by Rich Horton
Despite this, the medical board at Belfry Hospital had seen fit to parole Pupper not once, not twice, but—as of this very night—three times.
The Wing watched as Pupper walked to the gate, accompanied by the noted neurosurgeon Dr. Van Hellion, himself a reputedly- reformed super-villain.* Pupper looked frail tonight, his wily, maniacal mind hidden in the deceptively meek frame of his face. He was wearing inmate’s whites, not the burgundy riding coat and yellow jodhpurs he favored as Archetype, and he clasped his little sack of personal items in a pinched grip, like an old woman gingerly squeezing a coin purse. His hair had been thinning from the first and now, after his latest stint behind Belfry’s walls, he was completely bald.
He was getting old, thought The Wing, but age wouldn’t stop Archetype. First thing, no doubt, Pupper would serve his vanity and procure a toupee. Then would come the maniacal plots and outrageous crimes—but the Wing wasn’t worried. When Archetype strayed again, the Wing would catch him, again—and again after that, same as always.
Van Hellion shook his patient’s hand farewell, then turned back to the dark halls of Belfry. Pupper minced his way up 295th Street until he reached North 40th Avenue, where he stopped to wait for the bus. Pupper had no minions to call for transport now—the Wing had finished them, too, years ago—but it would not take long for someone with Archetype’s reputation to assemble a new crime army.
Pupper, seeming oblivious about the Wing’s scrutiny, sank down on the lonely bus-stop bench to wait.
The arch-villain displayed no emotion when the Wing left the shadows and dropped into the street, inches from his face, nor did the Wing expect him to. They had played such scenes countless times.
“Evening, Archie,” rasped the Wing.
“Good evening, Wing.”
“Interesting timing.”
“How so, Wing?”
“Your parole happens to coincide with the unveiling of the Venus Diamond at The Excelsior City Supernatural Wonders Museum.”
“Interesting, Wing,” said Pupper. “But presently, I haven’t time to peruse cultural exhibitions. I’ve rather a full schedule of rehabilitation therapies monopolizing my time.” Archie folded his hands together and rested them on his lap. “Tell me how the unveiling goes, won’t you?”
“I’m watching you,” said the Wing. Then he made himself disappear. Archetype could consider himself warned.
* * * *
The Wing glided above the city, tower to tower, rooftop to rooftop, back toward the Lower East End for a quick patrol. It had been a quiet night, a quiet week, a quiet month. Now, with Archetype free, the respite was over. The Wing turned his mind to the past as buildings flew by.
Archetype had been first* in an almost endless line of super-foes. Over the years—the decades—the Wing had faced and defeated hundreds of such villains. They ranged from the truly deranged like Archetype—Fastdollar, Vertigo, The Theist, Night Musik, and Ironclad— to the merely violent: Henchman, Sap, Shellacker, and The Knuckler. Others, like SuperZero, Toy Boy, The Gosling, and Shenanigan, were more nuisance than foe. Then there were the good but misguided, such as EcoTerror, The Downtowner, and Incoming. The repulsive: Firebelly, Sheeptick, Toxicity. The short-lived: Midas Murphy, Monocle Man, Mr. Midget. Some had appeared once or twice in subsequent decades only to vanish; gone now, they were fads of an era long-past: Sheik, Sister Sappho, Joint, V-8, Bolero, and Cherry (or was it Apricot?). There were the Jacks, too—Jackknife, Jackboot, Jackdaw, Jackanapes, Jackalope, Jackpot, Jackal, Jacqueline the Ripper, Jackhammer and, decades later, an unrelated Hammerjack. The truly apocalyptic were, thankfully, far fewer: Ion, Cassandra, and Doc Apocalypse.
Then there were the women, each one unforgettable: Irony, Trio, Heartbreaker, Crescendo—the Wing had fought all comers. Every time, with everything at stake, at the last possible minute, defeat certain, he’d found a way to prevail. They kept coming anyway—or they had until these recent, calmer times.
In the beginning, the Wing wore leotards and a cape. Then he dropped the cape and replaced the leotards with leather. The thick, body-protecting rubber armor he favored now was sculpted to resemble the physical definition he’d had naturally in youth, but found impossible to maintain as he aged. He did not mourn the loss; with age came experience. Fighting skills and acrobatics, he discovered after years of lessons learned the hard way, were the least of his crime-fighting tools.
