“Your granddaughter’s to be admired, Mr. Johnson. She keeps trying to walk in spite of the fact many doctors informed her otherwise. Sadly, six bullets forever shattered her spine.”
Mike Johnson turned to see Mr. Know. The man always wore a gray suit, shirt, tie, socks, and shoes. His hair was pure white, his eyes piercingly blue.
“Where’s your halo?”
Mr. Know grimaced. “Happily, I’m not required to wear one. You’re depressed today.”
“I’m depressed every day. I’m here and Alicia needs my help.”
“What could you do, Mr. Johnson?”
“I don’t know. She needs to be released from that wheelchair. It’s killing her.”
“Yes, I’m afraid it will, and shortly.”
“Then something has to be done. Mr. Know, do something. I don’t want her to end up being dead like me.”
“What happened to you was inevitable, running around as a pulp hero, solving crime, hiding your real identity for decades.”
“The Apparition was my real identity. Mike Johnson was my disguise. “
“You should have retired.”
“I got old and careless.”
“You were murdered, shot down in the street. You ended up face down in a gutter. That was not a pleasant way for you to meet me, Mr. Johnson.”
“Is there a pleasant way, Mr. Know? Stray machine gun bullets put my granddaughter, Alicia, in a wheel chair for life. She was helping me walk that day.”
“Do you feel your efforts as a crime fighter helped society?”
“Not really. Crime is even worse now. Still, I wish I could fight for justice all over again.”
“Perhaps you can.”
“Oh, tell me how? Wait a minute! Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting? Yes, you are! Mr. Know, don’t do it. That would put Alicia in dire danger.”
“Yes, she would be facing countless unknown dangers when she assumes your crime fighting identity of The Apparition. But only during the nighttime hours, which are the hours you fought crime. During the day she will be Alicia in a wheelchair. I’m sure you realize how very much she resembles your exhaustless tenacity of decades ago. She will be a great crime fighter.”
“I hope you’re right. Okay, get her out of that wheelchair. Free her during the night. Make her into The Apparition.”
“You know the rules.”
“Yeah, I know them.
If you ask a favor of Mr. Know, he will ask a favor of you.
So I’ll owe you.”
Mr. Know smiled and blinked. “Your request has been granted.”
“Good, I hope she has my guns.”
“Why give her your guns? They’re only western six shooters. Modern day guns hold more bullets.”
“The Apparition was a dead shot. I always used six shooters, throwing knives and bullet proof armor. In my old age I found them uncomfortable. I stopped using them and got careless, got killed, and caused what happened to my granddaughter.”
Mr. Know glanced upward. “All right, she has them.”
It had all been so easy. He was not Bryan Sloane. Sloane he had killed months ago and taken his playboy identity for protection and for receiving unguarded scientific information that his so-called scientist friends would unknowingly reveal to Mr. Sloane. His real identity was Professor Mobous Proctorius experimental scientist, and revenge seeker on those who mocked his unusual inventions. His nickname among the scientific establishment was
Mad Scientist, Crank, Insane Madman,
to name a few. Well, he’d show them all, those that were still alive after he avenged himself by their deaths.
He made Stryker into his zombie-like assistant. Yes, Mr. Stryker could perform all the menial tasks while he worked on his master plan, his superb inventions.
A bullet shattering a rack of test tubes almost wrecked Proctorius’s grand schemes for revenge. He turned. Facing him was Stryker. He pressed a button. Now the gun pointing at him was laughable.
“The zombie cocktail you forced me to guzzle wore off, I’m sure much quicker than you expected, Doctor Mobous. My next shot will be in your overblown head. This is my city to control and I’m taking it back.”
The bullet fired at Proctorius never reached him. The doctor’s laugh, now saturated with complete insanity, echoed throughout the sinister lab as he said, “You stupid fool, Stryker. Under my control you could have lived. Now you die.”
Stryker never had time to beg for mercy before electric bolts fried him.
It was a sunny day when Edgar Wells glanced at The Apparition’s note. Yes, this was the correct address, a large aging wooden building, perhaps a century old. He pressed the doorbell.
“Yes?” The voice was pleasant sounding. It also sounded like it was expecting someone.
“My name is Edgar Wells. I was told...”
“Yes, Mr. Wells. I was told you would arrive here. I’ve electronically unlocked the door. You may come in.”
Inside the house was warm, comfortable, and well cared for. But where was the lady he was supposed to help?
The sound from a set of wheels whirled him around. Alicia was in a wheelchair, a pretty blonde with blue eyes. She smiled.
“Am I correct in assuming your eye and facial expressions mean you are wondering whether my entrapment in this wheeled mechanism is temporary or permanent? In a way, I’ll say yes for now. Perhaps later I can give you a better answer.”
Although Edgar Wells did not understand her comment, he didn’t ask. Instead he felt pity for someone other than himself. For here was a lovely young woman with much of her freedom taken away from her.
“I’m at your service, my lady.”
“Please, call me Alicia.”
“Thank you. Please call me Edgar.”
“All right, Edgar, I’ll call you that from now on. Take that door to your right. It leads to the kitchen. The refrigerator is full of choice foods and I’m starving to death.”
Steak and lobster was served for dinner, with a glass of good wine and superb conversation from Alicia.
So the time passed for several days. And yet Edgar felt as if there was something secretive lurking in the old house’s corners. Why he should feel that way he didn’t know. All of Alicia’s former helpers had quit without a word to Alicia. They had just walked off. Was it because they experienced the same unexplainable odd feeling he constantly felt at nighttime? Or could it be the newspaper’s broadcasting the disturbing news about the bizarre deaths of several scientists? One was drowned in a tub of rubbing alcohol, another electrocuted, a third devoured by a shark.
