Tales of the Red Panda: The Mind Master (12 page)

“Am I interrupting something?” Ajay Shah’s voice was quiet,
but it carried like thunder across the study of Joshua Cain. Cain himself was
not in his usual place, comfortably ensconced behind the great mahogany desk,
but stood by a bookcase at the far wall. The third shelf of books was revealed
now to be a false front that had concealed a small wall safe, which Joshua Cain
was hurriedly emptying into a valise already nearly crammed with papers. He
barely paused when he heard Shah enter. Cain was a man in the depths of terror,
and something clearly scared him more than Ajay Shah.

“Forgive me if I don’t stop, Shah,” he said over his
shoulder. “Help yourself to a drink if you like.”

“Help myself?” Shah smiled. “How quaint. I noticed your
household was a little… light when I arrived. There was no one to show me up.”

“Good help is hard to find,” Cain quipped, only
half-listening, trying to judge which of the remaining papers would be most
damning in the hands of the law should he be forced to leave some behind.

“Are you going somewhere, Joshua?”

Cain flashed anger, just for a moment. “Good God, man, what
does it look like?” He quickly regained his composure, but realized it had come
too late as his guest drew himself up to his full height.

“It looks like,” Shah began with a smile, “the little man to
whom I so recently entrusted three-quarters of a million dollars in bonds is in
something of a hurry to leave town. Imagine my disappointment.”

Cain nodded quietly without looking back. “I grant you, this
doesn’t look good.”

“You have a great gift for understatement, Joshua.” The
predatory mouth spread into something resembling warmth. “I pray that you also
have my money.”

“I told you, Shah, this would take time. The Granville bonds
have been split up and sent to three different cities. It will be two weeks, at
least, before they can be divested and the money wired back. To move any more
quickly would be to invite disaster.”

Shah nodded sagely as he regarded the study. “It would seem
that disaster has struck in spite of these preparations. Or am I wrong?”

Cain paused a moment before turning back to the wall safe.
“Hopefully not. But it is wise to be prepared.”

“Ah,” Shah hissed. “To have traveled so far and seen so
much, only to have one such as you explain wisdom to me. Delightful. What
happened?”

“Miles Grant happened,” Cain said seriously.

“Grant? The one who inquired after the goods from the Empire
Bank?” Shah scowled.

“And after a certain mysterious traveler from the Orient?
Yes. I sent my men to make some inquiries of their own.”

“Your men? The men of your own household?”

There was a small pause. “Yes,” came the irritated reply.

“Very careless, Joshua. I take it from the fact that I had
to show myself in and pour my own drink that these inquiries did not go that
well?”

There was no reply. Cain continued his packing.

“Your men are in the hands of the police?”

Cain snorted derisively. “The police? If the police had
them, I wouldn’t be packing. I’d have made three telephone calls, and not only
would they be back on the street, but there would be no record that anything
had ever happened.”

Shah regarded his fingernails calmly. “You say this with
confidence. And yet here we are. What happened, then?”

“The Red Panda happened, that’s what!” Cain snapped. “God
knows why, but he happened. And that crazy girlfriend of his. If they had
recognized my men, he’d have come after me by now.”

“Then why do you flee?”

“You don’t know the Red Panda.”

“Oh, but I do. I have made a careful study from afar, you
see. I listened and I watched as tales of these new ‘mystery men’ spread around
the globe. I waited until I could be sure which one was him.”

“Him who?” Cain said, staring in disbelief.

“This Red Panda, of course,” Shah sneered.

“You- you know him? You know who he is?”

“Not exactly,” Shah smiled, stroking his mustache.

“That’s not exactly helpful,” Cain said, returning to his
packing. “If you’re telling me you came to Toronto to pick a fight with that
masked menace, you’re welcome to it, and leave me out of it.”

“Alas, my dear Joshua, you are well and truly in the middle
of it now. You know this. That is why you plan to flee.”

“I’m just moving into seclusion. For a few days, until I’m
certain that he hasn’t got my trail. It’s for your own protection as well as
mine.”

Shah nodded. “I am honored that you hold my interests so
close to your heart.”

“As I would the goose that lays the golden egg,” Cain said,
choosing to ignore the sarcasm. “I’ll be in touch about the Granville bonds. In
the meantime, my advice is to lay low.”

“A futile precaution, Cain,” Shah said, his eyes flashing in
excitement. “He has your men. By now they will have told him everything.”

“My men are dead,” Cain snapped.

There was a moment of shocked silence.

“He has
killed
them?” Shah hissed.

“There was a fire,” Cain explained. “They didn’t make it
out. I’ve arranged for the coroner’s office to be unable to identify their
remains. That should be enough to keep him off the trail, but we mustn’t tempt
fate any further.”

Shah began to laugh and Cain shivered in spite of himself.
There was relief in his laughter to be sure, but also a cruel superiority. At
last he spoke. “I should have known that this leopard could not change his
spots so much. That will be his undoing.”

