Used to Be: The Kid Rapscallion Story (18 page)

“Good morning. This will be a brief statement and I will not take questions. The District Attorney’s office has reached an agreement with the hero known as Rapscallion, in conjunction with Captain Trisha Foggen and Homeland Security in light of the murder of the villain Domina Tricks in Las Vegas three nights ago. The details of that event helped to provide context for Rapscallion’s actions and focus the desire of my office, Homeland Security, and Rapscallion, to reach a settlement.
The specifics of this deal will remain sealed, but I can make several general comments. One, while not admitting to any wrongdoing, Rapscallion has agreed to cease being a vigilante. Two, he will remain in custody in the Stockade for a period of not less than one year. Three, upon release, he will not be allowed to have any unsupervised contact with children under the age of 15. While the state of California does not consider Rapscallion a threat to children, both myself and Rapscallion agree that the allure of a superhero, even post-9/11, is potentially too great for children to make a rational decision. Further, I pledge to take steps in the coming days to add an amendment to the Vigilante Act to make it illegal for children under the age of 18 to practice any sort of vigilantism. Four, and this is most important for the public to understand, my office would not have signed off on this agreement without the full support of Kid Rapscallion and Indigo Impster, the two victims of Rapscallion’s decision to gain a sidekick. That is all. Thank you. No questions.”

32

It is almost Christmas, and Jason and Melody have moved into a new house together in the suburbs of Las Vegas. Melody has decided to retire from the villain business and wishes Jason to retire, as well, but he refuses.

“Being a superhero is what I am,” he insists, “not just what I do.”

Melody doesn’t argue. She is glad that Jason has managed to buy her services from the 20-Sided Dice and have that aspect of her life closed off. She does not completely understand everything that happened with the end of the Rapscallion case or what really went down between him and Domina, but she is glad he is here, with her, and that they are going forward.

33

“You’re Nancy Cathall, aren’t you?” a man says as he descends from the sky to land in the parking lot of Channel 10.

“I am,” she says, feeling her pulse quicken. “You’re Jersey 121, aren’t you? What are you doing in Vegas?

“I’m looking for a man,” the handsome, young hero says. His hair, eyes, and costume both seem impossibly black, and Nancy can’t help but feel as if his presence is stealing the air from around her. He is handsome, yes, but it’s more than that, somehow. “I was hoping you could help me find him,” he says.

“Sure,” Nancy replies, hoping she can. “What’s his name?”

“Joey Vamps.”

34

“You’re a hard man to get a meeting with, Number One,” Joey Vamps says, stepping into a dark game room inside a mansion just north of Vegas.

The leader of 20-Sided Dice comes out from behind a bar with a drink in his hand and offers it to the ex-mafia hit man and current villain for hire. “It is a Missouri Mule,” he says. “I have heard it is your favorite.”

“It is,” Joey Vamps says, taking a sip and placing it on a coffee table before sitting on a white sofa opposite Number One. “The drink was invented for Harry Truman, the prick.”

The two men eye each other. Number One wears a smart, gray business suit and a black mask with the number 1 on it, while Joey Vamps appears to be in his mid-40s, with a rough, black business suit that looks like it stepped out of a picture from Al Capone’s era.

Which, in a manner of speaking, it had, because that was the era in which this mob hit man had been turned into a vampire.

“What can I help you with?” Number One asks.

“9/11,” Vamps says.

“Ah,” Number One smiles beneath his mask. “Yes, you were on board one of the planes that was highjacked by the terrorists. It is a surprise to see you here.”

“Well, I’m a focking vampire, dig? We grow back,” Joey says, yanking on his tie knot. “But what I want to know is why you put a hit out on me. Don’t you focking deny it. I know that you —”

“Mr. Vamps!” Number One laughs. “Is that what this is about? Heavens, no. I want to hire you to do a job for me.”

“Yeah? What kind of job, Number One? I don’t come cheap.”

“I will pay you one million dollars.”

“For what?”

“I want you to kill Kid Rapscallion,” he says. “And stop calling me Number One. I have another name you will know me under.”

“Yeah?”

“I am the new Penthouse Man.”

