police
seem able to do much about it.”
“So what do we do?” the Flying Squirrel asked with a grin. “Do we go
after the big bad and hope they’re half as tough as they are smart, or do we
shut down this protection racket before they get started?”
He was masked now, and pulled his hat on low with red-gauntleted hands.
“C,” he said. “All of the above.”
Ten
In an alley on the south side of St Clair Avenue, a tall, lithe form
stirred in the darkness. It peered out the mouth of the alleyway, the light
from the flickering gas lamps sending sporadic tendrils deep into the darkness.
The light revealed the watcher to be a young man, perhaps twenty-five, with a
stern focus to his eyes and a determined set to his jaw. He was wearing a
lightweight brown jacket and plain shirt, a tweed cap pulled down low over a
shock of blond hair. He looked like any one of a thousand men of his age might.
A casual observer would be hard pressed to remember anything about him. A
keener eye would have recognized him in an instant as a man trying to appear
nondescript – a moot point to the man in the alley, as he was certain
that he was completely unobserved.
The man in the alley was mistaken.
His eyes remained fixed straight ahead on a small grocery store, in
which a light still burned. There were few customers left at this hour, and the
owner of the shop was already busying himself bringing in his stock.
The man in the alley peered up the avenue. He saw a face he recognized
– a hard face with a cruel smile, sauntering along with a determined look
in his eyes. Satchel Braun, once a small-timer with Ace Ryder’s mob. The
watcher in the alley turned back to the grocery store. It seemed Braun’s most
likely destination. The man stepped forward, steeled himself with an intake of
breath and stepped out to cross the broad street.
He thought back to the conversation a week earlier that had set him
down this path, when he had unexpectedly found himself called into the office
of his division Captain, and to his astonishment found himself face to face
with the Chief of Police.
“Oh! I’m sorry, Chief O’Mally,” he had said. “I didn’t mean to–”
“Step in, Constable Parker,” the Chief had replied.
“What’s that?”
“It is Constable Parker, isn’t
it?” O’Mally had said,
opening a file on the Captain’s desk. “Constable
Andy Parker?”
“Uh- Yes, sir,” Parker had replied.
“Parker, I have an unusual
assignment for which I require the services of a capable and resourceful
officer, without going through the normal channels,” O’Mally had begun. “Captain Kreiger tells me that you may be the very man. What do you
think?”
“I think I can’t answer that
question without knowing more, sir. Though if Captain Kreiger says so, I’d be
surprised if it wasn’t true.”
O’Mally had snorted his approval. Loyal, but not a yes-man. Eager, but
not to the point of willful blindness. A good beginning.
“Parker, I don’t have to tell
you that this city has its share of problems. But since a certain man decided
to put on a mask and take the law into his own hands, the potential for
disaster has become unacceptably high.”
“You mean… the Red Panda, sir?”
“Do you know of any other
masked men patrolling the city’s rooftops, Constable Parker?” O’Mally had said, his pipe clenched between
his teeth to the point of snapping.
“No, sir. I don’t mean to be
obtuse, sir, but it seems to me that the Red Panda has been doing some good.”
“Has he?” O’Mally’s eyes had blazed with
disappointment.
“I’m not saying I approve of
his methods, Chief O’Mally,” Parker had backtracked, “but I see the
effect he has on the street every day. He does more than just shut down rackets
and take toughs off the street. He gives the people hope, sir. And in times
like these, that’s a kind of public service too.”
O’Mally had looked down his nose at the junior officer. He was