by Baron Sord
But my life was not a comic book. Turned out super-heroing didn’t pay, and things only got harder as they went along. I had no idea they were about to get a whole lot worse, and not in a financial way, because, if you followed the news, you knew THE BANK BREAKER was cooling his heels in the Federal Penitentiary out in Lompoc or Victorville or wherever they’d locked him up, and was at this very moment cursing Wildfire’s very name while swearing revenge.
Cue the slobbering red-faced menace in an orange jumpsuit, THE BANK BREAKER in the flesh. He’s clenching the bars of his lonely cell and seething, “I’ll get you one day, Wildfire! If it’s the last thing I do! I swear on my mother’s grave, I’LL GET YOU!”
Of course, on top of the shit storm that was about to hit me, I knew it was only a matter of time until THE BANK BREAKER broke out of prison and came calling.
Guy was the most relentless arch-nemesis I’d ever met.
Sure, he was merely a metaphor, but he was damn near invincible and he always had my number.
You know the one.
$0.00
—: Chapter 37 :—
“Are you rich now or something?”
The young woman asking over speaker phone was Kristy’s dancer friend Sierra.
“I wish,” Kristy giggled. She was in her apartment in the living room, sitting at her Cintiq and sketching panels for her comic. Her phone was on the desk beside her keyboard. Mischief was sitting in a quiet fluffy lump behind the keyboard, eyes closed in slits while cat napping.
Sierra said, “Then why’re you skipping work again? On a Saturday of all nights.”
“I know, I know,” Kristy groaned. “I’m missing out on tips. It’s just I have stuff to do.”
“Stuff?” Sierra snorted.
“Yeah, stuff,” Kristy grumbled.
After killing Brock, Kristy’d decided to remove all of the Borky Pig sequences from issue #2 of her comic. It felt too close to a confession. Thank goodness there hadn’t been any Borky Pig in issue #1, because the whole world had that in their hands already.
The comic book Lady Liberty hadn’t killed Borky in the comic.
She’d been smart enough to bring him to justice.
Comic book Lady Liberty didn’t have a K-Cray temper.
Only Kristy did.
Lady Liberty was a better version of Kristy, obviously.
So Kristy was redrawing half the comic. She’d already missed the print deadline and made up some lame story for Jeff about how her cat ate her homework. She smiled at sleepy-eyed Mischief, who immediately began purring.
“What stuff?” Sierra snarked over the phone. “Are you turning tricks now?”
“No way,” Kristy frowned, once again sketching on her Cintiq.
“Porn?”
“Never,” Kristy said, slightly offended. “You know I’d never do that.”
“Liar,” Sierra laughed. “You so would, for the right price.”
Kristy sighed.
Sierra didn’t know Kristy half as well as she liked to think. Dancing was one thing. Actual sex for money? No, Kristy wasn’t that good at compartmentalizing. She could live with dancing. She couldn’t live doing porn. Some nights, dancing was bad enough. She had no idea how porn actresses did it. Respect to them, but she just couldn’t.
Sierra said, “Then what are you doing for money? If you’re not dancing, and you’re not rich, what?”
Kristy said, “I’m working on my—” she stopped herself from saying comic. She still hadn’t told Sierra or anyone from work about Lady Liberty the comic book. She definitely hadn’t and wouldn’t tell them about the real life Lady Liberty. Not even Jeff needed to know about that.
If he or anyone ever found out about what the real Lady Liberty did on the real streets of Southern California, because you knew it was gonna come out sooner or later, Kristy would deny, deny, deny. Say it was someone who stole her identity. It wasn’t like Jeff would find out the truth.
Only Brock knew the truth, but he wouldn’t talk.
Because he was effing dead.
Ugh.
How could she’ve killed Brock like that?
She’d never forgive herself for doing it.
“What’s wrong, K-Cray?” Sierra pried.
“Please don’t call me that anymore, Sie.”
“Why not? Everyone knows you’re K-Cray,” Sierra laughed. “That’s why we love you.”
