Tales of the Red Panda: The Crime Cabal

by Gregg Taylor

  “Oh, what a swell nest o’ crooks!” she said, gasping for breath through her chortles. “What teamwork! What’s next?”

  Chaos sneered and turned to the Professor. “Lots of spirit, hasn’t she? Full of life.”

  Professor Zombie smiled at last. “She is indeed. She is indeed.” Zombie showed her teeth. “Why don’t we fix that?”

  Twenty-Seven

  There was nothing moving in the city that night – no sign of life on the streets of Toronto. It was long past an hour when even those up to no good called it a night and went home. The thick haze had started to shift at last; it was damp and claustrophobic, but at least it was now in motion. The air of menace was still thick, but the breeze brought with it anticipation, and a dreadful note of preparation.

  Two figures made their way from doorway to doorway, staying just outside of the pools of gaslight from above. They were making their way to the only signs of life on the street, the light shining from the windows of Fong’s Laundromat. A slender Chinese woman behind the counter at Fong’s spotted them at a distance and called an alert to her employer in their native tongue. Fong hurried to the window. There had been much traffic through the hidden portal earlier in the evening. Many men had left the secret lair of the Crime Cabal, but those few who had returned had done so more than an hour ago.

  Fong had little compunction about aiding and abetting the commission of criminal activity. To his way of thinking, the laws of the country were so hopelessly skewed against him and his countrymen, they could fend for themselves. He was less comfortable about violating the laws of nature. Fong had learned from years of dealing with the shady side of the law to pay as little direct attention as possible to exactly who passed in and out of his shop. That had not changed, but it was impossible for him to ignore the fact that there was something unnatural about some of the soldiers of the Crime Cabal.

  Through the corner of his eye, Fong had seen the great, lumbering giants, their faces painted to resemble mortal flesh. He knew not what sort of demon spirit had been invoked by these new would-be overlords of crime, but he had an aching feeling in his heart that no good could come of it.

  Fong glanced quickly up and down the street. No sign of police. He barked an order over his shoulder, and his employees began to clear the trapdoor of the bundles of laundry that shielded it from discovery. He turned back to the window and could see that one of the men had been injured, badly enough that he was leaning heavily on his fellow. Fong cursed quietly under his breath. These were the risks of crime, but he was not a man whom risks pleased greatly.

  Fong recognized the man who had been hurt. The man had passed through his shop many times, always full of swagger and contempt for Fong and his family. Fong would shed no tears for this man if he succumbed to his wounds. The bigger man on whom his wounded comrade leaned had the unwholesome look of one of the Crime Cabal’s demon spirits, as Fong held them to be. Fong was careful not to meet the gaze of the great beast in man’s form as the two of them staggered into his shop. He hurried the two behind the counter with a steady stream of encouragement, composed almost entirely of the worst obscenities his mother tongue could summon, couched in an obsequious tone.

  The trapdoor creaked open, and Fong hurried the men underground while shouting instructions for one of his daughters to clean up the trail of blood that the injured man left behind him. After what felt to Fong like an eternity, the pair finally disappeared into the darkness below, and the trap slammed shut.

  Fong breathed heavily with a silent prayer of thanks. This was becoming too complicated. He looked out the windows at the thick, grimy night air, moving now at last. No good would come of any of this.

  In the darkness at the base of the ladder, the wounded man leaned heavily on the zombie helping him. He staggered slightly, bringing him close to the monster’s ear.

  “What now?” the wounded man whispered.

  “Quiet,” came the reply, intense but almost inaudible.

  Seconds after the trap was sealed, a light came on, triggered by a timer. The injured man’s head turned around quickly to take in his surroundings. The bigger man, who wore an oversized coat and his hat pulled low, squeezed the arm of the injured man hard, as if to remind him that he had been here many times before, and should try not to look otherwise.

