Chapter 27
The headquarters of Wonder Magazine consisted of two rooms above a deli on the Lower East Side. Walter Haywood welcomed Charles and ushered him through the first room, where his secretary Sheila sat hammering away at a typewriter, into the second, much larger room, his office.
“Sit, sit,” he said, circling the large desk and taking his own seat opposite Charles.
“What’s this about, Walter?” Charles asked.
Walter’s fingers drummed over some papers on the desk, and Charles recognized them immediately. It was the final Captain Kismet story he and Iris had been commissioned to deliver. An open ending to the current saga, leaving opportunity for further adventures in the future, just as had been requested.
“I like you, Charles,” said Walter. “Your work is decent, you do it on time, and you make me money.”
“Thank you,” said Charles. “I really think there are so many exciting directions for Captain Kismet to go. So many more stories—”
“I agree,” Walter interrupted. “But this?” He picked up the pages that Charles had mailed over the day before. “This, Charles, is pornography. We are a family magazine.”
“Pornography?” Charles frowned. “I don’t understand.”
Walter sighed and flipped to one of the last pages of the story. Penny Haven’s experiment had torn open a vortex in time and space, and she was on the very brink of being pulled in when at the very last minute, Ranger and Axel had arrived to grab hold of her. Or, at least, one version of her. For every instance where Penny was rescued, there were other possible realities where she had fallen into the rift, causing her body and mind to scatter across the omniverse, atomized. Iris had been especially pleased with that twist: The reader got the satisfying moral ending of seeing Penny saved from the dangers of her own boundless ambition, but now there were countless versions of the same woman out there in the ether, primed to show up as heroines, villainesses, or whatever else future stories might require. One woman’s multitudes.
But what’s this? While Penny, restored to her senses, is busy shutting down her machine and closing the vortex, who should appear from nowhere but Omega Man! He has been plotting for months now to destroy Captain Kismet, not by fighting him one-on-one, but by taking what he holds most dearly. Kismet sees Omega materialize, wielding an energy gun, and leaps in front of Penny to once again protect her…but Omega’s dark aim falls on Axel, his most trusted friend. Omega has time to fire off just one deadly shot before, with a terrible “NO!,” Kismet punches him so hard that the monstrous being is propelled out of the moon’s gravity, condemned to float endlessly in the void of space for as long as his shattered exo-suit can provide air.
Kismet rushes to Axel’s side, cradling his friend’s broken body, and begins to weep. He has fought so hard to protect the people of Earth and has been able to do so only because of Kid Kismet, the boy who fell from the stars and pledged to be his ally.
“His wounds are too severe,” cries Penny. “There…there is nothing we can do.”
“How lucky I have been,” says Axel softly. “That of all possible planets, I crash-landed on yours…”
Ranger frowns. These words! They are so familiar. In a distant world, he held a woman in his arms as the life bled from her and she thanked the universe for bringing them together.
“Sura?” he asked.
“I told you,” the voice of the princess comes from Axel’s lips, “that when the people of Zalia die, they do not perish, but ascend to a higher dimension. I have been watching you, my dear captain, all these years. It was my hand that guided Axilon to you, to be your friend, to save you from your own loneliness.”
“Sura.” Ranger sobbed. “I already lost you. I cannot lose another.”
“You never lost me,” Sura spoke through Axel. “And there is still time. An ancient Zalian magic that might yet revive your fallen prince.”
“What is it?” Ranger asked. “Anything.”
“We must reach across planes,” Sura told him. “My life force in this new dimension is strong. I can lend Axilon some of my own energy, to heal his broken body.”
“How?”
“To bridge our worlds, I need a conduit,” she said. “My energy must pour through somebody else into him.”
Axel’s hand rose up to meet Ranger’s cheek.
“One last kiss?” she asked. “To save a life?”
The final panel of the page depicted Ranger lowering his head over Axel’s, their lips barely touching, a golden, lifesaving light flowing from one man’s mouth into another, while Earth glowed like a jewel in the black sky above them.
“This is obscene,” said Walter.
“I think it’s beautiful,” said Charles. “Ranger got to speak with his lost love again. That love helped to save his friend.”
“You can try to bamboozle me with your mumbo jumbo, Ambrose, but all I see is Captain Kismet kissing a boy. And it sickens me.”
“He wasn’t really kissing him!” protested Charles. “He was kissing her!”
“I don’t care,” Walter said, his patience waning like the cigarette in his hand. “I am not putting this filth in my magazine.”
“All right,” said Charles. “Give me and the writer a little more time, and we can come up with an alternate ending. Something less…controversial.” He had known, of course, that Walter would almost certainly hate this final issue, that even with the pretext of Sura’s ghost and Ranger’s sweetheart Penny standing mere steps away, the image of Ranger cradling Axel would be too much. But when Iris had told him how the story ended, how Captain Kismet’s truest and greatest strength was his love, Charles had been so excited that he’d insisted they at least try.
