“Any luck?” I asked him. I was grateful he hadn’t said I told you so at any point since I had told him what had happened to Hannah. I had enlisted his help when I wasn’t able to locate Mad Dog on my own. As I had expected, Mad Dog had been nowhere to be found when I had gone to his place the day I discovered Hannah’s body. I had since discovered he was nowhere to be found anywhere else as well.
“No,” Isaac said. “I’ve been in touch with every source that I’ve developed on both the right and the wrong sides of the law.” He shook his head. “No dice. You?”
“The same. I’m at the point where I feel like I’m just spinning my wheels, rushing from place to place and person to person, but not really getting anywhere.” In addition to my throat not feeling right, my voice was raspy. I needed a good night’s sleep. I pushed the thought aside. There would be plenty of time for rest after I caught Antonio.
“There’s no guarantee Antonio is still in Astor City,” Isaac said. “Maybe he went to Italy to check out the Sistine Chapel and get acquainted with his long-lost ancestors. Heck, he could be in Timbuktu for all we know. If he is, he might as well be on Pluto. I couldn’t find Timbuktu if you drew me a map of it, gave me a superpowered bloodhound, and started me off in the right direction.”
“It’s in Africa. A city in Mali.”
Isaac rolled his eyes. “You think I don’t know that? I was feigning ignorance for effect. But thanks for trying to teach a black man about the motherland. Next you’ll be trying to school me on jazz, teaching me how to dunk a basketball, or telling me how to build a video game console or a pacemaker. My people invented those last two, you know. Stay in your lane, white devil. And speaking of staying in your lane, there are certain things we’re good at. We both are pretty good ass-kickers. I can charm a yolk out of an egg without breaking the shell. I’m sure you can grow a mean rutabaga thanks to your childhood in Mayberry or whatever the name is of the hick town you grew up near. But finding someone who clearly doesn’t want to be found? That, my friend, we suck at.”
I knew what he was doing. He was trying to make me laugh, to distract me, to take my mind from what I had done to Hannah. It wasn’t working. I said, “Tell me something I don’t already know. What’s your point?”
“My point is that maybe we should leave this up to the professionals. The news says the police consider Antonio a person of interest in Hannah’s death. They’re already looking for him. They’re experts at finding people. Despite our considerable talents, we’re not. We should let the pros do their jobs.”
“No,” I said firmly. “This is my fault, and therefore my responsibility. I’m not just going to sit back and I let someone else clean up my mess.” I snorted. “Besides, with the police in the city being as corrupt as they are, and Antonio being associated with the Esposito crime family, if the cops do manage to find him, they’ll probably pat him on the head, tell him to not be so naughty, and let him go. Assuming they’re looking for him at all. Remember what happened with Silverback? Maybe money has changed hands and some police captain miraculously has the money to finally build that addition to his house he’s always dreamed of in exchange for Antonio walking away free as a bird. If the Hero Kinetic is the one who captures him, it’ll shine so much publicity on Hannah’s death that it will make it that much harder for the cops to sweep what Antonio did under the rug.”
“You’re being too cynical. Not all cops are bad cops.”
“And you’re being too naive. If every cop was like your father, I’d be less concerned about it. But they’re not. You know that. You’ve seen some of the same shenanigans that go on in this city that I have.”
“Okay, so let’s say you find Antonio before the cops do. Then what?” Isaac demanded. “Will you hand him right over to the authorities? Or will you indulge in a bit of vigilante justice?”
“If you’re asking me if I’m planning on killing him, the answer is no. You know I’m not a killer. If I couldn’t bring myself to kill the Meta who murdered my father, I’m certainly not going to kill Antonio. Which is not to say that Antonio doesn’t deserve it. You should have seen what he did to Hannah. He beat her like a piñata before blowing a hole clear through her.”