“Listen, Shah… you’re an impressive character. You’ve got
moxie, and a real gift for this. You can go far. But every single guy I know
who’s gone up against the Red Panda has lost, and lost hard. This is not a
fight you want.”

“You are incorrect, Joshua. This is a fight I want above all
things. You see, I have a destiny, and it is far greater than you could
possibly imagine. Far more grand than the life of petty crime you envision.”

“Petty?” Cain protested. Shah held up a hand to silence him.

“Petty it shall seem when entire nations bow before me. When
armies willingly fight and die in my name. When the weak-willed fools of this
country, and the next, and the next–”

“You’re mad!” Cain cried.

“I think you already know that isn’t true,” Shah smiled.
“This is simply the first stop on my march to glory. I need two things from
Toronto. Some capital, to smooth the waters and make the next steps ever so
much simpler; and to destroy the one man yet living who might have had a chance
to stop me, if only I had given it to him.”

“Fine,” Cain said, snapping the valise shut. “Best of luck
with that. But since I can’t see how my being captured helps you with
that–”

“Helps me?” Shah said, beaming at Joshua Cain with something
like joy. “Cain, I am absolutely counting on it!”

A tall, lanky man pushed open the door of a small office on
the tenth floor of the
Chronicle
building. Outside the window, the last traces of deep red were fading from
view, leaving only the deepening purples that rolled over the city in
preparation for the black carpet of night. But for Jack Peters, intrepid
Chronicle
reporter and sometimes agent
of justice, the workday was far from over.

Peters balanced a sheaf of papers in the crook of one arm
and a cup of coffee in the other as he felt for the lights. He flipped the
switch up with a click. Nothing. Peters sighed as the door closed behind him,
plunging the room into darkness. Using the grey tones cast by the last traces
of sunset, he groped his way to his desk and set down his cup. He felt for the
switch on the small lamp on his desk and turned it on. A soft glow appeared
through the green glass of the desk lamp, and its beam clearly illuminated the
desktop, with a typewriter front and center, surrounded by a small pile of
papers.

Peters circled the desk and flopped into the old chair. He
took a sip of the coffee and rubbed his eyes. His focus shifted to the
typewriter, and he fed a sheet of paper into the machine with an absent-minded
efficiency born of routine. He cupped his chin in his hands a moment and
glanced over to the telephone. He seemed to consider both devices for almost a
minute, then made up his mind and reached for the receiver.

As he dialed the number, there was an immediate click and a
strange tone, as if the call was no longer being routed by the normal service.
Peters was far from surprised by this. A moment later the line connected with a
sharp click.

“Mother Hen speaking,” a soft, female voice said.

“Oh, hello, Mother dear,” Peters smiled into the mouthpiece.
“It’s Jackie-boy.”

There was a small pause on the line and the voice tried hard
to chastise him. “Mister Peters,” it began, “what exactly is wrong with
protocol?”

“How much time do you have?” Jack smiled. “Listen, is he on
his way?”

“You know I can’t answer that question, Mister Peters.”

“Yeah, yeah. See, the thing is, I’ve got a deadline. And I
can’t finish if I can’t start, and since I’ve got a whole pile of not much to
fill my column inches tomorrow, it takes a little concentration. It’s tough to
pull off if I’m waiting to be interrupted. You understand I’m in ‘loaves and
fishes’ territory here, right Mother dear?”

“You never seemed to let that trouble you before, Mister
Peters.”

“I admit to sometimes being the author of my own
misfortune,” Peters said, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket.
“But on this occasion I have no story because I spent the day chasing rainbows
for a certain big, spooky masked man, and I was wonderin’ when he was planning
on puttin’ in an appearance.”

“Mister Peters,” came a voice from the shadows.

It was a moment before Jack Peters realized that the girlish
scream he heard in response to this interjection had in fact come from his own
mouth. In the end it was the sound of Mother Hen’s laughter on the other end of
the line that brought him back.

“He checked in from your phone ten minutes ago, Jack,” she
said.

“Thank you, Mother dear. You’ve been a great help. Send my
love to Father Hen,” and he hung up the telephone.

“You like to make me jump, don’t you?” he said crossly. He
could just make out the shape of the Red Panda against the wall, and the faint
glow of the blank eyes of the mask. He reached his hand out to lift the cup
again, and found it gone. He looked up to his left quickly and saw the
heart-stopping shape of the girl in grey standing beside his desk, drinking his
coffee.

“Hiya Petey,” the Flying Squirrel smiled.

“Help yourself,” Peters nodded.

“I’m pretty sure I just did,” she said, batting her
eyelashes.

 
“You two do a
lot of looming,” Peters said, leaning back in his chair. “Anybody ever tell you
that?”

The Squirrel shrugged. “It’s our bit.”

Peters squinted to make out the shape of the Red Panda, who
had not moved from the shadows. He nodded to the Squirrel. “He seems serious
tonight. Even by his standards.”

“All the more reason to make him happy, Petey,” she beamed.