So often an act of creation was an act of dilution, of compromise: grabbing at the soft purity of an idea, squeezing it so hard to hold it still that it became dented and bruised beyond all recognition. Every early sketch felt like a crude blasphemy, a child’s mural daubed on a temple wall. In this story, Iris had captured exactly what she wanted to say, and his drawings had brought that to life, given it meaning. He could not have been prouder if the pages had come to life and called him “Father.”
“You’re not hearing me, Charles,” said Walter. “When I say that I will not publish this filth, I am also referring to you.”
“Me?”
“You and your kind.” Walter stubbed out his cigarette, any goodwill he had been feigning toward Charles evaporating along with the smoke. “This is a family business, Charles. My son comes in here and helps out after school. Did you really expect that I would allow you to keep on coming around?”
Charles was so horrified by Walter’s implication that he could not formulate a response, which Walter seemed to interpret as confirmation that his suspicions were correct.
“I want you out of my office and out of my magazine, Charles,” he said. “Now.”
“Fine,” said Charles, the rage finally coming. “We’ll take Captain Kismet elsewhere. People love him, not your cheap rag, Walter. The readers will follow their hero.” His cheeks spiked with red heat, and he could only imagine he was glowing scarlet like Axel.
“That’s where you’re wrong again.” Walter lit another cigarette. “The adventures of Captain Kismet and his assorted companions will very much continue, here at Wonder Magazine.”
“What?”
“Didn’t you read your contract?”
“My contract?”
“I own Captain Kismet.” Walter blew smoke across his desk, directly into Charles’s eyes. “I always have.”
Charles could tell with a sick certainty that Walter was not bluffing. He and Iris had both been so swept up in the thrill of the story they were telling and the money they were being paid to do so that they had taken Walter at his word. What utter fools they were.
“But he is not your invention,” he said, weakly. “You’re stealing him.”
“This is America,” said Walter, shrugging. “It’s not stealing if we both signed that piece of paper.”
“It’s not right.” To his own indignant fury, Charles’s eyes were watering from the smoke. “We’ll…we’ll take you to court.”
“This is America,” Walter repeated. “I don’t think either of you are going to want to draw any more attention to yourselves than you already have, do you?”
The threat wasn’t even veiled. Walter could report Charles and Iris as any number of things. Pornographers. Predators. Communists. And he would be believed.
Charles wanted to tell Walter Haywood so much. That Captain Kismet’s costume was as inspired by the leather men he saw in the bars as it was by an actual pilot’s uniform. That he’d modeled Sura’s appearance on a working girl he’d known in the war. That Axel was Iris’s tribute to her beloved fey brother. That Penny Haven was almost entirely their old friend Joey, who, much like one of Tolkien’s grand elves, had gone far into the West where Joey could be short for Joanne. That this world they’d created, the world currently making Wonder Magazine such a hit, was built and populated by inverts.
But it didn’t matter. Because this world had its own rules, and Charles and Iris had broken them all.
“Now get out of my office.” Walter grinned, and it was the ugliest sight Charles had ever seen outside of wartime.
“He can’t do that,” said Iris for the third or fourth time. “He just can’t.”
“He can.” Charles took another swig of brandy and massaged his temples, while Iris stood still, hands fixed to her hips, vibrating with anger.
“I should go down there,” she continued. “Give that schmuck a piece of my mind.”
“All you’ll give him is an excuse to inform on us to the Un-American Activities Committee,” Charles snapped.
“Well, we have to do something!”
“No, we don’t,” said Charles. “We lost, Iris.”
A knock sounded. Charles and Iris shared a wordless look—Are you expecting company? No, are you? No.—before Charles rose and walked to the door.
Eleanor stood in the hallway wrapped in a man’s coat, her fashionably short hair disheveled, an enormous pair of sunglasses obscuring her eyes. Once Charles had opened the door, she removed them, and he heard Iris gasp behind him as they both took in her black eye.
“Come inside,” he said immediately, leading her in by the hand. He felt a rush of protectiveness over her, standing in their drafty hallway, looking so small and frail in that oversized coat. He realized, for the first time, that she couldn’t be much older than twenty-five.
“What happened?” Iris asked, enveloping Eleanor in her arms. “Oh, darling, what happened?”
“He gets like this sometimes,” Eleanor said, her voice stuffy with snot and tears. “I thought it was getting better. I thought I could manage it.” Iris led her to the couch and eased her down onto the seat. “It was bad this time,” she continued, her gaze unfocused. “The worst he has ever been. He only stopped because I told him…”
Her hands moved instinctively to her stomach, and Charles swore under his breath.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Iris whispered.
“I don’t know what to do,” Eleanor said, her breathing bubbling up into tiny sobs once more. “I can’t leave him. He works for my father.”
“Yes, you can,” said Charles. “You will.”
Iris looked over to him gratefully.
“I can’t,” Eleanor said, eyes streaming again. “The baby.”
