by Joe Meno
“Yes, it’s exactly that, ma’am, a miracle. A miracle of modern living. Hair-replacement surgery can be expensive and dangerous. So why risk it? What we offer you is quality hair replacement without the serious dangers and side effects.”
Billy looks around the office and wonders what effect all these telephone calls are having. He closes his eyes and goes back to speaking.
When he leaves for the evening, Billy steals a Gallant Sailor hair replacement kit: The black mustache and black beard get hidden tightly beneath his blue sweater.
TWENTY-FOUR
At school, sitting in class, Effie Mumford has to hold her old taped glasses onto her face as she looks down at her American History book. Suddenly, at the back of her neck, she feels a sharp pain, and sees she has been hit by something. She looks over her shoulder and sees Parker Lane, a narrow-faced girl with blue eye shadow, glaring back. Parker Lane points toward the floor and Effie Mumford’s gaze follows.
It is a note, folded into a tiny white triangle, which has hit Effie in the back of the head. She reaches over, opens it up, and reads: You’re right. You are way ugly. Nobody in the whole world likes you. She folds up the note and presses her broken glasses up against her eyes and forehead, not knowing what to do with her face. It is the school library where Effie Mumford goes to hide during lunch period. She does not eat at school. She is too afraid someone will take advantage of her while her mouth is open and that she will eat an item from her lunch which has somehow been poisoned. Poisoning someone does not require much imagination and she believes that, if given the opportunity, her classmates would surely take it.
It is later in the school day that she realizes today is the day of the science fair. She has nothing prepared. Her experiment having been ruined by the death of her rabbit, she walks about the small, terribly arranged exhibits—past a display for a rocket-car of the future, past a papier-mâché model of a volcano, past a bumpy bust describing the science of phrenology—to Parker Lane’s prize-winning presentation, entitled, “How Water Totally Becomes Ice.” Effie Mumford stops and stares, dumfounded, glaring at the horrible Magic-Markered illustrations, the torn and oddly pasted National Geographic pages, and worse, a rectangular ice cube tray from which Parker, grinning, offers samples.
Effie Mumford’s small hands turn red, as does her face; what is so bothersome is the knowledge that she could have easily won if she had only tried again. It is this knowledge that makes her cry—not for the murder of her bunny, not about the enduring, pervasive insults, not because of her terrible, taped-together glasses. It is knowing that she could have done better than all of this and did not, which forces the small, shiny tears from her eyes. She has allowed herself, once again, to be defeated by mediocrity, and it is this thought—the apparent triumph of the uninspired and average—that truly makes her angry. Out of both rage and frustration, she purposefully knocks over Parker Lane’s poorly assembled display, the poster boards crashing to the gymnasium floor as Effie runs away.
TWENTY-FIVE
The boy detective suddenly realizes it is Professor Von Golum, his lifelong archenemy, who is sitting across from him on the bus on his way home from work that evening. The Professor is out of sorts—perhaps it is his medication or the consequence of his age, but he is pressing the yellow Stop Request button very angrily. He is being ignored; the button does not seems to be working.
“Professor?” Billy mutters. The boy detective looks around and becomes aware that there are no other passengers aboard. “Do you want some help, Professor?”
“We demand this bus takes us directly to the Gotham City Bank. And …” the Professor takes a breath, inhaling through his small, skull-like nose, “the combination to the Gotham City safe.”
“We? There is no one else here, Professor,” Billy says.
“We, the Gotham City Gang, demand it. And we demand you get punished for your sniveling backtalk.”
“The Gang is all dead, Professor,” the boy detective says sadly. “All dead?”
“All but you, sir.”
“Chet the Blind Safecracker?”
“Yes.”
“Waldo the Heaviest Man Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Pete the Elastic-Faced Boy? What about Pete?”
“Pete the Elastic-Faced Man. Yes sir, dead.”
