. “What do
you ladies want?”

The wiry man scowled momentarily. “There is no need for that,
Mister Grant. I think you will find that this will be easier if you do not make
me angry. Or if not easier, at least quicker, for which you will be very
grateful.”

“Swell,” Gregor spat. “Remind me to get you a nice fruit
basket.”

The two other shapes in the darkness shifted uncomfortably.
Evidently this was not how they had expected things to play out, though for the
moment, Sampson was at a loss as to how this helped him.

The thin man pushed his hat back on his head and began
again. “Mister Grant, I represent a man of considerable influence–”

“–named Joshua Cain,” Sampson snapped. There was a
moment’s silence before he spoke again. “I’m sorry, did I break your
concentration?”

“What do you know about Mister Cain?” one of the men in the
shadows growled. The wiry man’s head spun around in anger. Evidently, he
fancied himself in charge. Sampson smiled.

“You boys don’t really think you’re incognito, do you? I
make it my business to know things. Your boss carries a lot of water in this
town – you think I don’t recognize his personal staff when they jump me
and roll me into the back of a truck?” Sampson was beginning to enjoy himself
now, which was usually a sign of worse things still to come. “The secretary,
the driver and… what, the candlestick maker?”

“Manservant,” a nasal voice corrected from the shadows.

“Shut up!” the wiry secretary hissed, and turned back to
Sampson. “You, my friend, just made a serious mistake.”

“One of many, I’m sure. But whatever I’ve done to disturb
Joshua Cain’s peace, it can’t be worth a murder rap over.”

The thin-lipped smile spread still wider. “He begs to
differ,” the wiry man said with a wave of his hand towards the shadows.

A big man stepped forward. It was the owner of the nasal
voice, the manservant in all likelihood. Sampson could see the cause of that
nasal tone now – the man’s nose had been broken, and recently by the look
of him. But Sampson’s smile at this quickly faded when he saw what the big man
was carrying. It was a jerry-can, a large one, and full to the top to judge by
its apparent weight. Cain’s manservant put the can down and set himself to the
task of opening the spout. The secretary began to talk again, and Sampson tried
to force himself to focus on the words.

“You see, Grant,” he began, “Mister Cain is a man most
meticulous in his business dealings. He favors a quiet approach, nothing
flashy. His reputation is for discretion, and it is this reputation that keeps
the work coming in. Do you follow me?”

He paused for a moment and looked at Sampson, who glared
daggers back at him. With a small shrug he continued. “If there is one thing
Mister Cain does not like, it is people prying about in his business.
Especially small time grifters and con men like Miles Grant.”

Sampson tried hard not to look at the jerry-can, or notice
the smell of the gasoline vapors that were reaching him now. “That’s the
trouble with reputations,” he said. “They have a way of preceding you.”

The thin man smiled indulgently. “You aren’t impressive
enough to scare Mister Cain. If it was just the fenced goodies from the Empire
Bank you were sniffing after, you’d have made out all right. But when you
started pushing other buttons, it was time to pay you a visit.”

Sampson struggled hard to keep his mind on the conversation.
Not to think about how much the acrid, musty smell made sense now… it was the
smell of past fires. Fires in which more was burned than wood and gasoline. He
licked his lips and said nothing.

“Thing is,” the thin man continued, “Miles Grant isn’t big
enough to be on both trails at once. Besides, why should he be? There’s no
profit in it. So I did some checking, and then I did a little more. And guess
what I learned?”

“I can’t imagine,” Sampson deadpanned, his mouth bone-dry.

“You aren’t Miles Grant.” The thin lips smiled again.

There was a pause. “You’re crazy!” Sampson sputtered at
last.

“Oh, you were Grant last week,” the secretary continued.
“You were even Grant last year. But you keep going back and… it ain’t you. Not
if you know where to look, and just how to put the question.” The thin lips
pressed into something like a smile. “And that’s the sort of thing that makes
Mister Cain real curious. And when he asks a question, I like to have the
answer at the ready for him.”

“Well, aren’t you precious?” Sampson said, barely above a
whisper.

“So here’s what we’re going to do,” the thin man said,
flipping a brass cigarette lighter open with a smooth, one-handed motion and
passing the flame slowly, just inches from Sampson’s face. “We’re gonna burn
you. Not all at once, you understand – a bit at a time. Then we’ll put
you out and start again. It sounds so simple, but in a few short minutes you’ll
be spilling all we ever wanted to know and more. And begging for a bullet in
the brain.” His lips parted to reveal a broad grin of stained teeth. The thin
man stared into Sampson’s eyes, watching for any sign of fear. He saw none, and
was glad of it. He was a man who enjoyed his work, and hated to see it over too
quickly.

