Tales of the Red Panda: The Crime Cabal (9 page)

A copy of the
Chronicle
snapped to the table top with a sharp crack. A large, angry face quickly leaned
over it aggressively, barking across the long mahogany table. The large-type
headline screamed the news: “Bombing Terror! Three Killed in Mysterious
Gangland Attack!”

“Is this your idea of a smooth operation?” he snarled.

The tall, raven-haired woman across the table arched her eyebrow and
said nothing. Her fingers curled into tight balls of quiet rage. Professor
Zombie was unaccustomed to insolence.

The cheerful, round-faced man beside her was, however. Indeed, he was
an expert practitioner. Kid Chaos leaned back in his chair and plunked his
boots up on the rich wood of the table.

“Smooth operation? Dear heart, it’s a rousing success!” His grin was
broad, but there was something in his eyes that dared Malcolm to speak to him
as a subordinate again.

“Success? You blew that grocery store halfway to Hell!” Malcolm
growled.

“And how much resistance do you think our protection clients will put
up now?” Kid Chaos beamed. “We’re the only game in town, Pooky. In every
neighborhood in the city, little honest shopkeepers will have a pretty good
idea of just exactly what will happen to them if they don’t grin and pay up.
And it won’t be a beating, or a few broken bones. We’ll take the little piece
of heaven they’ve worked and slaved to build, and blow it into a million little
pieces!” The little man giggled excitedly until it seemed that he might burst
with his own delight.

Malcolm cursed under his breath. “But the
publicity–”

“Not publicity, Mister Malcolm. Advertising!” The little man sprang up
on the table and struck a heroic pose. “Free advertising at that… every
headline in town is spreading the good news! Do you have any idea what that
kind of ad campaign would cost?”

“But the greengrocer wasn’t even in the shop! Somehow he got out before
the place went up.”

“Better and better! Leave one alive to tell his tale! He certainly
isn’t talking to the police or the newspapers. Even if he never opens his mouth
to a single soul, the fact that he
could
have will lead to every appalling variation on the story you can imagine… and
quite a few you can’t. Don’t underestimate the power of the morons in the
street to terrify themselves!” Kid Chaos was dancing on the table now,
determined to provoke a reaction from the enraged gangster.

At last Malcolm could stand no more. His great fist came slamming down
hard on the table. “Listen to me, you maniac!–”

It was the push that Chaos had been looking for. He jumped down from
the table and thrust his great moon of a face hard into Malcolm’s. “No, you
listen to me, Malcolm. You aren’t working with kids here. You aren’t working
with punks. You brought us into your little Cabal to do something you never
could. You bring the organization and we provide the imagination. Partners.
Don’t forget it.”

Malcolm stared back, furious. He drew a deep breath and forced a tight
smile. Circumstances dictated a change in his tactics.

“Your point is taken, Chaos. But the fact remains that the exercise of
your… creativity… has brought attention to our activities before we are well
established. If this organization is to have a chance to succeed–”

“If we are to have a chance to succeed,” the icy voice of Professor
Zombie broke in suddenly, “we must be prepared to seize that success by the
throat. Not hide in the shadows like sneak thieves. Last night’s operation was
an unreserved success, beyond the loss of my footsoldiers–”

“Our footsoldiers,” Kid Chaos broke in sullenly.

“Our footsoldiers,” Professor Zombie corrected with a condescending
smile. “We had intended to lose only one little zombie. An unimportant weakling
carrying the bomb. Had the plan worked perfectly, those two bruisers would have
been long out of the blast zone. We went to considerable trouble to create them
to lose them so quickly.”

“What do you mean, create them?” Malcolm blurted, becoming angry again.
“Weren’t they just a couple of corpses you made into your puppets?”

Kid Chaos snorted and thumped down in his chair. “Philistine,” he said.

Professor Zombie was less offended, or at the very least she showed it
less. “It is true,” she began, “that a variant of the Necronium compound can be
used to animate the dead for short periods. But the rapid decay of dead flesh
left my zombies with unpredictable… deficiencies. I now use a treatment of
Necronium 232 in a suspension solution, electrified on a frequency–”

“Professor,” Malcolm interrupted, careful to keep his temper, “in
something less than exhaustive detail, if you please.”

The arch-villainess smirked in contempt. “My current Zombification
process allows me to begin with a live, healthy subject, and leech from their
bodies the sweet gift of life, leaving in its wake only cold obedience.” Her
ice-cold eyes fell on Malcolm in a way that made him most uncomfortable. He
shifted visibly in his chair, and Professor Zombie’s smirk grew crueler.

“And we’ve come up with a little something extra special by putting our
heads together,” Kid Chaos said with zeal. “I had been playing with a serum
that would give my henchmen vastly enhanced strength. It was a great success.
Unfortunately it had one small side effect.”

