Previous Post Deadeyes #4: The Turpin Hill Mob Previously, in http://www.chillwater.plus.com/HH/hhstories/deadeyes%201.htm">Boss Deadeyes #1, http://www.chillwater.plus.com/HH/hhstories/deadeyes%202.htm">#2, and http://www.chillwater.plus.com/HH/hhstories/deadeyes%203.htm">#3: Antony “Deadeyes” Ventredi, a 1930s gang racketeer, has been raised from the dead and has reclaimed his place as “boss” of Gothametropolis York’s criminal underworld. He possesses the supernatural ability to kill with touch, but can delay the effect for as long as he likes. With his reanimated comrades-in-crime, dapper hit man Emilio Cacciatore, accountant Ishmael Levi, and nightclub singer Myra Mason, the Boss is seeking to reunite the fragmented GMY mobs. This has not made him popular with corrupt city Mayor Velma Klein and he allies who have recruited specialist help to “resolve” the situation.. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Wow, this is aces!” admitted Myra Mason. “Who’d have known that frothy coffee could taste so good?” She giggled.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Welcome to the twenty-first century,” said Vicki Vee, also known as the supervillainess second-in-command VelcroVixen. “If you think this stuff is good we’ve got to get you into an adult shop sometime.”     Myra took another sip of the tall thin cappuccino she’d been served by the cat-girl behind the counter of the Bean and Donut Coffee Bar. “One thing at a time, girls. I’m just a club singer from a little town you’ve probably never heard of, staring wide-eyed at the big bad city. It’s gonna take me a little time to get used to being seventy-some years in the future.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Seventy-some?” asked the third woman at the table, the sultry demon temptress Regret of the Damned.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I was never that good at math,” admitted Myra. “In fact that was why I had to run away from that little town in the first place, to find a doc what accepted cash.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I guess a sudden time-jump would seem a little bit peculiar, first time round,” agreed Regret. “I’ve been dispatched to lure men to their doom in all kinds of ages but I still remember the first time I seduced my own grandfather.”     Myra looked uncertain. “Your boss made you do that?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“My then boss, I guess,” agreed the exiled demoness. “I have a complicated backstory. I’m keeping the really juicy parts until I get my own series.”     VelcroVixen sipped her black Columbian. “I’m a little confused about how you’re still here, Myra,” she admitted. “Or at least how you’re back. Are you undead now? A vampire or a zombie or something?”     Boss Deadeyes’ moll shivered. “Brrr. I sure hope not. The way Tony explained it, there was this spell that kept us bound to him, me, Emilio, and Ishmael, so that we didn’t quite pass on when our bodies died.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Deadeyes was killed by the Dark Knight,” noted Regret. “Sorry, I mean ‘the Midnight Avenger’. That was 1933, after all. Did that nutjob slaughter you too?”     Myra looked unhappy. “No. Me and Ishmael, when they knew the Boss was gone, there was this mook called Max Jagged. He wanted the Boss’ territory. He took Ishmael, tortured him to death. He wanted Tony’s books.” Myra tapped her chest. “He wanted this territory as well, but I still had my .22. That’s how I died. At least till Tony brought us back.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Technically she’s a revenant,” Regret told VelcroVixen. “She’s caught between life and death, wedged in the doorway.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Are you saying I’m fat?” worried Myra.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m saying you’re a special case. There’s a few around. Dead Boy, Baron von Zemo, Chronic. Each one’s a bit different from the others. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how you turn out.”     Myra shrugged. “Well, I feel fine. And I like frothy coffee.”     VelcroVixen held up her glass. “A toast then,” she proposed. “Welcome to town, Myra Mason. Here’s to girls who feel fine and like frothy coffee.” ***     Lee Bookman was indexing the Paradopolis Municipal Library when he felt a tug at his sleeve. He left the automatic data assessors – which resembled elaborate paper planes gliding over the bookshelves – to carry on by themselves and turned to look at the balding man with the hook-nose and pebble glasses who’d approached him.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Mister Bookman?” the stranger asked. He held out a card which read Ishmael Abraham Levi, Book-keeper. “May I speak with you?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well, this is a library,” advised the Librarian. “So keep it quiet.”     Levi fumbled in his pocket and brought out a mustard-coloured stub of cardboard. “I was wondering about this,” the accountant admitted. “About whether it’s still valid?”     Lee regarded the somewhat-crumpled, age-worn membership ticket for the Moon Public Library. His data-gathering abilities told him at once that it was genuine, issued in 1921, last used in 1933. “You never returned your last set of borrowings,” he accused the holder. “You owe roughly ninety-five thousand dollars in late-fines.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m sorry about that,” winced Levi. “I didn’t bring them back on account of being dead.”     Bookman considered whether this was a valid excuse. “In the end we had to use the volume retrieval system,” he said, still with an accusing tone in his voice. “Anyhow, you’re clearly not dead now.