Tales of the Red Panda: The Mind Master

by Gregg Taylor

  There was silence.

  “From men like me,” August Fenwick replied.

  Rashan nodded and sipped his tea. “Fear is a great motivator,” he said. “And the first fear, like the first love, is the fear of one’s own self.”

  The young man said nothing.

  “Now our work can truly begin,” the Master said. “You may take your exercise if you wish.”

  The young man bowed and left the kuti. For an hour or more, the high rocks of the mountain top would bear witness to a display of a unique amalgam of a dozen of the East’s most deadly fighting styles.

  From the shadows within the kuti, the voice of Rashan’s other student could be heard. “You could not resist prying, could you, my Master?”

  Rashan looked up angrily to see the man he called “One” emerge from the flowing darkness. “What are you doing there?” he barked.

  The hawk-like face seemed startled. “I imagined that you were allowing me the privilege of eavesdropping,” he said. “Is it possible that I can now conceal myself, even from your eyes?” The young man seemed delighted by the prospect.

  “Any fool can hide,” Rashan growled, concerned by this turn of events. “And any coward too.”

  His student’s smile vanished at this.

  “Look at you,” the Saddhu chastised. “The most gifted student I could have ever wished for, and still you play these ridiculous child’s games. Get out of my sight!” he barked.

  “As you wish,” One said, pulling the shadows before himself like an inky cloak, until no trace of him could be seen by mortal eyes.

  Twenty

  The air was crisp and cool, and whispered of the false promises of spring. In the streets, men who had dressed with the recent warm nights in mind hurried to their homes, their thin coats huddled around them, their hands thrust deep into their pockets and their eyes on the ground. If any of them had thought to look up, it is unlikely that they would have seen the man on the roof of the six-story office building. He clung to the shadows and stood stock-still, watching the street below and waiting like a statue.

  It is entirely possible that a passerby, were they oblivious to the cold and staring dreamily at the moon, might have noticed the sudden appearance of a dark shape darting across the glowing lunar light high above the same six-story office building. But had they noticed such a thing as a lithe but very female shape in the midnight sky, they would have put it down to wine, imagination or other follies of springtime.

  Ten seconds later, after a quick firing of her Static Shoes, the Flying Squirrel landed noiselessly on the rooftop. She settled into a crouch atop the small shed that housed the counterweights for the building’s elevators and froze instantly. She could just discern the shape of the Red Panda’s back as he watched the dead-end street below, and only because she knew what she was looking for.

  She waited a full minute, until she was certain that he had not heard her, and then promptly rejected the thought.

  “Of course he knows I’m here,” she thought, cupping her face in her hands as she watched him. “He’s just waiting for me to blink first.”

  Thirty more seconds passed.

  “Geez he’s stubborn,” she thought.

  Another minute passed.

  “Have I ever told you that you’re a very stubborn girl?” he asked at last.

  “I had a good teacher,” she said, forgetting her annoyance at having jumped slightly when he finally spoke. She leapt down and sauntered over in his direction.

  “You stood me up,” she teased.

  “I did nothing of the kind,” he protested seriously, though still distracted. “I thought that you were on patrol.”

  “And I thought that you were going to come find me when you’d met with Sampson?” she needled. “I was all set to make you chase me an’ everything.”

  He chewed the inside of his lip to keep from smiling. “Kit Baxter, behave yourself,” he scolded, not meaning it.

  “Yes, Boss,” she promised, not meaning it either. “Just out of curiosity, how were you plannin’ on finding me?”

  “I thought I might listen for the sound of purse snatchers sobbing in terror,” he smiled, in spite of himself.

  “No dice tonight,” she grinned. “The bad guys all forgot their winter coats and went home early. It’s duller than dishwater out there.”

  “Well, it’s riveting up here,” he deadpanned. “Pull up a stool.”

  She stood beside him and peered at the shabby entrance on the street below. The sign above the door read Private Club – Members Only, but both masked fighters knew that membership was wide open for the city’s small-time underworld players, and that the only undesirables whom the management would refuse to admit would be agents of the law.