“Oh God, where are we going?” the Professor asks nervously, reaching across the aisle, holding the boy detective’s hand. “I’d just like to know where I’m supposed to be going.”
The boy detective goes silent.
Professor Von Golum takes a seat beside him and nearly collapses. “I don’t know what I’m doing with this,” he says, handing Billy a small silver test tube clearly labeled ACID.
Billy takes the vial and stares at a small note in Professor Von Golum’s other hand. It reads:
today
go to store
buy acid
kill boy detective
The boy detective holds the vial tightly in his hand and stares down at his feet, frowning.
TWENTY-SIX
At the Convocation of Evil, the schedule of events reads:
9:00-9:30: Welcome with coffee and assorted muffins and bagels
9:30-10:30: Break-out groups:
• Crime as Your Career: Investing for the Future
• Kidnapping: More Hassle Than It’s Worth?
• High-Grade Explosives from Everyday Chemicals
10:30-11:30: Featured Presentation: A Century of Madmen
11:30-12:00: Featured Panel: To Wear a Mask?
12:00-1:00: Lunch
1:00-2:00: Officers and Sub-Committee Elections
2:00-3:00: Featured Guest: Senator Jonah Klee (R-Texas)
3:00-4:00: Closing Remarks: “Our Evil Architectural Plans”
On the stage at the podium in the Van Buren room of the Gotham Hotel, the Blank is speaking. The Blank is not the name his parents would have preferred, but honestly, it is better than the one they gave him. There he stands, in his white mask, black suit and tie, the clothing giving the appearance that there is indeed a phantom’s face hanging in the air above the wooden podium. He does not move his arms or gesture with his hands. He looks down at his notes and marches through his words, one after another, without much charisma at all. He is not a very good public speaker: His voice is high and weak, and he is terrified of looking up and actually seeing the audience listening.
Some of what the Blank is saying is this: “Our evil plans include world domination—as one might imagine—through the use of right angles and right angles only. We will only adhere to the highest order of very straight lines. We will not rest until we have achieved global uniformity. As you can see in my first slide”—a perfectly rectangular town with perfectly rectangular buildings appears on the screen behind him—“all other buildings must be destroyed.”
The audience does not seem very impressed with any of it. In fact, they seem bored. They stare down at their feet, they whisper to one another, they sip on their complimentary cups of coffee. As a cadre of villains from near and far, they are very uninterested: Mr. Brow sighs and picks at a nail on his left hand. The Mug fills nearly two seats, his enormous shoulders crowding Tinyface Thompson, who snoozes loudly beside him. The audience—Boris the Bandit, Handsome George, Dr. Hammer—dreams of getting up and leaving, suddenly uncomfortable in their strange attire, each wishing they had not bothered to respond to the strange invitation.
The masked man behind the podium makes the tragic mistake of looking up just then and notices his audience is no longer interested. He hurries through his notes and in doing so, skips some important points. He immediately begins stuttering and, to grab their attention, he rushes to his surprise announcement.
“We have decided as a show of our seriousness, we will make another building in this very town disappear tonight.”
The audience looks up. A man in a cape and mask raises his hand.
“Whoever asks a question at this point in the pre
sentation will most definitely be asked to leave.”
The man lowers his hand.
The boy detective, his face covered in white bandages and disguised with a beard and mustache, attempts to enter the strange meeting. He creeps down the white-wallpapered hallway without incident. He finds the Van Buren meeting room and moves to slowly open the doors. It is then that he is troubled to find that the Convocation of Evil has hired its own private detective: Her name is Violet Dew and Billy recognizes her immediately. Seeing her in a white blouse and a soft brown skirt, her chestnut hair bobbing beside a dainty chin, Billy feels his heart flutter. Violet Dew, the smartest girl in the world, or so she, at the age of twelve, had proclaimed.
Violet spots him, smiles, and walks toward him quickly. “Stop right there, Billy.”
“I will not.”