  Before them stood a great steel door, which looked unassailable from any angle. The men could see two slots in the door, one horizontal at eye level, the other vertical at a height that a pistol might be fired from. In the limited space of the alcove in which they stood, it was clear that they were sitting ducks should that second opening come into play.

  Suddenly, with a great clatter, the peephole slid open.

  “Case!” said a voice on the other side of the door. “You’re alive!”

  “Just barely,” the wounded man sputtered.

  There was a hesitation on the other side of the door. Something was wrong.

  On the other side of the great steel door, the pork-pie hatted gangster hesitated. It looked just exactly like Case Bermel… but there was something about the voice. He drew his pistol from the shoulder holster. He peered at the zombie with Bermel. He was big all right, but not quite big enough, and it looked almost like he was trying to hide his face. That didn’t seem… didn’t seem…

  All at once he felt something, like creeping tendrils growing inside his mind. His vision blurred, just for an instant. He shook his head and thrust his eyes back to the peep-hole. The zombie raised its head, and it was now clearly visible as the genuine article.

  “Come on, what’s the hold-up?” Bermel’s voice rang from the other side of the door. “I’m dyin’ out here! I need the doc, bad.”

  The man in the pork-pie hat shook his head hard. That was Bermel’s voice all right. He felt a twinge of shame at his cowardice, hiding behind the door jumping at shadows, when it was so obvious that Bermel was really there, waiting to be admitted to the Cabal’s sanctuary.

  The great steel door swung open with a clatter, and Bermel staggered in, still supported by the zombie.

  “Geez, Case!” the man said. “I’m sorry. You want I should help you?”

  “Naw.” Bermel shook his head. “Stay on guard. I’ll make it all right.”

  “Right, Case.” The man swung the enormous steel door shut with a clang that sent shivers up Bermel’s spine. As the door shut, the long hallway that ran beneath the city street illuminated with lights mounted near the ceiling on the left and right sides, every fifteen feet or so. It looked less like a tunnel or mine shaft than it did a cold, industrial facility. Or a prison.

  The two set off down the hallway as quickly as Bermel’s injuries would allow. As they moved away, they could hear a receiver being lifted, and a two-digit exchange being hastily dialed.

  “Calling for help?” Bermel whispered so low that only his undead companion could hear him.

  “Internal system,” the zombie replied sotto voce, without moving his lips or betraying any sign. “Probably calling ahead. No reason to panic until…”

  “Until?”

  “Until it’s much too late. Now be quiet.” The zombie tromped heavily as they moved, partly because that was simply how he was supposed to move, but mostly to obscure their voices should the tunnel be bugged with hidden microphones. He kept his head low under the wide brim of his hat, on the off chance that there were peepholes along the way to observe their progress. There had not been time to perfect both disguises. Parker’s “Bermel” disguise was as perfect as he could make it in a short time, complete with realistic-looking wounds and bruises. His own “zombie” disguise was much less perfect, and would not bear as much scrutiny before it would reveal that the lumbering undead newly admitted to the passageway was none other than the Red Panda!

  His face and domino mask were covered by a loose layer of a quick-drying rubber he used to mold disguises with. Applied thick and somewhat haphazardly, it could pass for the shapeless features of the undead soldiers of Professor Z
ombie. The Red Panda had taken the gamble that few people, even members of the Crime Cabal, would make direct eye contact with the reanimated dead, while Bermel would likely need to bear much closer scrutiny.

  Behind them, they could hear the man at the first door speaking into the phone. They could hear nothing of the content, but his tone was enthusiastic, excited even. All seemed well.

  They neared the second door. When they were still twenty feet away, the peephole snapped back. The Red Panda began exerting the hypnotic powers of his mind… reinforcing that which the men already believed they saw.

  “Case!” they heard a voice cry. “It’s him all right, hurt bad but still walkin’!” the voice said excitedly to someone beyond the range of the peephole. They heard a clanging as the bar and locks of the great door began to be pulled open. From somewhere on the other side of the door, they could hear a telephone ring.