“What was that?” Malcolm’s interest was piqued in spite of himself.

“It caused the subjects to… what is the word?”

“Die,” the Professor said, her lips curling in delight.

“Ah!” Chaos burst in delight. “
Le
mot juste
! But working in concert with the Professor makes the problem
quite moot. Once the subjects are no longer dependent upon a heartbeat for
continued operation, the inevitable cardiac arrest doesn’t seem to matter so
much.” And again the little man burst into a fit of giggles, biting his fist in
delight.

“But having gone to considerable trouble to secure subjects of a proper
size and build, dose them with Chaos’ serum and then subject them to my
Necronium treatments… losing them so quickly is a blow.” Zombie scowled at the
prospect of starting from scratch.

“Yes,” Chaos said casually, “odd about that, isn’t it?”

“Nothing odd about it,” Professor Zombie said with a smile.

“You think the man in the mask paid a call?”

“Who else?”

“What’s that?” Malcolm sprang from his chair. “There was nothing in the
papers about the Red Panda!”

“And a good thing too,” Chaos sneered. “That publicity hog would have
pushed us right out of the headlines.”

“But if the Panda is in this already–”

“Calm yourself, Malcolm,” Professor Zombie said, her voice dripping
venom. “We have ways of dealing with the Red Panda, and his little pet. You
take care of the business end.”

“But–”

“Thank you, dear, dear Malcolm,” Kid Chaos said smoothly, easing the
gangster out the door, “for everything.”

Kid Chaos closed the door and leaned against it heavily.

“I thought he’d never leave,” he smirked.

“Mister Malcolm seems a little out of his depth at times.” Zombie was
more serious. “That is most disappointing.”

“A middle manager at best,” Kid Chaos said dismissively. “We need his
organization. Which means we need him. For the moment.”

Finally, she allowed herself a genuine smile. “For the moment,” she
echoed grimly.

On the twelfth floor of the monument to the lapsed standards of
journalistic integrity that was the
Toronto
Chronicle
building, Jack Peters sat behind his desk, deep in contemplation.
His lanky form was sprawled feet-first across his desk, and he drummed his
fingertips on his chair arms as he thought. The battered typewriter upon the
desk had clearly been rudely pushed aside in favor of the telephone at some
point in the recent past, and its situation had not improved since.

He stared at the wall a moment, deep in thought. Through the frosted
pane of glass in his door, he could see there wasn’t much light left on in the
outer offices. It was late, and in the evenings the
Chronicle
carried no more than a skeleton staff on the City Desk
for emergencies. Deep in the bowels of the great paper, the real work
continued. Mighty presses were rolling, churning out bales of ink-stained
hyperbole for the Morning Edition, but after hours, the Editorial Department
was sleepy at best.

At length, he shook his head a little, as if brushing aside the mote of
a notion that had held him rapt, lowered his feet to the floor and turned
without standing to reach for his hat behind him.

He almost jumped out of his skin at the sight of the girl in the grey
catsuit crouched on his window ledge, watching him silently.

“What have I told you,” he said at length when he had composed himself
a little, “about sneaking up on a guy like that?”

“Beats me,” the Flying Squirrel said with a grin, pulling her goggles
to the top of her cowled head. “But it obviously wasn’t very interesting if
neither of us remember it.”

“This just a social call,” the newsman asked, “or do you need another
favor?”

“You alone, Petey?” asked the Squirrel.

“Sure,” he said with a smirk.

“Think again,” she said, grinning broadly.

“Wha–,” Peters blurted, turning back in to face the office he had
turned from just a moment earlier. Again the newspaperman was startled,
discovering the tall, imposing figure of a man in a long trenchcoat, immaculate
grey suit and bright red domino mask looming over him across his desk. He
managed to right himself before falling from his chair to the floor, but only
just.

“I need information, Mister Peters,” the masked man intoned gravely.

“Yeah. And I need a drink. Excuse me,” he said, pulling open the third
drawer of his desk and producing a bottle of whiskey. He pulled the stopper
free with his teeth, splashed a liberal dose into a coffee cup that might have
been clean and made a gesture of offering either of the costumed heroes a
portion without really looking for a response. “Why you two can never
telephone, or send a note…”

“Telephones can be tapped or traced, Mister Peters,” the Red Panda said
seriously. “And notes leave evidence behind. I’ve never had the knack for
disappearing ink.” The masked man smiled at last, just a little.

Jack Peters looked from one to the other. “You two just don’t want to
give me anything to print, do you?”

The Flying Squirrel stepped into the room. “You really want to print a
story that says we showed up at your office and pumped you for information,
Petey?” she teased. “You’d look real slick with a bullet in your head.”

“We approach by stealth for your protection as well as ours, Jack,” the
Red Panda promised.

“So you’re telling me you don’t like to see me jump?” Peters said,
jamming the stopper back into the bottle.

