Showcase: The Crimson Fox
If Looks Could Kill
by Libbylawrence
At the plush offices of Revson Inc. a lovely blonde frowned impatiently at her exact double.
“Vivian! While we have long posed as one to better aid our nocturnal pursuits, this crisis is one that shall assuredly require both our heads, oui?” said Constance D’aramis.
Her twin sister Vivian smiled and returned to her chair. “Sorry! I admit to being a bit distracted. The corporate life it is not my cup of tea!” she said with a shrug.
Constance sighed. “After receiving this report from finance, I fear it is not mine either. We are in the red. We’re bankrupt, in fact!”
Vivian jumped up and said, “I know! I read the same document. How is this so? Revson was doing magnifique! Our accountant said as much!”
Constance nodded. “He lied. He has made off with our assets. He has deceived us. I blame it all on the time spent in costume. We were duped and we allowed ourselves to be played for empty-headed beauties! He hid his stealing and now we are at crisis stage. If we are to save Revson we must take drastic measures!”
Vivian smiled in a vulpine manner. “Oui! With consequences most severe for the one who robbed us!”
***
Vivian D’aramis groaned in exaggerated frustration as she reclined in a plush chair in front of a computer. She dangled her long blonde hair over the top as she draped herself across the chair. She rose quickly and smiled as a new display crossed her screen. “This is eet! At last all my labors have been rewarded! Ze thief has been found and now the Fox can prowl!” she said.
Her sister Constance reentered the room. Constance wore a short pink mini-dress with heels while Vivian wore a black skirt, fishnets, and a white blouse.
“I ‘ave found him!” gloated Vivian.
“Have found him! Vivian, you must work on your accent,” scolded the blonde as she placed one hand on her hip.
Vivian said, “You ‘ave… have the soul of the school teachar! I have located Henri Duchamp. He has made his way to Gotham City with our assets! He is living in a posh penthouse, and we know his pay was not enough to earn such accommodations!”
Constance smiled and playfully mussed her twin’s hair. “Well done! Now, the question is: do we pay him a visit as the Fox or as our adorable selves?” she asked.
Vivian smiled roguishly, “Why not both?”
***
Later, as the Crimson Fox, Vivian perched outside the penthouse being rented by the corporate thief Duchamp. She wore the vulpine costume that had earned her fame across France and in selected circles around the globe.
I almost hope Constance fails to persuade Henri to surrender our property. I would like to play the fox and mouse game with him a bit myself!
The skyscraper’s height did little to distract the agile beauty as she effortlessly ignored any faint trace of vertigo. She listened carefully as the doorbell echoed in the apartment within. She knew Constance had boldly entered and charmed the staff into allowing her to “surprise” Duchamp. She frowned and then heard the scratch as the clever Constance forced the lock and entered the apartment with her spike heels clattering as she crossed the floor. Moments later she heard her twin gasp in dismay.
She almost crashed into the room, but Constance had thrown open the balcony door and stopped her in time.
“Did Henri escape?” asked Vivian as she crept inside.
Constance turned a pale face toward her slinky twin. “Non! See for yourself! He’s dead!” she gasped.
Indeed, Henri Duchamp lay dead on the floor of his apartment. He had apparently been beaten to death! Both sisters exchanged startled looks as their keen hearing picked up the approach of footsteps.
“The manager — he comes!” hissed Constance. She bent over Duchamp and grasped a card, then scampered over the deck ledge to follow her twin to safety below.
“Someone has beat us to him!” said Vivian.
Constance nodded grimly. “And we must find the killer before the clerk can identify moi as the last to see him!”
Vivian said, “The swine! We owe him so much!”
Constance nodded ruefully and pointed downward. “True enough! Not only did he misappropriate our funds, but look at my hosiery — torn to shreds on the roof! He must pay!” she said with a smile.
***
The Glam “Face of the ’80′s Fashion Gala” was being held in Gotham City this year. Since the Revson Company’s publishing division owned Glam magazine, it was perfectly natural for C.E.O. Constance D’aramis to be present. Considering her curves and beauty, she could easily have been one of the super models instead of merely being a sponsor. However, more than business as usual brought the French woman to the gathering.
Since Henri was carrying a promo card and backstage pass from the fashion show, and it falls far from his fiscal duties, I assumed he had some personal interest in the show. I hope to find his killer too, although it seems unlikely that any of these internationally famous models could beat a man to death. Why, as Vivian would joke, they would not risk breaking a nail! mused Constance.
