Domina Tricks’ head sitting on top of the service counter and the rest of her body is lying limp on the floor.
27
The door to Jason’s suite at the Grand Vegas opens and Jason readies himself to be arrested. Domina’s Influence Net is on the table before him and he fingers it nervously.
“Jason?”
“Nancy? What are you doing here?” he asks, rising to his feet. “You’ve got to get out of here! Right —!”
“No one is going anywhere!” a strong female voice announces. Captain Foggen enters the room, gun drawn, with a cadre of FBI agents behind her. “Jason Kitmore, also known as Kid Rapscallion, you are under arrest for the murder of Domina Tricks.”
28
Transcript from Las Vegas Channel 10 Evening News
August 19, 2002
NANCY CATHALL
This is Nancy Cathall, standing outside of the Grand Vegas, where Kid Rapscallion was arrested less than one hour ago for the murder of the super villain, Domina Tricks. There are two pieces of information I can report exclusively to the Channel 10 audience. The first is that sources tell me that Kid was arrested personally by Homeland Secruity’s Director of Capes Division, Captain Trisha Foggen, who is so far denying any and all requests for comment. The second piece of information we must keep in mind is that Domina Tricks is a noted nemesis of Rapscallion, Kid’s former mentor, who is currently on trial in San Francisco to answer charges of child abuse and endangerment. It is unclear if the murder of Domina Tricks is related to the Trial of Rapscallion. This is Nancy Cathall. Channel 10 News.
29
“I want to hear it,” Captain Foggen states, holding up the Influence Net. “All of it.”
“You don’t get to,” Jason says. He is sitting in his uniform, sans domino mask, in an interrogation room at Nellis Air Force Base. “I’ll talk to Ms. Stagger, but I’m not talking to a cape traitor.”
“Cute,” she says, running her hands down the front of her business jacket. “I’ve heard worse and I’m not in the mood for games.”
“I get a phone call, don’t I?”
“No.”
“Fine,” Jason shrugs. “Call the Fort. Psychic Navigator will explain what you’re holding.”
“When we’re finished.”
“God damn it, Foggen,” he grunts. “Turn off the cameras for five minutes and I’ll explain everything.”
30
“You’ve got two minutes,” Foggen says. “Go.”
“That net you’re holding is called an Influence Net,” he explains.
“I know what it is and what it does,” she snaps. “I was in the Revolutionaries, remember?”
“What you’re going to find when you run the evidence from that room is my semen inside of Domina and my fingerprints on the skill saw that took off Domina’s head. She ordered me to commit both acts and Psychic Navigator will testify that it’s not the first time Domina mucked around with my brain.”
“That’s convenient,” Foggen says, shaking her head. “You’ve got one minute left. Mind telling me why Domina Tricks was feeling suicidal enough after fucking you to order you to cut her head off?”
“Yeah,” Jason says, pointing a finger at the blonde woman. “She’s Rapscallion’s daughter. Not that either of them knew that while they were doing all the things we were doing before I killed her.”
“What?” Foggen asks, her stomach lurching. “If you’re lying to me, Kitmore —”
“Call Psychic Navigator,” Jason says, leaning back, “and when you’re done, you, me, and Indigo Impster can pay Rapscallion a visit in the Stockade. Because my guess is that all of this shit is something that you aren’t going to want to get out to the public.”
31
California State District Attorney Caldwell Sanchez steps to the podium in the press room of the county courthouse and waits for the reporters to settle down.
