The Pulptress (11 page)

“
What? Are you
crazy…”

Brother Bones squeezed the
trigger and shot Pete Malone between the eyes. The mob boss’s head
rocked back, surprise in his eyes as his brain was demolished by
the hot missile passing through it.

“
NOOOO!!” Arnold Malone
screamed, his hands reaching out to catch his falling
brother.

Cody flipped the shotgun to
her shoulder and fired. At the same time, Brother Bones aimed his
pistols to the ceiling and unleashed another volley aiming at the
steel chains overhead.

The shotgun blast ripped
through the Butcher and nitro. The explosion erupted as a singular
bright flare of white, sucking up all the noise in the area…then to
Cody’s utter shock, Bones was knocking her down just as the
suspended rowboat that had been dangling over their heads came
crashing down on them.

The bomb concussion slammed
into the hull, tearing it to shreds, while beneath it Bones was
huddled over the Pulptress. Then, within seconds of the blast there
was a loud whooshing noise and flames sprang up throughout the
building.

Brother Bones tossed aside
the overturned, demolished husk, and pulled Cody to her feet. They
were surrounded by a fiery inferno as cans of thinner and paint
went up like delayed bombs.

“
Stay behind me and keep
your mouth covered,” Bones advised and then took off at a run for
the front entrance. Cody hustled after him, the flames of the
rapidly expanding blaze reaching after her like living fingers from
hell.

Then they were both
bursting free, into the cool, saving embrace of the night air. Back
on the street, they continued to run until they had reached the
roadster where Blackjack Craddock was standing, his face a visage
of concern.

“
Holy shit, what happened in
there?” he asked, clearly relieved to have them back
safe.

“
A monster of unparalleled
cruelty became his own final victim.” Brother Bones put away his
automatics, watching the old building be consumed in the roaring
fire.

In the distance fire alarms
were sounding.

“
I think it’s time we left,”
he said looking at Cody. “Will you accompany us?”

“
No thanks, with Malone’s
death, my job here is done.”

“
Can we drop you off
somewhere?” Bobby Craddock offered, hoping to spend a few more
minutes with the sexy vigilante.

“
Thanks, but I’m in the mood
for a long walk.”

“
Suit yourself, Pulptress.”
Bones touched the tip of his slouch hat with a nod. “Till we meet
again. Come along, Craddock, my work here is done.”

The roadster was speeding
away ten seconds later leaving Cody Randall, one of the Pulptress’
many identities, behind, her shotgun resting across her shoulder.
As soon as they were out of sight, she turned and started strolling
towards the nearest alley. She didn’t want to be anywhere near the
place when the fire trucks arrived.

In the end, she’d failed to
get her man, but then again, justice had triumphed in the form of
the grim Brother Bones. Sometimes that had to be enough.

She whistled as she melted
into the night.

THE END

by Erwin K. Roberts

March 1999

From the private journal
of the Voice:

It had been a terrible
winter in my hometown. And, for some reason, I seemed to be up to
my ears in Arkies. A late February ice storm knocked out half of
the region's electricity. In fact, of all the places I own or
control, only one retained power. In the following two weeks crews
up from various Arkansas utilities restored power to three of my
places.

On the scandal/political
front Monica Lewinsky's book about her experiences with Arkansas
expatriate Bill Clinton hit the stands. Give me a break!

Plus I met an
extraordinary young lady from down at Gibsonville. And I innocently
let her see a private aspect of me. One that really made us
connect. But it turned out we have more in common than I could have
imagined.

***

Emily got out of the van
near the front entrance of the Popular Park Convention Center. The
thing dwarfed the combined facilities of the college auditorium,
formal live theater, and six-plex movie house in Gibsonville,
Arkansas. And the convention hotel across the landscaped plaza
stood three times higher than anything in her whole home county.
Well, except maybe the water tower. And Poplar Park only rated as a
medium sized suburb in this metropolitan area.

Emily sighed. She
understood the reasons she lived in a small town in rural Arkansas.
But being in a major urban area, even for just a silly gymnastics
competition, gave her a feeling of excitement. Looking left she
could barely see the regional beltway they'd just driven on to get
to Poplar Park. To her right lay an area of small businesses and
restaurants. Beyond that, a children's hospital.

The local people she could
see seemed to think the weather fine for this close to the equinox.
But Gibsonville lay going on two hundred miles further south than
Poplar Park. She shivered a bit, but did not zip up her jacket. The
plain windbreaker over her Gibsonville Gymnastics & Drill
sweatshirt would be a bit too much.

Her friend Laura's father,
who had driven the large rented van, shooed them through the doors
into the huge Convention Center rotunda. Once inside “rope”
barriers divided the place in two. Mr. Conner flashed a wad of
passes at a uniformed security guard to get them into the dance and
acrobatic competition side of things. The rest of the entryway
belonged to the Rod and Gun Show sharing the venue.

They made their way towards
the table clearly marked for checking in. Mr. Conner put himself in
the line of adults waiting. He told the girls, “Use the restrooms,
if you have to, otherwise stay in the roped off area. The other van
should be here any minute.”

As he spoke a giggling mob
of about thirty girls, with about five boys mixed in, headed
towards the entrance to the meet. Now Emily could finally see the
area around the table. The people at the table looked like any
other check in table. With paper and schedules everywhere, they had
the usual grimly determined to be happy look she always saw. Next
to the table she watched a man squat to place some papers in a
large gym bag. As he stood up she looked around. Yup, there was the
standard bulletin board with seemingly the same papers stapled to
it as any other. The only difference from most other meets being
that another security guard stood next to it.

