by Pierre Anton Taylor

Crime occupied his mind. Not just petty crime or corporate crime. Murder. He had little doubt. The lab tests were inconclusive. It didn’t matter. Whoever was behind his father’s death was sophisticated. It was made to look like a heart attack. Not uncommon for a man of his age. Wayne wasn’t convinced. It didn’t pass the sniff test.

And old Rick’s death was murder, there was no question. The police had yet to apprehend the suspect because they didn’t have a suspect. Robbery was the motive, they claimed. The candy store had been doing better business because of the construction and renovation of the old Battery Works next door. Someone was envious. Or greedy. Or both.

Wayne Bruce looked out over the night scape of the city at his feet from the penthouse terrace. Christmas decorations and neon advertisements brightened the streets of the business district below. A skating rink had been installed at City Center. The sound of voices and music, caroling, could be heard faintly, carried by the frigid wind. He had slipped the extreme weather mask off his face to sit above his forehead. The collar of his jet black jacket was sealed by the mask’s overlapping skirt. The lightweight thermal gloves sealed at the wrists kept out the below zero chill. Knuckles reinforced by a granular composite packed to punch. His tightfitting downhill racing leggings, also black, topped a pair of solid custom made steel toed boots.

His pager sounded in the pocket of his jacket. He didn’t bother with it. He knew what it was. The ghost number. His ghost father was calling him to revenge. To avenge his death. And that of poor old Rick. To serve justice to those who would do evil. He would go, out into the frigid night, down to the ice and slush of the darkened streets. There he would face his adversaries.

Turning to reenter the penthouse, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the wide darkened glass of the sliding doors. It was a silhouette, a lithe dark shadow, the mask rumpled on the top of his head gave the impression of tiny protrusions resembling a pair of horns or ears. He was an avenging angel, he thought, or something else with wings.

Sliding open the door to the penthouse to retrieve his parajump gear, he was reminded of what the maintenance man had said, complaining when the door jammed off track and allowed the December wind to whistle through and snow to pile up on the expensive carpeting. “This suite’s got problems with doors.”

He was surprised. He was unaware that there was a door problem.

“Oh, a couple of times. Before Mr. Bruce died. I told them they needed to replace the whole thing because it hadn’t been installed properly when they changed the casing from French doors to double sliders.” And as an afterthought, “The door to the service access, right about the same time. The key pad failed. I had to call the company. Never had that problem with a lock and key.”

Apparently a minor inconvenience. “They, the Electrolocks Company, sent a technician out right away and he just replaced the entire unit, didn’t take more than fifteen minutes.”

Wayne had been given the grand tour of the Legacy Towers security setup. It was adequate without being intrusive, mostly motion detectors and remote cameras monitored after hours by the night manager, and by a concierge and assistants morning to evening. The service access keypads allowed entry to the upscale suites and flats whose activation triggered the ceiling camera, recording, time stamping, and alerting the monitoring staff. State of the art, the general manager had assured him.

“That’s one of the reasons it took them so long to get in here when the accident happened. That keypad stopped working again. The new overnight man didn’t know how to enact the bypass. Or hadn’t been told how to. It was a mess, as you can imagine, the fire department, the ambulance, the cops.”

What were the odds of a keypad failure so soon after replacement?

“They’re a big company, Electrolocks, they service most of the buildings in the downtown district. They had a good rep. I mean, until this happened. But I know their service supervisor went nuclear, accused the plant staff of tampering with the device, using unauthorized parts because he was sure he was going to be sued because of a malfunctioning keypad.” But for the hint of self-satisfaction, there was more. “When he was told that his guy had installed it, he claimed that they had no record of the service call and no tech had been dispatched to this address. The concierge was tearing his hair out by then. And if that wasn’t enough. The door to the penthouse elevator started acting up,” confiding, “I don’t do elevators.”

There was the drop as if the wind had been caught by surprise and the blur of lights and shadow until the wing snapped taut and lifted him above the roofs of the tall buildings below.

Wayne dragged the equipment out onto the terrace overlooking the city night skyline and set it at the edge of the parapet. The maintenance man had made the point.

“They had to call the elevator company to send a repairman out. It wasn’t the usual crew, just a couple of guys who said they were sent from the main office because it was a priority job. They knew what they were doing. Didn’t take them long. It looked like a cheap plastic ballpoint pen, or something like that, had got caught up in the track. Probably one of the cops or firemen dropped it when they were milling around after they found Mr. Bruce.”

A cheap plastic pen had lodged in the elevator door track impeding it’s closure. What happened to it? Was it discarded at completion of the repair? Returned to the shop accompanying the repair report? And then discarded? Nor was there any certainty that it was a plastic pen, it just appeared to be a clear plastic tube shattered at one end.

Wayne unzipped the large duffel and extracted the wing suit, a prototype he’d had the BATS Lab put together, the product of long discussions and brainstorming with fellow base jumpers and sky divers, some of whom were aeronautic engineers. The sheer wing panels unfolded and tail piece stretched in place, it looked like a paper airplane ready to be launched by a rubber band. So much for high-tech, he thought to himself. The object was to hang under the wing structure and glide down, the body webbing of the suit providing the drag and extra maneuverability.

The surveillance system and laser discs in his father’s office the Smith Brothers had uncovered still remained a mystery. The material could not be accessed without a combination of letters and numbers typed into the keypad and so the expectation of learning what the old man had recorded was muted. One of the electronic techs at the lab was of the opinion that it might take a while, but it could be done. It appeared to be a custom proprietary system. He’d asked Robin to work with the tech. If anyone could come up with a novel approach, it was Robin.