  “Gate Two,” they heard a second voice say as the receiver was lifted, and then a moment later, “Hold on.” The noises of the great door preparing to open were stopped. From the other side of the door, they could hear one half of a sotto voce conversation that turned into an argument. Still the door did not open.

  “What’s the hold up?” Parker called in Bermel’s voice, thanks to the hypnotic powers of the Red Panda.

  The two men waited, sweating. The Red Panda rued his choice to travel as a zombie. These mute soldiers could not speak without setting off alarms and bringing a rain of death through the slots in the door, and each of these looked large enough to accommodate a machine gun barrel. If only he could use his voice, he could hypnotize the men into opening the door. Mental projection could reinforce their disguises, but it could only go so far.

  At last they heard the metallic clatter begin anew.

  “Finally,” said the phony Bermel.

  “No,” the Red Panda said softly.

  The vertical slots in the door sprang open in an instant, and machine gun fire burst forth and continued half a minute. The men firing could not believe their orders, but they dared not disobey. They watched, horrified, as they poured hot leaden death into the two men in the tunnel!

  Twenty-Eight

  It took six gangsters, each twice her size, to carry the Flying Squirrel to the great slab of a table Professor Zombie had prepared for her. Three more of their fellows lay unconscious or reeling from the blows she had rained down upon them as they had tried to grab hold of her unrestrained feet.

  Kit knew that any one of the undead soldiers created to be the strongarms of the Crime Cabal could have done the job twice as quickly as this incompetent pack of baboons, but for the moment Professor Zombie seemed to be enjoying the display, and Kit knew from experience that the Professor was at her most vulnerable when she was feeling pleased with herself. It had been the Red Panda who had taught her that one could predict the behavior of most criminals fairly consistently by looking at them as a pack of dogs. Even when hunting, they still struggled for dominance. Zombie must have felt that the more trouble the Flying Squirrel gave the subordinate members of the gang, the more it would elevate Zombie’s own status when she dealt with the problem.

  “Let’s just make sure it never gets that far,” she thought to herself as she used her ju-jitsu training to squirm and rock, never quite hard enough to get free. Not that Kit relished the thought of being strapped to that table, but the restraints there were heavy leather ties rather than the chains she had been held by a moment ago. If she broke free of the crowd that was taking her abuse just now, there were twenty others handy, pistols at the ready, to finish her off. Somehow she would have to even the odds, just a little, before she made her play.

  She could see Kid Chaos in the midst of the throng, grinning like a maniac. She could hear the sinister laughter of Professor Zombie, rising above the chorus of angry voices, each shouting instructions to each other that no one seemed to be heeding. She wasn’t more than two feet from the table now. Time to go into her routine.

  “Showtime!” she thought.

  At once, with what seemed to all the world to be a last, desperate cry, the Flying Squirrel intensified her efforts to break free, doing her best to fall just shy of the mark, but making it impossible for her captors to get her into position. She only prayed that she didn’t overplay her hand…

  From the corner of her eye, she saw a hand swing down towards her. There was an audible crack as one of the crowd brought the butt end of a .38 down against her head with as much force as he could muster. Immediately the Flying Squirrel’s head snapped back and her struggles ceased. Her body went limp and her cowardly captors began hurriedly to fasten the straps that would hold her down.

  Lying on the cold table, Kit’s ear was ringing something terrible, but she was far from incapacitated. That had been a desperate gamble, but for the moment it seemed to be working.

  There are ways of holding one’s wrists and arms tight with tension that will cause any restraint fastened to them to have extra slack when the limbs are relaxed within the knot. It sounds like a simple technique, but there were many degrees of subtle art at play. Amongst the many forms of training he had sought out, the Red Panda had studied under some of the greatest escape artists in the world, and he had passed what he had learned on to his partner. She hoped that it would be enough.