“Good morning. This will be a brief statement and I will not take questions. The District Attorney’s office has reached an agreement with the hero known as Rapscallion, in conjunction with Captain Trisha Foggen and Homeland Security in light of the murder of the villain Domina Tricks in Las Vegas three nights ago. The details of that event helped to provide context for Rapscallion’s actions and focus the desire of my office, Homeland Security, and Rapscallion, to reach a settlement. The specifics of this deal will remain sealed, but I can make several general comments. One, while not admitting to any wrongdoing, Rapscallion has agreed to cease being a vigilante. Two, he will remain in custody in the Stockade for a period of not less than one year. Three, upon release, he will not be allowed to have any unsupervised contact with children under the age of 15. While the state of California does not consider Rapscallion a threat to children, both myself and Rapscallion agree that the allure of a superhero, even post-9/11, is potentially too great for children to make a rational decision. Further, I pledge to take steps in the coming days to add an amendment to the Vigilante Act to make it illegal for children under the age of 18 to practice any sort of vigilantism. Four, and this is most important for the public to understand, my office would not have signed off on this agreement without the full support of Kid Rapscallion and Indigo Impster, the two victims of Rapscallion’s decision to gain a sidekick. That is all. Thank you. No questions.”
32
It is almost Christmas, and Jason and Melody have moved into a new house together in the suburbs of Las Vegas. Melody has decided to retire from the villain business and wishes Jason to retire, as well, but he refuses.
“Being a superhero is what I am,” he insists, “not just what I do.”
Melody doesn’t argue. She is glad that Jason has managed to buy her services from the 20-Sided Dice and have that aspect of her life closed off. She does not completely understand everything that happened with the end of the Rapscallion case or what really went down between him and Domina, but she is glad he is here, with her, and that they are going forward.
33
“You’re Nancy Cathall, aren’t you?” a man says as he descends from the sky to land in the parking lot of Channel 10.
“I am,” she says, feeling her pulse quicken. “You’re Jersey 121, aren’t you? What are you doing in Vegas?
“I’m looking for a man,” the handsome, young hero says. His hair, eyes, and costume both seem impossibly black, and Nancy can’t help but feel as if his presence is stealing the air from around her. He is handsome, yes, but it’s more than that, somehow. “I was hoping you could help me find him,” he says.
“Sure,” Nancy replies, hoping she can. “What’s his name?”
“Joey Vamps.”
34
“You’re a hard man to get a meeting with, Number One,” Joey Vamps says, stepping into a dark game room inside a mansion just north of Vegas.
The leader of 20-Sided Dice comes out from behind a bar with a drink in his hand and offers it to the ex-mafia hit man and current villain for hire. “It is a Missouri Mule,” he says. “I have heard it is your favorite.”
“It is,” Joey Vamps says, taking a sip and placing it on a coffee table before sitting on a white sofa opposite Number One. “The drink was invented for Harry Truman, the prick.”
The two men eye each other. Number One wears a smart, gray business suit and a black mask with the number 1 on it, while Joey Vamps appears to be in his mid-40s, with a rough, black business suit that looks like it stepped out of a picture from Al Capone’s era.
Which, in a manner of speaking, it had, because that was the era in which this mob hit man had been turned into a vampire.
“What can I help you with?” Number One asks.
“9/11,” Vamps says.
“Ah,” Number One smiles beneath his mask. “Yes, you were on board one of the planes that was highjacked by the terrorists. It is a surprise to see you here.”
“Well, I’m a focking vampire, dig? We grow back,” Joey says, yanking on his tie knot. “But what I want to know is why you put a hit out on m
e. Don’t you focking deny it. I know that you —”
“Mr. Vamps!” Number One laughs. “Is that what this is about? Heavens, no. I want to hire you to do a job for me.”
“Yeah? What kind of job, Number One? I don’t come cheap.”
“I will pay you one million dollars.”
“For what?”
“I want you to kill Kid Rapscallion,” he says. “And stop calling me Number One. I have another name you will know me under.”
“Yeah?”
“I am the new Penthouse Man.”
PART
NINE
9/11
1
Jason Kitmore sits against the wall in Vincent Vogelsung’s igloo inside the Stockade, his mind racing as he shakes from the realization of what has happened. There is something wrong with him, he realizes, something deeply wrong with him. When Belle suggested he see a therapist, someone like Psychic Navigator, perhaps, Jason agreed with her.
