Lel shoved his palms up and shrugged at Kipriyanov; Kipriyanov passed him a mutter.
Clearing his throat for a preamble, Lel said, “Well. Um. Might we be going then?”
Humming, then cutting, then an answer. “We killed him. Matched the profile of the killing to a serial killer—a small time killer with a thing for left hands—and let the police blame it on him. Stuffed the Gray Lady, that fat diamond, in his pancreas when the autopsy was all said, all done, just before they slipped him down. Never thought somebody’d catch wind of us. Especially not come to steal it before us. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, do you know that?”
“Actually.” Lel found a few awkward coughs. “We’re here for his hair.”
“His what?”
“His. . .um. . .hair. You know.” Lel fluffed both hands though his hair. “Hair.”
“Why the devil do you want a man’s hair?” Cheshire looked at him, aghast, mouth hanging open just the slightest touch.
“Um. . .” Lel shifted his feet a bit. “We were hired to conduct a. . . father-test—”
“Paternity test.”
“Sure. That. And, um, you need DNA. Hair.”
Cheshire laughed. “I’m sorry I explained my plan to you. It would’ve been a distinct pleasure to hand you a dead man’s hair. Croft. Bastiat. Drag them forward and shoot them, though the head I think. We can put them in this grave they so kindly dug for us.”
So they dragged Kipriyanov forward, in his stupid plodding way.
So they dragged Lel forward. But his foot caught in the gravestone of Mr. Zalgo and Lel lashed out to the left; his hand, not quite a fist, smashed against the goggles of the one who might’ve been Bastiat. They tumbled, tangling, into Kipriyanov, who then tripped, caught himself, tripped again over his own left shoe, and collided with the man on the south-west corner of the coffin.
Their skulls met; but, a bit below, Kipriyanov’s hand struggled for a hold. His thumb found the trigger, his muscles yanked (without so much as a notification to his brain), and the first bullet of the evening fired.
It met the skull of the man who might’ve been Croft, and finding such a home uncongenial traveled ever on. Behind it, blood and brains and bits of bone. He fell on Lel’s back, who in turn collapsed fully on the man who might’ve been Bastiat.
Lel found a knife (hidden in his pocket, to the left of the twisted last cigarette); the man who might’ve been Bastiat found a gun he could not turn and an arm twisted below his back. The edge entered his throat.
But a few feet away, the first bullet was joined by dozens more. Kipriyanov found his thumb, pulled it away, and did the first thing his worm-nibbling brothers would not. He punched. Punched once so hard that the man below had no nose; punched twice so hard that there was no more movement; punched thrice so hard, until the hand gripping the rifle fell away. He took it, in the chaos.
The three other grave men had their M4s right properly raised.
But Lel, free of bodily baggage, scrabbled though stones and gravel. Low, down low. A labyrinth rising to one’s shins is hardly effective.
Especially from above.
He rolled around a final stone—two rows up, three rows over from where Kipriyanov still crouched—and watched. He had no gun, he had no knife (his penknife was still in the last fellow’s throat), he had no garden trowel for arthritic hands. Kipriyanov fired ‘round his nearest corner, caught the bastard in the abdomen, and took low next to the coffin. The cover was no better.
Bullets caught Kipriyanov in the hand, caught him in the knee, caught him all along his left leg and through his nose.
Then there was a glint (which Lel missed); then a pause (which was the only thing he was aware of); then a retort and the disintegration of a chunk of his tombstone. He made a terrible decision. He ran.
The next bullet grazed his ass. Swiftly after, its brother jagged in his calf and he fell, a bloody mess. Lel dragged himself along, collapsed, then dragged himself again until he was sobbing. Pain wasn’t his thing.
Footsteps though the grass.
Two shots, from an M4.
Silence.
Then the Cheshire’s face before his, grinning as only it could. “That punctuated the evening with excitement.” He hunkered beside Lel. “Fun, wasn’t that?”
He croaked, vaguely.