9/11

1

Jason Kitmore sits against the wall in Vincent Vogelsung’s igloo inside the Stockade, his mind racing as he shakes from the realization of what has happened. There is something wrong with him, he realizes, something deeply wrong with him. When Belle suggested he see a therapist, someone like Psychic Navigator, perhaps, Jason agreed with her.

“See, Kid,” Vincent says from inside his glass cube, “the problem with you is that you don’t understand the game. Becca never understood it, either. This dame who was killed in your apartment, Duplication Girl? How long do you think the press is going to keep that story under wraps? Let me tell you something about the press — they’re parasites, the lot of them. They wouldn’t have stories without us, but they’ll jam a knife in your back at the drop of a hat. Look at me, Kid. Come on, look at me. My niece likes you, so I’m gonna do you a favor. I’m going to show you how to control the game so the press can’t touch you. Not even for something like this.”

“How?”

“You’re gonna be me, Kid,” Vincent smiles. “You’re gonna be the new Penthouse Man.”

2015

1

“You’re fucking Joey Vamps?” Jason asks, almost too stunned to give voice to the question. “The guy who almost killed me?”

“Who’s fault was that?” Nancy shoots back, knocking her seat over as she rises to her feet.

“Quiet,” Mr. Monster grumbles. “Explain.”

Jason and Nancy look at each other, their eyes sending all of their history back at one another in a gaze too intense to last. To Nancy it has never been more clear how one-sided their relationship has been. For her, it’s always been about him, while he’s had more meaningful relationships with 2, 3, 4, who knows how many more women? Jason turns away from her as Nancy picks up her chair and sits back down at the table.

“It was 2002,” she explains. “Jason was … going through things.”

“That was the year Rapscallion went on trial,” Jason says, sitting on the edge of the unmade bed.

“Heavy stuff,” Mr. Monster acknowledges, then waits for one of them to continue.

“Between the murder of Duplication Girl,” Jason says, “my cocaine add-I mean, use … oh fuck it, my cocaine addiction, the charges against Francis, everything I went through with Fake Out, murdering Domina … I don’t know. I was looking for answers, I guess, and there was Vincent Vogelsung ready to give them to me. I was still a rebellious little shit, so even though the Revolutionaries were giving me support — mental therapy with Psychic Navigator to help me undo and understand what had happened to me as a kid—”

“What happened to you as a kid?” Mr. Monster asks.

“Bad stuff,” Nancy says, stepping in to answer for Jason. “But no, not with Francis,” she adds, quickly and defensively.

“—and they brought in the Big Brains to first help create a new drug to produce the same positive effects of cocaine without the addictive qualities, and then went to work on a new drug to replace the Peak drug that produced effects that needed the cocaine to help me level off …” He shakes his head, lost in a memory. “I dunno. I guess there was a part of me that still objected to the idea of anyone telling me what to do. Those early therapy sessions … I just endured them instead of getting anything from them. The Vigilante Act allowed Foggen to keep me in the Stockade as long as she wanted, without being charged or without any representation, but it was post-9/11, yeah? In the old days, all of this stuff would have been taken care of in-house, but right after 9/11, with the public all over us and the Congress hammering us every single day … Foggen was worried about what the public would think if it got out I murdered Domina.”

“Did you?” Mr. Monster asks. “I heard she was suicidal and ‘persuaded’ you with the Influence Net.”

“Please,” Jason says, shaking his head. “I murdered her. She told me to fuck her and I did, but she didn’t say anything about not murdering her.”

“Jesus. They say you cut her head off with—”

Jason nods. “I did. Had to make sure.”

“That’s cold,” Mr. Monster says, shaking his head.

“Anyway,” Jason says, shuddering at what that moment felt like, to take the saw and eviscerate Domina’s neck, “I was feeling the pinch. I was entering the third year of my deal with Vegas and they weren’t giving me any indication that I was going to be retained. I needed some villains to be able to defeat to make myself look better. Fuck’s sake, do you remember Prospector Patty? I fought her like ten times in three months. What kind of ratings did those encounters bring in?” he asks Nancy, who only frowns.

Mr. Monster rubs his eyes. “Look, I don’t even remember the second Penthouse Man being a thing. How serious is this Joey Vamps’ situation?”

“It’s serious,” Nancy says.

“I took over 20SD from the actual Number One and turned it into a dummy organization, with the intent of revealing the new Penthouse Man as the city’s newest evil … look, it was a bad plan, but I thought if I set up a bad guy I could get way more info about what the bad guy’s were doing. I mean, if you look back on it, all the things 20SD did were hitting bad guys and—”

“Just stop,” Mr. Monster says, holding up his hands. “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”

“Well, I was a coke addict, remember?”

“Get to Joey Vamps.”

“Jason hired Joey to kill Kid Rapscallion, with the idea that Kid would then capture Joey.”

“Just to improve your rep?” Mr. Monster asks.

“Well, that, and because Joey Vamps was a legit dangerous guy we needed off the street,” Jason explains.

“Jason …”

Jason shakes his head and rubs his hands across his face. “Also, he was sitting on $35 million worth of cocaine that he’d hidden in somewhere in the
Blood Zone
.”

Mr. Monster shakes his head. “Therapy was really working, huh?”

Nancy slams her hand on the table. “He didn’t take any of it,” she insists. “He captured Joey Vamps and turned him in, and then turned all the coke over to … over to …” Nancy blinks and looks to the ashamed former hero. “You sonuvabitch! You never gave it to Foggen, did you?”

“I gave her the coordinates,” he says weakly.

“So Joey Vamps is back to get his stash?” Mr. Monster asks.

“Yes,” Nancy says.

“And you’re fucking him?” Jason asks.

“No,” Nancy says. “It wasn’t Joey who was here, Jason. It was another vampire who has aligned with him.”

“Who?” he asks, rising to his feet. “I never really fought any vampires.”

“That’s because you don't know that Domina Tricks is a vampire,” Nancy says in a quiet voice. “But she is, and she’s back.”

2003

1

These are the least enjoyable days of Jason Kitmore’s life.

He is living in the suburbs, dating Melody, worrying about getting his contract with the city of Las Vegas extended, seeing Psychic Navigator for therapy to deal with the issues of his youth, and being a guinea pig for the Big Brains’ attempt to come up with a new set of drugs that will keep his abilities high and his euphoria low.

There are few super villains out and about as the teeth of the Vigilante Act becomes stronger and grows longer.

He buys Melody a new BMW E46, and she retires from life in 20-Sided Dice after he negotiates a buyout with the Penthouse Man.

“Was it tough?” Melody asks, unaware that Kid Rapscallion and Penthouse Man are the same person.

“It was a tough negotiation,” he says, “but we came to an understanding.”

The “understanding” involves the large estate he’s bought to run the Penthouse Man’s operations, Nancy, and falling off the cocaine wagon. He spends lots of times “on patrol,” which is his way of saying, “with Nancy at the new mansion I bought.”

He is there, with her, now.

“Jason …” Nancy starts to say as he pushes her head into his lap, giving her something else to do with her mouth. In the time they’ve been together, which amounts to under three years, he has put his dick into Nancy’s mouth more times than he could possibly recall, yet this is the first time he realizes the depths of his treatment of her.

He thinks it has something to do with how long it’s been since they’ve been together, because for all the progress he’s made with Psychic Navigator, he still clings to old, bad habits.

Nancy, he thinks, relaxing his grip on her head, is a manifestation of that, and what he’s doing to her right now — even though she is here on her own free will and bobbing up and down on him of her own free will — is not acceptable behavior.

He does not tell her to stop.

2

“It’s been awhile,” Nancy says when they are done.

“Yeah,” he says, frowning, forcing his head deeper into the bed pillow. He squeezes the bottom of his nose and sniffs, trying to get more cocaine into him. “That’s the first time I’ve cheated on Melody.”

“What are you doing?” she asks. “This whole Penthouse Man thing you’re doing … all you’ve done, in essence, is stop being Rapscallion’s sidekick and start being Vogelsung’s. What’s wrong? What’s going on in your head? We haven’t slept together since before 9/11, and you haven’t done anything but the synthetic coke the Big Brains have been giving you. So … why now? Why tonight?”

“In the morning,” he says, rolling over and pulling the covers up to his shoulders, “you can interview me.”

“Interview you?” Nancy asks. “About what?”

“Turn on the news,” he says. “But do it in the fucking living room.”

