NSA:OSAIR Agt M. Welpers
NSA:DoO J. Silvers
Subject: “Snowman”
Known Abilities: Tissue destruction, Road hazard creation, Lock breaking via ‘freeze’ weapon.
Physical Characteristics: Ht__5”10___ Wt__110 lbs___
Identity: Known Unknown
If Known:
Affiliations: Cadre of Crime
Current Ideological Orientations:
America: Pro Anti Unknown
Law/Order: Pro Anti Unknown
Threat/Influence Assessment:
Subject “SNOWMAN” does not at this time appear to represent a threat to the U.S. Government or its interests. In his metropolitan area, he has been rumored responsible for at least one assault leading to the crippling of one college-age male victim four (at last count) bank heists and several independent thieving operations from private business operations.
The events surrounding the crippling incident suggests a degree of self-defense was involved. Victim in this case, an MSU student named Lionel Hansom, stood accused of several assaults and at least one count of rape, charges of all which were dropped by his alleged victims just before trial. Mr. Hansom has not been accused of any crimes since he was crippled and put in a wheelchair, the tissue in his legs destroyed via extreme cold temperatures below the knees.
SNOWMAN has otherwise demonstrated an unwillingness to endanger human life. The few witnesses we have to his solo activity claim he displayed a voice consistent with a recently post-pubescent youth. This, coupled with further witnesses seeing a tendency to be led and act in a deferential manner towards other members of a group (esp Jane Cobb, aka CALAMITY JANE) suggest SNOWMAN is likely younger than the other members.
Dynamics of the emerging phenomenon of the ‘super villain’ group suggest that each member of such a group fills a needed role and jealously guards it, without the tendency of a ‘hero group’ to nurture younger members to one day take their place (see earlier report ‘The Sidekick Syndrome’). If these findings hold true for the group known by some as the ‘Cadre of Crime’ [only referred to this on a regular basis by another member, Mr. Monocle], then SNOWMAN might prove an effective ‘weak link’ that could be turned to serve the Department. His technological contributions to the group are limited to that provided by his single weapon, and [witnessed on only one occasion] a type of hand grenade that froze the ground and the surrounding area of detonation in an eight-foot radius. The comparatively more versatile and applicable contributions of MOTHMAN [flight] and MR. MONOCLE [aggression via light-based gadgetry] may lead to feelings of resentment on the part of his teammates, being seen as a member of lesser import to the group, along with his own feelings of inadequacy. These can be exploited by the Department [see below] should we decide to pursue a Divide and Conquer approach.
Examining the pattern of action which they have conducted their last few robberies (see Appendix F), one notes that SNOWMAN stays consistently in close proximity to CALAMITY JANE. This initially suggests a sense of subservience and personal sense of inadequacy on the part of SNOWMAN to the group leader, but also could be indicative of a romantic liaison with CALAMITY JANE, or at least feelings of unrequited attraction on the part of SNOWMAN towards her.
Whatever the exact nature of this dynamic, it could be exploited to divide the group’s effectiveness. Were SNOWMAN to be in our custody, the subject could be convinced that there were rivals within his group for the affections of CALAMITY JANE, as well as for his place as the group’s authority as technical expert.
Regardless, his capturing ought to be a priority, considering the usefulness of his cold-gun’s applications in military settings....
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My God.
Jane.
She’s in the doorway.
She’s beautiful, like she always was.
And she looks a good twenty or thirty years younger than she oughta. Damn, chica, you look fiiiiiiiine!
“Well, now!” I say, “If it isn’t my coyotita! Look at you!”
“Always a gentleman, Miguel. How’re you doing?”
We give a little hug, and I look at her again. Those same eyes, that same skin. Dios, but Jane was beautiful then, and still is today. I’m in pretty good shape for my age, but she looks trim as she did when we were kids robbing banks.
“Well come on! Come on! Let’s go catch up!” I say it because I’m sure she has a darned good reason for being here, but she won’t be giving it to me in front of a bunch of street toughs and alleyway losers all gawking at her.
Into my office. It’s about the size of a phone booth, but I’m okay with that. I pay bills here, and give the occasional punk a tune-up talking-to in here too. Place stinks, but it’s in the middle of a gym, whaddya want, right?
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I reach down into the bottom drawer and pull out the whiskey I save for friends. Last time she was in here, she became a very good friend indeed.
“Well, Miguel? How’re things?”
“Going very, very well, Coyotita, since a certain lady came by with enough capital to help me pay my debts and upgrade my gym. We’ve turned a profit every quarter since you did what you did, Jane.”
“Glad it turned the tide. Wanted you to know that we don’t eat our own, or leave a man hung out to dry when he did his job. And you did yours on the First National, no question.”
“Shit, thanks. I do wish I’d been there to see poor little Mitch [Mitch the bitch, I used to call him to myself. Sorry, I know he was yours, but that’s how I saw him], scardiest one of us all, pull the trigger and freeze The One in his tracks. If that didn’t beat shit, don’t know what would. I was kinda mad for a while, you know. When no one came back to the hideout and I didn’t hear nothing from no one for a long time after.”
“I know, Miguel. We hadda move fast. We . . . well, me, anyways, figured that since we’d brought down The One, everyone’d be gunning for us. They’d prob’ly find our lair, find us out, and we’d all be in the joint. Mitch was the one who tried to get us to go back and warn ya, but we all knew that you’d remember the plan we had if the lair got raided by cops’r capes.”