  “No Sampson yet?” she said, sounding only slightly worried.

  “No sign,” he said calmly.

  Gregor Sampson was known within their network as Agent Thirty-Three, a deep cover agent who had assumed the identity of a deceased con-man named Miles Grant in order to provide them information within the city’s rackets and gangs. He was brave, fiercely loyal and generally as punctual as a man living a carefully staged lie could possibly be.

  “Think something’s up?” she said, noticing that she could now see wisps of vapor when she breathed.

  “Possibly. Mother Hen’s message said that Sampson was to meet an informant who promised a lead on who was fencing several unique items from the Empire Bank job. He wanted to meet us right after.”

  “If he wanted to risk his cover with a face-to-face, he must’ve thought this was something big,” Kit said excitedly.

  “I should say so,” the Red Panda said gravely. “And yet here we stand.”

  “Who was he meeting?”

  “Larry Beckett.”

  “Larry Beckett? He’s pretty small time.”

  The masked man nodded. “What is it they say about little fish?”

  She pursed her lips in thought. “They tend to get eaten by big fish?”

  The knit of his brows told her this was not quite the response he was hoping for, but he seemed to be giving it more thought than she’d intended. Though he had yet to move his eyes from the doorway below.

  She sighed. “For this, you leave a girl alone in the cold.”

  At last he turned his head towards her and touched the side of his face, activating the special lenses in his mask. Looking at his partner in the infrared spectrum, he could clearly see by her thermal signature that she had worn her winter-weave suit, which was temperature regulated up to thirty degrees below freezing. He was just about to mention this when she cut in.

  “Are you undressing me with them fancy eyes of yours again?” she said without looking back or cracking a smile.

  He made several sounds of flustered outrage and turned back to face the street, his face turning the colour of his mask as he did so.

  Kit grinned. She didn’t get the better of him often and had no intention of letting up. “I didn’t say you had to stop,” she said quietly.

  “Kit Baxter–” He was turning back to her to give her a proper scolding that neither one of them would have believed at all, when movement from below caught his eye. Several men pushed the front door open and headed in separate directions. Two headed back towards the main drag of Yonge Street, the third cut left and across the alleyway.

  On the rooftop above, all was suddenly dead serious. “Tell me that isn’t who I think it is,” the Red Panda said, knowing what the answer would be.

  “That’s Larry Beckett all right,” the Flying Squirrel growled. “Looks like he’s in his cups. He’s leavin’ more than an hour late, and with no sign of Gregor anywhere.”

  “Follow those two,” the Red Panda pointed. “See where they go, just in case.”

  “Right, Boss,” she said, and she was gone.

  The Red Panda fired his Grapple Gun into the darkness above the alleyway. Larry Beckett’s evening was about to become much less festive.

  T
wenty-One

  A garbage can rattled and rolled down the dark of the alley. From somewhere high above a light was turned on in response to the racket, but no voice was raised. Larry Beckett smiled as he stepped gingerly through the darkness, weaving erratically as he did so. He carried on in this manner for another dozen yards, during which he suffered another three collisions with small inanimate objects. Beckett came to rest with one hand against a brick wall. His head was spinning and he was sweating more profusely than the cool, damp evening would seem to dictate, but he smiled for all that. Nothing was going to spoil his fun.

  Things hadn’t been this easy for Larry Beckett in a long time. He was a small-time grifter and occasional underworld operative when the mood struck him, which wasn’t very often. Like so many others, Beckett had got into crime because it seemed simpler and easier than working for a living, and if there was one thing that Larry Beckett despised, it was anything that smacked of work.

  These days, though, the field was crowded, and there were just as many dishonest as honest men left without a chance to ply their trades. Small-time hoods were in every dive, hanging around, hoping to catch on with one of the city’s remaining gangs. There had been a time when a man like Beckett could attach himself to an outfit and hang on for the ride. These days, even the hangers-on needed ambition, and ambition had always been the one thing Larry Beckett was most singularly lacking.

