Blast from the Past

by Kelner, Toni, L. P.

  She bared her teeth and said, “Actually, my art teacher said I made the best egg carton dragons she’d ever seen, but it’s been a while since I’ve devoted any time to the form. Can you tell me where you learned to draw?”

  “Rhode Island School of Design. Unfortunately I never graduated. I had a run-in with a professor who didn’t think that comic book art was a worthy subject, and when he made it clear that he wasn’t going to pass me, I dropped out.” He shrugged. “I probably should have tried for some sort of compromise, but at the time I was younger and more hot-blooded. As an artist, I felt very strongly about following my muse.”

  “How long did you attend?”

  “Nearly three years, and for most of that time, I thrived. That much talent concentrated in one place . . . It was one of the few places I’d felt completely comfortable with myself. We were all so focused on the work, but we partied just as hard.” He smiled. “You know, I was the one who first came up with Scrotie.”

  “Scrotie?”

  “Our unofficial school mascot. Short for scrotum.”

  “You mean somebody dresses up as a pair of balls—”

  “As a penis, actually, not just the scrotum.”

  “So he dresses up as a penis and prances around basketball games?”

  “I think official college history says he didn’t appear until 2001, but I know I came up with a couple of designs for the costume back when I was a student. I dropped out before I had a chance to build them.”

  Tilda looked at her pad, trying extremely hard not to picture Kiel in a penis costume. “I’ve been wondering why you never drew comics after Pharos.”

  “Because of this.” He held up his hand, and there was a noticeable tremor.

  “Parkinson’s?”

  “Drugs. After I dropped out, which was around the time Pharos wrapped up, I went wild for a few years. My family cut me off, so I was living hand-to-mouth, crashing at friends’ apartments and indulging in too many recreational chemicals. One day I woke up and could barely snap my jeans because of my hands shaking. I went into rehab that same day. But even when I got clean, the shaking never went away. The doctors say I’ve got an underlying genetic condition, and the drugs accelerated a process that might not have shown up for years otherwise. They don’t think it’s fatal, but they don’t really know. There’s not enough data.” He smiled ruefully. “It’s so rare, it doesn’t even have a name yet—my doctor wants to call it Kiel’s Syndrome, but all those decisions are political, so it may not happen.”

  “So you can’t draw anymore?”

  “I still dabble, but of course I’m not as sharp as I once was. I could probably manage a halfway decent Dylan O’Taine if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “I was hoping to score a sketch,” she admitted, “but if you’re not up to it . . .”

  “I can only try. No doubt you brought along a pad and pencil for the purpose.”

  The guy was definitely getting on her nerves, but she handed him a fresh pad and drawing pencil.

  Kiel fumbled a bit, but eventually produced a rough drawing of O’Taine in front of the lighthouse that was reasonably faithful to the artwork in the comic. The signature was good, too, though Leviathan had such a stylized signature that it was more logo than handwriting, and easy to fake.

  “For you,” he said, writing To Tilda, who Doubted on the top of the page. “At least I hope the doubt is past tense. Or do you have more tests for me?”

  “Just one last question,” Tilda asked, and she couldn’t have said if she expected him to know the answer or not. His answers had been fine, but she just didn’t like him. That didn’t necessarily mean anything, but she hated the idea of a comic she liked as much as Pharos being created by a guy she disliked so thoroughly.

  “I’ve been in contact with Marc Fitzwilliam—,” she said.

  “My old editor from Regal?”

  “That’s right. He sent me copies of the letters you two exchanged, and there are a couple of comments I was curious about. At one point he asked for a change to one of the panels, and though he didn’t say in his letter what the problem was, he was pretty amused about it. Unfortunately he doesn’t remember what the change was.”

  “And?”

  “I thought you might know.” She pulled out the graphic novel of Pharos and pointed to the pertinent panel. “It’s this one here, with O’Taine on top of the sea horse.”