“Well,” the Squirrel grinned, “let’s not get carried away.”

Out of the corner of his eye Peters could see the Red Panda turn away,
just a little, to keep from laughing. Jack had known the mystery man since one
of his earliest adventures. The Red Panda was lightening up all right. He was
still spooky around the edges, but these days you could catch him smiling once
in awhile. He was fairly certain that the reason why was sauntering over and
sitting on the edge of his desk just now, though his nose for news had never
been able to get a reading on that.

“Listen, Petey,” she said with a softer tone that she reserved for
those she didn’t expect to have to strike for information, “all we want is a
little skinny you’ve already got, and maybe a little more you can get easy
enough.”

“Is that all?” Peters said, shaking his head.

“The usual… professional considerations will be paid, of course,” the
Red Panda said, looking casually through Peters’ files.

“Hey, c’mon… those are private,” Peters protested weakly. Too late, he
realized his mistake. The momentary flash of mirth was suddenly over.

“Jack Peters.” The masked man drew himself to his full height. “Twice I
have saved your life.”

“Yes,” Jack’s hand was pressed against his temples, “I remember.”

“It belongs to me now.”

“Yes.”

“I do not demand that you serve as an agent formally because you have
always been useful and trustworthy.”

“Look, I’m sorry. It’s been kind of a long day, is all. And you do tend
to put me in kind of a spot. When you use info the paper has to bust a story
we’ve been working on wide open… well, my editor starts to look at me funny, is
all.”

“We’re prepared to offer you the exclusive on the story when it breaks,
in so far as it is possible.” The Red Panda’s tone did not imply there was room
for further discussion.

“All right.” Peters gave up. “What do you need?”

“You know the explosion on St Clair?” the Flying Squirrel said with a
smile.

“Do I! Listen, if the police were sayin’ anything about that, you’d
have read it in my column. That story’s locked down.”

“I need to know if they’ve determined the type of explosive used,” the
Red Panda took over, “and any findings they may have reached regarding the
detonator, as well as the identities of the men whose bodies were taken from
the wreckage.”

“Is that all?” Peters said with a snort.

“Petey, we all know you’ve got cops who’ll talk to you and nobody
else,” the Squirrel said lightly.

Peters was unimpressed. “Sure, the cops know they’ll get a fair shake
from me, and most of the breaks, and they do me a few favors to keep me so
inclined. But I can only lean on them for so much. Why should I burn that kind
of credit over this?”

“Because one of those corpses blew himself and his pals to smithereens
on purpose, Petey,” she batted her eyelashes sarcastically.

“He did?”

“Yeah. An’ that ain’t normal.”

“No. I guess not.”

“So get right on that, wouldya?”

Peters rolled his eyes and smiled grimly. “Listen, from what I
understand, there wasn’t a lot left of the bodies, and the shopkeeper… what was
his name–?”

“Northcott,” the Red Panda broke in. “He isn’t talking to anyone, but
he didn’t see anything that we didn’t.”

“You two were there?” Peters’ jaw dropped. “Can I print that at least?”

“Print what?” the Squirrel snorted. “That unconfirmed, unsubstantiated
reports of witnesses who refuse to be identified–”

“We just say ‘anonymous tip’. It’s easier to spell,” Peters grinned.

“Boss?” she turned to the Red Panda.

“The one small problem with having virtually wiped out the organized
gangs in the city,” the Red Panda began, turning his attention from the filing
cabinet, “is that these fiends will be almost certain that we’re coming for
them next.”

“We have kinda lost the element of surprise,” she agreed.

The Red Panda gave Jack Peters one of his long stares. Just long enough
to make the newspaperman uncertain of what might follow. “I don’t see how it
can affect our investigation, Jack,” he said at last. “If you can get some
mileage out of it, feel free, though I would think your editor–”

“My editor’s got a pretty good idea of where I get my information on
you two. He doesn’t ask ‘cause he doesn’t really want to know, but he gives me
plenty of rope. Especially when there’s a chance to splash the words ‘Red
Panda’ all over the front page.”

The Red Panda turned to his partner and nodded quickly.

“All right, Petey. You owe us somethin’ special,” she said, stepping
back out the window in one smooth motion.

The Red Panda moved to join her. He paused at the last moment and
turned back to Peters.

“One more thing, Jack. I wonder if any of your police contacts can tell
us something more about a Constable… What was the name again?” he said, turning
to the girl on the ledge.

“Parker,” she said, poking her head back into the room. “Constable Andy
Parker.”

“You’re kidding, right? This is a put-on?”

The Red Panda regarded Peters a moment without speaking. At last he
sighed a little.

“You’re a good man, Jack,” he said. “Why does it have to be a tap dance
for every little–”

“No, you got it all wrong,” Peters interrupted. “The cop, Parker… he
was here an hour ago, asking about
you
!”