“What will you do if we find him? You’ll beat the crap out of him again?” Isaac shook his head. “Like I told you a few days ago, I won’t stand for it. I’m all for Antonio being captured, but I’m not for him being brutalized. Even if he is piece of crap, he’s a piece of crap with legal rights. We’re Heroes, not gods. We don’t get to do whatever we want to whoever we want whenever we want to do it. We’re supposed to follow the rules just like everyone else does.”
Anger bubbled up within me. “You’re talking to me about Antonio’s rights? What about Hannah’s right to not be beaten up and murdered?” I snorted derisively. “You of all people shouldn’t be moralizing. How about stepping out of your hypocritical glass house before throwing stones at me? You’re the same guy who encouraged me to kill Frank during the Trials.”
“I was wrong then. You were right to not listen to me. I was too emotional about the whole situation due to what Frank had done to my sister, just like you’re too emotional now about what Antonio did to Hannah.” Isaac shook his head. “Which is another reason why you should let the police handle Antonio. You say you won’t kill him, but I wonder if you’ll remember that in the heat of the moment if you find him. I remember the look you had in your eye when you were beating his face to a pulp. It’s the same look you have now. You’re exhausted, mad, upset, and grieving. You’re not thinking clearly. For your own good, you should just let this go before you do something you’ll regret.”
I had grown more and more irritated as Isaac had spoken. My anger and frustration about the whole situation boiled over. “You know what I regret? Asking you for your help.” I rose into the air. The wind was cool against my flushed face. “While we’re here jawing, Antonio is likely burrowing further and further underground. We’re wasting time. I don’t need to be lectured, and I certainly don’t need to be told what to do. I’ll find Antonio on my own. If you’ve got a problem with what I’m doing or have done, go tattle on me to the Guild like you threatened to do earlier. Afterwards, go home, curl up with the Boy Scout Handbook, and mind your own goddamned business. In the meantime, I’ve got a homicidal Rogue to find.”
“C’mon Theo, don’t be like that. I’m trying to look out for you. All I’m saying is . . .”
But I couldn’t hear what he was saying. I was too high in the air now, having risen high above where Isaac still stood on the top of the UWant Building. Before he could transform into a creature to fly up after me, I zoomed off into the distance faster than Isaac could follow.
The problem was I didn’t know where I was flying. I had already tried everything I could think of to find Antonio. What was I supposed to do now? Go door to door looking for where Antonio might have holed up? I could see it now: Sorry to bother you ma’am, but are you by any chance harboring a homicidal mob enforcer who spits energy balls? He’s a big fat guy with pig eyes and a bald bullet head. Hard to miss. No, you haven’t seen him? Okay, thanks for your time. Wait, what’s that? Am I crazy? I’m an adult dressed up like a trick-or-treater when it’s nowhere close to Halloween. Quite possibly. I wasn’t opposed to going door to door if that’s what it took, but there had to a faster and more efficient way. Besides, as Isaac correctly pointed out, there was no guarantee Antonio was even still in Astor City. If I had to knock on every door in the world, I’d be dead and buried long before I’d stumble upon Antonio.
As much as I hated to admit it, Isaac was right: We weren’t experts at locating people. My Heroic training had prepared me for a lot of things: Fly like a bird? Check. Punch bad guys in the face? Check. Use my powers to do something as crude as picking up and flinging a massive boulder or something as delicate as using a razor to shave with my eyes closed and my hands tied behind my back? Check. But find a bad guy who obviously didn’t want to be found so I could p
unch him in the face or drop a boulder on him? Not so much.
And, though I worked at a newspaper, I was little more than a gopher and clerk, a far cry from an investigative reporter.
I slammed to a stop in the air so suddenly that it was almost like hitting a wall. I was so excited by my realization that I barely felt the ache caused by the abrupt stop of my forward momentum.
I’m such an idiot, I thought. That was it! The Astor City Times. I worked for one of the world’s most respected newspapers. Surely one of the more seasoned employees would know how to find someone who didn’t want to be found. How stupid of me to not have thought of it before now. My anger and exhaustion must have made my brain sluggish. I was scheduled to go back to work tomorrow, anyway. I had been thinking about not going in and risk getting fired to continue looking for Antonio. Now I had a reason other than not being fired to show up.