“Oh, come now. Your wounds aren’t nearly that bad. Just try talking.”
“Bastard.”
“Much more like it.”
Another shot. An unplanned third.
Something fell from up above the world so high, crashing a lanky way through branches and brambles. It met the ground. Then, again, silence.
Cheshire called out—but his words met with nothing but the catcalls of the passing wind.
“Mr. Digger, we appear to have a problem. Shall we vacate?”
Lel, lacking creativity (as one does when shot, let alone shot twice), said, “Bastard.”
So Cheshire picked him up, the perfect sort of fleshy shield, and made his way past the tendrils, past the stones, and into the thin forest which watched the cemetery. A rifle watched them go.
On Stamford’s tombstone rested that rifle, the sniper’s rifle (ignore the strains of red running along it); on the rifle rested Kipriyanov, bloody and bleeding and wheezing fit to collapse a lung. All he did was aim at the fleeing bodies, aimed until they took refuge behind a tree.
In sniping, there are three essentials. First, a steady hand (Kipriyanov did not shake, not at all, as he brought barrel and scope and eye and trigger to Cheshire’s tree). Second, patience (Kipriyanov breathed). Third, an infinite faith the target will show himself once more.
Cheshire emerged, Lel his own baggage.
His finger curved around the trigger like an arm around a woman’s back. He closed the evening, as he started it, with one more bullet.
It hit.
Cheshire’s smile was no more, no more.
From the woods, a quiet “Thanks.”
The sniper sighed..
Lel made his limping way to Stamford’s grave. “Buddy, we gotta clean up these bodies.”
Kipriyanov slumped all down to the grass. He blew raspberries.
“Most sensible thing you said all night.” Lel slid the Gray Lady into his pocket. “C’mon. Body finding duty, shot or not-shot.”
And so they hunted the dead. They found them in trees (just one); they found them twisted ‘round tombstones and crumpled on the path and slumped against the coffin.
First the coffin was kicked to the abyss.
So they took them all, one by one, by the legs and by the hair down to Stamford’s own grave. Each one was dumped in, with a bit of dirt; each one had another thrown on top, until they found the corpse with the blown-apart Cheshire smirk and threw him in. They buried that, all of that, below a little mound of dirt and walked away.
“Lel.” He swallowed words he didn’t know. “What Stamford’s hair?”
Lel gave an agonized sigh.
“’Rianov. Let the people who dig Stamford up next deal with it.”
GOLDEN WOLF AND THE POD MEN
By James Hopwood
This is to certify that I have made careful examination of the Manuscript known as GOLDEN WOLF AND THE POD MEN, as set down by Mr. James Hopwood, and do find it a true account of my activities upon that occasion.
- Golden Wolf
The Sardon Building, New York City
11 October 1965, 11:45a.m.
The gold Shelby Cobra was hardly inconspicuous, but Golden Wolf was used to being the center of attention. He was six-foot-four and wore a skintight golden body suit with a black mask. He was the last of a rare breed of masked crime-fighters. To many, his ways were outdated, harking back to the 1940s when wartime crime-fighting heroes would wear patriotic costumes to bolster civic pride and to intimidate their enemy. But the war had been over for twenty years, and many believed Golden Wolf was an anachronism—a throwback to days gone by.
However, Gol
den Wolf never paid any attention to those narrow-minded individuals. They didn't know the truth. They didn't realize it was he that kept them safe at night. He was the reason the United States was a beacon of 'might' and 'right' to the rest of the world. But Golden Wolf didn't work alone. He worked for a secret government agency called Crossbow, which was devoted to stamping out evil, wherever it may lurk, anywhere in the world.
Wolf parked the Cobra out the front of the Sardon Building, in the dead center of Manhattan's financial district. Before getting out of the vehicle, he pressed a button on a discreet watch communicator. He was immediately put through to his superior, the enigmatic Major Steel. Steel had been at the helm of Crossbow for eight years yet nobody had seen him, or knew his true identity.
“Golden Wolf here,” the avenger announced.