  Like any stage illusion, escapism required a certain amount of misdirection. The Flying Squirrel’s desperate struggle had left her captors likely to hurry in restraining her. But since she had prompted them to knock her cold, they did not expect to encounter counter-force, and failed to compensate for it. Luckily, she had seen the blow coming and was able to roll with it, while selling the impression that she had been hurt with an exaggerated reaction. It was a fine performance, but she struggled not to be too pleased with herself just yet.

  “Careful, you idiots!” she could hear Kid Chaos bark. “She must not be too badly damaged. She must appear whole.”

  Through her lashes, she could see Chaos’ rapt expression as the gangsters backed away. Slowly, gently, she relaxed the muscles in her arms and legs. She could feel the play in the bindings, the slack that she could use to her advantage, given half an opportunity and fewer guns in the room.

  “And that’s the real trick, ain’t it?” she thought.

  She allowed her eyes to flutter open. If she stayed out too long, Chaos would suspect a ploy and check the bindings.

  “Ah, my dear girl. Back in the land of the living I see.” Chaos smiled, his great moon of a face lighting up. “For the moment.”

  “I’ll bet you stayed up all night thinking that one up,” Kit groaned. She noted with some satisfaction the snickers from the ranks at Kid Chaos’ expense, and his irritation. That might be good for something.

  Professor Zombie was busying herself with her machines. “Don’t mind him, little one. He still gets terribly excited about these things.” She arched her eyebrows and smiled at Chaos. It was intended to be a playful gesture but Kit, who knew a thing or twelve about such things, recognized it as clumsy at best. This alliance, too, was strained.

  “What’s the big idea?” the Flying Squirrel said, straining at her bonds, just for show. “You think you can scare me into talkin’?”

  “Do you really think we couldn’t?” Kid Chaos smiled.

  “Try it an’ see.” Kit stuck out her jaw. “It won’t get you nothin’ but a good laugh.”

  “I wonder,” Chaos cracked his knuckles loudly, “if you really are quite as tough as you think you are.”

  “You could find out dumplin’,” Kit snarled, “but you’d need to untie me first. And I don’t think you’ve got the guts.”

  There were more snickers from the ranks of the Crime Cabal. They were hypocritical, to be sure, for no man there would have set the Flying Squirrel loose. But still Kid Chaos fumed.

  “Rest assured, little one,” the Professor smiled icicles, “I have no such illusions.” She reached down and straightened the Squirrel’s hair that spilled out from the b
ack of her cowl. “There is nothing in heaven or earth that could force you to betray him. I can see it in your eyes.”

  Kit snapped her head away as best she could, but said nothing.

  The Professor beamed. “You don’t bother to deny it. How nice.” Her smile faded. “He doesn’t deserve such loyalty.”

  “Doesn’t he?” sarcasm dripped from Kit’s voice.

  “Have you never stopped to wonder,” the Professor said, busying herself with her equipment, “what compels you to stand with this man? To face death and danger in such a ridiculous manner? What binds you to this Red Panda of yours in spite of the fact that, cowl notwithstanding, it seems clear that you could have any man you chose…” The Professor turned and lowered herself quickly to direct a stage whisper into the Flying Squirrel’s ear, “…when you know full well that he can control the minds of others?” She smiled and stepped back, watching for any reaction. “What makes you so sure that you aren’t simply his little puppet? Fighting and dying as he sees fit, for his amusement?”

  Kit met Professor Zombie’s gaze without expression. This was meant to make her question her beliefs, of course, but not with an eye to interrogation. Zombie wanted her to doubt even the one thing of which she was most sure in the moments before death. When you have destroyed so much life, Kit supposed, eventually you make a sick game of it. She said nothing, and changed her expression not one whit.

  Zombie scowled. She had obviously been hoping for something more dramatic. “We know of course that nothing we do can induce you to betray the Red Panda,” she said, returning to her equipment. “But we also know that he will continue to interfere in our operations. What better way to destroy the man than by setting his own junior partner on him, reduced to my undead plaything? Knowing that he was responsible for your death, and having to fight you for his own life at the same time? It’s almost too perfect.”