“You will,” she says, holding up her small left hand and pressing it against his chest. “Because I know you’d never hit a girl.”
Billy nods. “Violet.”
“Billy.”
“Your hair looks the same,” he says.
“I’m in a rut,” she says.
“I think it looks lovely.”
Billy stares down at her small, narrow fingers and frowns. “I thought you were married.”
Violet shakes her head. “I was. It didn’t go so well.”
“I see.”
“Did you ever …?”
“No.”
Violet sighs. “It’s because we’ve been ruined, Billy.”
“Yes. That’s true.”
Violet drops her hand and they both stare down at their feet.
“Why are you here?” Billy asks.
“I’ve been hired to run interference and make sure no one intergurrupts this meeting.”
“But they are all villains,” Billy says.
“You know the score, Billy. If you’ve got a case, take it to the police.”
“Why are you helping them?”
“I’m not in the position to turn away much work these days.”
“I see.”
“And I must warn you that you’re trespassing on private property and unless you leave, I’ll be forced to call the police.”
Billy nods, sizing up the threat. “Hmmmmmm,” he says.
“Hmmmmmmmmmmm,” she says. “Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm,” he repeats. “Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm,” she responds.
It is not over. Not quite. Billy suddenly takes Violet’s hand and smiles. He holds it and stares at her and the feeling of her palm against his is warm and soft and Violet is surprised and blushes quick.
He leans in and whispers in her ear: “You wrote me a letter once.”
“Billy, you said you would never mention it.”
He frowns, still holding her hand. “Once we were waiting in a clock tower and there were cobwebs in your hair and I said something that made you laugh.”
“Billy, please, don’t.”
“I am asking you for your help, Violet. I need to solve this case. If I don’t, I’m as good as dead.”
Violet closes her eyes. She has never looked so beautiful in all her life. “Billy, if we weren’t so damn alike …”
“Please, Violet.”
The smartest girl in the world nods and leans in, kissing his cheek.
“Thank you, Violet.”
Violet smiles. “Yes—and Billy?”
“Yes, Violet?”
“Do something good, Billy. Like we used to, OK?”
It is then that the boy detective lets his true identity be known: Removing the long black beard and mustache, it becomes quite obvious he is not a villain at all. He is Billy Argo, boy detective. He steps past the young woman and gives the doors of the meeting room a dramatic shove.
The Blank is trying to remember a joke he was to make about the problem with time bombs, but in his nervousness it seems he cannot remember it. He pauses, searches through his note cards, itches his neck, searches through his note cards again, and then gives up. “Yes, well, now then, we will answer your questions,” he says.
The man in the cape and mask raises his hand. “Why do all the buildings have to be the same?” he asks. “It seems kind of pointless. I mean, why bother with that kind of thing?”
“We will establish a death grip on the world through complete and total uniformity. We will start with surface structures, like buildings, and then … it will all be very easy.”
The caped man sits down, shaking his head.
It is at this exact moment that the boy detective enters.
The Blank looks up and sees the bandaged face of his longtime adversary, then places a black hand against his white forehead in a gesture of defeat.
“Oh no. Oh, no,” he says.
Every villain in the room sees the quickstepping young man moving toward the podium and draws in a breath. Certainly they remember the lad: the brash twinkle of his eyes, the nervous though intelligent eyebrows, the small blue cardigan sweater. Billy dashes down the aisle and stands before the stage, the Blank’s white-faced henchmen hurrying aside. The boy detective stares up at the wood podium and then points at the masked man onstage.
“It is now over, fiend. Whatever you had planned will now come to an end.”
“Ah, but it is too late, boy detective. For at this very moment, a disintegration bomb is being hidden at a secret location in town, a bomb which is set to go off at midnight tonight, a bomb with absolutely no failsafe device. Not even you will be able to stop it.”
“I see.”
“Perhaps you would like to know the whereabouts of the bomb?”
“Yes, I would.”