  “Good God! You don’t really expect me to remember, do you? It was twenty years ago. If remembering one little edit is your criteria for judging my authenticity, I may as well leave right now.” He stood up and glared at her.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Tilda saw Hoover moving closer, and didn’t react. Kiel must have seen him, too, because he held up his hands as if in surrender and sat back down.

  “Sorry, but I don’t have a lot of patience for playing games.”

  “No game,” Tilda said. “If you don’t know, you don’t.”

  “Let me explain something about myself that might make it clear to you. When I finish a project, I’m done. I move on. That makes working with an editor extremely difficult for me. All the nitpicky changes Fitzwilliam asked for were like exhuming a corpse and dissecting it, only to sew it back together like Frankenstein’s monster. I did it, but I hated every minute. Is it any wonder the details didn’t stay in my mind?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “I’ve already told you about my days as a druggie. My body wasn’t the only thing to suffer—my memory was affected, too.”

  “I see,” Tilda said, wondering how much longer a man who claimed he didn’t like playing games was going to keep playing this one.

  “If I had the page itself here, I could rip the corrected panel off to show what I’d originally drawn, which was almost certainly superior to whatever inane change Fitzwilliam required. But I don’t have the art anymore.”

  “Actually—”

  “I know, you were going to ask about the pages, weren’t you? As if my having them would prove anything! The fact is I don’t have any of that work anymore—nobody does. I burned it.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “When I was living on the streets, the last thing I wanted was to drag those things along with me. So I burned them in a metal drum to keep me and a trio of other street people warm one night. Now I suppose you’ll want the names of the homeless men so you can verify my story.”

  “I’ll pass.” She reached into the bottom of the pile of things on the table, and pulled out the mounted page she’d borrowed back from Joni. “As it turns out, I’ve got that page right here.”

  “That’s not possible.” Kiel reached for it, but Tilda drew it back and Hoover stood right at his elbow. “It’s a counterfeit.”

  Tilda just looked at him.

  “Or perhaps it’s an early draft. That’s probably what happened. Rather than endure replacing a single panel to make Fitzwilliam happy, I redrew the entire page. I gave that one to a girlfriend. The real one was the one I burned with the rest of the pages.”

  “I can lay my hands on nine more original pages,” Tilda said. “Did you give those to your girlfriend, too?”

  “You’re insane!” Kiel snarled, standing so abruptly he knocked his chair over. “No, I know what this is. It’s some sort of con game. Well, Tilda—if that’s your name—I don’t know what you’re trying to pull, but you’ll be hearing from my lawyer. I’m not going to put up with this. Do you know who my family is?”

  “I thought your family cut you off?”

  Kiel grabbed the pad Tilda had lent him and for a second it looked as if he was going to throw it at her, but he petulantly threw it to the floor, and she wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d jumped up and down on it a few times to complete the toddler imitation. Instead he stomped from the room, pausing just long enough to point a finger at her and say, “You watch your back!”

  Hoover was right behind him, talking into his mouthpiece as he went, so she wasn’t surprised when Nick r
ushed into the room a few minutes later.

  “He’s gone,” he said, “and we’ve sent a car after him to make sure he leaves the Cape. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I hear that guy went apeshit.”

  “Please. The guy’s an amateur. I was there when somebody tried to pull off William Shatner’s toupee. Now that man knows how to throw a tantrum!”

  Chapter 38

  The Blue Men of the Minch preyed on unwary sailors by trapping their ships in a magic whirlpool. Then the Chieftain challenged the ship captains to a battle of wits. If the captain won, the ship went free—if not, the whirlpool swallowed it.

  —TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA ARTISTS: THE BEST OF INDIE COMICS BY JERRY FRAZEE

  AFTER Kiel’s outburst, Tilda was happy to take a lunch break before the last meeting. Already a flood of fiery, profane spam had begun to arrive from Kiel and from e-mail addresses supposedly belonging to Kiel’s fans, but which she suspected were from the loser himself. Though she didn’t think he’d do anything but blow smoke, she carefully saved all of them while deciding if she wanted to go after him for harassment. It might be educational. The man’s use of invective was so imaginative that it deserved to be shared in open court.