“Just don’t, okay?”
“Fine,” Sierra said, a little bit offended.
“I have to go, Sie. Stuff and all.”
“Are you mad at me?”
“No, Sie! It’s just… Can we talk later? Please?”
“Okay, okay. Fine. Go do your stuff,” Sierra sneered and hung up.
Boop!
Whatever.
The second Kristy plugged her Cintiq stylus into the little stand and stood up, Mischief jumped off the desk swishing her tail.
“You hungry, Missy?”
Mischief trotted over to the food bowl, eyes on Kristy.
The second after Kristy opened a can of cat food, Disaster Vision kicked on in her head.
What misery awaited her tonight?
The usual, obviously.
Kristy drove out to the storage garage looking glum.
At least she didn’t have to worry about Brock following her.
That was bonus.
Ha. Ha. Ha.
—: o o o :—
Lately, Disaster Vision seemed to prefer things north of Oceanside.
Orange County and Los Angeles especially.
It was like there was less disaster in San Diego.
That mostly made sense, because less people and less crime, but you’d think there’d be some amount of trouble in SD. So far, she’d hardly helped anyone in SD, not since that first night. They didn’t seem to need it.
Wait, was that because Doug?
Was he doing what she was?
Watching Disaster Vision and taking care of business in San Diego for her?
He did live in the center of things down in Bankers Hill.
If that was even where he lived, she thought with a snort.
Nah, it probably was.
Despite Doug hiding the truth about Jeff telling him about Kristy working at Flashbacks way back on the day she’d met Doug, he seemed like a decent guy.
What if he was out helping people in San Diego every night?
Points for that.
Not that it mattered.
Kristy had LA to deal with.
You wouldn’t believe the number of troubles that happened up here every night.
—: o o o :—
What was on Disaster Vision tonight?
A drive by shooting.
Outside a gospel church.
Started because some stupid feud.
The killing car drives by slow.
People outside the church because Saturday worship is over.
Laughing, smiling, telling stories, sharing fellowship.
The car window goes down a crack.
A gun barrel comes out.
Spits death.
Screaming, blood, screaming.
A grandmother and her granddaughter both die before their heads hit the ground.
A dozen others die the same way.
Kristy had to stop the shooting before it happened.
Her Ninja a missile racing north on the 5 freeway.
Behind her, wailing Highway Patrol sirens.
Red and blue lights.
She ignored it.
Wove through traffic.
Saturday night at 8:30pm, there was plenty.
She would’ve lost the Highway Patrol already, but they drove the shoulder, shooting past all traffic.
Kristy avoided the shoulder. On this particular stretch of LA freeway, the 710, it was covered in random trash.
Too many obstacles.
Too dangerous on her Ninja.
She needed speed.
The Ninja screamed.
; Dodging left, dodging right.
Squeezing between 18-wheelers everywhere, a tight maze of rolling death, the Port of Long Beach, nearby factories and heavy industry the cause.
The cops couldn’t stop her now.
165mph was flying.
From between two 18-wheelers, the SUV came out of nowhere.
Cut suddenly in front of her.
That was it.
The end.
—: Chapter 38 :—
I was now officially a serial killer.
Ice Statue was murder #1.
Karambit Kayhill was murder #2.
Without realizing it, at this very moment I was hurtling toward murders #3 and #4 in Arnold’s Prius. Not only would I kill two people tonight, I would inadvertently make a mortal enemy who would vow to hound me until his dying day and had the resources at his disposal to follow through.
I wore my current superhero uniform, the same one I’d acquired days before meeting Porsche Douche: black ninja mask rolled up over my face (I never kept it down while driving), black gloves, a lightweight long-sleeve black shirt, black cargo pants, and black boots. Dressed like this, I looked like the consummate criminal.
Driving in the darkness on an empty road, I found myself thinking about Justine Escala. Good thing I had never talked to her after our one and only date weeks ago. Even better thing she didn’t have “Chance’s” phone number. What would she do if she knew the truth?