“It is none other than … the bus station.”
“The bus station?”
“Yes, of course—a more hideously designed building has never been raised. It is circular and asymmetrical at the same time. It is quite awful to behold. I am doing this town a favor.”
“The bomb cannot be disarmed?”
“No. It cannot.”
“I see.”
“Any other questions?”
“I do not think so. Other than the one about whether it can be disarmed or not.”
“As I said, it does not seem very likely. Even if you could, the bomb has been carefully hidden. You would have to find it first, which would be nearly impossible.”
“Oh, I did not think about whether it would be hidden or not.”
“Yes, it is hidden quite well. Now if you don’t mind, we’re having an important meeting,” the Blank says.
“Oh yes, I’m sorry,” the boy detective whispers, defeated. He suddenly becomes aware of the bandages on his face. He suddenly becomes aware that he is about to faint. People are staring at him, mumbling. He has failed. He will not be able to save the day. He silently apologizes to the conventioneers, as he turns and drifts through the doors of the meeting room. The convention is at once silent. A chair squeaks and the sound rises through the room like a scream. Someone begins whispering.
Everyone holds their breath, wondering what might happen next.
TWENTY-SEVEN
The boy detective and the Mumford children are sitting sadly beneath the front porch.
“But why did they kill my bunny?” the girl asks.
“I am afraid there is no answer to that question, other than what we may have already discovered: to make you sad. It is their job to break all our hearts. Theirs is a world of evil and it seems we are truly at their mercy.”
Gus hands Billy a small note. It reads: Why are we under the porch?
“We have no way of saving ourselves at the moment. We have no way of knowing when the world of evil will find us. We have no way of knowing how to stop evil from happening, so all we can do is wait here and hide.”
In the looming twilight, the sunlight dying as it makes its way through the slats in the porch, the boy detective lays on his side and, bringing thumb and forefinger together in a small circle, while keeping his other three fingers straight, he watches the shape of the shadow of h
is hand change suddenly. He holds his fingers against the concrete foundation of the house, imagining the head of a small shadowy rabbit, waiting there in the near dark.
Why is a mystery so terrifying to us as adults? Is it because our worlds have become worlds of routine and safety and order the older we’ve grown? Is it because we have learned the answer to everything and that answer is that there is never a secret passageway, a hidden treasure, or a note written in code to save us from our darkest moments? Why are we struggling so hard against believing there is a world we don’t know? Is it more frightening to accept our lives as they are than it is to entertain a fantasy of hope?
Depressed, the boy detective pops two Ativan and lies in the television room of Shady Glens, watching an episode of Modern Police Cadet.
In this episode, titled “Evil Is Everywhere,” young Leopold Jones has been double-crossed by an unscrupulous policeman named Constable Heller. Heller wears black-framed glasses and a black beard. He is something of an intellectual and argues that crime is a positive plague enacted by nature to wipe out the poor and weak. It becomes clear that the Modern Police Cadet has been tricked when, after discovering a bomb planted outside a displaced-persons shelter, Constable Heller prepares to shoot him in the back.
“I wish it could go some other way, my friend,” the Constable says, then draws his small silver pistol.
Leopold Jones, Modern Police Cadet, turns, unwilling to look the villain in the eye. “If you are going to shoot me in the back, I will not give you the pleasure of watching me cower at your feet,” he says, and begins walking away.
Constable Heller, in a moment of truly brilliant acting, pauses, wipes his mouth, and takes off his black-framed glasses, as Leopold continues to stride toward the police coupe, the lights still flashing bright white. Constable Heller stares at the bomb, then at Leopold’s back, then at the bomb again, while a violin howls terribly. It is clear this is a moment of serious deliberation for the evil Constable. The next sound is a loud gunshot, and young Leopold drops to his knees. For some reason, the Modern Police Cadet begins smiling.
“You poor fool,” Leopold says, losing consciousness. “Now you will never ever save yourself.”