No matter the uniform, though, he’d always worn the same mask. The mask defined him. He felt most alive when, as now, he wore the mask and glided above his beloved Excelsior City.
Just before dawn, all appeared quiet. The Wing swung back toward midtown and the mighty Kryse Building, home of EmpireTV, the city-wide cable news station. He had an early meeting with his star reporter, to discuss the Venus Diamond story, and had no time to return to his uptown penthouse. Instead, he dropped straight down the hidden chute in the Kryse Building into his private office. There he removed the mask and became Lang Lofton once more, billionaire philanthropist and owner/operator of media mega-giant EmpireTV. After stowing the Wing’s gear away, Lang showered, Ben-Gayed his aching limbs, and flopped on his leather couch for a generous two-hours rest.
With the recent lull in crime, he’d been getting at least that much sleep every night and he welcomed it. There’d be hell to pay soon enough, at the meeting with Ginny Flynn. She was still fuming at him for abandoning her at the altar a few months back. And that abandonment had come one year to the month since the Wing had called off their wedding in an identical, last-minute fashion.* A double-life, complicated by a love triangle in which he himself was two of the principals, tended to make a mess of things.
* * * *
Ginny Flynn bounded into her boss’s office at 7:00 A.M. After the meeting, she had to go straight into make-up before anchoring the early morning news, and her silver-streaked red hair was wrapped tight in a terry towel. She found Lang, snoozing away even at this late hour, on his overstuffed leather divan. Leader of a cutting-edge media conglomerate, and yet he managed to loaf half the morning! Ginny rolled her eyes.
Lang was asleep with his face turned into the cushions, his altar-leaving butt poking upward to make a tempting target for her Italian pumps. She chose instead to lean close to his ear, thrust two fingers into her mouth, and let loose a drum shattering whistle.
Lang sprang up, coiled himself in a ball mid-air and landed soft as a panther on the divan, gazing calmly at her as though he had been sitting there all along. She leaned over him. “Pretty spry for an old man,” she said.
“You’re no spring chicken yourself,” said Lang, awake and unfazed, not a single salt-or-pepper hair displaced, just as if he hadn’t been sleeping at all. What a nimble, unpredictable lover he would be. She imagined.
“Hurry up, boss,” she said. “You asked to see me, and I’m on the air in less than fifteen. If it’s about your rumored run for mayor, don’t bother. It’s a conflict of interest for me to report on that.”
“I want you to dig into the Venus Diamond story.”
“Oh good lord.”
“There’s something in this beyond an ordinary legend.”
“Oh?” she said. “How’s it different from any other space alien or magic jewel that’s ever turned up in Excelsior City?”
“I think it’s the key to something larger.” His face darkened, the way it often did. “There’s a celebration tonight at The Supernatural Wonders Museum. I’ve got two tickets. I want you to go.”
Ginny shook her head. “Put Wally Wilcox on it. I’m still working on the Wing’s secret-identity investigation.” She waited half a heart-beat, then sighed. “Don’t tell me you want to table that again.”
“I’m afraid we’ll have to,” said Lang. “You’re my best reporter. I need you on this.”
Sure he did. “Well, Archetype was paroled last night. There’s an angle. I can interview him about the Venus.”
“Why?” asked Lang.
“He’s alway
s favored high-profile targets. I’ll get some background.” Besides, she’d already lined up the interview for her Wing profile. Though she’d never file a story on the Wing’s secret identity, she didn’t feel the need to let Lang off the hook by admitting the fact. He had his secrets. She could have some too.
“Stay away from Archetype,” said Lang.
“Oh really?”
“Ginny, I’m not telling you what to do—”
“—you had better not be—”
“—I’m just concerned,” he said. “I care about you.”
She waved him off. “I know. You said so in the note you sent when you left me at the altar. Anyway, the Wing will protect me from Archetype.”
The creases around his eyes deepened. “The Wing has other responsibilities.”