He snapped his fingers and the big man with the jerry-can
advanced. Gregor Sampson felt his body stiffen involuntarily. There was no
doubt in his mind that his captors were quite sincere in their intent. He tried
to brace himself, to hold out as long as he could. He wondered if, in the end,
he would be the first to defy them to the last breath, and just what Joshua
Cain would have to say about that. When a man counts his lifespan in minutes,
his goals are simple and small.

Gregor Sampson set his jaw hard. He could smell the wiry
man’s foul breath beside his right shoulder. Across the room to his left, near
the edges of the shadows, Cain’s driver stood stock-still and silent. Sampson
tried not to look at the large man with the broken nose as he closed in. Ten
feet away. Now six.

In that instant there was suddenly a soft sound that Sampson’s
ears knew only too well. From behind him and high above there came a rustling
sound not unlike the wind in a sail. He knew it for the sound of a long coat
whistling in the wind, and it was music to his ears. The wiry man at his
shoulder stiffened for an instant, but the big man didn’t seem to have heard
anything at all. It made him all the more surprised when the Red Panda dropped
from his grapple rope and, as he fell, thrust his right boot sharply into the
manservant’s injured nose.

There was a cry like a wounded animal as blood splattered
from underneath the bandage on the man’s nose. He fell backwards,
half-conscious at best, dousing himself in gasoline as he fell. The can
clattered on the ground and rolled back into a stack of crates just beyond the
pool of light.

The injured man’s cohorts were stunned for a moment. The Red
Panda rose slowly from the crouch he had landed in, his long coat flowing
around him as he seemed to melt up from the long shadows. Both men drew their
guns as the masked man held his ground between them.

Sampson did his best not to whoop for joy as he heard a
whistle overhead. There was a crash and a rattle as a combat boomerang, thrown
from the shadows, shattered the overhead light, plunging the room into
darkness. In that instant both remaining gangsters fired, illuminating the room
with a half dozen lightening-like flashes as they fired for the spot where they
had last seen the man in the mask.

There was a cry, and a dull thud, and then only silence.
Sampson could hear his own heart pounding in his ears, and feel the hot,
stinking breath of the man to his right. At last, the wiry man could stand no
more.

“Dan?” he cried in a hoarse whisper laced with terror. “Did
we get him?”

There was only silence.

The wiry man took a half dozen steps, slowly, into the
darkness.

“Dan?” he asked again.

A moment later, a quivering hand held forth a small flame
from a brass cigarette lighter. “Dan?” he asked again. He could see almost
nothing by the light of the flame, but he saw the prone form of Cain’s driver,
lying not far from where the man with the jerry-can had fallen, and he did not
have to wonder at what had happened. In their rush to gun down the mystery men
standing between them, they had both fired wildly in the dark, and it was a
miracle that either was still alive to tell the tale.

From somewhere high above there came a laugh that rang in
the air like a battle-cry. The Red Panda was still out there, waiting for him.
It was less than a second later that he remembered that things were much worse
than he had thought.

He did not hear the Flying Squirrel land. He had no idea
where she had come from. But in the instant that he first became aware of her
presence, she had already grabbed his gun arm and broken it at the elbow as if
it were a dry twig.

The wiry man screamed in agony and in the second that
followed, the darkness was suddenly dispelled by a wall of bright orange flame
behind him. The brass lighter, dropped at the moment he was attacked, had found
the spreading pool of gasoline.

The man turned to the flames just long enough to see that
the prone forms of both of his companions were burning, consumed just as they
had destroyed so many others, though with the undeserved mercy of
unconsciousness. He turned back to face his attacker alone, unarmed and
crippled. He clutched his shattered arm with his left and stared wildly. He saw
the Flying Squirrel waiting for him to make a move, the spreading flames
reflected in her goggles and a cruel smile playing about her lips. He turned
and bolted as fast as he could in the opposite direction. No matter that the
door was the other way, that the flames had spread from crate to crate, had
found the rafters and were spreading through the tinderbox of a building with a
roar like thunder. Running was the only thought that occupied his being.

Chasing him down was the only thought in the masked girl’s
mind until the shout of the Red Panda brought her back.

“We need him! He’s the last one left!” she protested as she
turned.

“He’s a dead man,” the Red Panda shouted back above the
growing din of the flames. “We have to get Sampson out of here.”

She looked down at their agent as the Red Panda released the
handcuffs that bound him to the chair. She could see blood spreading across
Sampson’s chest, his head slumped down, unseeing.

“What happened?” she shouted.

“He must’ve been clipped when they were shooting at me. Come
on, this place isn’t going to stand much longer.”

The Flying Squirrel took one last look over her shoulder
towards the man who had fled deeper into the inferno, then pressed her shoulder
under one of Sampson’s limp arms as they made their escape.

As the sirens of the police and fire trucks rang through the
night, they just obscured the sound of a powerful engine streaking away into
the darkness.