“See, Kid,” Vincent says from inside his glass cube, “the problem with you is that you don’t understand the game. Becca never understood it, either. This dame who was killed in your apartment, Duplication Girl? How long do you think the press is going to keep that story under wraps? Let me tell you something about the press — they’re parasites, the lot of them. They wouldn’t have stories without us, but they’ll jam a knife in your back at the drop of a hat. Look at me, Kid. Come on, look at me. My niece likes you, so I’m gonna do you a favor. I’m going to show you how to control the game so the press can’t touch you. Not even for something like this.”
“How?”
“You’re gonna be me, Kid,” Vincent smiles. “You’re gonna be the new Penthouse Man.”
PART
TEN
2015
1
“You’re fucking Joey Vamps?” Jason asks, almost too stunned to give voice to the question. “The guy who almost killed me?”
“Who’s fault was that?” Nancy shoots back, knocking her seat over as she rises to her feet.
“Quiet,” Mr. Monster grumbles. “Explain.”
Jason and Nancy look at each other, their eyes sending all of their history back at one another in a gaze too intense to last. To Nancy it has never been more clear how one-sided their relationship has been. For her, it’s always been about him, while he’s had more meaningful relationships with 2, 3, 4, who knows how many more women? Jason turns away from her as Nancy picks up her chair and sits back down at the table.
“It was 2002,” she explains. “Jason was … going through things.”
“That was the year Rapscallion went on trial,” Jason says, sitting on the edge of the unmade bed.
“Heavy stuff,” Mr. Monster acknowledges, then waits for one of them to continue.
“Between the murder of Duplication Girl,” Jason says, “my cocaine add-I mean, use … oh fuck it, my cocaine addiction, the charges against Francis, everything I went through with Fake Out, murdering Domina … I don’t know. I was looking for answers, I guess, and there was Vincent Vogelsung ready to give them to me. I was still a rebellious little shit, so even though the Revolutionaries were giving me support — mental therapy with Psychic Navigator to help me undo and understand what had happened to me as a kid—”
“What happened to you as a kid?” Mr. Monster asks.
“Bad stuff,” Nancy says, stepping in to answer for Jason. “But no, not with Francis,” she adds, quickly and defensively.
“—and they brought in the Big Brains to first help create a new drug to produce the same positive effects of cocaine without the addictive qualities, and then went to work on a new drug to replace the Peak drug that produced effects that needed the cocaine to help me level off …” He shakes his head, lost in a memory. “I dunno. I guess there was a part of me that still objected to the idea of anyone telling me what to do. Those early therapy sessions … I just endured them instead of getting anything from them. The Vigilante Act allowed Foggen to keep me in the Stockade as long as she wanted, without being charged or without any representation, but it was post-9/11, yeah? In the old days, all of this stuff would have been taken care of in-house, but right after 9/11, with the public all over us and the Congress hammering us every single day … Foggen was worried about what the public would think if it got out I murdered Domina.”
“Did you?” Mr. Monster asks. “I heard she was suicidal and ‘persuaded’ you with the Influence Net.”
“Please,” Jason says, shaking his head. “I murdered her. She told me to fuck her and I did, but she didn’t say anything about not murdering her.”
“Jesus. They say you cut her head off with—”
Jason nods. “I did. Had to make sure.”
“That’s cold,” Mr. Monster says, shaking his head.
“Anyway,” Jason says, shuddering at what that moment felt like, to take the saw and eviscerate Domina’s neck, “I was feeling the pinch. I was entering the third year of my deal with Vegas and they weren’t giving me any indication that I was going to be retained. I needed some villains to be able to defeat to make myself look better. Fuck’s sake, do you remember Prospector Patty? I fought her like ten times in three months. What kind of ratings did those encounters bring in?” he asks Nancy, who only frowns.
