“The Cape Dripped Red” Part I

Originally published December 29, 1995 in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1154

“Are you Ðìçk Cosmic?”

I’d been studying the racing forms for tomorrow’s stakes at Belmont, trying to determine just which horse I was going to bet on—which was, in turn, going to guarantee that some other lucky saps were going to strike it rich.

I’d convinced myself that I was not only the crunchy cream center of my own little private detective universe, but that my various picks in different races were capable of determining just precisely who was going to lose (me) and who was going to be raking in yet another long shot at the trackside ticket windows (not me). Sure, I was dragging some poor saps down with me.

Then again, anyone who was dumb enough to bet on the same ponies I picked probably deserved whatever they had coming to them.

The kid who spoke was standing in the doorway of my dingy little detective concern—said office located in one of the seedier sections of Times Square. The block was filled with prostitutes, pornographers, and slimeballs. Unfortunately, Disney was pretty much buying out everything, so the neighborhood was in danger of going straight down the toilet.

“Are you Ðìçk Cosmic?” he asked again. And he was pointing. Pointing at the name stenciled in the glass in my office door. It read, “Richard Kosmikian,” and below that, “Private Investigator,” and below that, “All cases strictly confidential.”

This last part was an easy enough promise to keep. I had no secretary. I had no friends. I had no life outside my office. So who was I going to blab to about my cases?

But, although “Richard Kosmikian” might be my given name, available for use by my mother when she was annoyed with me and by the nuns back in my school days at Our Lady of Perpetual Agony, “Richard Kosmikian” wasn’t the handle I was known by in the streets.

“Yeah, I’m Ðìçk Cosmic,” I told him.

“The Cosmic Ðìçk?”

Now I’ve always preferred the term “detective” to “dìçk,” but you take the cards you’re dealt without trying to shuffle the deck. And, since I have been known to solve the occasional interplanetary case, the “cosmic” part is pretty much a natural.

“Right again,” I said gamely. I had already given the kid the once over and was now on to the second or third over. He wasn’t the kind of client I usually get. Usually, I get jealous husbands or frustrated wives who want me to get the goods on their straying spouse. And as mentioned, the occasional alien situation. I’ve handled pretty much everything this universe has to throw at me.

(Although I did have a serious embarrassment when a long-unsolved missing-alien-person case was solved, not by me, but by the Fox Network. Imagine the embarrassment of having to contact a client and inform him that his Uncle Peebachs had finally been located—but, unfortunately, was being autopsied on a slab as part of the main attraction on a sensation-seeking TV show.)

The kid at my door was short and slim with close-cropped strawberry blond hair and freckles. He looked like he’d just stepped out of a Norman Rockwell painting. He had his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his faded jeans. He was wearing a T-shirt with Spider-Man on it. There was a prominent tooth missing on the upper right side of his mouth. Couldn’t have been much over 12 years old.

His sneakered feet shifted a bit in place. “How come you don’t have a secretary?” he asked warily. If his nature had been any more suspicious, he could have been a detective.

“They have annoying habits.”

“Like smoking or chewing gum?”

“Like expecting to get paid.” I tried to imitate his suspicious glare. It might serve me well in my detecting and impress the rubes with my intensity. “You got something on your mind?”

“Are you sure you’re a detective?”

“Of course. It says so on my door.”

“I’m supposed to believe a door? That’s crazy.”

“My door isn’t crazy,” I informed him. “You can tell because it’s not unhinged.”

He stared at me. My wit often failed to be grasped by lesser minds. Some would advise me to quit my day job, if only what I did during the day paid enough to be considered a job. “What’s on your mind, kid?” I asked.

Apparently deciding that I could be trusted—no doubt won over by my awesome display of levity—he walked slowly into my office and sat on the comfortable chair in front of my desk. A cloud of dirt spiraled upward when his skinny butt hit the cushion.

“I want to hire you.”

“Oh, really? I thought you were here for the floor show.”

He looked down at the floor. Lesser minds, indeed.

“What do you want to hire me for?” I asked, hoping we wouldn’t be at this all day.

Tearing his gaze away from the singularly uninteresting floor show, he said, “Comics.”

“You mean comedians?”

“No, comics. Comic books. You know, super-heroes.”

“Ahhhh,” I said, nodding without really understanding why. I leaned back slightly, steepling my fingers. “So you’re saying somebody stole your comics?”

He shook his head. “Somebody stole my fun. And I want to find out who.”

I blinked like he’d sprouted a third eye. “What?”

“Somebody stole the fun,” he repeated slowly, as if talking to a moron. “And I want to find out who.”

I stared at him, trying to figure out what the most delicate way would be to tell him I thought he was a few pool balls short of a rack.

But he was busy pulling money out of his pocket: a few bills, folded and crumpled, and a handful of change. He was spilling it out onto my desk. “Is this enough to hire you?” he asked.

I glanced at it, added it up mentally. Yes, it was enough to hire me—provided I happened to be a cab driver and he only needed me to take him a couple of blocks.

“Stole the fun,” Slowly, I nodded my head as if I had a clue what he was talking about. “You want to tell me what you mean, precisely?”

“They used to be fun,” he said. “They used to cost less. They used to have more going on. I used to care about what the story was about. They used to have a story. They used to be easier to find. They—” and he shrugged again. “They used to be fun,” he concluded.

“Kid,” I said, “look, I’m sorry you’re not happy with your hobby any more. But that’s your problem. Get another hobby, if it bothers you that much. Collect stamps or coins or something.

“If you’re having problems with comics, there’s no one person or persons conspiring against you.”

“Conspiring?”

“Plotting against you,” I amended. “Okay? You’ve read one too many comics with one too many evil masterminds running the show.”

“So you’re not taking the case.” He made no effort to hide his disappointment.

“There’s no case to take,” I said firmly. “Kid, it’s just comics. And if you’ve hit a rough patch, I’m sorry, but that’s just not something you hire Ðìçk Cosmic, Cosmic Ðìçk for.”

He stared at me for a moment and then got up. He scooped his money back into his pocket but scooped out a small piece of paper which he flipped onto the desk. I saw it had his name and phone number on it.

His name was Billy Gates, and his number was 555-2156. A lot of people live in that 555 exchange.

“I need help,” he said, and this time there was no suspicion in his eyes—just quiet desperation. “I do, and so do a lot of other kids. I know I haven’t got a lot but, whatever I’ve got, I’ll give it to you.”

He started for the door and I couldn’t resist asking, “Hey, kid, why me? Why’d you decide to come to me first?”

He turned and looked at me in surprise. “I didn’t. You’re the 27^th guy I went to.” With that, he walked out.

I sat there for some time, then turned in my chair to stare out the window. It was getting cold, as we moved further into winter. We were having a steady gust from the northwest. I could tell, because the høøkër on the northwest corner of 42^nd was turning blue, while the høøkër on the opposite corner looked to be in less dire straits.

I thought about when I was a kid. I thought about the comics that I’d purchased. They were thick and smelled of newsprint, and I could buy a fistful for less than a dollar.

That had been fun.

I’d given it up around the same time I’d discovered girls. But there was a pleasant place in my heart for my erstwhile hobby, and I considered the notion of someone spoiling it for the Billy Gateses of this country.

What the hëll? It couldn’t hurt to place a few calls.

Little did I realize how wrong I was.

 To Be Continued

Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., P.O. Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.