  Her welcoming smile when Bruce Williford walked in was completely sincere. Not only was he the last Leviathan standing, but he looked the part of a comic book artist who’d given up the life. He was of medium height, with reddish brown hair, a deceptively boyish face, and a shape that would be described as cuddly rather than buff.

  She wasn’t quite as happy to see the woman with him, since she didn’t remember inviting anybody else.

  “Bruce?” she said.

  “You must be Tilda,” he said. She thought he sounded nervous, and this was confirmed by the dampness of his handshake. “This is my fiancée, Sibyl Chenault.”

  Sibyl was a few years younger and not quite as cuddly looking as Bruce. Though she was cute enough, it was the almost white blonde hair that fell to her waist that really stood out.

  “Won’t you sit down?” Tilda said. “It’s a real honor to meet Leviathan.”

  Sibyl beamed, but Bruce looked embarrassed as Hoover brought over another chair, then returned to his post.

  Even though Tilda was sure Bruce was the guy, she still wanted to go through the protocol. So she started on the warm-up questions. The answers were prompt, thorough, and as far as she knew, correct. They just weren’t from Bruce.

  Tilda said, “You used a variety of mythological sources for Pharos. Do you have an academic background in folklore?”

  “Bruce just loves studying different mythologies,” Sibyl said. “You wouldn’t believe the research library he has. After we get married, we’re going to have to dedicate a whole room to the nonfiction books.”

  Bruce nodded.

  Tilda said, “Since you’re so close, will you be taking a trip to see the lighthouse on which you modeled Dylan O’Taine’s?”

  “No, we won’t have time,” Sibyl said. “It takes an hour to get to South Monomoy Island, and it can get pretty cold this time of year. We’re planning to go when we come back in the spring for our honeymoon.”

  Bruce shook his head to the first part, and nodded to the second.

  “In our e-mails, I mostly asked about the writing in Pharos. What about the art? Did you study formally?”

  “Oh, no,” Sibyl assured her. “Bruce is completely self-taught. Isn’t it wonderful?” She looked adoringly at him.

  Bruce looked modestly at his feet.

  “Bruce, do you think you could draw something for me? Maybe a picture of Dylan O’Taine, or the lighthouse? If you don’t have a sketch pad—”

  “Oh, we always carry a pad.” Sibyl pulled out a pad just like the ones Tilda had bought, albeit more battered, and a zippered pouch from which she produced a pencil. “Draw Dylan, Bruce.”

  He, of course, nodded. Then he took only a moment or two to consider before he drew Dylan O’Taine in his study. But instead of one of studying one of his spell books, O’Taine was reading a copy of Entertain Me! with Melusine on the cover. Almost as an afterthought, Bruce added the stylized signature at the bottom.

  “That’s amazing!” Tilda said. Not only was it cute as hell, but it was clearly Leviathan’s style. “Can I keep it?”

  “Sure,” he said, and tore it from the spiral binding to hand it to her.

  Sibyl patted his arm proudly, but Bruce still looked embarrassed about the whole thing. Tilda didn’t know how the poor guy was going to react to the limelight he was about to be thrust into, but she figured that Sibyl could handle it.

  Now that she was sure he was Leviathan, she went on to ask Bruce more questions. At least she tried to, and did look directly at him, but Sibyl answered every time. Tilda figured she could either have Hoover drag the woman out by the scruff of her neck, or go with the flow. She went with the flow.

  “Why did you quit drawing comics after Pharos was cancelled?” she asked.

  “Bruce’s father died just as the last issue came out, and he had to quit college to help his mother. Her health was pretty bad, too, and he spent most of the next few years caring for her. He just didn’t have the time or energy for art.”

  “Why didn’t you ever come forward as Leviathan?”

  “I guess you can see how shy Bruce is. Besides, he didn’t think anybody would care. Isn’t that crazy? It wasn’t until he got involved in our group—we do Leviathan fan fiction and fan art—that he realized how much people still love his work.”

