Tales of the Red Panda: The Mind Master (4 page)

The wide wooden doors swung open and a sudden glare of
natural light elbowed its way into the musty, open hall. The buzz of activity
was constant, as a dozen men were busily engaged in using the gymnasium
facilities within. Two were jumping rope on opposite sides of the large, open
space. Several more worked with weights, and still others with a variety of
punching bags, large and small, that hung from the rafters.

In the centre of the room stood a full-sized boxing ring,
where two middleweight-sized men stood opposite one another, trying to keep their
eyes focused on each other while simultaneously absorbing the instructions
being thrown at them by a large and seemingly very angry man outside the ring.
The combatants were handicapped somewhat by the fact that the same trainer was
shouting instructions to both of them at the same time. To say nothing of the
fact that his instructions were often contradictory in nature, and that their
confusion only made him both angrier and his already formidable Greek accent
thicker.

Slowly, the activity around the room began to trickle to a
halt as the assembled crowd stopped to gawk at the newcomer standing in their
midst, a tallish man with a strong jaw, a shock of blond hair and the uniform
of a Toronto Police Constable. The man looked mildly sheepish at his reception,
and tried to indicate with his smile that he was not there to make trouble for
anyone. He caught the eye of the Greek trainer, who barked orders at the two
pugilists and made his way towards the young police officer.

“If you are going to keep coming to my gymnasium, you should
maybe think about taking some lessons,” the trainer growled as be breezed past
the officer in the direction of a counter set up near the front door, behind
which stood the entrance to a small office.

“I’m supposed to keep coming here, Spiro,” the policeman
protested. “You’re my contact man.”

The trainer stopped and took his head in his great, meaty
left hand. He was a big man, more than sixty years old now, though clearly
still strong as an ox. His name was Spiro Papas, and he had been relaying
information and orders between the Red Panda and some of his many field agents
for almost two years now. The mystery man had earned Spiro’s eternal loyalty by
saving his son from a life of crime into which he had fallen, and his respect by
doing it in such a way that the young man was able to put a troubled past
behind him and make a new life.

The boxing trainer’s son was free and clear and doing well
for himself now, and his grateful father had become one of the most important
links in the Red Panda’s network. But it was the green agents that always made
his head swim a little. The ones who got so caught up in their new careers of
adventure that they spoke out of turn, or drew attention to themselves, or
worse, to Papas himself. This new charge of his, Constable Andy Parker, was
just such a one.

“And just how many people heard you say ‘contact man’ out
loud, Parker?” he growled.

The young cop turned his head quickly. “Why, nobody did,”
Parker replied.

“And the time for looking around to see who is listening is
before
you speak! Before!” Spiro said as
if for the hundredth time while pointing into his office with a stern, stabbing
motion. Parker followed along sheepishly.

Papas closed the door behind them and the smoked glass
rattled slightly. “The uniform,” Spiro began again, “it attracts attention,
Parker. The other agents, they can come and go and no one much minds them. The
only reason for a policeman to keep coming in here is if he is taking lessons,
or is shaking me down.” The trainer paused for effect as he loomed over Parker.
“I am not so much a man that people might think could be shook down, am I?”

“No,” Parker admitted. “But I’m not sure that boxing–”

“Pah!” spat the older man. “To box is the best thing for boy
like you. Put some meat on you. Lots of cops, they box. You come in Thursday
after work.”

“Fine,” Parker nodded with a smile. It hadn’t been long
since he had been recruited to serve in the army of informants, spotters and
active agents that worked under the Red Panda’s command, but already he had
learned that there was no point in arguing with Spiro. And he had to admit that
the old man had a point. He could come and go with greater ease if the regulars
in Spiro’s gym accepted him as one of their own, up to a point.

“Spiro,” Parker began in earnest, “I’ve got to get hold of
the Chief.”

Spiro’s laugh was almost a snort. “Listen, junior. The
Chief, he trusts you. You keep your eyes open good and you use your head.
Already you see twice as much action as other agents. But nobody gets hold of
the Chief themselves.”