“Ah, Golden Wolf, I take it you're at the Sardon Building?” Steel queried.
“Yes, sir.”
“We have received reports Sardon is secretly working for a criminal organization called Pentangle, who are plotting to overthrow the Government.”
Wolf's blood ran cold when he heard Pentangle were involved. Pentangle were the epitome of all things evil.
“Do we know how Pentangle intend to do it?” Wolf asked.
“No. That's where you come in. We have arranged for you to meet Sardon at midday today. Find out what you can, and report back.”
“Will do. Golden Wolf out!”
Wolf switched off the communicator and stepped out of the car. He briskly climbed the steps and passed through a rotating door into the lobby. Upon entry the warm fuzzy tones of Sonny & Cher enveloped him—'I Got You Babe'.
Wolf wondered if it was an omen?
He approached the inquiries counter, his footsteps echoing on the marble floor. A sprightly young girl in an orange and purple swirled halter-neck dress manned the counter. She glanced up at Golden Wolf with admiration in her eyes. She was obviously one of the people who didn't think he was an anachronism. Either that, or she just enjoyed seeing men in tight fitting clothing.
“Can I help you?” she asked, with a smile that would have defrosted the coldest heart.
“My name is Golden Wolf,” he announced.
“I know who you are,” she said with a giggle, wetting her lips with her tongue.
“I have an appointment,” Wolf continued.
She looked down at the schedule in front of her.
“Mister Sardon is expecting you,” she said. “If you'll follow me.”
She stepped out from behind the counter and led him to a bank of elevators. Wolf was too much of a paragon of virtue to stare at the girl's backside, which swayed provocatively as she walked in front of him. She ushered him to the doors of an executive elevator, stopping to insert a key into a keypad. She turned the key, opening a door on a small control panel. Her nimble fingers then punched in a code. The elevator doors opened with a ping.
“In you go. Penthouse suite,” she said.
“You're not coming with me?”
“Not this time,” she said with a smile.
Wolf returned her smile and stepped through the elevator doors. He turned and pressed the button to the penthouse suite. The doors closed, and the elevator carriage began to rise slowly. Inside the lift, Sonny & Cher had been replaced by Nancy Sinatra. Somehow, 'These Boots Are Made For Walking' seemed incongruous in an elevator only four-foot wide, but Wolf paid the song no mind as the floors were counted off on a digital display above the door.
The elevator had just passed the twentieth floor when it stopped abruptly. The music stopped too. This was strange.
“Good morning, Golden Wolf,” a voice crackled through a hidden speaker. “I have been expecting you.”
“Sardon, is that you?” Wolf queried. “I have an appointment.”
“I know. But we both know why you are really here. I can't have the top agent for Crossbow interfering with my plans for taking over the government.”
“If I could come up, we could talk about it.”
“Come up? No, I don't think so. Quite the opposite in fact. You're going down. Consider this an express elevator to hell. Good-bye, Golden Wolf!”
Wolf peered around the carriage searching for an exit, but before he could react, the elevator began to fall. Picking up speed, the carriage rocketed down the shaft, squealing along its track.
Wolf knew the end was near. At the speed the elevator was traveling, there could only be a few feet left before the carriage crashed at the bottom of the well, crushing him to death. He pressed a button on his belt and was immediately swept off his feet. It was like he was floating inside a bubble and in some ways he was—a protective bubble of air.
The elevator carriage crashed with a shattering jolt, which, by rights, should have turned Wolf into 'Spam in a Can'. The roof tried to collapse down, sandwiching him against the bottom of the carriage. But the protective cocoon of air held strong forcing the roof and the floor to curve around him, turning the shattered carriage into a metallic ball. The device that had saved his life was one of the many gadgets he had fitted to his belt—and each one of them had saved his life on more than one occasion.
Wolf pushed the button on his belt again and slowly drifted to the floor. Now he had to get out. The escape hatch was still above him, albeit not in the same shape or position as originally situated. But if the hinges weren't jammed tight, he could still reasonably exit from the top of the now spherical carriage.