“Oi, shit, did I ever. ‘Hit the south tunnel, in through the third metal door, secret passage behind the tool bench, pull it back in place as you went through.’ You made us repeat that so many times I started having dreams about it. And you know, it worked. I got away. But I had no way to find you.”
“We tried finding you, Miguel. Especially Monty. Though I think he was more worried you were gonna pop up one day and put a knife in his neck than anything about being fair. When the heat did come off enough to where we could split our cut, we split yours first and stashed it safe. I don’t know if you knew that.”
“Well, nice to hear. It was nicer when you showed up a couple years’ later with my cut plus interest. That smoothed things over, for sure. But . . .” I stop just long enough to slug down my whiskey. “I’d like to know how the rest are doing. You hear from them lately?”
She catches me up. Mothman is stuck in a nursing home. Mitch the Bitch is married and teaching high school science [caramba, saw that one coming]. Queen Bee married that maricón who used to ride a white horse down 5th avenue and talk like he was out’ve a fucking Shakespeare play. Jake’s a carny, a fortune teller. Guess he hasn’t lost his old touch, huh? Monty, talked like he was a university professor instead of a high school dropout from Little Italy? He was still on the bottom rung of the ladder, poor guy. A security guard at some egghead place, still trying to get someone to make him rich by buying one of his ideas and using it as a super weapon.
“So, my Coyotita, I’m glad you came by, and I’m happy to have a drink with you, especially considering what a lovely younger lady you’ve become! But I suspect that you haven’t come by just to invite me to the high school reunion and catch me up on what the other folks are doing.”
“You know, s’what I always liked about you, Miguel. Some men get right to the point, so fast you’d think they were gettin’ charged by the minute. Some men take their time so long you’d think they were Rip Van Winkle wachin’ a snail race. You? You was always right down the middle.”
“The best business is done by those who love, trust and fear each other. And a good drink can bring out all three in any relationship. So, what’s on your mind, chica? How can this old, past-his-prime boxer and burglar help a beautiful young lady like yourself today?”
“There’s a job, Miguel. A job with near no risk, huge reward, and you get all the love and respect you’ll ever want from these little wanna-bees for the rest of your life.”
“Jane, we left that life a long time ago. I have a business here that pays my bills, I get respect from the . . . well, most of the kids in the neighborhood and their families. What else could I want? Why would I risk jail or worse?”
She looks up over my shoulder, where I have the picture. It’s a beautiful picture, of two stupid Mexican kids who were so insanely obsessed with each other that they’d gotten married way too soon. It’s still got the same frame it did when we unwrapped it years ago, only now the frame also has a black ribbon around one corner.
“Sorry for your loss, Miguel,” she says, in a voice that makes me think of wind whispering across the desert.
“It was very sad, yes. But Maria and I had a few very good years together, before the leukemia took her. She had cancer, in her blood. She was a good and wonderful wife, up to the end.”
“And you’ve never remarried?”
“When you’re twenty-five, you still think no woman will equal that woman, the love of your life. Eventually you realize the only reason she’s so perfect in your eyes is because you haven’t been together long enough to see her at her worst. Not long enough for bad habits to grow and fester. But by the time I realized that? Well, I heard an old man once say you know you’re getting old when you can finally read a woman like a book, but your library card’s expired. Nobody left. Single ladies my own age are either too ugly, too bitchy or just too set in their ways. And though the young ones are still beautiful, I feel like a criminal asking one of them for so much as a dance, let alone to share their life with me.”
“What if you wern’t so old no more, Miguel? What if I could change that?”
“Ponce De Leon already tried to find the fountain of youth, Jane. If he ever found it, he’s not telling.”
“I prefer to show, not tell,” she said. She stood up, did a little stretch, and the dirty-old-man in me began to hope against all rhyme or reason. Memo to me, Confession this Saturday at four at Our Lady of Guadalupe before I try to take Communion at Mass on Sunday.
But nothing like that happened. She took out a small plastic bottle, and put it on the table in front of me.
“¿Qué es esto?”
“That’s your ticket to a guilt free life with one of those beautiful young ladies, Miguel. The kind you hide yourself from by staying in this smelling, sweat-stinkin’ gym all day, seven days a week. You take that in your coffee, your whiskey, your water or Church wine, and you’ll see. That one’s free, Miguel. After that, I’m gonna need two things from you: the Black Tiger’s eyes, ears, and quick fingers, and a bunch of your meanest, shittiest little students you can get together. Kids who you know are on their way to the hoosegow anyways, and could maybe do us a little good on their way down without them even knowing it.”
I thought about the chubby, unsmiling little hood who’d punched Emilio to the ground, and was ready to stomp on his face a few times to finish the deed. I thought of the little jerk, Esteban, who thought I didn’t see him flip me off when I kicked him out’ve the gym last week for trying to steal from me.
Yeah. I’d seen my share of shitty kids leave here. This wasn’t a place to save them. For a lot of them, this was just a stopping point on the way down. They’d sell out their own madres for case of beer. Some would stab a friend for a bag of cocaine.
“How many would you need?” I ask.
This may not be fun. This may not be right. But Calamity Jane is one of exactly two Gringos who’ve never steered me wrong, and that if nothing else gets her my attention and ears during this time.
Plus, even if things go south, I know how to keep my hands clean.
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TO BE CONTINUED...