The Exploding Detective Read Online Free Page A

easy.
    Unfortunately,
when the gadgets arrived they didn’t work as well as the comic books and I had
hoped. The X-ray glasses didn’t work at all at first because I had them on
backwards. I couldn’t see anything and everybody could see into my head. I took
them off and stuck them in my back pocket. Now they could all see up my ass. I
threw them away. The Instant Disguise Kit just tore my face up something awful.
And I lost the disappearing handcuffs the first day. I decided that maybe I’d
better be one of those super heroes who doesn’t have any gadgets.
    I went down to
City Hall to show the Mayor and the Police Commissioner my costume and let them
know that I was ready to go, and was officially on the clock.
    “Wonderful!”
enthused the Mayor, as he looked over my costume. “You look like Superman, or
Batman, or… god dammit, you look like everybody!”
    “There’s a price
tag on your cape,” said the Commissioner.
    I took it off.
    “Now, is there
anything you need?” asked the Mayor. “Or are you ready to start saving us right
now?”
    I said I was all
set, but suggested the Police Commissioner might want to install a “Flying
Detective Signal” in his office. That way, he could shine a smiling outline of
me in the sky that could be seen all over the city when he needed my services -
when he couldn’t handle his job himself. The Commissioner was dubious. Those
16,000 watt signals, he told me, cost money. Plus, he didn’t particularly want
to advertise his incompetence all over the city. Enough people knew about that
already without putting it up in lights. But the Mayor thought it was a
crackerjack idea. The signal would be installed at once.
    “Do you have a
catchphrase?” asked the Mayor. “Like ‘Up, Up, And Away!’ or something like
that? We’ll need it for our press releases about you.”
    “‘Up, Up, And
Away’ sounds good,” I said.
    “No, you can’t
use that. It’s taken.”
    “How about ‘Up,
Down, And Away’? Anybody got that?”
    The Mayor and the
Commissioner exchanged glances.
    “I don’t think
you need a catchphrase,” said Brenner.
    “Fine.”
    “Gilding the
lily,” agreed the Mayor.
    “Gotcha.”
    The next day was
the day of the big press conference. The Mayor introduced me to the roomful of
reporters, with a cleverly worded disclaimer that seemed to say that I was his
personal discovery and best friend if all this worked out well, but that if it
didn’t, he had never heard of me, and could prove it. Then he nudged me up to
the microphones.
    There was
tremendous applause. The media was plainly all fired up. They had heard a lot
about me, from themselves. I was barraged with questions.
    “What super
powers will you be using to protect our city?”
    “Uh… all of
them.”
    “What is your
costume made out of? Why does it look so new?”
    “Wool.”
    “Do you need a
sidekick? I could be Newspaper Boy.”
    “Next question.”
    “What is your
favorite crime?”
    “Murder, I
guess.”
    I answered all of
their questions as well as I could, but I’m not much of a public speaker, and I
don’t know the answers to too many questions, so pretty soon the press
conference started to drag a little. At the one hour mark, a couple of
reporters in the back started to go to sleep. Awhile later, so did I.
    The Mayor heard
the snores and decided it was time to wind up the press conference. He began
handing out slick press information packets about me. Each packet contained my
bio, pictures of my father (a rattlesnake) and my mother (a box of dynamite), a
list of the worlds I had already saved, (I never even heard of some of them.
Where’s “Benny”?), and publicity photos of me posing before an American flag,
taking the Central City Oath, and a gag photo that made it look like the Mayor
and I were friends.
    The reporters
snapped up the packets eagerly. Some even had me autograph them, saying it
wasn’t for them, it was for some smaller reporter. I graciously complied