by Jim Beard
***
In a way, it was exactly what he’d been waiting for, but now that he had it, he wasn’t absolutely sure of what to do with it.
Changing out of the robes, the mask, and the headpiece of The Red Judge and into his street clothes, he longed to be outside, away from the rundown building and the secrets it held. Hurrying, he shut and locked the reinforced cabinet wherein he stored the vestments of his alter ego and, making certain he wasn’t seen, slipped from the building and out onto the dirty streets of the Old East Side.
The soft breezes of the April afternoon greeted him and he relaxed. Not much, though, for he had learned over the past few months that leading a double life demanded constant vigilance. Anything else could get him killed.
He shrugged, inwardly mocking himself. Double life? That held the connotation that he had another life outside of playing at The Red Judge, the new, weird element that had inserted himself into the tapestry of the city – into its underbelly, to be precise. Criminal? No one knew, but it was suspected. Benevolent? Perhaps, but again, who knew? He had planned it that way, to become a figure that defied explanation and –
Looking up, he saw banners flapping in the breeze, hung from lamp posts along the streets and from other fixtures. They’d become more prevalent as he crossed over from the low income East Side to the more affluent Hub Town. The banners were gay and lively, heralding the imminent arrival of the Spring Festival.
He stopped, gazing up at one of the signs. It would be good for the city. It would be good for the people. He hoped and prayed that the Festival, a tradition that went back to the earliest days of the settlement that grew into the modern city around him, would serve to wipe away the last remnants of the horrific events of the previous November.
Somehow, he doubted it, though.
Stepping off a curb and into the street, he watched for a taxi. Instead, he saw…
“Lane! Lane Danner!”
The woman who called his name approached from the other side of the street. A truck’s brakes squealed as its driver craned his neck to wolf whistle at her. The woman took no notice of it.
“Hello, Louisa,” Danner said, frowning slightly, taking a step backward onto the curb.
She took a few small lively leaps to reach him, a dark haired, dark eyed beauty in a white dress sporting a magenta and periwinkle flower pattern. Her wide belt and shoes were also magenta, as well as the wispy scarf with which she had tied back her long locks. To Danner’s eyes she was Spring Personified.
“I—we haven’t seen you since Christmas,” she said drawing nearer to him, one white-gloved hand reaching out.
He ignored her hand. She was the Mayor’s wife. It was both a statement of fact and a question.
Her marriage to Pat Battle had always been a minor puzzle to him. He thought back to Pat’s early days as a cop, after he had tried to quit adventuring, and the young street kid he’d taken under his wing – that the kid had turned out to be a girl, and a pretty one at that, surprised everyone. Danner himself had chuckled over it then, sure that his crusading friend wouldn’t have the time of day for a small slip of a female at his side, but another surprise came in the shapely form of Louisa walking down the aisle in a simple yet elegant wedding gown and saying “I do” to a waiting slack-jawed Pat Battle.
Interestingly, she’d retained her taste for the basics of life, even after the man’s later ascension to the Mayor’s office, never really indulging much in the high society that she had arrayed around her.
And, Danner reminded himself, she also always looked a bit sad. He couldn’t figure that, either, despite the bald-faced fact of Pat’s subsequent blindness from a high fever from something he’d picked up on one last South Seas excursion.
It struck him in that moment of reverie, standing on the curb with her, that it seemed odd that Louisa would frequent the part of town he’d been exiting. Old habits dying hard?
“I’ve been busy,” he told her, avoiding her dark grey eyes.
Louisa cocked her head slightly, furrowing her brow just a bit. “Busy with what?”
Setting up shop as a kind of vigilante, said the voice in his head, but outwardly, “This and that. Hobbies; some of them old, some new.”
She inched closer to him, her perfume’s scent slight, but heavy with presence. “You should come and see us, Lane. Pat would like to see you…he misses you. Downtown.”
Her hand alighted on his arm; he barely knew it was happening at all, for it seemed natural for her to do so. Or was it that he simply wanted her to do so?
“I doubt that.” Danner heard the words come out of his mouth, recognized the harsh manner in which he said them. “He rushed me out of there as soon as he could, once the election was over. Once the…trouble had passed.”
Louisa’s eyes hardened, her perfect lips tightening into a straight line.
“Lane, he…it was…”
“You were going to say that it was all my fault anyway?”
The moment had turned on a dime. All he wanted to do just then was just walk away and get on with his business, not stand on a street somewhere and argue with Louisa Battle.
“No, as a matter of fact, I wasn’t going to say that.” Her hand slipped away. Some of the hardness in her eyes slipped away, too, but her voice still held an edge. “I know you lost people in November, friends – lots of people lost someone. But you have to –”
“What I have to do right now,” he interrupted, returning to his hunt for a taxi, “is leave. I have things to do. Nice seeing you, Louisa.”
Stepping off the curb again, he flagged a passing cab and reached out to grab at its rear door handle when it had stopped. Turning back to drink in the sight of her, he spoke.
“Last November, your husband told me he was sure I’d find something to do. You should give me the benefit of the doubt like he did.”
Louisa’s eyes flashed again. “Lane! It’s your life! You can’t just keep running from it!”
Danner turned to get into the taxi, noticing the glare from the driver.
“I saved your life last year,” he said, giving her one last look. “You worry about it now, and I’ll worry about mine.”
The cab sped away, Lane Danner, ex-District Attorney, in the backseat, alone with his dark thoughts.