Emily eased up beside the
security guard. She lifted up the first of a set of pages stapled
to the board and pretended to read. She spoke out of the corner of
her mouth.

“
Officer, do you see the
slender black man standing next to the Team Check In table? The one
wearing the tan sports jacket? I think he's carrying a gun in the
small of his back.”

The guard's eye's narrowed.
He quietly asked, “Did you actually see a weapon?”

“
No, sir. But when he bent
down to that gym bag I saw something outlined under his jacket's
tail. Sure looked like a pistol butt.”

“
Thanks, Miss. You stay put.
We'll get a look.” His hand moved three inches to the microphone
key on his belt. He spoke without leaning towards the device
clipped to his epaulette. “Sam Three from Sam Five. Possible weapon
near Check In table. African-American, about six-one, slender, tan
sports jacket.”

Emily slipped a small
mirror out of her butt-pack. She watched the scene unfold in the
reflection. The uniformed guard drifted in from the door. The
athletic young woman pushing attraction pamphlets walked away from
the display in the general direction of the Check In table. From
further inside the center walked a uniformed Poplar Park Officer
obviously wearing a protective vest.

Even before the Uniform
turned in his direction the man in the sports jacket realized
something was up. He actually smiled slightly. Very carefully, not
to mention slowly, he opened the jacket to reach into the inner
breast pocket. He removed something thin and rectangular. Then the
Uniform blocked Emily's view.

A moment later the guard's
radio crackled next to her. “Sam Five, that's Captain McTeal of
Northwest Patrol. His daughter's competing.”

Sam Five blew out his
breath before replying. “Understood, Sam Three. Thanks.” Then he
turned to Emily with a big grin. “Miss, you just dropped a dime on
the fellow who runs the toughest police precinct in the whole
region. But don't feel bad. That's exactly what he would have
wanted you to do. Thanks. Now go enjoy yourself.”

Emily smiled a bit. She had
analyzed the situation correctly. She'd done the right thing for
the situation. And, if she actually lived in this region, she would
have recognized Capt. McTeal herself. Now, windbreaker tucked under
her arm, she let herself drift towards the area with signs and
other information about upcoming events at the Poplar Park
Convention center.

The display cases on the
wall looked to have the same posters and flyers on each side of the
divided entryway. But just before the entrances of the two venues
the ropes split into a large triangle that filled the space between
the doors with their metal detector stations. And a man seemed to
be floating out of a hole in the wall about five feet above the
floor. The hole was a simulation of a hatch, but the man wore a
genuine NASA spacesuit. Surrounding the suited astronaut were
posters promoting a coming exhibit by the “L-5 Space Colonization
Society.”

Emily's eyes fell on a
handmade poster with a picture of the Space Shuttle. “If the
Discovery launches during our exhibit,” she read, “we'll watch it
live on a fifty foot screen!”

“
Wow!” exclaimed Emily
softly.

“
Wow, indeed,” chuckled a
man's voice from the other leg of the triangle. “That'd be the next
best thing to being on the ground near the Cape.”

Quickly Emily took stock
before she answered. Medium sized. Medium build. Shaggy brown hair.
Thirty something, maybe. A bit of a twinkle in his hazel eyes.
Wearing a medium dark blue suit. And too far away to potentially
grab her.

“
You've been at the Kennedy
Center for a Shuttle launch?”

“
Several,” he replied. Then
the twinkle disappeared and his voice caught as he added,
“Including the Challenger's last...”

“
Sorry,” replied Emily. “The
first one I can remember is long after that.”

“
That's alright. Keeping up
with spaceflight is about the only thing I can call a hobby. But on
a more cheerful note, that was a nice move you put on McTeel,
little lady. I about busted out laughing.”

“
You know Capt.
McTeel?”

“
Let's just say we're
acquainted. Good man. And his daughter, she goes by Daisy, is a
rising star in local gymnastics. Matter of fact, she's pretty close
to your size and build. Well, I've got to find a man about a
fishhook. Good luck, little lady.” And he turned and was
gone.

As the man disappeared
Emily's eyes opened a bit wider. For as he turned she briefly saw
part of the inside of his suit jacket. The fabric was a much darker
blue. Almost black. And it came clear down to the bottom of the
tail. There was no hint of a lining. Emily wondered if the garment
could be reversible.

A few moments later Emily
and her group entered the area formally hosting the Poplar Park
Regional Gymnastics Competition. Her team's small assigned area,
according to the official diagram, sat against the mobile wall
dividing the Competition from the Rod & Gun Show. Just one
problem. The west side of the mobile wall stopped moving twenty
feet from the east wall. The Center staff finished hanging a
fifteen foot tall sheet of transparent plastic across the gap as
the Gibsonville group moved into one section of the area. Emily
settled her gear and began her stretches to work out the kinks of
the long drive. She stood facing the plastic looking into the Rod
& Gun Show. And there, a few dealers’ tables away stood the
space buff, as she thought of him, in earnest conversation with a
man she instinctively didn't trust.

As she stretched and
strained the man finished his conversation. He crossed the aisle to
talk to a burly man with a lightning bolt tattooed on his arm. With
her head nearly touching the floor she saw her new acquaintance
slip what looked like folded money to the second man. He received
something small in return. And no sales receipt. Now the space buff
moved further away.

***

An hour later Emily
returned to the team area after completing the vaulting horse
round. She'd deliberately failed to “stick” her landing. But she
inwardly reveled at the distance she reached from the apparatus
while doing the showy twists and turns of the form her coach
assigned her. As she drank sparingly from her water bottle she
looked through the curtain for the space buff. Finally she spotted
him some distance up the aisle. Their eyes briefly locked and she
waved. He returned the wave before moving to another
booth.