Chapter 6: Black Talon's Tale, Part One
Fred Myers lights a victory cigar, "You don't mind if I f***ing smoke in here, do you? I am not very damn proper."
"You just murdered five people. You can do whatever the f*** you want," Sam Barone replies.
Boomerang and Black Talon behold the bodies before them. Beneath the setting sun, both stand in the wide bay door of an antiquated, abandoned warehouse. Inside, Black Billy stands unnaturally limp on utterly loose legs, his dead eyes looking on his assassin. A long bladarang pinions the lank body to the wooden post behind him.
"I killed him first," Boomerang tells, "I was on a barge out on the Mississippi. From the river, my binoculars spied on this group of goons through this big open door here. I saw Black Billy surveying the river, so he was about to perhaps spot me. Therefore, I immediately activated my jet boots and came-in hot—bladarang in hand."
"From your hand, the instrument found Billy's chest," Black Talon conjectures.
"Correct," Boomerang brags, "It took me about fifteen seconds total to kill all five f***ers in here."
"Very good," Black Talon beckons Boomerang to follow him into the old sugarcane storehouse, here at the Port of New Orleans.
"I suppose that the sinners should go marching in," Boomerang quips, "We are at the peopled Port of New Orleans in full supervillain costume."
The active port bustles all around the terrible two examining dead bodies. Behind them, the wide Mississippi River overflows with barges and other boats upon it. Around them, clerks and shoremen load and off-load vessels, and an assemblage of sailors switch shifts on ships. In the distance, truckers and train engineers take freight to its destinations all over the nation. Amongst the whole crowd, law enforcement looks on, and government officials monitor and officiate.
But, for some reason, no one confronts two supervillains in full view and in full costume. Their garish garb has grabbed no attention, seemingly. Neither cops nor citizens have confronted Black Talon and Boomerang yet. Possibly, all on-lookers are honestly too occupied and active to notice the ostentatious evil-doers. Possibly, the Port's populace is a rough crowd used to crime and used to minding its own business.
Possibly, someone has noticed the terrible two and just has not made her move yet. Patsy Walker, a.k.a. Hellcat, watches from a distance.
Black Talon has made his move. He is in the center of five dead thugs arranged in a v. His steps creak the old wooden floors and echo off the old brick walls turned crimson in the setting sun. The slaughtered are still and silent amidst his active noise. Blood and gore loudly stain the crimsoned surroundings.
"Tell me how you disposed of this confederacy of dumbasses," Samuel Barone lightly references a book set in New Orleans.
"Confederacy of Dunces," Boomerang corrects.
"How did you know that?" Samuel is surprised that Boomerang is no slouch.
"I occasionally do hits at Empire State University in Manhattan," Fred references his work, "And, every academic has a f***ing copy of Toole's book."
Black Talon rejoins, "Well, I am grateful that you temporarily left New York, where you assassinate geniuses, to visit New Orleans where I provided you five stooges."
"Such as Black Billy," Boomerang points to the limp loser, "He once kidnapped a busload of kids in Texas. Shooting Star freed them and caught him [see Marvel Comics Presents #45]."
"Such as Jimmy Littlehawk," Black Talon indicates a dead mug mangled on the floor, "He used to run his own gang of robbers throughout Arizona until his cousin American Eagle brought Littlehawk down [see Marvel Comics Presents #128]."
Myers chuckles. He recounts, "Yeah, he had his back against a post as I flew in, so I whipped an explosive shatterang at the pine. The shrapnel formed a f***king fleur-de-lis through his right flank."
"Very festive. Like confetti from a flunky," Barone jokes, "Of course, I shall have to sew his entails back in before making him a zombie."
Boomerang is blasé. He simply smokes his cigar and strolls to his next victim. Crassly, he hauls-up the lifeless hood by the long, brown hair. Copious blood covers the front of the hood's leather jacket. His throat has been slit clean open. Two daggers clatter from his lax hands. They join a razorang, the murder weapon, lying not far from them.
"Rudy Vandenberger," Black Talon identifies the departed, "a con artist who was also an expert knife thrower."
Boomerang sees the dropped daggers, "I see that he managed to draw on me as I jetted in. That's impressive. Of course, it's not as impressive as what I did to him. I whacked him and his partner ambidextrously simultaneously. I threw a razorang with my left and a regular 'rang with my right."