Mr. Monster rubs his eyes. “Look, I don’t even remember the second Penthouse Man being a thing. How serious is this Joey Vamps’ situation?”
“It’s serious,” Nancy says.
“I took over 20SD from the actual Number One and turned it into a dummy organization, with the intent of revealing the new Penthouse Man as the city’s newest evil … look, it was a bad plan, but I thought if I set up a bad guy I could get way more info about what the bad guy’s were doing. I mean, if you look back on it, all the things 20SD did were hitting bad guys and—”
“Just stop,” Mr. Monster says, holding up his hands. “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”
“Well, I was a coke addict, remember?”
“Get to Joey Vamps.”
“Jason hired Joey to kill Kid Rapscallion, with the idea that Kid would then capture Joey.”
“Just to improve your rep?” Mr. Monster asks.
“Well, that, and because Joey Vamps was a legit dangerous guy we needed off the street,” Jason explains.
“Jason …”
Jason shakes his head and rubs his hands across his face. “Also, he was sitting on $35 million worth of cocaine that he’d hidden in somewhere in the Blood Zone.”
Mr. Monster shakes his head. “Therapy was really working, huh?”
Nancy slams her hand on the table. “He didn’t take any of it,” she insists. “He captured Joey Vamps and turned him in, and then turned all the coke over to … over to …” Nancy blinks and looks to the ashamed former hero. “You sonuvabitch! You never gave it to Foggen, did you?”
“I gave her the coordinates,” he says weakly.
“So Joey Vamps is back to get his stash?” Mr. Monster asks.
“Yes,” Nancy says.
“And you’re fucking him?” Jason asks.
“No,” Nancy says. “It wasn’t Joey who was here, Jason. It was another vampire who has aligned with him.”
“Who?” he asks, rising to his feet. “I never really fought any vampires.”
“That’s because you don't know that Domina Tricks is a vampire,” Nancy says in a quiet voice. “But she is, and she’s back.”
PART
ELEVEN
2003
1
These are the least enjoyable days of Jason Kitmore’s life.
He is living in the suburbs, dating Melody, worrying about getting his contract with the city of Las Vegas extended, seeing Psychic Navigator for therapy to deal with the issues of his youth, and being a guinea pig for the Big Brains’ attempt to come up with a new set of drugs that will keep his abilities high and his euphoria low.
There are few super villains out and about as the teeth of the Vigilante Act becomes stronger a
nd grows longer.
He buys Melody a new BMW E46, and she retires from life in 20-Sided Dice after he negotiates a buyout with the Penthouse Man.
“Was it tough?” Melody asks, unaware that Kid Rapscallion and Penthouse Man are the same person.
“It was a tough negotiation,” he says, “but we came to an understanding.”
The “understanding” involves the large estate he’s bought to run the Penthouse Man’s operations, Nancy, and falling off the cocaine wagon. He spends lots of times “on patrol,” which is his way of saying, “with Nancy at the new mansion I bought.”
He is there, with her, now.
“Jason …” Nancy starts to say as he pushes her head into his lap, giving her something else to do with her mouth. In the time they’ve been together, which amounts to under three years, he has put his dick into Nancy’s mouth more times than he could possibly recall, yet this is the first time he realizes the depths of his treatment of her.
He thinks it has something to do with how long it’s been since they’ve been together, because for all the progress he’s made with Psychic Navigator, he still clings to old, bad habits.
Nancy, he thinks, relaxing his grip on her head, is a manifestation of that, and what he’s doing to her right now — even though she is here on her own free will and bobbing up and down on him of her own free will — is not acceptable behavior.
He does not tell her to stop.
2
“It’s been awhile,” Nancy says when they are done.
“Yeah,” he says, frowning, forcing his head deeper into the bed pillow. He squeezes the bottom of his nose and sniffs, trying to get more cocaine into him. “That’s the first time I’ve cheated on Melody.”
Used to Be: The Kid Rapscallion Story Page 16
