A gaunt, scarecrow-like man wearing a tailcoat wanders over. "Ah, is this the place we will be defending?" asks Michael Bor "Do these bandits usually use the front door, or do they like to sneak in from the back? Or might they just crash through the skylight?"
"Police reports say front door, so far," Richter replies. "But this savings and loan does have a skylight, and they do have someone who flies ... it's possible."
Janet, a dime-a-dozen typical black lady with an untypical love of books, polished off her tea and added, "They don't seem like the sneaking in type. So far their tactic had been rampage in, scare all them folks with their magic and cause chaos, get what they want and get out. And besides the money, they seem to want to get everyone afraid of our kind, too," she huffed, "not very polite of them giving us actives a bad rap, making life harder for the rest of us." Janet finished, and had to push her flat topped feathered hat back on her head before it could slip into her jam.
"Sky" Masterson is a dark-haired youth whose footstep is so light that he seems to dance when he walks. with twinkling and dancing gray eyes that seem to change color under different light, now hazel, now dark, now yellow like a beast of prey. Something in his glace seems supercilious but zany, as if silently saying either 'come out and play' or 'I double-dog dare you'.
His features are strangely magnetic without being exactly pleasant. He has narrow face, a cleft jaw, cheekbones like a fashion model. He is dressed in an expensive but loud suit: a narrow silk tie of bright colors, a checkered coat with sharp lapels, a green fedora, which he wears at a tilt. One bulge in his coat is his heater, the other his roll of c-notes. He has the quirk of smiling with one side of his mouth only, the side without a cigarette dangling from it.
"I got a Benjamin says one of them beefs some Joe before the week is out. Lay you twelve to seven. You'll cover me?"
"And," he admits, "the way they're going, you're right -- someone's going to step into a bullet before much longer."
"Now we can watch the bank from the outside or go inside. We have old photos of Voinovich and Muldoon, but only sketches of Henessey and Miss Tane. And as for the flying woman, all we have is this newspaper photo -- you can't see her face at all. She has short hair, but if she's wearing a hat, that doesn't help us."
"I guess what I'm getting at is that they could walk right by us if we stake out the bank. But if we're inside, we know we can put the finger on them. Now, we have two Fades, a Cog, a Finder, and an Ace, right, Sky? So we don't want to go up against the whole gang in close-range combat. What do you think we ought to do? Mr. Browning put me in charge, but I'll listen to any reasonable suggestion."
"Sorry ah'm late everybody." says sonny boy Jenkins as he comes into the dining room. He's a lean long faced man with dark hair and a wide brimed hat. "This th' bank we're watchin?" He gives a low whistle. " 's a nice place. So,how we gonna do this?"
ReplyDelete"With two Fades, we could have someone in the vault itself," Richter says.
ReplyDelete"That is good...and I could easily set up an array to alert us if they try to fly in. Wing beats from something the size of a human will stand out tremendously from background noise." Mr. Bor says. "I do not know if I can do anything to detect them on the ground. If I had detailed recordings of their voices I could easily find them with hidden microphones set in a radius around the building, If they spoke... If had a week or two, or a month, to study how they walk, and then convinced the city to install very sensitive seismographs under the sidewalks..." He trails off into thought.
ReplyDelete"So it looks like our biggest advantage will be information," says Richter, taking notes. "We'll hear where they are; my spirits can track them anywhere. We could just wait for the bird-lady to get a few steps away from her friends, then Fade her right through the wall, and scram!"
ReplyDelete"That puts me, Janet, Kaze, and Michael on either watching the hoods or making the snatch. Sky, Sonny-Boy, we'll need you to watch for pursuit and keep their heads down if they come after us. I guess I'll drive; I can command my spirits from the driver's seat until it's time to move. That is, if they're kindly disposed that day, which is always in question. Spirits are jerks, mostly."
"Everyone's heeled, right?" he says, patting his shoulder holster. "If not, no harm; we'll stop by Sears Roebuck for rifles and Tommy guns before heading over to the bank."
ReplyDeleteSky Masterson flipping a coin on his thumb, watching it tumble through the air. "Are we trying to stop the robbery or just follow them until they go to ground, and then mug them at their hideout?
ReplyDelete"Have the cog make a gizmo to attach to their car to make all the dogs in the neighborhood follow them, and then have the finder follow the dogs, while the fade hides in the car trunk, and uh.... Okay. Wait. Why not perch a gun on the roof with a shotgun to blast anyone tries to fly in the sky light?"
Sky Masterson says,"I love a good scrap, and I'z never yet been unfortunate enough to be hit in the face, as you can see from my straight and unbroken nose. For when the opposing nogoodniks what I want to put six feet under has the courteousity to be far away, I got my Pappy's deer rifle, on account of he died a bum, having no other worldly possessions to stake me, except a rifle and some sound advice.
"On the other gloved hand, which it is important as well as healthful to wear on account of not scarring your knuckles, when the opposing party is so upfrontish and untimely as to be within arm's reach -- which is always closer than it seems -- on my Pappy's sound and wise fatherly advice, I am in the habituated habits of carrying two switchblades in case one breaks or is left in an unfortunately ribcage; a baseball bat on account of no copper nowhere in New York ever stopped a man carrying such an innocent looking sporting goodsish club; two pairs of brass knuckles in case I am duking it out with a southpaw; and a pair of steel toed boots what makes my feet itch something abominable, but I consider it good luck to wear in a brawl, as the opportunity for breaking bones and intruding soft tissue damage with a foot never ceases to present itself in the heatfulness of battle.
"Also, I have in my pocket a pair of dice where he had the spots removed for luck, which I took from a man who had the misfortune of betting me whether I was right handed or left.
"Now, this may seem like quite an arsenal, but I usually leave such things back in my room, or some other place I know well, and it is fortunate, if not lucky, that I happen to have in my hands what I need more quickly than may at first seem possible -- but that is because we live in a world that ain't all it is cracked up to be.
"But I got no heater, having tendered it to a pawnshop in Brooklyn owned by a Mr Horowitz for enough scratch to pay a social call on a horse in Saratoga, who was not as swift of hoof as might have at first been estimated.
"And this, despite knowing the jockey's brother, because Valentine is no mudder, and it had rained that morning. Ace or not, I ain't lucky enough to control the weather. That is a different talent altogether. So a Tommy gun would make a welcome addition."