"You killed Bobo the Clown without a trick weapon? No s***!" Black Talon is impressed.
"The boomerang is an ancient and respected weapon," the proud Australian assassin states, "Since prehistory, man has killed everything from fellow man to animal prey to luckless clown with a simple sylvan object hurled from the right hand. Yes, I broke Bobo's brains open with a 'plain' boomerang."
Blood has pooled around the clown's planted face where he lies stock-still and prone. Scarlet streaks through his puce hair from a gaping grey open cranial fracture, exposing brain like dun porridge.
Boogeyman Barone considers the blood-curdling conked clown. He comments, "I am glad to have lured Rudy and Bobo to their deaths. Alas, I knew them, Boomerang."
"Personally?"
"F*** no! These two were losers," Black Talon narrates, "These two were ex-circus performers who attempted to con and murder Rudy's brother who headed the family circus [see Marvel Comics Presents #42]. Keenly, the brother had Nightwing Restorations investigate the knife-thrower and knave's scheme. Rudy and Bobo survived the Daughters of the Dragon, but they did not survive us. I am proud to say."
"Generally, the Daughters of the Dragon don't kill people anyway," Myers mentions.
"Well sure, that's true," Black Talon acknowledges. He shifts his eyes back and forth mildly embarrassed.
Suddenly, Bobo the Clown shifts too, and Black Talon nearly "shifts" himself with surprise. Boomerang nigh startles from his skin too. Caterwauling, the cudgeled clown pulls and peels his painted face from its grisly, gluey puddle. Juices dripping, the jester juts an accusing finger at his antagonists. Head cracked open, funnyman Bobo wobbles to his feet.
"Yaaaaa beeestrds!" Bobo speaks as he slobbers beneath his sanguine (rubber) nose and sloppy exposed cerebrum.
"What the f*** did he just say?" Barone queries.
"I don't know. Per your intel, the moron is a mummer from Montreal. But, I don't f***ing speak French. Excuse my Saxon," replies Myers.
"Well, clowns speak in riddles anyway," Samuel slams a big knife between the polka dots adorning Bobo's left chest. The voodoo priest always carries a ceremonial blade for when he kills with ceremony—or not.
Black Talon retracts his sticker. Sangre sprays like seltzer. The twice-killed thief falls with a thud, his large shoes indexing the ceiling. Savagely, Black Talon stabs the motley murder victim some more for good measure. Bobo grunts throughout but eventually grows still.
"Sorry about the mess," Boomerang states, "It's funny that Bobo the Clown did that."
"Yes, he was quite the comedian about conveniently dying for us," Black Talon pats Boomerang's pate, "However, rest assured that you will still get the full three million promised for a job well-done."
"Lovely," Boomerang treads through Bobo's mess, "Let me show you the final fool that I dispatched for you."
"Indeed, tell me about the death of Cajun Creed," the criminal mastermind rhymes. Talon points to the colossal Cajun corpse collapsed on the floor.
Playfully, Boomerang does some wordplay too, "Dis here be Cajun Creed. He once fight Moon Knight [see Moon Knight #11] and survive. He not survive my gasarang dough. Dey gasarang give 'im some mustard gas in de mouf, and dey mustard prove jist too spicy. Ya-eee!"
"We Louisianans don't actually talk like that," Black Talon rolls his eyes.
"At least not to yo own ears, honey," Boomerang continues abusing the Creole with Fred Myers' faux Cajun dialect.
Black Talon decides to simply examine the big body instead of excoriate the big boob beside him. Local gangster Cajun Creed is 6'7" of enhanced flesh capable of exchanging punches with Moon Knight. In fact, the solid strongman nearly threw a steel desk at arriving Boomerang. But, the gas must have gotten the big guy to drop it on himself, for the overturned heavy object sits atop a thick right arm, pinning it. Creed's sizable left hand sits atop his wide throat where the sulfurous smoke lethally entered his airway and lungs.
From Creed's buckskin belt, Black Talon takes the ice pick that the Cajun always carried to murder people and to enforce his will. The rooster-masked man clucks his tongue. He jokes, "Creed could have attempted a tracheotomy with this thing, but I doubt that it would have re-opened his swollen airway."