  But today had been a good day, and he had cash in his pockets and a belly full of liquor to prove it. So what if he’d had to sell out that chump Grant to get it? If he was any judge of horseflesh, Miles Grant would have turned the same favor for him given half the chance, or so Beckett told himself as he lurched forward deeper into the alley.

  He jumped for a moment as something scurried across his path. His heart was still pounding a moment later as he chuckled at himself. If he was going to jump at rats, he really shouldn’t have cut through this alley. But he knew he wouldn’t be able to stay on his feet much longer, and he just wanted to get home. It had been a long time since Beckett had enough money in his pockets to drink his fill, and he was clearly out of practice.

  He staggered forward and cursed a little under his breath. This was taking too long. He tried to force his feet to move faster, but ended up tripping over his own heels and sprawling forward into the darkness. He cursed again, and felt the stinging of the gravel cutting into his hands and chin. He pulled himself to his hands and knees and suddenly froze as a paralyzing chill ran up his spine.

  He heard nothing. He saw nothing. But somehow, through his drunken stupor, Larry Beckett felt a presence behind him in the darkness. Still on all fours he whipped around, falling backwards as he did so. The sight that met his eyes so far exceeded his worst fears that Larry Beckett could only sputter and gasp. Looming above him was a tall, solid mass of man in a long coat, his silhouette just silvered by the light from far above. It was him; it could only be him. Beckett felt the warmth of the liquor wash away as he gaped up, his eyes adjusting to make out the line of the domino mask that hid the man’s face, and the barest of illumination that came from the mask’s horrible blank eyes.

  “You–!” was all he had time to gasp before his jaw was met with a crushing blow from a red-gauntleted right hand. Beckett sprawled backwards, his ears ringing, scrambling to find his feet, to get away. It didn’t make sense. Why would he–?

  Beckett’s thoughts were cut short as a booted foot thrust upwards into his midsection, lifting him off of his hands and knees and sending him gasping into the gutters again.

  The gloved hands lifted Beckett up effortlessly and threw him against the wall. His head cracked back against the brick, jarring his teeth together. Beckett could taste the blood in his mouth, and the bitter sting of the adrenaline flowing through him. Again the fist roared forth and knocked the wind out of Beckett with a driving shot to the stomach.

  “Stop…,” Beckett sobbed.

  The crimson gloves seized him by the shoulders and threw him back against the wall three times. Beckett was in a panic.

  “Stop… please…,” he cried. “I’ll tell you anything you wanna know!”

  “I know you will,” the Red Panda growled, barely above a whisper. Larry Beckett felt his knees turn to water. The things this mystery man had already done to him were nothing compared to what that voice promised he would do, if provoked. Beckett sputtered a little and waved protectively towards the Red Panda’s clenched fist.

  “You don’t need to do that…,” he begged.

  “Oh, but I do,” the hero said with a hard smile. “It’s sobered you up a little, hasn’t it? And made you want to talk, hasn’t it?”

  Larry Beckett could only nod.

  “Good,” the big man said. “That will make this a little easier.”

  “Make w-what easier?” Beckett asked, trembling.

  “This,” the Red Panda said in a soft voice that seemed to echo in Beckett’s ears like a far-off peal of thunder.

  Beckett felt his thoughts clouding, felt his fear slipping away almost into nothingness. “My mind is in yours,” he heard, and then nothing more.

  Four minutes later, Larry Beckett rose to his feet and began to march like an automaton towards his apartment. At that moment, with the softest of sounds, an athletic shape in grey fell from the sky and landed beside the Red Panda.

  “You’re lettin’ him go?” she said, not trying to conceal her disappointment.

  “No choice,” he said gravely. “Whoever took Gregor may be watching Beckett. Who were his playmates?”

  “Jinx Morton and that real ugly kid with the toothpick.”

  “Kennedy?” he asked.

  “That’s the one,” she nodded. “I don’t think this braintrust is in on anything. They were pretty plastered.”