“You’d never know it,” said Ginny. “How many times would you say the Wing has come to your star reporter’s rescue?” Lang shrugged.“Roughly once a month, I’d guess, for the past sixty years. Though, I really shouldn’t count the decades we were all trapped in that glacier.”
“That’s nothing to joke about.”
“You’re right, Lang. Nothing’s funny about being locked in suspended animation for decades. Nothing’s funny about living in a holding pattern.” She turned away from him, her voice falling. “I don’t blame you for not showing up to our wedding, Lang, any more than I blame the Wing for doing the same thing twelve months ago. I blame myself for thinking that you—either of you—would commit in the first place.”
Lang stood and almost touched her shoulder. “Ginny…”
She moved away from his hand. “Don’t ‘Ginny’ me. I’m not mad. I’m just me, and you…well, you’re somebody else altogether, aren’t you?”
She watched his jaw, his impossible, square jaw, work itself. Years, she thought, years and years even if you discounted several decades of suspended animation in a glacier. Years of being sprung from traps and lairs, years of being carried over rooftops, years spent just inches away from that impossible, square chin, being whispered at by that impossibly deep voice. Years, and one simple human truth still escaped him: she knew. Of course she knew.
Ginny started to leave but turned back. “Show me those tickets.” He took them from his desk drawer. Two small envelopes, with gold printing. She snatched them both.
“One’s mine,” said Lang.
“Get yourself another. I may want to bring a date.” Or scalp it, at least, to spite him.
* * * *
Early that evening, after a brief stop at her apartment across from the Clocktower Building on South 12th Avenue, Ginny went to the flop-house address she’d uncovered for Archibald T. Pupper, the erstwhile Archetype. The criminal mastermind opened the door to his room immediately when she knocked. “Ms. Flynn,” he said, smiling, a bit of noodle on his chin. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought he was eager for company. “You’ve caught me midst a small repast. I apologize. Please do come in.”
He led her into the room and cleared a Styrofoam Cup-o-Raman, and a half-pint carton of milk, from the small table. He invited her to sit. “Good to see you again, Ms. Flynn. Though I venture you do not share my sentiment.”
“On the contrary, this is much nicer than our last meeting, when you strapped me to a nuclear warhead.”
Pupper chuckled, embarrassed. “We have enjoyed our share of improbable predicaments, have we not, Ms. Flynn?”
“Call me Ginny. Everybody does.”
“Short for Virginia?”
“More or less.” Virginity Flynn actually, but she didn’t like advertising it, damn the Wing. “How’s freedom treating you?”
“I shall not complain. The people of Excelsior City are kind and forgiving. I’m blessed to be back among them.”
“That’s a sound-byte.”
“Is that not why you have come?”
“Do you see a camera? A tape recorder?”
He stared at her. “Indeed not. So why are you here, Ms. Flynn? I am no longer the villain you once knew. If you expect me to return to my old ways, I am afraid you, and your vast audience, are doomed to disappointment.” He said nothing for a moment, then tilted his head gracefully. “However, if I may assist in some other capacity, please allow me to do so. For old times’ sake, let us say.”
“Tell me about the Venus Diamond.” She produced the engraved invitations to the unveiling. The tickets had pictures of the diamond on their face, a green-hued, perfect teardrop. Pupper snorted.
“My dear lady. That is not the Venus Diamond.”
She looked at the picture. The diamond, famous the world over, looked as it always had to her. “Even if it is a forgery, how can you tell from a photo?”
“That is the display diamond. The actual Venus would hardly garner the attention and crowds this gaudy bauble will. No, the real diamond—the one that grips men’s souls—appears too prosaic, and is far too dangerous, to parade before the masses.”
“Where is it?”
“I conjecture an ordinary wall safe in the curator’s office. Professor Wendell Whipple is an aficionado of the great Edgar Allen Poe. You know ‘The Purloined Letter’?”
“The diamond is hidden in plain sight?”
“I stress: this is my conjecture.”
“And no one has ever seen the real diamond?”
“To my knowledge, it has never been photographed.”
Ginny beamed. Lang wanted a diamond story, and she would give him one. “Mr. Pupper, have you got a tuxedo?”