She watched with interest as a small crowd entered. They were the personal aides to one of the models. Maude Shaffer created trouble wherever she went. It would take more than her stage magician boyfriend Nicholas Nickleby to make her temperamental attitude vanish! The haughty blonde stalked across the floor and demanded a larger dressing room. Constance smiled as she saw several employees rush to soothe the German blonde’s temper fit.
A shriek echoed as a tall blonde woman in a bikini rushed out of a dressing room. “He’s trying to kill me! I won’t stand for it!” she cried as she ran a hand through her cascading blonde locks and pouted.
“Miss Turner! What is the matter? Who seeks to harm you?” asked Constance.
Raquel Turner of New Zealand whimpered, “That idiot hairdresser of yours! He almost burned me with hot rollers, and I simply won’t put up with such sabotage!” she shouted.
Constance turned to see Mr. Jacque ‘The Hair Specialist’, as he insisted upon being called, emerge from her room holding a curling iron. “Raquel, darling, please come back! It was an accident, precious!” he pleaded.
Constance sighed as the model hung up on her rock star boyfriend Stew Rodman and flounced back inside. Her mind — it has already forgotten her brush with death! mused Constance, who wore a short green dress and heels. She whirled as yet another scream rang out. “What now? No doubt Mindy Crayford’s beauty mark has been stolen, or worse!” she mocked. She hurried forward and gasped as she saw a scene of more importance than a typical glamor queen fit.
A gleaming golden figure stood over the fallen form of model Vandalia. The foreign beauty struggled to her knees as a female slapped her down again.
Constance used the confusion to change into the Crimson Fox. She pounced forward to tackle the woman clad all in gold. “You must not make her cry, even if her name sounds like an onion, oui?” she joked as she tried to separate the fallen Vandalia from her attacker.
The woman in gold turned to wrestle with the agile Crimson Fox, who gasped as the slender woman displayed an impressive brute force of her own! She heaved the Fox over her head and across the room with little effort!
Crimson Fox twisted in midair and rolled to a less than graceful landing amidst fallen dresses and shoes. She is powerful! I must use the gifts that come naturally to me as well! she thought.
The golden woman hurried out of the room. “You shall pay!” she hissed at Vandalia, who whimpered in fright.
The Crimson Fox bounded forward and raked out at her foe with her own claws. They tore across the gleaming costume that seemed a part of the woman’s body due to its extreme conformity to her form; however, they did no damage beyond leaving a trail of scoring marks.
The Fox ducked a rapid punch and kicked out to trip her enemy. She noticed her foe’s almost featureless face which was also masked with a layer of gold. How does she see or breathe? She is like the automaton! mused the Fox as she received a sudden blow that knocked her flat.
She rose again, only to be buried beneath a hurled cart which held dozens of dresses in a row on hangers. She fell hard and watched in regret as her enemy bounded away with strides that proved her legs to be as mighty as her arms.
***
Meanwhile, Vivian D’aramis had been equally busy, if begrudgingly so! She had been tracking Henri Duchamp’s financial transactions and soon realized that they had an alarming pattern. She frowned at the computer and shuffled papers in disgust.
“Henri has been making large cash withdrawals for some time at regular intervals. Ze thief was being blackmailed! I suppose that is why he emptied our accounts so drastically,” mused the blonde woman.
She idly smoothed her white skirt and black silk blouse as she pondered her paper and electronic trail. “This is not for moi! I prefer the action. Perhaps Henri was tied to the fashion show and perhaps it was a blind lead. Still, it is unfair that I must follow this angle while Constance mingles with the supermodels. After all, I am the cute one!” sighed Vivian with a smile.
She stood up and made a rapid decision. “Constance may have the costume, but I may still prowl the city in my own style. I will check out Henri’s family once more. Perhaps the Fox will find ze black sheep in his family is not Henri!” she said.
She rushed out of her apartment and headed for an address she had learned was that of Henri’s sister. She looked decidedly out of place in her designer clothes and sleek sports car as she parked and walked toward a tenement. “Henri’s sistair lives in a… how you say? … ghetto? She cannot be receiving the money he took from us,” mused Vivian.
Wolf whistles echoed as she confidently strutted up the stairs and passed a group of teens. She smiled radiantly and turned to them. “Bon jour! Tell me, do any of you gentlemen know of Alice Denton?” she said, stepping close to a boy of sixteen.
“She’s up one floor and to the right. Are you an actress or model or somethin’?” he said.
“Non, but I ‘ave the star power all my own!” she laughed.
She reached the door of Alice Duchamp Denton’s apartment and heard a heavy crash. She hesitated, then kicked off her high heels and kicked open the door. She soon saw a man in solid white standing over a shattered table, behind which cowered a woman who looked like a feminine version of Henri!
“Stand back! The authorities are on their way!” she cried.
Alice shouted, “Get back! He’ll kill you!”
The man in white whirled and faced Vivian. “Who are you, sweet thing? No matter, I’ll get ta know you soon enough!” he said in a slurred tone.
Vivian gasped as a thick mist filled the room and seemed to snake around her hips as if it was alive. Soon, a crushing pressure tightened around her. He controls ze fog! she realized as his grin grew larger and she struggled to free herself. Vivian kicked and struggled wildly as the leering man in white drew closer and his fog closed in on her.
She frowned as her punch passed through him. “You are ze fantome!” she whispered.
He laughed and she smelled alcohol on his breath. “No, legs. Not a ghost. I’m the Silver Fog!” he said. “As in you can’t touch me, but I can touch you!”
Vivian suddenly slumped forward and moaned.
The Silver Fog chuckled and said, “I was too much man for her!” He reached out for her face and lifted her head to reveal her mane of tousled hair and… two brightly staring eyes!
She ripped upward with her nails and he gasped in dismay. “You thought moi to be ze zhrinking violet, no?” she laughed as her ploy had caught him off guard. She exposed several wires in his white costume, and making a rapid decision she plunged them into the water flowing down the shattered table where a flowerpot had rested. She then flipped agilely on to a chair and watched as the current sparked across his exposed costume and he fell stunned. “My magnetism was too much for him!” she laughed.
Vivian crossed the apartment room in a rapid bound and steadied Alice Denton. “It is all right. I shall help you. He will recover. I knew his costume’s insulation would protect him from ze fatal shock. I also knew he’d have to become solid to touch moi with his hands and not his fog,” she explained.
Alice said, “Who are you? Frank was so drunk. He killed my brother, and he was going to kill me!”
Vivian pursed her lips and said, “Pauvre, pauvre, cheri! I employed your brothair. He threatened to turn in Frank to ze police, oui?”
Alice nodded. “Yes. He was wonderful when my husband died. He’s brilliant, but the drinking and his criminal plans tormented me! He used all my money to create the costume and refine it. That’s why we live in this slum! When Henri found out he argued with Frank, and tonight in his drunken rage Frank said… that he said he had gone to Henri’s place and killed him. That suit lets him generate fog as solidly as he wishes.”
Vivian rubbed her aching hips. “True! He can crush bone with it or float upon it. I assume that is how he gained entry!” Vivian held Alice and said, “Hush, now. I shall help you. Did Henri give you money?”
Alice pulled back and said, “No! He would have had I asked him. I never did. I feared Frank would demand more, and look what happened! My poor brother!”
Vivian nodded. Then… who was Henri paying with his money and with ours? she mused.
***
That night the D’aramis twins sat on a bed in Vivian’s suite and exchanged news.
“Henri has some tie to the fashion show. Perhaps he was seeing one of the models,” said Constance.
Vivian nodded as she sipped a cup of hot chocolate. “We now know he died at the hands of the Zilver Fog, but where did he spend our money?” she said as she pulled a light blue robe around her shoulders.
Constance, in pink, agreed. “We know the woman who threw me across the room like a rag doll, wanted to kill Vandalia. She will return. Perhaps it is unrelated to Henri’s secret life, but we can’t allow her to go unpunished. My bruises have bruises!” she said with a wry grin.
Vivian gave her twin a look of mock sympathy. “Pauvre petite enfant! Next time, I will be ze Fox!” she said.
Constance smiled. “Oui! You wear the costume this time. I have plans of my own!”
***
The next day Constance poured over old microfiches as she researched the supermodels. Ah, this reveals much. Vandalia is known for her sensational ads as the Owens Cosmetic girl, but before she became the star the company had planned to feature Miranda! What became of her? thought the clever woman.
She retrieved a few more envelopes of the fiche and soon smiled in satisfaction. “The Gotham Gazette tells a sad tale. Miranda was a supermodel known by one name only in America. She was about to become internationally known when she suffered a car accident. It ended her career and drove her mad. She fought the Batman years later in a gold costume that increased her power and disguised her scarred features so that she looked like a living mannequin! She is the one who battled me and tried to harm Vandalia!”