The next morning when I showed up for work, I walked up to Mr. Langley’s desk. As usual, he was in front of his computer, peering at its screen as his fingers flew over the keyboard. I didn’t know how he had avoided glasses considering his age and all the hours he spent staring at a computer. He was always here when I came to work in the morning, and he was always here when I left for the day. Thought I knew he smoked from the way he smelled and the heavy stains on his teeth, I had never seen him leave his desk to take a smoke. Sometimes I wondered if he lived here, if he didn’t need to sleep, and if he was part chimney who generated smoke without a cigarette.
“Do you have a minute?” I asked. Mr. Langley’s clear blue eyes didn’t look up from what he was reading, nor did he stop typing.
“Sure. After all, I’m just lounging here idly by the pool, sipping on a Mai Tai, praying that some youngster will happen along and break up the monotony of the day by asking me a fool question.”
“Who would you go to for help if someone was missing?”
“It’s ‘Whom would you go to.’ You work for a newspaper, not a hip-hop website. Proper English is one of the tools of our trade.”
I suppressed an eye roll. I knew it was whom, and I knew he knew I knew. I think it gave him a kick to bust the balls of the young people in the office.
“Well, whom would you go to?” I asked, emphasizing the correct word.
“The police,” he said immediately.
“Let’s say you tried the police, and they came up empty. Then whom would you go to?”
Mr. Langley looked up for the first time. He stopped typing. His piercing blue eyes looked at me probingly. I hadn’t slept at all last night, and I couldn’t remember when I last shaved and showered. Under Mr. Langley’s gaze I was abruptly hyperaware of the fact that I must have looked like death warmed over.
“Does this have something to do with Hannah Kim’s missing boyfriend? I know you two were friends. You leave early the day her body is discovered, you abruptly use all your leave time and disappear, and then you reappear looking like something the cat dragged in asking about who is good at finding people. I’ve been in this business too long to believe in coincidence. As I reminded you earlier, this is a newspaper. If you know something about her murder that’s newsworthy, spill it.”
I felt like an open book under Mr. Langley’s stare. “This has nothing to do with Hannah,” I said. If I said it did, Mr. Langley would ask more probing questions, none of which I wanted to answer as their answers all involved me being the Hero Kinetic. I had become quite a facile liar since I had started down the road toward being a Hero years ago. I didn’t like what that said about the nature of being a Hero. “The daughter of a friend has run away from home, and she’s understandably worried sick. She’s hoping to hire someone to help find him.”
“Find her.”
“Huh?”
Mr. Langley’s eyes hadn’t left my face. “You said your friend’s daughter is missing. If that’s the case, a daughter is a her, not a him.”
“Oh.” Perhaps I wasn’t as good of a liar as I thought. Telling the truth had been emphasized during my small town Catholic upbringing. Maybe you could take the boy out of the altar, but not the altar out of the boy. “Him. That’s what I meant. I misspoke. She wants to hire someone to help find him.”
Mr. Langley gave me a slight wry smile. I didn’t think he believed my cover story. His eyes returned to his computer screen. He resumed his typing.
“Well, there’s a private investigator on College Avenue not too far from Astor City University named Julian Ward. He’s relatively cheap, especially considering the prices around here. He’s pretty good when he’s not drunk. Unfortunately, he’s drunk a lot. That’s why he’s relatively cheap. Alcohol seems to be an occupational hazard when it comes to PIs.”
I shook my head. “I’m not interested in a drunk. I want somebody who’s both good and sober. Money is no object.” Thanks to having two roommates, I could live in an expensive city like Astor City using just my relatively meager paycheck from the paper. I still had in savings almost all the money from selling Dad’s farm, plus the money the Old Man paid me for being his Apprentice. That, along with the accrued interest, amounted to a pretty penny. I’d spend every dime of it if necessary to find Antonio.