  “I’m not surprised,” the Red Panda grinned. “Someone paid Beckett five thousand dollars to sell out the man he knows as Miles Grant. They ran through almost three hundred of that tonight.”

  “And you know that so precisely because…”

  He flipped her a roll of bills that amounted to just over four thousand, seven hundred dollars. Even in the darkness she caught it effortlessly.

  “A little something for the poor box,” he said. “I didn’t leave Beckett for the rats, but I wasn’t going to leave him that either. In any case, he won’t remember a thing.”

  “You’re a big softy,” she scolded. “Did we learn what happened to Gregor Sampson?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “In fact, we did. Come on.”

  Twenty-Two

  When Gregor Sampson opened his eyes, he immediately wished that he hadn’t. It was a sensation that an agent of the Red Panda could expect to experience more than once, but Sampson never did get used to it. His head throbbed like it was on fire and his right eye was almost swollen shut, but he could make out three man-sized shapes, lurking just beyond the pool of light.

  His arms were pinned behind him and half-asleep from the strain. Sampson knew at once that they were handcuffed to the hard wooden chair he was slumped forward in. He tried to peer around as best he could, but the only light in the room was from a single bulb burning high over his head. There was a strange, acrid smell hanging in the air – full of must, but stale and almost lost to sense. Were Sampson a less experienced investigator, or were he not struggling to analyze every minute detail for some advantage, he might never have noticed it.

  One of the men stepped forward into the light. His footsteps echoed against the hard cement floor, as if the room were much bigger than it looked – a warehouse maybe. The man was perhaps forty, with a wiry build and a cold smile frozen upon his thin lips. His suit and hat suggested one who was well-placed, but not himself well-off. He stopped four paces away from Sampson and placed his hands upon his hips as if exceedingly pleased with himself.

  “Hello, Mister Grant. Remember us?” he said with a leer.

  “How could I forget?” Sampson snarled in return. “What do you ladies want?”

&nb
sp; The wiry man scowled momentarily. “There is no need for that, Mister Grant. I think you will find that this will be easier if you do not make me angry. Or if not easier, at least quicker, for which you will be very grateful.”

  “Swell,” Gregor spat. “Remind me to get you a nice fruit basket.”

  The two other shapes in the darkness shifted uncomfortably. Evidently this was not how they had expected things to play out, though for the moment, Sampson was at a loss as to how this helped him.

  The thin man pushed his hat back on his head and began again. “Mister Grant, I represent a man of considerable influence–”

  “–named Joshua Cain,” Sampson snapped. There was a moment’s silence before he spoke again. “I’m sorry, did I break your concentration?”

  “What do you know about Mister Cain?” one of the men in the shadows growled. The wiry man’s head spun around in anger. Evidently, he fancied himself in charge. Sampson smiled.

  “You boys don’t really think you’re incognito, do you? I make it my business to know things. Your boss carries a lot of water in this town – you think I don’t recognize his personal staff when they jump me and roll me into the back of a truck?” Sampson was beginning to enjoy himself now, which was usually a sign of worse things still to come. “The secretary, the driver and… what, the candlestick maker?”

  “Manservant,” a nasal voice corrected from the shadows.

  “Shut up!” the wiry secretary hissed, and turned back to Sampson. “You, my friend, just made a serious mistake.”

  “One of many, I’m sure. But whatever I’ve done to disturb Joshua Cain’s peace, it can’t be worth a murder rap over.”

  The thin-lipped smile spread still wider. “He begs to differ,” the wiry man said with a wave of his hand towards the shadows.

  A big man stepped forward. It was the owner of the nasal voice, the manservant in all likelihood. Sampson could see the cause of that nasal tone now – the man’s nose had been broken, and recently by the look of him. But Sampson’s smile at this quickly faded when he saw what the big man was carrying. It was a jerry-can, a large one, and full to the top to judge by its apparent weight. Cain’s manservant put the can down and set himself to the task of opening the spout. The secretary began to talk again, and Sampson tried to force himself to focus on the words.