* * * *
The ball took place in the marbled lobby of The Supernatural Wonders Museum. Except for Lang Lofton’s conspicuous absence, Excelsior City’s entire elite was in attendance, including Mayor Dirtly, who stood to one side, chatting with some of his goonish aldermen toadies because no one else would meet his eyes. His administration was in shambles, and if the opposition succeeded in drafting Lang into the campaign, this would be one of Dirtly’s last functions in an official capacity.
The invitations stated midnight-blue or green tie, and evening wear. Ginny wore a floor-length, forest-green leather coat and matching knee-high boots with razor-sharp heels. Underneath was a kelly-green leather bustier, and short-shorts. Christof, Excelsior City’s most sought-after designer and her trusted friend, had made it for her. At her request, he’d also outfitted one of her jade earrings with a miniature camera, which she had supplied. A jade finger ring, and its hidden compartment filled with knockout drops, completed the outfit.
For Pupper, Ginny had procured a dark tuxedo, with green cummerbund. Even with lifts in his sparkling shoes he failed to reach her shoulder, but then again, few men did. He had trimmed his sideburns and pulled the last remnants of his white locks back into a tiny ponytail. He looked, all things considered, rather natty.
Her plan was simple. By bringing Pupper along as a beacon for the police—to say nothing of the Wing—she could blend into the background. She would stay modest and polite until she had Professor Whipple dead in her sights. Once they were alone, she would unbutton her long coat to reveal her secret weapon—her bare midriff. Everyone knew the Professor fancied himself a Geological Romeo; the sight would render him powerless. After that, the rest of the job—taking the first-ever picture of the real Venus Diamond—should be simplicity itself.
A diamond the size of a large cat, the faux-Venus, gleamed on in its crystal display case, surrounded by red laser beams and a thin blue line of Excelsior City’s finest. It’s greenish hue attracted wealthy socialites like moths to a bug-zapper, and everyone had to have at least one photograph taken of them posing beside it. Archie Pupper proved to be quite the sensation as well. His long imprisonment seemed to have diminished the fear he’d once caused in the public, while the myths around him had continued to grow. Tonight, he found himself surrounded by beautiful women who laughed at his self-deprecating jokes, and he charmed the men who wanted to be seen shaking hands with him.
Ginny slipped away from this commotion and kept
her eyes open for Professor Whipple. She jumped, surprised, when a throaty whisper said, “Enjoying yourself?” in her ear. She whirled. “Lang!”
“What are you doing here…with him?” he hissed.
Eyes wild, hair disheveled, she’d never seen him like this. “With whom? You mean Pupper?”
“You know very well who I mean.”
“My job,” she said. “I’m doing my job.”
“But you’ve brought him right to the diamond!”
“He hardly needs me to get into the Museum,” she said, ignoring for the moment that the gala was invitation only. “It’s a public place. Besides, he’s harmless. I’ve spent half the day with him, and he hasn’t tried to kill me once.”
“Good lord!” said Lang. “Are you a fool!”
She stepped back. His eyes were red. Had he been crying? “I don’t think I like you like this, Lang. Go mingle or something; let me work.”
Brewster Stevens, community activist and chair of the Draft Lang Lofton for Mayor Committee, pressed his way between them. “Lang! How’s our next mayor! Look at Dirtly over there! He won’t even acknowledge you’re in the room! Come on Lang, I’ve got people here dying to meet you. You don’t mind if I steal him away, do you, Ginny?”
“Please, Brewster. Steal him.”
Lang tried to make an excuse, but Brewster wouldn’t have it and pulled him away. Lang shot Ginny a last, desperate look, and she stuck her tongue out at him and grinned.
She found Professor Whipple soon afterward and put forward several pointed questions about the Venus Diamond’s cleavage and the internal pressures which caused diamonds to grow. When Whipple, attempting smoothness, suggested going somewhere a smidge more secluded, she tugged one corner of his bowtie and told him she’d always wanted to see a geologist’s spectroscope. They were off to his private lab before Whipple could stammer his agreement.
Once inside the lab, Ginny almost groaned. The lab’s warren of shelves and counters were piled high with papers, gems both precious and semi, beakers, flasks and test tubes. How to find something in plain sight, when there was no plain sight to begin with?
