“Josephus Aloysius Zwallarimenienski esquire, mah dear Judy. Don’t fret, no one remembers it until they hear it for the fourth or fifth time. Sorry, but what was the name of that firm again? Was it Sentinel or Paragon?”
“Sentinel, Mr… Mr Joseph?”
Jake gave a big, barrel laugh. “Don’t you fret, Miss Judy. Now, I hope those heroes don’t mind, but once I get the platform operational, I just might be calling you up to offer you a job, ‘cause with the way you put up with me, whatever they’re paying you, honey, it ain’t enough!”
#
“Alright, little boy. I’ve had mah fun. Looks to me yer in a real pickle now, and mebbe yer open to actually talking rather than giving orders. When y’all get a chance, thank yer boss fer giving me mah sixguns back, by the way. Dumbass move on his part, thinkin’ I couldn’t shoot just because I’m old. But you won’t hear me complain. Now, I see you, or even a little bit of that outfit of yours pop out from behind those boxes, it’s gonna get a bullet bankshotted off of the wall at it. And if’n you’re stupid enough to try and toss a bomb or something at me, then you’re gonna hear about it from every lawyer from here to Kookamonga once I get out. And I will get out of here, little boy. You got me?”
Henry tried his communicator again- dammit! Jason had locked him out! No one to talk to. And Jason, thanks to his human mother, was very, very vulnerable to the knockout gas Henry had surprised him with; he wouldn’t be waking up anytime soon. Not to full strength for at least another hour.
And now Henry was pinned down by an old woman with a set of six-guns. If that wasn’t Ironic…
#
“One minute, Jake.”
“Keep yer pants on, Mitch. And keep the twenty ready in your wallet; nothing motivates me like a decent bet. Here we go. Miguel? Your boys get that stuff inta the van yet?”
“They’re working on it, Jake. You sure they’re gonna get it done for a good reason? Or are you gonna fuck it up like a gypsy usually does, and they have to take it all out again?”
“I ain’t gonna fuck up, beaner boy, not when there’s twenty bucks on the li-” Jake stopped as the ringing on the other end stopped, clicked and a young man’s voice mumbled something out of the receiver. “Hello, William. This is Detective Andreas Juspeczik, badge number 4321, NYPD Fraud division. I’m investigating a case and I need your assistance, but the situation is very, very delicate and I’m going to need your discretion here. Can I count on that?”
More mumbling on the other end of the phone. “It means, William that we’re investigating a potential homicide, and whoever you have stationed right now at the gatehouse over at the Homestead HQ is a person of interest. It also means that if you call him up after we finish talking, or if you refuse to assist us over here at the NYPD, or if you tip off anyone that we’ve had this conversation before we make an arrest, you’re gonna be the one charged with obstruction of justice, and looking at a minimum of a year behind bars. Now, all you need to do to keep yourself out of trouble is to tell us which of your guards is currently stationed at the gatehouse of Homestead, and keep quiet about this conversation until either I or my partner call you again to give you the all-clear, or twenty-four hours pass. You got me, son?”
More mumbles on the other end of the phone. Jake scribbles on the sheet of paper. “That’s it. Oh, and I’ll need the number of the gatehouse, too. Save us some time, and you might be looking at a citation for helping us out instead of jail cell. Looks good on a record, especially if you’re thinking about the Police Academy. Thought so. Sounds good, officer William Templeton. Yeah, matter of fact, if you do think about joining the force, mention me on your resume, after we close this case. Sound good? Alright, good job, buddy. Take care.”
Receiver bangs down. “Time?” Jake asks.
“Two minutes, thirty-five. You’re slowin’ down, Swami,” Mitch says.
“Shuddup, Mitch. I’m in the home stretch. Miguel? You got your boys loading the van?”
“Done in about five more minutes. Got a treadmill and five empty crates like you said.”
“Hot damn. Last leg. One minute from pickup. Got your watch Mitch? Ready…”
#
“Boy, where’s my check?”
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
Anger blistered in his brain. I’ll give you a…
“An’ if’n you’re thinkin’ about doin’ me any wrong, you remember: I’m Calamity Jane. I’ve been shootin’ the eyes outta squirrels at a hundred yards since I was knee high to a grasshopper. Y’all ain’t invulnerable- that’s comic book shit. You stir even a little bit, an’ I pop you through the nearest chink in your armor. An’ you know I’m a-gonna see it. Now, you can either print up mah check, or send it straight to mah bank. You want the number?”
“I can’t get you any money if I’m pinned down, madam.”