“That’s why I came to you,” Parker protested.

“Spiro is not your message boy! When he needs us, he sends
for us.”

“Then just let me leave a message with the reports for
pickup, Spiro. I have information he needs on the Empire Bank job.”

“He told you he needs this, yes?” Spiro squinted
skeptically.

“No, I haven’t talked to him, but–”

“Then maybe he doesn’t need it so much then, Mister Big
Shot.”

“And maybe he does.” Parker looked at Papas, sitting
awkwardly, his great arms folded before him in a desperate attempt to be
casual. “What is it, Spiro? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong,” Spiro protested. “They have not sent for
the reports, is all.”

“For how long?” Parker said, his brow furrowed.

Spiro shrugged. “Few days. Spiro does not report to you!”

“Spiro, I can’t help if I don’t understand what’s wrong,”
Parker said calmly. “How often do they usually call for the reports?”

“What usually? They call when they call.”

“Is it normally a few days between?”

“Normally, no. Not so much
normally
as
never
.” The
big man looked away for a moment, and Parker could tell that he was worried.
Spiro shook it off. “Look, Parker… you are go-getter. You like to impress.
Maybe you like to impress the Chief, maybe you like to impress the Squirrel.”

Parker’s ears turned bright red and his jaw set more
determined. Spiro knew at once that he had struck a nerve, and he smiled to
himself.

“When the Chief makes contact, I will tell him Andy Parker
has report to make. Okay?”

“Fair enough,” said Parker with an attempt at a smile. But
he was now as worried about their mysterious leader and his fearless partner as
Spiro was. Maybe even more, as he knew one thing that Spiro didn’t. Two nights
earlier an old, abandoned warehouse had exploded, for no reason that the police
could determine. The owner of the building was being held on suspicion of
arson, but Parker had never heard of high explosives being used in simple
insurance fraud. To the ears of a trusted agent like himself, it sounded like a
trap set to destroy the city’s masked protectors. And worse still, it just
might have succeeded!

Kit Baxter opened her eyes and stared for a moment at the
dingy, unfamiliar tiles on the ceiling above her. She felt the hard, lumpy cot
beneath her digging into her back and suddenly remembered where she was. She
settled back into the cot with a contented sigh that few could have matched in
her surroundings.

She was in a small room in a windowless basement. A hidden
apartment with sparse furnishings but ample emergency medical equipment –
one of their many safe houses. The Red Panda had established most of them
before taking her on as a partner, and they were all utilitarian to a fault.
This one, on the border of the warehouse district south of the Parkdale
neighborhood, was only a few blocks away from the site of the explosion the
other night.

Kit frowned at the thought. She knew she had taken a knock
to the head as they had escaped through the window seconds ahead of a wall of
fire, but just how long ago that was she couldn’t even begin to say. She had
been in and out of consciousness four or five times since then, never for very
long.

She turned her head to meet the movement she heard coming
from down the hall. She smiled as the Red Panda peeked around the corner
hesitantly, as if careful not to disturb her.

“I thought I heard something,” he grinned.

She blinked up at him. “Why is it the only time we get to
play house is when one of us is out cold?”

He frowned a little. “I don’t think I understand the
question,” he admitted.

She sighed, just a little. “I didn’t guess that you would.
What time is it?”

“Tuesday,” he said, handing her a glass of water.

“That’s all I get?” she frowned. “You weren’t worried sick?
You didn’t hold my hand as I hovered near death’s door?”

“Would any of those things incline you to get out of bed?”
he teased right back. “Nurse Kerwin didn’t seem to think you were at death’s
door exactly.”

“Nurse Kerwin was here?” Kit said, throwing aside the
blanket and sitting up. “And we haven’t had the maid in for ages. Why are all
of our safe houses such complete dumps, anyway?”

“We’re in a hidden chamber behind a furnace room,” he said.
“I don’t think some curtains and a throw rug are going to do much good. Are you
hungry?”

“Famished,” she said, standing too quickly and wobbling a
little. “You can buy me some eggs if anything’s open.”

