October 7, 1987

"We love destabilizing society," was Larry's amused response when Scott told him about Holly's accusation. "Would you like another card, Mr. Privateer?"
    I wasn't going to come to this one, I swear—I don't think I can take much more of Molly's crusade—but the prospect of hearing what Felix might have to say for himself proved too much for my curiosity.
    Molly agreed. "I fail to see how we're the ones destabilizing society when we haven't committed any crimes."
    "Recently."
    "Recently. And even the theme villains that are active right now, would you call them destabilizing forces on society?"
    "I'm sure there's been some traumatic damage done to the citizens assaulted by the Worcester Rooster," Scott said.
    "Excuse me, I was out of the country at that point—the what?" Felix asked.
    "Oh, you missed the Worcester Rooster and his Hensmen. Larry, I got a security photo for you, you really have to see this guy."
    Larry's eyebrows rose sharply as he considered the photo. "Is he still in jail?"
    "I think he's still in the hospital."
    "I have to speak with him—I know from harsh personal experience not to surround yourself with attractive henchwomen. There is a lesson that must be taught to this young man!"
    Molly started laughing so hard she had to put her cards down.
    "Apparently after being thrown out of the cockfighting circuit he went back to his first loves, which were glider design and kickboxing," Scott explained.
    "Well, he seemed tailor-made to a life of crime."
    "Apparently he was breeding a strain of chickens too rough to be allowed into the normal circuit...."
    Larry chuckled. "I can only hope that he did not use any of those in the course of his crimes?"
    "No, he dressed in a giant chicken suit with a glider and wearing spurs on his heels."
    "You should have seen him flapping," Privateer added.
    "Then his hensmen throwing themselves off of crop-dusters with their glider-wings...."
    "Stop, please!" Molly begged, trying to catch her breath.
    "They were firing stun-gas grenade eggs...."
    "And don't forget that the hensmen had delicious breasts and succulent thighs," Phoenix Talon added straight-faced, sending half the table back into gales of laughter.
    "That was not our description," Scott felt compelled to add. "The police came up with that one."
    "So who was the second Sphinx?" Talon wanted to know, once everyone had gotten their breath back.
    "Oh. An explanation. I feel I owe it to you," Felix allowed, surprising me. I'd more than half expected him to ignore the week's events entirely. "You may have guessed by now that he's my son. During the second world war I was helping out the Greek and Italian partisans, met a woman out there, the usual type. Greek Gypsy, master herbalist, Egyptologist, we hit it off right away."
    "The usual type?" Scott asked, perplexed.
    Larry gave him a look as if to say, but of course. "You always meet daring adventurous women when you enter this career. They're usually experts in things. Otherwise you end up with some vacuous blonde model. No offense," he added to Talon.
    "I'm not sure you should comment, Larry," Scott suggested.
    "Quiet," he replied without rancor.
    Felix went on, "In any case, circumstances forced me to come back to America, and then shortly thereafter forced me to enter life as a ward of the state for some time. Nonetheless, I had arranged for funds to be channelled there... well, I needed to support her. The son was never mentioned to me. I was unaware of his existence until another friend out there informed that Marie had died. And that... she had hidden my son from me. I have to state that I probably wouldn't have acted any differently if I had known that he was there; I'm perfectly aware of my faults. I went out there to try and meet with him, as my friend was afraid that Mind Lazer would attempt to recruit him—after all, it would only be natural, an expert burglar, master of toxicology and Egyptian technology—to find that he had already left, heading to America." Pause. "He had to be given a chance. And I would have played entirely fair with it. That whole age and treachery thing. But if he had gotten away, I probably would have ended up doing the jail time for him. It's only fair.
    "Who wants another card?"
    "I'll have one," Molly said. "Scott, have you had any more luck with the whole Victor thing?"
    "A little bit. We found a—do you remember somebody calling himself Black Whip?"
    "Yes, he was a charming fellow. We met a couple of times after the war, he went into business. He was a friend of my first husband."
    "Can you think of anything he would have had to do with Victor?"
    She shook her head with a nonplussed expression. "Nary a thing. Clark was... foolish. Good at what he did, but foolish?"
    "Would Victor have had any use for him?" I asked.
    "That's a very different question," she allowed thoughtfully. "Didn't Clark die penniless and insane after building that gigantic mansion?"
    "Which was designed by the same person who was designing the buildings in the company that bought the land that Victor's castle used to be on, and arranged to have the remnants of his labs removed." Scott doesn't need to breathe, so he can get sentences like that out without pausing.
    "Oh. Oh, dear. Well."
    "If we match this with something Larry said about the last time he saw Clark, him saying that he needed to defend himself against crimes that would not die...."
    "But Clark was always talking like that. He was convinced that the spirits of the people that he robbed—not even killed, robbed—plus apparently some of his inventions were stolen by Fast Eddie, the German's got hold of them and he blamed himself for some of the armor that they had later in the war, never mind that he had given armor to our navy—he was guilt-ridden."
    "Overactive conscience?" I suggested.
    "Perhaps. That's a terrible failing in our line of work."
    "Not one that I've ever suffered from," Larry remarked, with a murmur of agreement from Felix.
    "Anyway," Molly went on, "he was obsessed with his security; he felt that someone was going to come and destroy him. Apparently the mansion's virtually impregnable."
    "That's what I've heard," Scott replied.
    I sighed. "We're going to be going there, aren't we?"
    "Yes, we're going to be going there."
    "Where is it?" Molly asked. The place seems to be over near New York. "That would be about two and a half hours from here."

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