“Whoo! You’re bein’ polite now. I like that. Means you’re shit-outta-options. I just bet you gotta bunch’ve folks you can call. Ah tell yuh whut, little boy: Ah’m gonna call 911 on my new portable phone here; the one I took offa your friend after you gassed him. I’m gonna tell the cops I’ve been kidnapped and I’m being held against mah will. No warrant, no judge, just some slant with a bunch’ve gadgets who the other heroes have locked out. Maybe the cops’ll come. Maybe they’ll send some more capes to take you down. Maybe the press’ll hear about things next.”
“That won’t be necessary, Miss Cobb. I can get you your million-”
“Two million, zippy. Make it two. You’re good for it, and you’ve made me wait a little too long. I’ll give you just five more minutes.”
Shit. Five minutes. Who could he call? How could he- could he try to jam her line? Not without the other equipment in his room that he’d been tweaking. His official communicator was down, but maybe his direct line-
“Roosevelt?” he whispered into the comlink, trying to cover it with his hands and block out the incessant droning of the computer’s alert through the PA system.
“This is Roosevelt. But, Mr. Dark? I’m afraid I’ve been instructed not to give you what you want, whatever it is.”
“What the- says who, Roosevelt?”
“Says Miss Juno and the rest of the team. They’re right here, watching and laughing at you on the monitor.”
“Are they now…”
#
Louis crossed his arms and stretched from a sitting position. He’d been ten kinds of excited when he found out he’d be working at Homestead, but the job had gotten pretty boring really quick. Far from seeing supers day in and day out, he’d only seen Prime fly by once, and Gladiatrix leave once in a limo.
Granted, that one time was enough; he was eighteen, and had had a schoolboy crush on her for years now. When she’d rolled down the window of the limo and told him to pass a message on to…
The car drove up and he pulled himself, reluctantly, out of the happy little fantasy he’d been thinking on. Reality was here: it was a late afternoon on a summer day, and he’d be here until ten at night. But this was the job; keeping the civvies out. He had a whole list of memorized protocols for what to do if super villains showed up, but it didn’t look like that was going to happen here.
He opened the door to his guard shack and saw a beat-up old blue sedan, with a Mexican dad- maybe in his forties- and three Mexican boys in the back hollering and screaming at each other.
“Can I- can I help you, sir?” Louis said, raising his voice above the kids in the backseat who were screaming, fighting and punching each other.
“Aye, caramba- could you- vamos! Hey, Estaban! Shut up! Estoy tratando de hablar con el hombre aquí! Ah, sorry about that,” he kept trying to talk above the din of the boys, who hadn’t toned dow their fighting a bit. “I think we had a day for a tour here- it’s my son Esteban’s birthday, and we wanted to surprise him a little, and-”
“Sir, I’m sorry, but I got a passdown from my previous guard that all tours were cancelled today due to a situation that arose needing the attention of the heroes. You can call the one-eight-hundred number to reschedule, and since it’s a birthday tour, I can go back to the shack and get him a coupon for a free action figure that can be redeemed at-”
At the word ‘cancelled,’ the boys had paused in their fighting. When he said the word ‘reschedule,’ the smallest of the boys began a petulant wail, the kind reserved for the death of a family member or the news that summer vacation had been cancelled and school would continue through July.
Cripes, there are days I hate this job, Louis thought. Maybe doing college this year wouldn’t be a bad idea after all.
“Look, sir,” said the dad, rolling down his window the rest of the way and resting a well-muscled arm on the side, “my boy has been looking forward to this for three weeks or more now. Isn’t there something you could do for us?”
“I’m sorry, sir, but I’m not authorized to- wait, no!”
Another car, this one a white Crown Vic, had bounded up into the driveway and continued without slowing, careening towards the sedan in front with its radio blasting so loudly he could hear Phil Collins singing about how You Can’t Hurry Love, even though the driver of the new car had his windows rolled all the way up. The driver was singing with the song, so into it that he didn’t notice the car in front and-
Whomp! The Crown Vic smacked the rear bumper of the sedan, making the children shift from crying and arguing to screaming in pure terror. The dad was still trying to advocate for his son, and the driver of the other vehicle got out, opening the door and stepping out, letting Phil’s voice fill the air with brassy drums and his almost liquid-smooth delivery of the old song from the sixties filled the air and added to the confusion.
Louis, being still two weeks shy of his twentieth birthday, had never known what it was to have his blood pressure skyrocket. But later on in life when he did have hypertension issues, he would always refer back to this moment as the first time he felt so much stress that he could hear blood and heartbeats hammering in his ears.
And that, of course, was when the truck pulled upland boxes both of the other cars into the nice, tight space right in front of his guard shack.
#
TO BE CONTINUED....