Kit looked down, and realized for the first time that she
was wearing a vastly oversized pair of men’s silk pyjamas, rolled up
dramatically at the legs, but her hands were swimming in the long sleeves. Her
heart jumped involuntarily.

“How exactly did you get me into these pyjamas?” she asked
without thinking.

He turned slightly red around the edges and stammered, “I
had nothing to do with it. It was Nurse Kerwin.” He beat a hasty retreat back
down the narrow hall.

“Oh,” she said, disappointed in spite of herself. She sat
back down on the edge of the cot for a moment. She looked down at the oversized
silk sleeves and smiled. “How come I don’t have my own pyjamas here?”

“What?” He was on his way back into the room with her
Squirrel Suit.

“We could keep them in the same drawer an’ everything.” She
batted her eyelashes, taking the costume from him.

“We have thirty-six safe houses,” he deadpanned. “How many
sets of pyjamas do you have?”

“It’s a fair point,” she admitted. “Just so I know, what
paper-thin excuse have we concocted to explain away our scandalously
unchaperoned two-day absence?”

“You drove me to Montreal on business. Quite suddenly, I
might add.”

She smiled. The elaborate lengths the Boss went to to
protect Kit’s reputation were very sweet, even if the gossips in her
neighbourhood never quite accepted them.

“Did I remember to write my mother before I left?” Kit asked
gravely.

He smiled. “And you complained when I made you write all of
those letters.”

“Did I bring her back a souvenir ashtray?”

“A souv– Does she smoke?”

“No,” Kit smiled up at him.

“Then she’ll get over it,” he said. “Get changed, I’m going
to grab a few things. I’ve got the car parked in the hidden garage out back. Do
you feel well enough to drive?”

“I’m fine,” she called as he stepped into the next room.
“How’s the car?”

“I was very careful,” he called back.

“So I should be able to repair the damage in…”

There was a moment of silence as he wrestled with the truth.
“A few hours, tops.”

“Do we know what happened back there?” she said, stepping
out of his pyjamas with a wistful smile.

“It was a garbage can,” he called.

Her brow furrowed for just a moment. “Not the car, the
warehouse,” she called.

“Well,” he said seriously, “I suppose it goes without saying
that it was a trap.”

“Ya think?” she called back as she pulled on her costume.

“We expected that, of course. Though we expected something a
little less…”

“Apocalyptic?”

“Ah!
Le mot juste
.”

“I’m decent,” she called back.

The Red Panda stuck his head around the corner, hesitantly
at first, as though she might be toying with him. Kit smiled. He had his mask
on now and cut quite a figure as the looming spectre of justice. Which made his
occasional awkward moments with her even funnier.

“So all we know for sure,” she began, “is that whoever
pulled the Empire Bank caper wanted to make sure that we didn’t try to catch up
with him again.”

He shook his head. “There are more questions than I’m
comfortable with. Like how they found the tracker so quickly.”

“They must’ve been looking for it,” she mused.

“But what made them check so closely? There was nothing in
that safety deposit box that could have tied the contents to August Fenwick,
but it still gives one pause.”

“If we could detect the radio beacon, so could someone
else,” she said, pulling on her gloves.

“Granted.”

“And it wouldn’t take them long to figure that someone would
follow that lead, and that whoever it was would be somebody they wouldn’t want
to have to deal with.”

“So they blew up a city block?”

“It does feel like overkill, doesn’t it?” she grimaced.

He smiled grimly. “My principle trouble with that theory is
that it is, in any number of ways, a best-case scenario.”

“And it still ain’t that good.”

“That’s my other problem with it.” He handed her her cowl
and goggles. “If someone thought they would need that much firepower, they were
almost certainly gunning for us. And if they wanted us gone that badly, the
odds are that the Empire Bank was just the beginning.”

“And now it’s two days later, the trail is cold and we’re
still nowhere near the game.” She stood at the ready, fully clad as the Flying
Squirrel, and looking good as new.

“So much for shortcuts,” the Red Panda smiled.