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Not entirely, no,” admitted the book-keeper. “In fact that’s what I was hoping to research. But I don’t have a catalogue any more, and I don’t know how to get to Prospero…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Ah, of course. You were a member before the Moon Public Library came to this version of reality’s Luna. And if you were dead for a while you probably wouldn’t have been affected by the retcon that made it always have been here. You were dealing with Sarfulflex? In the Alpha Centurian system?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I was?” The accountant looked a little alarmed. “I never really asked too many questions about where the place was. It comes from years spent in gambling boats and speakeasies.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Poor Sarfulflex,” said Bookman sadly. “He went down with his library when the Parody Master blew up his whole moon. He kept his watch till the end.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’ve got to admire a joe who don’t choke when he’s facing the big one,” Ishmael admitted. “But look, I really liked being a member of that library. The mathematics volumes were outstanding, and the botany books… I love orchids.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The Lunar Public Library has sections on mathematics and botany,” conceded the Librarian.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“When I say I love orchids, I mean I love growing them,” the accountant clarified. “Not in the way Dandy Jack loved them, when the cops found him in the GMY winter gardens.”     The Moon Public Library also had copies of all 1930s police reports. “Yes,” shivered Bookman. “But Mr Levi, there’s a rumour that you are involved in some rather shady doings. You work for Antony Ventredi, don’t you?”     The little accountant nodded, then pushed his pebble glasses back onto his nose. “Sure, but he’s not such a bad guy if you know how to deal with him. And I always kept to your rules and never used the stuff I borrowed to help with his business or anything. I’m sure sorry about not returning the last volumes, as well. I could maybe pay the fine off in instalments, doing your accounts? You’ve gotta have some pretty major financial returns to do.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well… the Lunar Public Library has declared independence from the Intergalactic Order of Libraries,” Lee Bookman considered. “That is causing my assistant D.D. a lot of extra runtime. I can’t pass it off to A.L.F.RED because last time he incinerated it with a negativity pulse grenade as a filing method.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So my ticket’s good?” Ishmael asked hopefully.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Welcome back to membership, Mr Levi,” said the Librarian of the Moon Public Library. ***     The Sunflower Twilight Rest Home was a drab, depressing place, poorly maintained and badly cleaned. Around sixty elderly people sat in high-backed loungers or wheelchairs in a crowded room, watching a tiny black and white TV mounted over the bricked-up fireplace. A couple of vases of dead flowers failed to cheer the scene. The lounge smelled of stale food and incontinence.     A nurse in a grubby green smock ignored the constant mindless cries of one of the residents and a timid plea from another that she needed a glass of water and found the guest she was looking for. Without any word she wheeled the old lady away and out onto the terrace. “You’ve got a visitor, Mrs Kauffman” she finally announced.     A young man in a neat brown suit waited until the attendant had retreated before squatting down next to the wheelchair. “Hello, ma,” said Carlos Kauffman.     The old lady looked at her visitor in surprise.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, I know. It’s been a long time. Over a year, I guess. I’m sorry. I should never have left you in this craphole.”     Carlos shifted uncomfortably, worried about the creases in his new suit. “It was the drugs, mom. Like you said. They screwed me up. Made me dumb. Dumber than usual, I mean. I was out of my head half the time, running wild, crazy mean. You were better off without me around.”     Carlos gestured to himself. “But look at me, ma. I’ve cleaned up. I’ve not snorted anything or popped anything or shot up for nearly three months. I’m not calling myself E-Razor any more. And I got that haircut you always wanted me to get. And… and I got a job.”     He laid the newspaper on the old lady’s lap. “Mr Vendredi, see?” He pointed to the picture on the front of the Gothametropolis Squire, showing Boss Deadeyes reopening GMY’s historic Italian Market to which he had so generously donated. “I’m working for him, ma. See, there in the picture, right behind him? That’s me.” Carlos pointed.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m working for the Boss, mom. It’s a good job. A great job. Mr Vendredi, he’s shown me all kinds of stuff. How to dress. How to behave. How to be a man. I’m trying to be a man now, ma.” Carlos reached into his suit to one of the two bulges and pulled out a thick wallet stuffed with notes. “I’m making good money, too. I can afford to move you out of this shithole to somewhere nice. Somewhere with gardens. You should have somewhere nice with gardens.” He took the old lady’s hand and held it close. “I’m doing good, now, ma. You’d be proud of me if you saw me, working for Mr Vendredi, learning. I’m a different guy now.”     Bernice Kauffman looked up at her son. “Who are you?” she asked in a confused, lost voice.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’re going to be somewhere nice, ma. I promise you. You’d be proud of me,” said Carlos Kauffman, trying to control his voice. A man doesn’t cry. That’s what the Boss taught him. “I’m doing good now, ma... I’m doing good.”      ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So,” said Emilio Cacciatori. “Gamona.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yes,” agreed the green-skinned alien who had been taught to kill since she was two years old. “Gamona the Assassin.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You did my job,” Emilio noted. “You were the Lynchpin’s enforcer.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I was trapped on Earth for a period. The work helped pass the time.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Whereas I do it for the love of it. Putting the pressure on, that’s an art form.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Killing is an art form. Frightening people is merely a side effect and preliminary.”     Emilio snorted. “You’re one scary dame alright, just like they said.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I could kill you before you take another breath,” noted the assassin.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Nah,” denied Boss Deadeyes’ number one enforcer. “You couldn’t. I’ve seen your stats. Those all-over fishnet tattoos are some kind of screwy underskin armour plating stuff, and your hair can slice through metal, and you’ve been trained in all kinds of alien karate tricks, and that’s swell. Me, I just plug my enemies with a pistol, and that’s how I’d plant you if it came to it.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Bullets only sting me,” warned Gamona.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Not mine,” Emilio retorted. “See, when we came back from the dead we came back with all the enhancements we’d gotten before, plus maybe a little more. And my gift was always that anybody I shoot, I can kill. Anybody. Don’t matter if he’s wearing armour plating, if he can take a shell from a tank, anything. One shot, I can take ‘em down. Same with you.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You are assuming you would get one shot,” smirked Gamona.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m faster than you think, toots. And I know you’ve been talking to that screwy Chiaki dame what used to run errands for Akiko Masamune. Why are you even back on Earth? Word was you’d hooked up with some alien horse guy and were heading for the stars.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I had old business here to settle up first,” the assassin replied. “Scores to settle. Debts to pay. Personal possessions to collect.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m guessing you didn’t need to pack a lot of underwear,” admired Emilio. Gamona has never seen the need to wear clothes when her naked flesh was nigh-indestructible and very useful for distracting male opponents.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’re not fast enough to survive me,” Gamona warned.     Emilio Cacciatori cocked his head to one side challengingly. “You wanna put some money on that and try, darling?”     Gamona flicked two fingers forward to puncture Emilio’s throat. The enforcer swatted them aside and caught her arm in a lock. She flipped out of it, kicking his feet from under him. He in turn rolled and tangled Gamona’s legs, toppling her to the ground. She landed on one palm and somersaulted high to bring a foot through Emilio’s skull. He jerked out of the way, caught her heel, and spun her backwards. She caught his arm and pulled him with her.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Do you yield?” she demanded.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Not a chance, you dumb dame,” Emilio told her. He lunged to pin her but she squirmed aside, going for a leg lock that would shatter his femur. The contest continued.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So are you going after the Boss or what?” interrogated Emilio.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Not unless he harms Chaiki Bushido, no,” replied Gamona. They held each caught the other’s right arm, chests pressed together, faces inches apart..     Ã¢â‚¬Å“She stays out of the Boss’ business and she’s got no problems,” the enforcer declared. “Same goes for you. Unless you go back to Harry Flask.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I was never that fond of the Lynchpin,” Gamona said. “He was a slob and a pig, but a contract is a contract and I didn’t break it till long after he did. I have nothing against your principal, Ventredi.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Good,” considered Emilio Cacciatori. He flicked a little charming smile at the green-skinned assassin pressed against him. “Then we got no reason to kill each other just now.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Not just now, no.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Good.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Good,” agreed Gamona. “Shall we perform sex once more, then?”     They fell back onto the mattress and continued the struggle. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yes, there was an Emilio Cacciatori, back in the 1920s and 30s I think. Died in a gunfight if I remember it right. One of the Family. A top killer with gun or knife. Worked for the Ventredi Mob in GMY. What makes you ask?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Oh, nothing important, father,” Champagne Cacciatori said over the phone to Sicily. “Just planning a family visit, that’s all.” *** Continued in The Dead Good Friday, coming eventually. *** Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2008 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2008 to their creators. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works. The right of Ian Watson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved.