The hammer connected. Henry’s world exploded into colored lights.
#
“How long issit gonna be?” Mitch asked, watching Monty fiddle with the mannequin’s head.
“Another five or so minutes to arrange this mounting. An hour for the first hole to be bored through, and another hour for the second, then the third. By midnight, that safe should have an opening large enough for Jake to crawl through and begin moving merchandise towards us.”
“And an hour or so for me to move the junk to you. And then we move it to the van and then out the door!” Jake said, his eyes shining. “Why didn’t we do a job like this when we were a crew back then, hah? Why not? Coulda saved us so much trouble!”
“Back then we was a bunch of young and stupid idiots who’d watched a few too many movies,” Mitch grumbled, his hands fumbling a bit as he started to plug in multi-receptical adapters into the wall as Monty handed them to him. “All we thought about was grabbing sacks of cash and running for the car.”
“In my estimable opinion, Jake is right for a change. Had we relied on my optical wares to bore a hole in a bank wall rather than try for the old, tired, ‘gimme the money’ plan, a number of us would have spent far less time than we needed to in prison.”
“You didn’t hafta spend much time in there, Monty. Thanks to Jake and Bee.”
“Queen Bee was, I thought then and do still, a dilettante with sexual issues that expressed themselvesself though the costume she created and her willingness to exploit her own sexuality in the aims of the moment. That being said, I will always regret not being there to see her strip so the guards were distracted and Jake could obtain the keys for my escape.”
“Eh, no worries, Monty. Those guards were a couple of fuckin’ idiots, anyway. They were so thick I couldn’t even get a thought through to ‘em so’s I could hypnotise ‘em. I’m kinda sorry I missed the festivities, too; but when Bee got down to her bra an’ panties, she started givin’ me looks like ‘willya get ‘im out already?”
“More’s the pity. I’m certain those guards suffered the loss of their positions for their stupidity, but if she went far as she needed to, I’m even more certain they’d consider it worth it.”
“Hell, yeah,” Mitch said. “I never been to a titty bar, but if’n I were twenty again and that happened to me, you can bet my eyes’d be glued to a gal like Bee like a bug on flypaper.”
“Speaking of the gals: You mind telling us, Mitch, now that so much water’s gone under the bridge, why the hell’d you and Jane get together? You two didn’t seem to have nothin’ in common, but after that job at First National you two were stuck together alla time.”
“Well,” Mitch said, lugging up another drill, “that was weird. I’d never had a real girlfriend before. You know, a prom date here, a homecoming dance there, but nothing ever came of it. I thought she was looking at me a bit much when I was working on the Winterbeam, but blew it off. Maybe she was just bein’ sure I wasn’t gonna mess things up. Then I realized I was looking for reasons to tinker with my gadgets just because she’d be checking me out while I was doing it. Finally one day she just walked up to me, she took a couple of deep breaths an’ just said ‘Mitch, let’s you an’ me take a little walk.’ Well, I had no idea that she was sweet on me or nothin’ like that. Since she was the leader I thought for sure I was in trouble. Instead, once we get a ‘ways down the tunnel, I start tryin’ to make small talk about somethin’, and she reaches in and whammo, she puts the sweetest bit’o liplockin’ on me you ever did see. Right then,” Mitch snapped his fingers, “she had me. Lock, stock, an’ barrel. And I was hers forever.”
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
There was a short, awkward pause. Jake spoke first.
“You mean you never got laid? The whole time? The best you got was first base? Geeze, you’re fuckin’ pathetic, man.”
“Jake, though I am not known to be particularly bonded to any position that Mitch might take, I would nonetheless suggest that he, ah, got farther with her than you ever did. And he achieved it with a prettier woman than you ever have, unless we decide to add ladies of the evening to the equation.”
“Holy geeze, Monty, shut the fuck up, willya? I was just havin’ a little fun.”
“Then I suggest you ask Mitch if he felt in on the joke, or disrespected by it. Your jealousy is palpable, Jake.”
Jake looked at Monty, then Mitch. “Where is the rodeo queen, anyway? And Russ and Miguel, too?”
“Russ is busy putting out the next distraction in about - ten minutes. Miguel is making sure that the little group of toughs he has on his string keep the do-gooder-whipper-snappers busy, and Jane’s off making sure everyone’s doing their jobs.”
#
“So, what do we do?”
The rookie looked at his boss, the police commissioner who had guided the force through triumph, tragedy, glory and scandal. Commissioner Jefferies sipped his coffee in the white styrofoam cup and looked at the prone superhero form at his feet.
He was looking at a safe distance- a dozen feet, really. He knew from painful experience what could happen to someone who was too close to The Dark when he woke up.
“Ambulance is on the way? Good. Then we wait, like we would with anyone else. Who took him down?”
“Buncha kids in here, playing Atari. Said it was another cape, one with long white hair and a big hammer.”
“Really?” Commissioner Jefferies said. “Then this case just got a little more interesting.”
“How so?” the rookie asked. He was a little too green to understand you didn’t ask questions like that around the Commish, but Jefferies was in an indulgent mood.
Jefferies crushed his cup and dropped it on the ground. “Unless some new freak’s hit the streets with the same outfit, we’ve got one of the few capes out there with an actual super power that just got involved. The paper’s called him the Hanging Judge. He can disappear, go poof, and reappear behind you. That’s when he takes you out with that oversized gavel and noose of his that never runs out’ve rope.”
“He strings guys up?”
“Only the worst kind. Usually they’re tied up for us to find. One guy, back when I was a rookie? Creep was a kid killer. The Judge hung him upside down and left him there for a weekend to die from the blood rushing to his head before we found him. He’s been jumping in and out of things for a long, long time, and only shows up when something interesting is going to hit the fan.”
“Something big? Like a huge super fight?”
“Nope. Not always big, but always interesting.”
#
TO BE CONTINUED....