Aussie Inferno /Small cars, Big money based on THE TALE OF THE FABULOUS FOUR by Paul W-W Williams.
Australia's songbird, Florence Ziegler, invites her friends to ring in the New Year at her concert in Sydney. But sinister forces are on the move. Will 1936 begin in flames?
December 30, Sydney. Oddly for (American) pulp, the group features only one member who
couldn’t be described as an Asian female — Texan rancher Elliot McCaffrey. Joining him are India's Devika Velyapur, Japan's Zelda Saeki, China's wuxia genius Xiao Yun, and from Borneo. Thaza O'Rourke. Thaza has a special assignment: find out which of the female-led gangs are winning the Razor Wars, and make sure the O'Rourkes are on their good side. Devika, whose birthday is January 1st, is extremely excited to see what her best pal Flo has planned for her birthday.
She can't ask, though; the singer has been kidnapped.
"Weird," quips Thaza, "that we're the Ziegler Security Service but this is our first time securing Ziegler".
With a group this good, they're able to investigate before leaving the airfield: Florence's girlfriend, Trudy is away, on assignment in Singapore; the Melbourne office of the ZSS reports that Florence wasn't secretly on a case; and then local newspaper reports that she was kidnapped last night from Town Hall (which is also a concert venue). The group checks in with the hotel, asking for room service to be made ahead of time. (There are some picky eaters among the crew.)
This is difficult: Not only is one of the best chefs missing from the restaurant, they've had to alter their menu due to a shortage.
Town Hall provides some quick clues (Florence was intending to come back to her dressing room, she was grabbed by thugs who had worked briefly under fake names as janitors). Devi rebooks the hotel.
"It's late in the year but we still have some money left in the rescuing principals fund."
Little does she know that the case is about to become extremely lucrative.
Florence's hotel room doesn't have many clues; it had been ransacked before the police got there. The kitchen staff reported chef Jean-Marcos missing, along with champagne, caviar, and other delicacies for the New Year's Eve menu. Siao's eager for a fight with the ornery cooks, but Zelda is legendarily conciliatory. She's given J-M's home address and the information on the port where the supplies were supposed to come from. While all this was happening, Thaza burnishes her criminal connections with an obvious stool pigeon in the lobby.
The group is heading there when they see a woman staggering around the corner. Siao notices the woman is dazed; Thaza and Devi notice that her pockets and purse are literally bulging with cash.
She also smells of sulfur and claims that she had literally been in Hell.
A bit of calming acupuncture later, the group gets the scoop. The woman, a fashionable couturier named Madam Fontaine, was only in
metaphorical hell. Strange men had forced her to make two dresses, one for a short rotund lady, and one that sounded like it could be for Florence.
Devi (with Thaza's help) convinced the woman that she couldn't keep any of the money; it was clearly evidentiary. She reimbursed Fontaine with some rare rings, and with a hotel room (one that had recently become vacant, coincidentally!). And she only took a modest fee, how wonderful! Elliot vowed to stay and keep her safe, since he didn't want to have to carry everyone's bags again.
Xiao used the city directory to find the closest sulfur-smelling factory to Fontaine's shop. Turns out it was being picketed and was mostly empty. Convincing the union members to help them was easy (with a cash-money bribe), and soon the group had infiltrated the premises. Between Siao's pressure point martial arts and Devi's mesmerism, the goons didn't stand a chance.
Not only did Thaza take the winnings of their poker game, she also found Jean-Marcos and the missing food! The local hitters were working for Big Jim, but he was off the grid. His ex-wife though ran a
Sly Grog though...
Zelda and Thaza handled the investigation, finding the Inferno Speakeasy just after dawn. Despite the group's exhaustion, they dressed to the nines and got past the doorman. India's richest girl dropped big tips so the tired bar staff would leave her alone, and sat across from her rival, Gangster Queen Tilly Devine. The boss of Woolloomooloo played it tough, but Xiao saw through her lies. She hadn't planned the heist, her beau Big Jim did. But Tilly wouldn't give him up. Devi toasted her resolve, but behind her dragonfruit margarita, purple eyes glowed...Suddenly, Tilly was in a courtroom, the jury sentencing her to be hanged from the neck until dead.
As the bailiffs led her out, the room turned to darkness, with only two eyes floating in the void...
She spilt the beans and the group was off. Jim's building was secured, but nothing is truly secure against New York's greatest cat burglar! Big Jim was guarding Florence himself, but he was sleepy. Xiao took only one wuxia step to get from the window to his side. Once there, a few quick taps sent him to Dreamland until the Sydney police could arrive. Zelda rescued Florence; Thaza liberated Big Jim's emergency cache.
It was all for the best; Florence's forced concert was going to be burnt down by a rival gang. The group headed to their second hotel for a big long nap before the the New Year kicked off. (Flo had planned a blowout birthday bash for Devi, with a theme park, boutique shopping, and a beachside barbecue.)