Get her boss Max Garrison to prosecute, obviously.
It pained me I could never date Justine — or full-breasted Brianna — no matter how much I would’ve liked to under normal circumstances. As always, nothing about my circumstances were normal.
The upcoming distress had me driving northwest on Mission Bay Drive toward SeaWorld. Was someone going to get eaten by a killer whale? Not at this hour. It was the middle of the night and the park was closed. Unless someone snuck into the park and fell into the Orca Encounter tanks behind the amphitheater, or jumped into the water at Shark Encounter?
That was feasible.
Was I about to wrestle a shark or a killer whale?
I’d hate to think what a 20,000 pound killer whale could do to me in its element. I was strong, but not that strong, and I was pretty sure I couldn’t hold my breath for 10 or 15 minutes like they could. If an orca tried to pin me to the bottom of a pool, I’d be stuck. Unless I froze it into a 10 ton ice sculpture — and me with it, because the tank water would probably freeze faster than the warm-blooded whale would. Not that I’d end up frozen, but I’d be trapped under 20 feet of ice and 20,000 pounds of frozen whale meat. With no way for me to breathe through 20 feet of solid ice, the possibility of dying by asphyxiation would be dangerously high.
…if you shoot me, we will haunt you to the fucking grave, amigo.
Nope.
Not whale wrestling.
Another shooting. Good thing Arnold wasn’t here.
As I passed the sprawling SeaWorld parking lots to my right, I felt the distress call pulling me westward and away from the park. I took the looping offramp for West Mission Bay Drive. When I hit the light for Quivira Road, I felt another jolt of distress and turned left.
My car approached the Hyatt Regency and Mission Bay Sportcenter — the MBSC. Sport as in boating, fishing, and parasailing. Heck, if you were hydro-aeronautically inclined, you could even rent Franky Zapata’s hydro Flyboard or a hydro jetpack from one of the excursion companies here at the MBSC.
I felt another pull to the left. Turned and followed it to the Seaforth Marina. This was the harbor where rich people moored their fancy yachts, sailboats, and speedboats in the Quivira Basin, which was the artificial lagoon behind the breakwater that was Hospitality Point.
Based on my sense of the distress call, I was confident the shooting would happen here.
I needed to park somewhere inconspicuous. Out here on the point, there was no such thing. It consisted of SeaWorld, luxury hotels, and luxury marinas, all of which likely had cameras pointing at their parking lots 24/7.
Too late to do anything about it now.
Just in case, I drove around a few hundred yards to Marina Village and parked there. Hopefully nobody would notice my car in the empty parking lot at three in the morning.
I pulled my lycra ninja mask down and hopped out. Jogged across the parking lot and the lawn between here and Seaforth. Turned onto the red concrete path that led to the pier. Went over a short bridge and jumped the 8-foot-tall aqua-green barred gate. Trotted down the ramp over the water to the docks and ran past numerous boat slips filled with multi-million dollar watercraft.
I made it all the way to the huge yacht at the end of the dock without noticing anything like a distress call. Would it occur on one of the boats? I closed my eyes and concentrated. Didn’t feel or hear anything like a distress call now.
But I did hear a boat rumbling into the Marina. I turned and saw it passing the long and flat bait barge floating in the middle of the Quivira Basin. Atop the barge, sea lions and seagulls were sleeping. They paid the boat no mind.
I did.
The growling engines sounded like the boat was packing a thousand horsepower. Maybe double that. It was the kind of sleek and low-slung go-fast cigarette boat that would make the cast of Miami Vice drool with envy. The only thing missing was the sunshine and the babes with their boobs bouncing in bikinis.
I ducked behind an anchored yacht to watch the boat’s approach.
The go-fast pulled slowly into one of the slips. A Hispanic guy hopped off the back and tied a line to one of the metal cleats on the dock, securing the stern of the boat. Another Hispanic guy crouched his way down the long nose and threw a line to the first guy on the dock, where he tied down the bow.