“You have news, Mister Peters,” the voice from the shadows
intoned.

Peters sat upright, still playing with an unlit cigarette
between his fingers. “Right… right,” he nodded, trying hard to remember that
the spectre in the corner was on his side. “Ajay Shah. The mysterious man from
the Orient. He’s all the rage in high society. I had to make inquiries through
our gossip columnist. And if you had any idea how little I like asking Lulu
Lalonde for a favor, you’d have a general idea of the size of the one you owe
me. To say nothing of the fact I’ve got no story for the morning edition.”

The Flying Squirrel grinned and glanced at the Boss. He
hadn’t moved. He was taking the stern routine a little farther than usual; he
was even making Petey nervous. The moment hung in the air just long enough to
be uncomfortable before Peters filled the void with the sound of his own voice
again.

“Ajay Shah. Son of a wealthy industrialist, international
playboy, heir to one of the largest private fortunes in Asia. He’s certainly
turning heads here in town. Shah’s been wined and dined all over the city, and
by all the swellest of swells.” Peters paused a moment for effect, looking at
the shadow by the wall for any sign. “There’s only one trouble.”

“He doesn’t exist?” the Red Panda asked softly.

“He does not, in fact, exist,” Peters grinned. “The story
checks out on the surface, which would explain why Lulu Lalonde never saw
through it. But even given that half of what people say is usually bunk,
somebody
ought to have heard of this
guy. Consulates, embassies… the
Chronicle
foreign desks–”

“The
Chronicle
has
foreign desks?” the Flying Squirrel said, a little shocked.

Peters blinked. “We have paid stringers that work for us and
a couple dozen other hack rags. What do you want from us?” He grinned again.
“The point is they’re good men and they know their onions. They don’t know Ajay
Shah, or anyone that sounds like him.”

“What does it mean?” the Squirrel said, turning to the
figure in the shadows.

“I figure him for a confidence man,” Peters said, still
fidgeting with the cigarette. “Or the luckiest grifter in the whole wide
world.”

“I doubt he’s in this for the free lunch, Jack,” the Red
Panda said, stepping forward into the light. “You have a picture?”

Peters looked sheepish. “Funny thing, that. There aren’t
any.”

The Red Panda raised an eyebrow.

“Apparently the guy cuts quite a figure,” Peters said.
“Lalonde’s sent our staff shutterbugs out to three swanky parties to make with
the snapshot. They came back with pictures of everything but. Three guys, three
nights, three complete washouts.”

“How’s that for a story?” the Flying Squirrel chirped.

“Great angle. ‘
Chronicle
Staff Incompetent
’. I’m sure Editor Pearly will want to run a special
edition.”

The Red Panda looked at his partner. “This can’t be
coincidence,” he said.

“But Boss–,” the Squirrel protested before being cut
off by the ringing of the telephone on Peters’ desk. Both heroes fell silent as
Peters lifted the receiver.

“Jack Peters,” he said, and listened for a moment. “Oh,
hello, Mother dear. Yes, he’s right here.” He held the telephone out towards
the Red Panda, who took it calmly.

“Report,” he said simply, and listened without speaking for
a full minute. “Understood,” he said at last, returning the receiver to its
cradle.

“Well?” the Flying Squirrel said impatiently.

“Mother Hen says the coroner’s report was released on our
playmates from the other night,” the masked man said gravely. “They were all
burned beyond any hope of identification.”

“But?” she said, her arms crossed, waiting for the other
shoe to drop.

“But she received a call from our man at the morgue.”

“Bert Mendel?” Jack said, perking up at what sounded like a
story.

The Red Panda nodded. “Bert swears that the report was
fixed. He doesn’t know how or by whom, but when his boss signed off on the report,
it identified the three of them as being the household staff of one Joshua
Cain.”

Jack Peters bolted up out of his chair. “Cain! Say, if we
could just get something on that menace! Why, he’s got his fingers in every
rotten-apple pie in town.”

The Flying Squirrel shook her head. “It feels wrong, Boss,”
she said. “None of this feels like Cain.”

“Joshua Cain doesn’t devise crime,” the Red Panda decreed.
“He staffs it. And he seems to be up to his neck in this.”

“What about Ajay Shah?” the Squirrel asked.

“Forget Shah!” Peters said excitedly. “This Cain story is
news! Oh, you’ve just gotta let me run with this!” he implored.

The Red Panda considered it a moment. “It might help to
cover Bert’s tracks if whoever hired Cain thinks we got our lead from a leak at
the
Chronicle
. Anonymous sources
only, Jack.”

“Roger that!” the newsman said settling in front of his
typewriter with enthusiasm.

“But Boss,” the Squirrel objected, “we don’t want Cain to
know we’re on to him!”

“By the time the morning edition hits the streets, Squirrel,
you and I will be quite finished with Joshua Cain.” A smile played across his
face, just for a moment, and anyone but her might have missed it.

Thirty seconds later, the room was empty but for the
reporter and the busy sound of the typewriter keys.