Still, with the mystery solved early, Devi's thoughts wandered to what her friends would be up to in New York...
***
December 20th, New York City. Snow was falling in clumps and blurs. Inside Madame Lu's Park-South Teahouse, girls were laughing. Lu's was a favorite hangout for the HAGS, the Honorable Association of Girl Socialites. Although the group's members had dispersed across the tri-state area, three of them were convening over sticky buns. Ava Astor, Aspergian tomgirl scion of one of America's richest families; Alice Cavendish, square daughter of an esteemed diplomat; and Rosie Van Leer, showoff aviatrix and wingwalker. The gossip was flying until two neckless jerks came in and ordered coffee.
Rosie told the dolts that tea houses didn't serve coffee; she retreated when they asked if she was on the menu.
Alice and Ava listened in; there was a diamond heist happening soon at the Museum of Natural History, and once they got their cut, the jamokes could
buy The Tea House! The two paid in counterfeit cash and left.
Alice didn't want to get involved, but tomboy friends convinced her. She put on a fake voice and called in an anonymous tip to the NYPD.
Outside, traffic was a snarl. The circus was in town and was parading down Central Park West! Ava took out her purse and rented two horses from a confused but enthusiastic carriage driver.
Alice had trained in equestrian, and she led the girls weaving through the parade! Rosie had to duck as miscreants pelted the strongman with snowballs; Ava screamed as Alice careened right by an elephant. Soon, though, they were at the Museum as an elderly security guard tried to lock up. Ava pointed out that there was a wing named after her family; Rosie blustered the group past, saying something about how she had left something at lost and found and would only be a minute.
"I think saying something fast with confidence is more important than letting this guy know you're richer than he is.”
Ava disagreed, but their argument was stopped at the geology exhibit by... A
medieval knight! The man swung a flail menacingly, unperturbed by Alice's protestations that he was in the wrong museum. Ava hit him in the head with her high-grade Atlantean slingshot, but it barely dazed him. In response, he smashed an exhibit inches from Rosie's head and told them to run. They did!
***
The group got to the curb in time to see the policeman pull up. Hearing that there was a medieval knight, he sent the gals home and called for backup.
Ava wasn't going to give up that easily. According to the museum catalog, there was one particular diamond, the size of a fist, that the gang would have been after. And there were only so many places to pawn such a diamond. They didn't need to find the gang, they needed to find the fence.
Her Aunt Eunice (
'Why do you never call me, darling, and aren't you supposed to be in Europe?') informed her about an art dealer that was only a few blocks from them, someone named Sir Matthew?
The group was let in by the bored butler, told not to touch anything, and led to the sitting room. There was wall-to-wall Renaissance art, as well as a portrait of Devi's old mentor Lord Simon!
Ava remembered that Lord Simon's boyfriend was an extremely accomplished art repurposer. He pretended not to know why they were visiting, but the girls played on his insecurities, implying trouble in paradise. Sir M played it cool (a skill one learns trafficking with gangsters and hoods), but they managed to strike a deal: he would tell them where his boyfriend was. He didn't much care about the gem, and suspected Simon had stolen it while the girls distracted the knight and the jamokes.
He'd let them read Simon's calendar as long as whatever they did couldn't lead back to him.
Simon, it turned out, was at the circus.
***
It seemed that all of Manhattan was out for the Sibling Brothers' Circus. The girl spread out, and Alice found the man from the portrait being threatened by the jamokes. Simon, eager not to be beat up, told them that he had stashed the diamonds in one of the clowns' red-ringed pie tins. There was plenty of time to retrieve it, this was all a misunderstanding--
"And as a special treat, by urgent request, Zippo and his amazing clown bakery!”
The girls bribed their way backstage, and saw the red cart being wheeled to the center of the ring.
The HAGS, never afraid of danger, put on wigs and clown jackets and headed out after it. Rosie 'stumbled' to put her hand into a pie, when the jamokes jumped the barricade and began sticking fingers in clown faces. Zippo, 6'3" and fresh out of Sing Sing, responded with Graham cracker and frosting.
CHAOS! Alice borrowed a circus horse to cover more ground. Ava, normally aghast at all this touching, mess and noise, was overwhelmed to the point where she regained her senses, bringing out the clown car and using it to get as many people possible off stage. Alice threw Rosie a unicycle. The Texan was always better behind the wheel of a vehicle, or in this case above the wheel of a vehicle. She managed to get the gem from Zippo, spraying it with seltzer so it slipped past the mooks.
Unfortunately, Lord Simon, was standing by the entrance way, ready to grab the gem as she passed by. She couldn't exactly stop with half the circus chasing her...
Until Ava hit Simon in the back of the knees with the clown car. With perfect comic timing, she honked AFTERWARDS. Victory, HAGS.
Ava Astor:
