Deadline

Deadline

Creator: Jeffrey T. Zverloff

John “Ace” Brontes

Lonny “the Gargoyle” Thomas

Morton Turner

Larry “the Grinder” Thules

Toby Aikens

Dan “the Weasel” Jackson

Detective Clifford

Phil Duncan

Crash McGhee

The character was created from the pieces of the fictional characters that I enjoy from different mediums. Deadline is a masked vigilante in the tradition of the Spider and the Whisperer, with a dash of Mack Bolan, the Executioner thrown in.            

Deadline’s secret identity is newspaper reporter John “Ace” Brontes for the Guardian, in a later story. He received some combat experience as a reporter covering the Spanish Civil War in 1936.

            Deadline is of average height with a noticeable wiry build,. dressed in a black suit, black leather gloves, and a black fedora that concealed his features in shadows. A black domino mask covered his face to distort his features. The only color in this ensemble was a blood red rose in his lapel.

            If he thought he would be getting into a fight he would change out of usual attire of his black suit and tie, and dress in a black turtle neck shirt, black pants, and black leather gloves. He carries two Colt .45’s, a tool belt with a knife. He also carries a haversack containing various grenades and a gasmask. A grappling hook gun is strapped across his back.  His face is painted black under his domino mask. Even with his face blackened, Deadline still felt the need to wear the mask.

Lonny “the Gargoyle” Thomas is Deadline’s mentor figure, and loosely based on Richard “Quick Trigger” Traeger from the Whisperer series. Since Deadline was not a criminal he needed someone to teach him his tradecraft. He also needed a confidant to explain his motives and actions in the series. He also designed and built some of Deadline’s equipment. Lonny had started out as a second story man and was acknowledged to be one of the best cat burglars in the business until an accident. One night, climbing toward the penthouse of the Shuster Building, he had miscalculated a leap and missed the balcony. He fell three stories and landed on a gargoyle waterspout, breaking both legs and his right arm. He lay there for two days contemplating his life before someone noticed him. He recovered from the fall, but it ended his career as a cat burglar. His still has a noticeable limp, and the denizens of the underworld started calling him the Gargoyle. The Gargoyle had an apartment above a warehouse down on the docks where Deadline and he lived. It had tunnels and passages that ran underneath it and eventually connected with the sewer system that was created years earlier by rumrunners.

              Morton Turner is a large man with an even greater appetite.  He knew it was his destiny to be the crime boss of the country. Turner was in the process of consolidating the rackets of the city under his control. The private dining room in the back of The Café was reserved for him and it was here that he conducted most of his business for his private fiefdom. If Turner could not be found at The Café, then he could be found at his mansion in the suburbs.

            Larry “the Grinder” Thules is Turner’s second in command. He is one of the most feared men in the city. Thules received his nickname, the Grinder, because he liked to place people’s hands into a meat grinder to make them talk. The Grinder oversaw the day-to-day operations of Turner’s expanding empire. He also handled the sensitive operations like extortion or removal of witnesses. He was never far from Turner’s side during business hours.

Toby Aikens is a small rodent of a man, who was one of the best pickpockets ever to grace the city. A nondescript man, who could blend in with any crowd. Any interesting tidbit that he found in a wallet he would sell to the right person. He had a photographic memory that retained all that he saw or heard and he would also sell for the right price. If you wanted information on anyone, you started with Toby Aikens.

            Dan “the Weasel” Jackson is a fumbling criminal in the Turner mob who was going to be an unwilling informant in Deadline’s war on crime. Jackson accidently shoots the Grinder in the back and Deadline uses this to blackmail him for information.

Detective Clifford is on the police force. He is a large haggard looking man, and principled, he was willing to bend the rules in his pursuit of justice. He became an unwilling ally of Deadline’s.  He was the most decorated police officer in the city’s history.

Phil’s Bar is located in one of the worst slums in the city and owned by Phil Duncan, hence the name. It was a basement bar that was reached by a short flight of stairs. Phil’s had the reputation that anything that anyone could ever want could be purchased within its four walls; the reality of the selection of merchandise was not that far off. Most of the villains that frequented Phil’s would kill their own mothers for a sawbuck. Most of the patrolmen in the city would not have visited Phil’s without a squad of heavily armed policemen.

The Carriage House is Deadline’s base of operations in his war on crime.  It was located in an upper income area that is now considered lower income, in which he owned property under a fictitious name. It is a modified apartment set above a garage that once was an outer building of an apartment that used to be a grand mansion. A secret basement workshop that housed his car and equipment completed the ensemble. The man in black would enter a walk-in closet in the master bedroom. He lifted a coat hook and the back of the closet slid open to reveal a narrow staircase spiraling into darkness. The stairwell ended in a subterranean library. The library contained reference books, criminal files, nautical charts, blueprints to public buildings, and various maps. There was also a cot in the library in case he needed a hideout. A small kitchenette with a hot plate and refrigerator was off of the library. A small bathroom was next to the kitchenette. The armory was where Deadline kept his weapons and equipment.   The garage was barely wide enough to fit the dark coupe inside. At the other end of the garage was a ramp that opened from the floor of the carriage house’s garage, leaving his coupe hidden from view in the basement.

            Deadline’s equipment was varied. His most important piece of equipment was the grappling hook gun, which resembled a large flare pistol with a lanyard. It contained a collapsible grappling hook that erupts from the gun barrel. The flanges of the grappling hook then expand umbrella-like into its normal shape as it unreels a silken cord. The point in the center of the hook embeds itself into whatever it is aimed at. When the trigger is pulled a second time, it activates an electric motor that rewinds the silken cord and lifts the shooter upwards.

         The dark coupe had been donated to his cause from Crash McGhee, one of the best wheelmen in the business, before he died of tuberculosis. Deadline had saved his daughter’s life in an earlier adventure. It was bullet proof with a large V-8 engine to pull its weight. Under the dashboard was a hidden toggle switch that disengaged the car’s security system. The two-door coupe had been designed so that it could be started without a key for a quick getaway by a concealed button on the dash. In the trunk of the car there is a secret compartment for his equipment. The haversack contained extra magazines for his guns, a few grenades and other deadly instruments that he might need. A Thompson submachine gun rested in a customized gun rack in the secret compartment.

         There have been two stories.

Deadline (Weird Stories #1)

The Kidnapped Heiress (DDT #12)