Two more men climbed out the back and onto the docks.
These two wore fancy suits and also looked Hispanic. One of them was huge. Sumo wrestler huge. The other guy was normal-size and sported exorbitant gold rings and chains. He smiled at Mexican Sumo Wrestler and said something I couldn’t hear before he laughed. His gold teeth flashed whenever he opened his mouth.
This was suspicious.
Golden Grill slapped Sumo’s arm in a friendly way and the two men strolled up the arm of the slip to where it joined the dock, followed by the two deckhands, who were now carrying a plastic ice cooler. There, the four men stopped. The deckhands set the cooler on the dock.
Golden Grill lit a cigarette. Chattered away in Spanish. The two deckhands laughed at Grill’s jokes like the best of friends. Sumo just stood there stone-faced and looking huge.
Clinking behind me.
I turned and saw three men opening the aqua-green gate at the head of the ramp back to shore. They walked calmly down the dock, passing me. Three white guys in black leather jackets. Did one of them have a FwCK tattoo scrawled on his neck, or was I seeing things? It was too dark to tell.
The trio of white guys stopped in front of Golden Grill and his crew.
Grill flicked his cigarette into the water and said casually, “Hola, amigos!”
The lead white guy, who had blond hair, barked, “You bring the shit?”
“Right here, amigo,” Grill said, his voice gravelly and his English heavily accented. “Brought you and your homeboys a present too.” He reached into his suit.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Blondie warned, hand out defensively.
His two men whipped pistols out of their black leather jackets and pointed them at Golden Grill.
Neither Sumo nor the two deckhands flinched an inch.
“Calm down, amigo,” Grill smiled at Blondie, flashing his golden teeth. “It’s just Cubans.” He withdraw an alligator-skin cigar pouch from his suit. Pulled the top sleeve off and showed the cigars.
“I didn’t come for fucking cigars,” Blondie said. “Show me the shit.”
Grill calmly pulled a fat cigar out of the alligator sleeve, bit the butt off, and spit it into the water. Clenched the cigar between his teeth and again reached elaborately into h
is suit jacket.
“What the fuck are you doing?!” Blondie demanded.
Blondie’s two men surged forward slightly, their pistols on Grill. Both guns had laser sights. Their red dots danced across Grill’s chest.
Grill glanced down at the dots and ignored them. He sighed, “You should relax, amigo. Life is muy poco.” He casually pulled out a custom lighter. Clicked the trigger and a small blue cone of flame shot out the top. He conscientiously lit the end of his Cuban, puffing on it religiously as he coaxed it to life. He blew a smoke ring out of his mouth and said, “There. Now we can talk business.”
“No…” Blondie corrected with charged irritation, “…now you give us the shit and we go on our merry fucking way.”
“Take it,” Grill smiled, motioning at the plastic cooler with his lit cigar.
Blondie’s eyes danced between Grill, Sumo, and the deckhands. He barked over his shoulder, “If any of these fucks makes a move, shoot ’em.”
The two shooters in black — who may or may not have had FwCK tattoos on their necks like Rhino and his friends Pencil Kicker and Blackjack, and those other two thugs Bowling Ball and Ice Statue — were silent, but they kept their laser sights trained on Grill’s chest.
Blondie knelt down in front of the cooler and popped it open. He nodded and thought, That’s it. That’s the shit.
I had no idea what that meant. Or if I should do anything. Did I really care if either of these two crews shot each other up? Not really. I almost came out of hiding to leave, but decided it would be simpler to wait and leave after everyone else was gone.
Blondie slapped the cooler closed and stood up.
Grill said, “Now my money.”
Blondie reached into his jacket and pulled out an envelope. Handed it to Grill.
Grill opened it, pulled out a single piece of paper and read it. Nodded several times. Said, “These the account numbers and passwords?”
“Yep,” Blondie said with clipped impatience. “Ten million is waiting in an offshore account with those numbers.”