“Well if money’s not an issue, I’ve got just the guy for you.” Mr. Langley stopped typing. He consulted the old-fashioned rolodex he kept by his telephone, and jotted a name, address, and telephone number on a slip of paper. He handed the paper to me. The clattering of his keyboard resumed.
“That guy is better than he seems,” Mr. Langley said. “Maybe even as good as he thinks he is.”
“Better than he seems? What’s that supposed to me?”
“You’ll see. And remember what I said about how we’re in the business of printing what’s newsworthy. It you stumble upon something that fits the bill while you’re helping your friend find the daughter you for some reason refer to in the masculine, don’t keep it to yourself.”
I thanked Mr. Langley and hurried away before he asked me more questions I didn’t want to answer. As I went back to the desk I shared with another low man on the Times’ totem pole, I looked down at what Mr. Langley had written.
“Truman Lord, Private Detective and Licensed Hero,” it read.
CHAPTER 10
Truman Lord’s office was downtown on Paper Street, within easy walking distance of Star Tower. I walked toward there during my lunch hour. During the walk, I heard the roar of a jet overhead. I looked up. The distinctive S-shaped logo of the Sentinels was on the bottom of the airplane’s wings. One of the Sentinels’ jets, just leaving the Sentinels compound on the outskirts of the city based on its low altitude and the direction it traveled. I had the sudden urge to go airborne and rip it into two. My frustration over Antonio had set my temper on a hair trigger. Besides, my beef was with Mechano, not with all the Sentinels. First I would deal with Antonio, then I would turn my attention back to Mechano. One thing at a time.
The address Mr. Langley had given me was for a brick office building painted off-white. A high-rise directly across the street from it dwarfed it. The office building’s red brick showed through the faded white paint in spots. Many of the building’s windows were dirty. The glass of the front door was cloudy with age and irregular cleaning. It squeaked noisily when I opened it. The vestibule sported old wallpaper that peeled away from the wall in spots. The glass-encased building directory missed several letters. It made finding Lord’s name a puzzle to be solved. Clearly the building had seen better days.
My first impression of Lord based on his building? I was not overwhelmed with confidence.
Finally, I found Lord’s name. His office was on the third floor. I waited for the elevator, heard ominous groaning noises through the elevator doors, and started up the stairs instead. After the last few days, getting stuck in an elevator on top of everything else would make me flip my lid.
I had heard of Truman Lord before Mr. Langley had given me his name. Anybody who paying even passing attention to the news over the past few years would
recognize Lord’s name. His name and face had become ubiquitous for a little while. First, Lord had uncovered that one of the Heroes who was a member of the Sentinels at the time was a killer. Later, Lord’s fifteen minutes of fame got extended when the Sentinels hired Lord to find Avatar’s murderer. During that investigation, Lord was framed for Avatar’s death. Since Avatar had been beloved the world over, people thinking Lord was responsible for his death turned Lord into an international pariah. When Lord later exposed the true murderer, the people who had been screaming themselves hoarse demanding Lord’s head on a silver platter immediately began singing his praises.
Some Heroes wanted to be famous. Isaac for example, in one of his more unguarded moments, had admitted he wanted to be. That was another reason he wanted to join one of the major Hero teams since their members were as famous as rock stars. Not me. If Kinetic became no more famous than he already was thanks to my exploits in Washington, D.C. and here in Astor City, that would suit me just fine. What Lord had gone through as a suspect in Avatar’s murder was proof that fame was too fickle for it to be something worth chasing after. As far as I was concerned, fame was like having a pet scorpion—it might not sting you today, and maybe not even tomorrow, but eventually it would. Stinging was in its nature. No thanks.
Lord was the only Hero who was also a private detective, or at least he was the only private detective who was open about the fact that he was also a Hero. Most Heroes kept the fact that they had superpowers a secret when they were out of costume to keep their friends and family from becoming targets of the enemies the Heroes made while in costume. Lord never wore a costume and was completely open about the fact he was a Hero.
Sentinels: The Omega Superhero Book Three (Omega Superhero Series 3) Page 10