3

Nancy throws on one of Jason’s dress shirts as she moves into the living room. It’s a stupid thing to do, she knows, tempting her back down the path of being in love with him. She’s dated a few guys over the last year, and hooked up with Andres a few times, but there has not been anyone serious.

And whether she wants to admit it or not — now, she will, but later she’ll try to deny it — it’s because she’s still holding out the hope that Jason will somehow become a better man than he has ever been and think about her in ways he has never done.

Perhaps, she thinks, she is feeling what all objects feel.

She flops onto the sofa and wonders idly about how Jason afforded this place.

She turns on the television and sees Kira Erdrich staring back at her from outside of a large estate near San Francisco. For just a moment — the moment between her eyes seeing the graphic at the bottom of the screen and her brain processing those words — she thinks Kira looks good. Not that it matters, Nancy thinks. Kira’s threat of destroying her and Jason’s lives fell dead after Foggen cut a deal with the DA’s office.

And then her brain processes these words sitting beneath Kira on the TV:

RAPSCALLION COMMITS SUICIDE

Disgraced Hero Found by Former Sidekick

4

“Thank you, Melanie. Tragic events tonight, as I am standing outside of the San Francisco estate of billionaire venture capitalist Francis Flack, who I can confirm has spent the last 22 years as the costumed vigilante, Rapscallion. While the District Attorney of California forced Rapscallion into retirement, tonight marks the final act of Rapscallion’s career. Sources from inside the SFPD have told me that Francis Flack was found hanging from a noose in his Rapscallion costume in the grand entrance hall. He was found by his former sidekick, Indigo Impster. We do not know why Impster was at the house tonight, and I am told that while she is being held by Homeland Security for questioning, she is not a suspect and no foul play is suspected.

“Infamously, Rapscallion was on trial last year for child endangerment. It is a sad irony that one of those children was forced to endure one last disturbing event because of her association with Rapscallion.

“This is Kira Erdrich, reporting for RED News.”

5

Nancy’s eyes are wide and her body is on edge. Kira’s reporting is being picked up by the national cable news network, RED, and Nancy feels her heart sink as she realizes Kira is on the way up while her own career has stalled. She knows she’ll have a good story in the morning when Jason gives her an exclusive interview but even after a year of trying to work her own angles with Andres and the 20-Sided Dice, she got rolled by Jason being behind it all.

She shakes her head, not even hearing Kira’s words, as she contemplates going on air tomorrow and outing Jason as the head of 20SD.

It’s a fool’s thought, because she’ll never do it, and she knows it, but it’s the kind of fantasy we all engage in to help get us through a tough moment.

As that hot moment passes, Nancy’s thoughts remain on her career. For the first time since she was hired by Channel 10, Nancy starts thinking about an exit strategy from her chosen career.

She is still only 23 years old.

6

Colbie does not attend Rapscallion’s funeral.

7

“What the fuck do you mean she just vanished?” Kid Rapscallion yells as he sits in the back of a black SUV after the funeral has finished.

Captain Trisha Foggen points to the video playing on a laptop computer. Indigo Impster is sitting in a room, and then she isn’t.

“How the fuck does that happen?”

“If I knew that,” Trisha says, “I would tell you instead of letting you yell at me.”

8

Jason pours himself into finding Colbie. He understands — even without Psychic Navigator’s help — that some of this is his way of working past his emotions towards Francis. But he believes, too, deep down, that he has let Colbie down. That he knew what Francis was like, that he was well-meaning but obsessive, and that something broke inside Francis when Winton murdered Sandra.

“Why do you think that was?” Psychic Navigator asks.

“Because he realized his obsession with being a hero led to a lack of attention on what happened in the rest of Flack Mansion, which led to Sandra adopting, and later abusing, me. She was constantly telling him how much I looked like a younger him, remember?”

“So it was guilt? Is that why he killed himself, do you think?”

“The suicide note said —”

“I’m not asking for a book report, Jason.”

“I think he killed himself because he couldn’t be Rapscallion anymore and life wasn’t worth living if he couldn’t put on that costume. He didn’t know what else to do with himself.”

“And what would you do, Jason, if you could no longer be Kid Rapscallion?”

“I have no idea.”