Constance ran out of the library and hoped her discovery would be in time to prevent more tragedy!
***
Raquel Turner pouted and lifted the feathered boa that was draped across her shoulders. She strutted across the runway and turned suddenly toward the audience.
Mindy Crayford, wearing a hot pink evening gown, stomped her foot in anger. “She’s been out there for hours. It’s not fair the way that Amazon hogs the spotlight!” she hissed.
Vivian watched from high above. She was amused by the models and their petty feuds. She wore a unique costume too — that of the Crimson Fox. She was perched on a lighting stand above the runway. “Zhey fight like the mad cats, or like Constance and I when we were teens!” she laughed.
She had been listening and watching it all. While the audience was thrilling to a wonderful show, she knew the real excitement was found backstage where the supermodels waged their endless battles for attention and favor.
The Crimson Fox stretched as she lounged across the light stand. Thees is not my idea of soaking up ze rays! I hope something ‘appens soon! she thought. Then she frowned as her keen senses detected a strange odor. Drugs? That odd narcotic scent from backstage makes me suspect the worst, she thought.
She flipped down with the grace and silence of her namesake and prowled toward the dressing room of Monica Lake. She entered and saw the actress/model smoking an illegal substance. She knocked it away and said, “You must be mad to risk your health with such foul concoctions. Do you not realize the toxins can ruin your looks and end your life?”
Monica gasped in shock. The combination of the drugs and the sight of a woman in a skintight vulpine suit sent her into a ranting fit. “Keep back! Keep away! Oh, Henri, where are you when I need you!” she wept.
The Fox frowned. “Henri Duchamp! Your lovair and your source of extra income? A model’s pay is superb, but not if an addiction drains all your funds, oui?”
Monica nodded. “He was my first love before I went to Hollywood all those years ago. He loved me for myself and not my beauty and fame. He helped me by giving me money for what I craved and also for treatments — none of which worked! I learned of a miracle cure that required millions. It was supposed to end my addiction for good. I never got to use it.”
The Fox nodded. “So this miracle cure took our money all at once. If it is in her account or her home, we should be able to recover it.” She asked, “This miracle cure may be found where?”
Monica sat there dazed and did not reply.
I must look into this. It has to be criminal and dangerous too, she thought.
A crash echoed from the runway, and many beautiful women screamed and raced for safety as the gold clad figure from the first attack on Vandalia smashed into the room and pushed through the crowd to charge Vandalia, who was modeling lingerie on the runway.
The Crimson Fox gasped, “It nevair rains but it pours!”
Indeed, it was the Mannequin who shouted threats and leaped through the air to land almost atop the shrieking model. She slapped her across the face and said, “It should have been me! I was to have it all, not you!”
As Vandalia fell across the stage, the Crimson Fox pounced down and landed on Mannequin’s back. She wrapped both legs around the golden woman’s chest and gripped her around the head with her arms. “You ladies must not fight. It is unbecoming. Think of your mascara! It shall smear!” she joked.
Mannequin could not see, but she kept moving like a female tank. She reached blindly for Vandalia, who crawled to safety as Crimson Fox wrestled with her stronger foe. Mannequin gripped the Fox by one arm and crushed downward with considerable force.
The Fox moaned in pain and decided to try a different tactic; she flipped over Mannequin’s head and kicked out at her. The move resulted in nothing more than a sharp pain in her own arm, as her shining foe refused to release her grip.
“You are pretty too! You should pay for my loss!” said Mannequin.
The Fox shrugged. “You are right! I am tres beautiful!”
At that moment Constance rushed inside with a burly dark haired man. “Miranda! Stop this madness!” he shouted.
The Mannequin whirled and stared at him, though her expressionless face revealed nothing more than the emotionless features of a true dressmaker’s dummy. The Crimson Fox took advantage of her foe’s distraction to slip free and rolled between the golden legs to trip her into a sudden fall. The Mannequin fell off the runway and landed unharmed where Constance stood near the newcomer.
“Miranda. Please! Let me help you!” he pleaded.
She hesitated, then fell into his arms and wept gently.
Constance slipped over to the Crimson Fox and whispered, “He is her brother. She was once a model called Miranda. She hates all who have the beauty she lost in a fiery crash. I figured he could calm her, but you handled her very well.”
The Crimson Fox smiled. “What is it they say, it was beauty that killed the beast, no?”