"The brute probably didn't have the brains to think of that self-surgery," says Myers, a brute himself.
Declares the voodoo priest, "Cajun Creed and his four fellows will never need their brains again. They are to be my zombies before long, and I shall do all of their thinking and deciding for them."
The hitman does not care about the men whom he ended. "Do what you want with them," Boomerang puffs his smelly stogie, "I just want my payment."
Black Talon brandishes a voucher. He hands-over the note and an accompanying key, "Go to the parking garage just northwest of here that the note indicates. On the sixth tier, you will find an inconspicuous sedan parked in the spot noted. In the car's trunk, you will find one hundred pounds in dollars equaling three million clams. You will also find a black box containing a golden necklace. Please accept this old African gold as your gratuity. Keep it, or fence it. The Talisman of Damballah is your just dessert for deadly deeds."
"I might fence it," Fred scratches his chin, "I know an elderly eccentric in New England who collects museum pieces almost as ancient as he is."
"Is he really, actually ancient?" Black Talon wonders, for he lives in a marvelous universe of actual wonders.
"Nah, he's like one hundred or something," Boomerang clarifies, "His granddaughter and he live in Massachusetts off of old money."
Black Talon wonders some more. He too scratches his chin. The fence sounds a little like Grim Reaper's employer for the Connecticut job. And, oddly enough, Black Talon just paid Boomerang with the money from that same Terror job. Sometimes, the criminal underground is a small world, and one does not know where the loas lead one in life. There are things, which not really funny, rather make one go hmm.
Black Talon returns his thoughts to discussing the offered African artifact, "Boomerang, you should know that the Talisman of Damballah can be a powerful weapon in the right hands. The snake god Damballah could humble the Mighty Thor himself, the chick or the legitimate man. Damballah could humble the entire avatars of Wakanda—whether they be Black Panther himself or M'Baku, the Man-Ape."
"The bling has some mojo and hoodoo? That's great," Boomerang is amused. The amused assassin strolls to some shadows in the building. The famous felon needs to change clothes if publicly walking across the Port of New Orleans to escape.
Momentarily, vicinal binoculars watch Fred Myers depart the scene of slaughter and strut nonchalantly northwest. Then, the spy glasses return their gaze back to the derelict sugarcane warehouse. Patsy Walker can approximately discern Black Talon moving the five corpses into a circle and unpacking accessories. No doubt, he plans a ceremony for unnaturally raising the fallen. Zombies are his thing. An experienced demonologist and superhero knows such things.
Patsy lowers the longview lenses from her gorgeous blue eyes. Incognito, the reserve Avenger's long red locks, fine features, and svelte figure make her a cute "teamster". In an open trailer back, she turns to Jubilation Lee, her partner-in-crimefighting. Hellcat and Jubilee have tracked down Black Talon to New Orleans as they thought that they would. In the Big Easy, the New Orleans Police Department has aided the Avenger as it could. Detectives Samuel Tate and Pete Hawkins have kept loose tabs on Black Talon activity from way back (see Strange Tales #172-173).
"Boomerang has left the building," Hellcat notes, "His departure should help our cause of capturing Black Talon for his criminal Connecticut activities."
Jubilee guffaws, "We're letting Boomerang go?! He murdered five people!"
"I know, but we're short-staffed," Patsy explains, "If we can get people, we can apprehend the ex-Outback down the road."
Jubilee humbly acknowledges, "I wish that I could have gotten us New Orleans' own Gambit. He could have matched Boomerang explosive projectile to explosive projectile. But, my X-Men ally is out-of-town, of all things."
Hellcat acknowledges, "And, I wish that I could have gotten us the Big Easy's eminent Dr. Voodoo or my gal pal Spectrum, originally from here. However, they seems to have disappeared in a flash and a poof of smoke."
"So, it's just us girls versus a Lethal Legionnaire and his zombie posse," Jubilee crosses her arms.
"Yeah, we have an ace in the hole named Federigo Ravina though," Hellcat hurls her ballcap, "But, we girls should take first crack at the supervillain and his corpse cronies. Federigo is not an experienced superguy. He doesn't even have a codename."
"You have mentioned him," says Jubilee. Hellcat's assistant has not even met the superpowered wunderkind.