“Do you think — ?”

“I don’t want to think about it,” Jason answers, darkness descending, “and so I don’t.”

9

That Kid Rapscallion can’t find Colbie Cross anywhere isn’t surprising.

That Psychic Navigator can’t find her, is.

10

Months pass. There is so little crime committed by super humans that Jason’s nightly patrols become less and less intensive. 9/11 has turned the nation sour. No one wants to see heroes running around punching villains because it’s a reminder of the punches that weren’t thrown that day in New York.

Quietly and messily, Jason disbands the 20-Sided Dice and tells Joey Vamps to cancel the contract on Kid Rapscallion’s life. Every second of his day is devoted to finding Colbie. He starts 2003 with over $1 million in the bank, but by July he is down to his weekly salary of $14,423, which is no sooner placed into his account as it is spent on tracking down leads.

He spends a month in Paris, including a two-week detour to 1963, where he tries to sleep with a hero named The Partridge and fails. He tells himself it’s because sex doesn’t matter to him, anymore, and on some days, he believes that.

He travels to China, to Thailand, to West Lafayette, Indiana, and a dozen points in between, but all of these leads dry up like a drop of water in the desert.

The Revolutionaries help in the search but eventually other matters take precedence, and finding a minor hero like Indigo Impster falls into the background of their lives.

At every therapy session, Jason asks Psychic Navigator if he’s got any new information, and there’s never anything more than one of those empty leads.

Nancy suspects he’s back to taking cocaine, but Jason swears he isn’t and Nancy never catches him with anything. She worries about him and hates herself for it and has decided to quit the news station and find another job.

One night, she’s sitting in the Grand Vegas, mindlessly playing the slot machines, when Jersey 121 sits down next to her. He’s drunk and obnoxious and she manages to diffuse the situation before it escalates by bringing him back to his hotel room, filling him with vodka, and putting him to sleep in the bath tub.

She does not know this until much later, but it is this act of stopping a problem before it becomes a problem that catches the eye of the Grand’s owner, Old Man Cuellers, and will lead to her second career in the hotel business.

Without a discussion on the matter ever really taking place, she starts living in the large house in which Kid Rapscallion had planned to be the headquarters of a double life.

11

“Is Kid Rapscallion here?” the tall, thin, black man with creepy eyes and green eyes asks Nancy.

“Um …?”

“Oh, right, secret identities,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Humans.”

“You’re not human?”

“I’m a Martian,” he says, holding out his hand. “Ro’meo is my name.”

“Romeo?”

“Black Martians are big fans of Shakespeare,” he smiles. “We’re all named after his characters.”

12

“Delicious,” Ro’meo smiles. “Absolutely delicious. What is this beverage called?”

“Red Bull,” Nancy says. “It’s all Jason has in his refrigerator. He used to have an endorsement deal with them.”

“And are you the girlfriend of Jason Kitmore?” Ro’meo asks. “Or the sex receptacle?”

13

On September 6, Kira Erdrich publishes her story detailing the lives and identities of Kid Rapscallion and Indigo Impster, a behind-the-scenes account of the deal brokered between Captain Trisha Foggen and California District Attorney Caldwell Sanchez. She details Kid Rapscallion’s murder of Domina Tricks and his involvement in the murder of Duplication Girl. She makes it clear that Las Vegas Channel 10 news reporter Nancy Cathall knew all of this information but kept it from the public, even though she knows with absolute certainty that Nancy does not know the whole of that story.

The story hits the public at the right time for them to turn on everyone named in the story, but none of the principals are all that upset to have this part of their life over with.

14

Press Release from the Office of Las Vegas City Councilor Gerta Bont

September 7, 2003

In light of information contained in the RED News report from Kira Erdrich, I will move to rescind the city’s contract with Kid Rapscallion. Failing that, I will move that his contract not be renewed.

15

“Hi, hon,” Jason says, entering his house after another fruitless trip, this time to India. “I’m home.”

Melody isn’t.

There is a note on the kitchen table saying she has moved back to Oklahoma.

16

“Hi, babe,” Jason says, entering his crime house. “I’m home.”

Nancy isn’t.

There is a note on the kitchen table saying she has gone to Mars with Ro’meo.