  “Didn’t the news about the Pharos movie convince him that there was still interest?” She realized she’d forgotten to aim the question at Bruce, but nobody else seemed to notice.

  “Sure, but he didn’t know who to talk to—it’s not like he’s had any contact with the Hollywood people, and he’s sure not getting any of the money.” Sibyl sniffed indignantly. “And he wasn’t sure anybody would believe him, after all those years. As if anybody else could fake his talent.” She patted his arm again. “I had to talk him into answering your e-mail on the Pharos board.”

  It all made perfect sense to Tilda, and with what she’d already gotten via e-mail, it was going to make a terrific article. She couldn’t wait to introduce Bruce to Joni so they could talk about the Pharos script. There was always the chance that Bruce, or even worse Sibyl, wouldn’t like it, but Tilda didn’t think it was likely.

  “There’s just one last thing,” she said. “Marc Fitzwilliam from Regal Comics—”

  “That sleaze? You know Bruce never got a cent from all the reprints of Pharos? And Fitzwilliam kept all the original pages, too! Bruce doesn’t have a single one. Fitzwilliam probably sold them.”

  “Really?” Tilda said, trying to sound noncommittal as she made a mental note to check on that. Fitzwilliam had told her that Leviathan kept all the art, and she’d assumed that Leviathan had sold the pages himself. Of course, that had been on the phone, not in person, and June had warned her about how hard it was to judge lies that way. “If it makes you feel better, Marc isn’t getting any of the movie money either.”

  “Good!”

  “I spoke to him about the editing process, and he sent me a copy of a letter in which you discussed having to redraw some of the panels.” She pulled out the graphic novel, opened it to the pertinent page, and handed it to Bruce. Sibyl actually let him take it. “It’s that bottom right panel, with O’Taine on top of the sea horse. Fitzwilliam’s letter to you said, ‘You better look at that one again—ha ha ha,’ and your response was, ‘I cannot believe I didn’t see that. Ha ha ha.’ I’m dying to find out what was so funny.”

  “Doesn’t Fitzwilliam know?” Bruce asked for himself, to Tilda’s surprise.

  She shook her head.

  He looked at the page for a minute, then said, “Oh, yeah now I remember. You see how O’Taine is holding the Horn of Panlong? It’s kind of tucked under his left arm, which is wounded. I originally had him holding it in his left hand,
so he could hold on to the sea horse with his right hand. But since he was wounded, the left hand was in his lap. With the Horn kind of sticking out from between his legs, it looked like . . . You know. He was playing with himself or something.”

  Sibyl let out a little gasp, and then started giggling. “You never told me about that.”

  He shrugged, but for once, didn’t look embarrassed. Instead he looked proud of himself, and Tilda didn’t blame him. He’d come up with a totally convincing lie on the spur of the moment.

  “Really?” she said. “I can see why you didn’t want O’Taine playing with himself. What I don’t understand is why you’re playing with me.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Sibyl asked.

  Tilda pulled out the actual page and the panel Patricia had removed. “I’ve got the artwork right here. We brought in an art conservator to help us out.” She held up the piece Patricia had so carefully removed. “Here’s the panel that was used.” Then she held up the actual page. “And here’s the page with the original panel.”

  Hoover moved up, just in case Bruce or Sibyl tried to rip the thing out of Tilda’s hands, but the couple barely moved. They just stared at the page.

  The panel in the comic book showed a wounded Dylan O’Taine astride a giant sea horse, about to ride into battle. The original drawing had him behind the sea horse, hunched over as he dragged himself onto the saddle, and the expressions on both O’Taine’s and the sea horse’s faces made for a very different interpretation of what was going on.

  Tilda had laughed like an idiot the first time she saw it, but neither Bruce nor Sibyl seemed to find it amusing.

  “I don’t understand,” Sibyl said. “Bruce, were you thinking of a different page?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “I mean, if you’ve just forgotten, just say so. It’s been a long time.”

  Bruce still didn’t answer.