Yes, there was definitely something lurking in the old house. Edgar was to find that out the night he discovered Alicia’s wheelchair was empty. Edgar searched for her and found someone else.
“I was wondering when you would discover something you shouldn’t know about,” said The Apparition. Standing and without a hood, Edgar stared at Alicia’s face. “Yes, Edgar, I am The Apparition. I suppose you would now like an explanation?”
Edgar, shocked to the core of his existence and beyond, managed to navigate his tongue through a dry throat and mumble, “Yes.”
“Several months ago you probably read about a man being gunned down in the street and his granddaughter critically wounded.”
Edgar nodded.
“That was my grandfather, the original Apparition and me. I’ve taken his place.”
“How is that possible?”
“I don’t really know for certain. A month ago I effortlessly moved my toes and legs. I stood and felt muscular. I knew I could walk and did so. I was also much stronger than I’d ever been. I heard a voice telling me to become a crime fighter. I took grandfather’s crime fighting name in honor of his greatness.”
“You’ve been going about the city killing crooks.”
“I prefer to say I’m bringing them to justice.”
“Yes, you certainly are doing just that and rightly so.”
The Apparition’s smile was sad. “You have a decision to make, Edgar. Keep my secret, or expose me to the world by revealing The Apparition’s identity.”
“No, I don’t. I gave you my word. Consider it a contract penned for eternity into impervious granite.”
Edgar and The Apparition shook hands. “There’s work to be done. I know the identity of the man responsible for the scientist’s killings. Tonight I do battle with him.”
* * * *
It didn’t go as planned. The Apparition blew open the door. Doctor Proctorius, clad in a robot suit, laughed as the crime fighter’s bullets ricocheted from the robot’s steel plated armor. The mad scientist’s metal hand pressed a button. A trap door opened at The Apparition’s feet, causing her to drop her guns and fall. Desperately she grabbed the floor ends in an attempt to pull herself up. Proctorius laughed and stomped forward. “I shall crush your fingers until you fall into the water and drown. Then I shall take over the city’s people, and rule them as I see fit.”
Edgar Wells reacted. He scooped up The Apparition’s guns and aimed them at the armored Proctorius. But where should he shoot?
A vulnerable spot in the armor, there had to be. There had to be! Where? Where? The eyes! Yes! The eyes! Shoot! Shoot for the eyes! Now! Now! What? Her guns didn’t fire! Why? Wait, she thumbed the hammers. Pull the hammers back. Now! Now!
Edgar fired The Apparition’s guns. Thunder and flame, and bullets roared from the twin six gun’s muzzles. The robot’s eyes were struck again and again. They shattered. A roar of savage rage vibrated the laboratory’s walls as Proctorius bivalved his armor and stepped from it with his right hand squeezing the trigger of an automatic pistol. Four times he missed Edgar. The fifth bullet was from Edgar. Proctorius’s forehead developed a new eye that became lifeless as the mad doctor died.
The Apparition was up from the floor and standing erect. She gazed at Edgar. “I didn’t know you knew how to shoot like an expert.”
Edgar shook his head. “I didn’t know I could shoot. I’ve never even held a gun in my hand until now. Here, take them.”
The Apparition laughed and holstered her guns. “I’m starving. How much steak do we have in the refrigerator?”
“I’d say about four pounds.”
“Good, that sounds like it might be enough. Let’s go, the cops can handle this. You know, Edgar, I feel The Apparition and her partner will have more criminal cases to solve. What do you think?”
“I certainly hope so. I’m having a great time.”
* * * *
“All right, Mr. Know. I owe you another favor.”
“Why?”
“Well, you granted Edgar the ability to fire The Apparition’s guns.”
“No I didn’t.”
“What? Did I hear you say you didn’t help Edgar?”
“Yes, that’s what I said.”
“But... for the love of God, what if he had missed?”
“He didn’t. I knew he wouldn’t. That’s why everybody up here calls me Mr. Know. I know almost everything there is to know.”
Mike Johnson shook his head in an attempt to have clear thoughts. It didn’t help. “I have never been more confused in my life than right at this moment. Are you hinting to me that your real name is not Mr. Know?”
“You got that right. However, my real name is a secret.”
“I’m not so sure I want to know your actual name. Well, let’s cut out all this lip service. I owe you a favor. Name it.”
“Okay, if you’re sure you want to hear what I’m going to ask of you.”
“Name it!”
“All right, I want you to make me into a crime fighter. I want to be a pulp hero.”
“You’re joking.”
“I never do that. Joking here is forbidden. I’m serious.”
“Oh boy, oh boy, well I hope you don’t take this as an insult, but truthfully, Mr. Know, you are not the crime fighting type.”
“Why am I not the type?”
“Well, I don’t know... It takes a special type... I don’t know... you just don’t seem to fit the crime fighting category.”
“You agreed to my terms.”
“Yeah, I did. Oh, all right. Do you know how to laugh?”
“Yes. Listen to this.”
“No, I don’t mean that kind of laugh. That was a normal laugh. I’m talking about a laugh that fills you with terror and turns your backbone into jelly. Every crime fighter must have one. Go ahead. Let me hear you laugh a laugh like that.”
Seconds later Mike Johnson’s face was a study in disgust as he smirked at Mr. Know. “You just gave me a laugh that wouldn’t scare kindergarten children. Listen to my laugh. This is the one that always terrified the criminals I brought to justice.”
Mike Johnson laughed a laugh for all laughs. He smiled, looked around him and noticed he was all alone. “Hey, Mr. Know, where are you?”
Once again Wayne Greenough confesses to his being an introvert. When he uses a telephone he stutters and knows not what to say. When he’s among a crowd he’s the silent one. Only when he writes does the introvert die. Writing releases Wayne Greenough to where he is able to extrovertly tell stories.