But other than that big surprise in the middle of his discussion with the Smith Brothers about the source of the salting of the grounds at the old Battery Works with toxic substances, the question was who had the most to gain from declaring it a toxic site and getting the government to pay for it. It was serious fraud and it likely required some collusion between interested parties, first dun the feds, and then sell it dirt cheap to developers and investors. It sounded like good business, and a lot of hands needing to be greased. He wondered how much old dad knew about that arrangement. Had he been killed for his opposition? Supposing he had opposed it.

Wayne had stepped on that idea with both feet. It was instinct. He wanted to preserve a memory of a beginning, the grounds for Wallace Bruce’s successful business empire, but also his early memories of it as a thriving community, a family of sorts when everybody knew his name or nicknamed him Triple A or Battery Boy. That’s what he was holding on to. And by converting the old battery factory site into a battery museum as well as a showcase for his antique car collection, converting the old office building to a satellite office for Bruce Advanced Technical Systems, he would begin the slow restitution of a neglected, bombed-out part of the city to the vibrant community it once was. That was the plan at least, the Bruce Give Back plan.

He had given the Smith Brothers, Rosy and Goldie, the information that Robin had learned about JKR Corp. That was a company owned or at least fronted by Joseph Kerr in partnership with Riddler Corp. There was a lot of background of Kerr and Rosy knew some of it. “A place to start,” Rosy had commented. “Riddler is a different proposition, a front company behind another front company, it’s an enigma. We don’t know who we are dealing with,” he’d cautioned. but the brothers, arrogant as ever, had laughed it off. “This is our meat!”

The wind whipped at him as he lifted himself onto the stone parapet that ringed the penthouse terrace. Harness cinched tight across his chest, he slipped his feet into the stirrups of the tail piece, the wing frame rattling at the frigid gusts. He did not look down, a rookie mistake, and let himself drop forward, angling into the thin freezing air. There was the drop as if the wind had been caught by surprise and the blur of lights and shadow until the wing snapped taut and lifted him above the roofs of the tall buildings below. The controlled flight pressed the arctic weather mask against his face, modified goggles keeping his vision clear as he maneuvered his descent toward the blinking rooftop beacon in the distance.

In the past week he had extended the distance of his night flights. This was the third and longest of his attempts, bringing him closer to the outer city district, less than a mile from his base at the Battery Works. Bion Ripley had installed the beacons at the different locations. Now that the work at renovation of the office building on the old factory grounds had progressed beyond the rebuilding phase, Wayne had employed him as a manager and neighborhood advisor. Bion was enthusiastic about Wayne’s plan to revitalizing the area. Otherwise, he knew that if something wasn’t done soon, and the neighborhood was further degraded due to drugs, delinquency, petty crime, and homelessness, then it was only a matter of time before the city razed the district and sold it off to out of state, or even foreign, investors. That, and an affection for old Rick, made them collaborators.

At the last minute, he caught hold of the brick ledge with one hand but not before he was vaulted over the side and slammed into the side of the building.

And Bion had learned something disturbing surrounding the shooting at the candy store. He was convinced that the murder of the old man was not the result of a robbery. There was still cash in the register drawer, not a lot, because it appeared that Rick had moved the midday take into the hidey-hole, and it was still there. It was the other thing that was disturbing.

“When they were done with the crime scene, I went in and took a look around. I found the stash in the hole, behind the candy counter, where he always dropped it, untouched. And I looked around for anything that was missing or out of place. At first I missed it because I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the display. But then it hit me, there was candy missing!”

It was difficult to believe that someone had killed the old man over a candy bar.

“It wasn’t a candy bar. It was the Wacky Wax. All of it!”

Even so, to shoot someone over an off brand wax candy seemed, at the very least, deranged.

“I know it sounds crazy, killing somebody over crappy candy. So I asked around, and someone offered to sell me some Wacky Wax. And the way they told me, I knew. They were selling drugs and using the same packaging as the wax candy.” Bion had shown him the package and it looked exactly like the original except that an extra X had been added to the name. Bion had explained, but Wayne quickly grasped the reasoning. Someone had access to the manufacturer of the ersatz candy, the packaging at least, and was using it to sell drugs.

“I copped some of the Wacky Wax with the extra X and here’s what I found. You snap open the wax candy and there inside is a little lozenge of the drug. And it’s cheap. People are getting strung out behind this junk, whatever it is, and it’s flooding the district.”

There was no question as to who was behind it. One of the many enterprises that could be laid at Joe Kerr’s doorstep. Wayne had sent a sample to his lab. The initial analysis had confirmed his suspicions. It had properties similar to morphine and heroin, but effective in miniscule amounts. He had said nothing when he read the report. He knew very well where he had encountered that substance before. Not that he’d had anything to do with it. It was Charlotte Taste’s party drug of choice. On the street, it was known as Wacky Waxx. In the elite circles that his ex-fiancé traveled, it was known as TDF, To Die For. But what did they care. If things got out of hand, they just checked in to a clinic, like the one Linus Paul operated, got themselves a full body blood transfusion, and they were as good as new. On the street, Wacky Waxx left you to die in the gutter like so much dust and debris.

Thinking about Charlotte always scattered his concentration. He was right on top of the beacon and he had to act right away. He yanked on the ripcord to release the rigid wing and felt himself drop toward the rooftop, but too quickly. He had misjudged. The heavy wingsuit now was just a liability. He landed on both feet and rolled. He was too close to the edge of the roof. The momentum was carrying him over. At the last minute, he caught hold of the brick ledge with one hand but not before he was vaulted over the side and slammed into the side of the building. It knocked the wind out of him although the wing suit had cushioned much of the blow. Still he was dangling five stories above the deserted street below. With a great effort he grabbed the ledge with his other hand and pulled himself back up onto the roof and lay there letting his racing heart calm down. A thought crossed his mind. Charlotte would be the death of him.

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Next Time: A Dark Knight Disrupts The Wacky Waxx Factory