He didn't have much room to maneuver, but reached up and pushed the hatch. The metal screeched as the hinges and hatch were forced back. It was enough for him to squeeze through. With both arms, he levered himself out of the carriage, and stood on the balls of his feet on top of the sphere, balancing awkwardly. He couldn't afford to slip and fall now. There were twisted and jagged strips of metal all around. He reached over to the elevator doors and forced them open. Approximately two feet above him was the floor to the third basement level of the Sardon building. Wolf hauled himself up and climbed to his feet peering around. He couldn't believe what he saw.
An army! Sardon was building his own army. But this was not like any army Wolf had seen before. This was a clone army. In the large basement complex before him, were hundreds of glass pods, and inside, floating in a viscous green fluid were eight-hundred men. They appeared to be in some form of stasis.
To his left, covered in a matrix of blinking lights, was a bank of super computers. Nine in all, each the size of a telephone booth. This was the heart of Sardon's operation—the nerve center. Reels of magnetic tape span backwards and forwards, issuing the commands that kept the clone army alive. Wolf had to report this straight away.
He touched the button on his communicator, and was about to speak, when he was encircled by twelve of Sardon's guards. Each of them was holding a Jenson sub-machine gun aimed directly at him. They were all dressed in ghastly uniforms, with red and black hooped turtle-necked tops, with the octagonal logo of Sardon Industries embroidered on the left breast in gold. Their trousers were black with a red stripe along the leg, and they wore highly polished black boots. Their appearance reminded Wolf of Nazis, but he knew how to deal with their kind. Over the years, Wolf had thwarted fifty-three diabolical neo-Nazi schemes. Today, would be fifty-four.
“Don't move, Golden Wolf,” one of them ordered.
Wolf did as he was commanded.
The circle opened as a short, stocky man with a rich, thick crop of blond hair approached. Adorning his chin was a neatly trimmed goatee beard. Wolf surmised it was Sardon himself.
“You are resilient, I'll give you that,” Sardon said, with a huge smile as he stepped forward. For an international super-villain, he seemed very much the cheery type.
“What do you think of my army?” Sardon continued, with his arm sweeping around at the men inside the pods.
“Impressive, but your scheme won't work,” Wolf responded earnestly.
“And why is that?”
“Because you are completely insa
ne.”
“Throughout history, great minds have always been ridiculed by those too limited to understand. I thought more of you, Golden Wolf. I thought you could understand, and appreciate my genius. But I see it now; all you are is a stupid policeman in a costume.”
“I understand. I understand you think you can control the world with your private army...”
“No. The army is not for me. It is for the highest bidder,” Sardon explained.
Wolf was happy to keep Sardon talking. While Sardon gloated, Wolf was preparing to make his escape, and stop the madman's crazy scheme.
“I will, in fact, be the power behind the power. I will remain in the shadows pulling the strings,” Sardon continued.
As he spoke, with an almost imperceptible movement of his feet, he tapped a stud on his left heel with his right toe. On the third tap a small metallic ball rolled out. The ball was in fact another ingenious device integrated into Wolf's costume. It was actually a class-7 smoke grenade. Wolf had ten seconds until it exploded. He waited. Then at the last moment, he kicked the small grenade, rolling it towards Sardon.
The grenade exploded in a blinding flash, filling the room with a gaseous plume of lavender colored smoke. Under cover, Wolf broke through the circle of guards, knocking two to the ground, and sprinted toward the bank of computers.
“Kill him! I want him dead,” Sardon yelled, with his fists clenched tight at his side. “Kill that gold-suited meddler.”
On the run, Wolf ducked as a burst of machine gun fire flew over his head like a swarm of angry wasps. As he took shelter behind the computer bank, bullets peppered his location, hitting the hi-tech equipment. A tape reel flew from one machine as it exploded. Sardon watched on in horror as his scheme began to disintegrate before him.
Rat-A-Tat: Short Blasts of Pulp Page 12