“I shall kill him,” said Iris. “Truly. That man. That damn man, I am going to kill him.”
Charles could tell she meant it. The fury in her eyes, it was not hot, the kind that burns itself out like a candle. It was cold. Icy. Dangerous.
“Iris, stop,” he said as she made her way to the door. She ignored him. “Iris,” he repeated, “stop right there.” She froze, and he could tell it was sheer surprise more than anything else. He rarely ever spoke to her that way, like he was the man and she his wife. He didn’t much like the sound of it in his own mouth even now, but he couldn’t have Iris marching across town all gung ho, causing even more trouble when their situation was already so precarious.
“We have to be careful,” he said, more measured now. “We have to think.”
Iris lingered in the doorway, as if considering ignoring his counsel and carrying on with whatever half-baked revenge she wanted. Then her eyes drifted back to the couch, where Eleanor’s weeping had subsided into the occasional pained sniffle, and she begrudgingly relented. She returned to the couch, where Eleanor immediately clung to her.
What are we going to do?he thought. What the hell are we going to do?
“Iris,” he said, halting at her baleful glare. “What…”
“Yes?” she asked, obstinacy softening.
He felt ridiculous asking out loud, but forged ahead: “What would Captain Kismet do?”
Iris did not laugh, as he had thought she might. She gave the question thought, and when she answered, it felt immediately correct. The captain was her own invention, after all. She was the closest thing anyone in this room had to a real hero.
“Don’t attack or avenge when you can protect,” she said. “Don’t destroy what you can’t rebuild.”
He looked over at Eleanor, who had curled up on the sofa with her head in Iris’s lap, then to his wife, who was tenderly stroking Eleanor’s hair, and said: “All right, I have an idea.”
The journey into Manhattan took long enough for Charles to question his plan, abandon it entirely, and then recommit several times over. By the time he reached the hotel off Washington Square, he was certain that he was doing the right thing.
He knew Walter Haywood’s influence and was sure that he and Iris would be unable to get their stories published anywhere else of note in New York. He could picture already how the rumors would start to spread about them, beginning with nasty little inferences and eventually turning outright ugly. Doors would be slammed shut; calls would go unreturned. Charles had seen it happen to others, had thought himself lucky, had even congratulated himself on being clever enough to avoid such trouble. Until he invited it with his own damned hubris.
The city was off-limits now. Their only options were to choose escape or wait for exile.
The door to Dickie’s room was ajar when Charles reached his floor, and for a single dreadful moment he thought that he’d disappeared, as he had in Istanbul; that fate had conspired to separate them. But when he pushed the door fully open, there was Dickie Oswin in his shirtsleeves, suitcase open on the bed.
“What good timing,” said Dickie, pushing the door closed behind Charles before giving him a kiss. “I was just about to call you.”
“You were?” asked Charles, glancing over Dickie’s shoulder at the suitcase.
“I’ve been summoned home,” Dickie said, resuming his packing. “Back to Blighty I go.”
Charles watched as Dickie rapidly, efficiently folded clothes, retrieved his shaving kit and comb from the tiny bathroom, and put on his jacket. Charles could have sworn there had been more belongings scattered everywhere, more signs of life, but in mere minutes the room had become bare.
“I would not have left without saying goodbye,” said Dickie, catching the slightly lost look in Charles’s eyes. “Not this time.”
“What if it didn’t have to be goodbye?” Charles asked, snapping back to the moment. “I came here to tell you about a plan.”
“A plan?” Dickie said, amused. “Do tell.”
Charles stepped forward and took Dickie’s hands in his.
“We’re going away,” he said. “Iris and me. And Eleanor. All of us, we’re leaving. Tonight.”
“Leaving?” Dickie asked. “Where exactly do you plan to go?”
“Into the West!” Charles grinned. “We will find a place to live, and any work we can, and Eleanor is going to have a baby, and we will raise it together. Think of it, Richard. What a grand adventure.” He squeezed Dickie’s fingers. “You could come with us.”
“Charles.” Dickie pulled his fingers away. “This is madness.”
“Maybe so.” Charles shrugged. “Perhaps it is all a childish fantasy. They are my stock in trade. Am I so silly to want one to be real? To want more than a life where we have to hide and sneak and lie, like crooks? A life free to be ourselves?”
The mirth drained from Dickie’s eyes, and he looked at Charles with genuine sorrow.
“It would be quite a thing,” he said. “But you know I can’t do that.”
Charles felt a sharp pang in his heart, and nodded. He did know. Had known all the way over here. But he would have regretted it for the rest of his life if he did not at least ask, and in asking the question, let Dickie Oswin know the depth of his feeling.
What chance did he have of ever being a half-decent father if he couldn’t muster up enough courage for that?
He cupped Dickie’s chin in his hand and kissed him softly, savoring the tickle of that mustache one final time. His Errol Flynn. His matinee idol. His secret and only darling.
“Then I think this is goodbye,” he said, finally. “My love.”