Blackjack Dead or Alive (The Blackjack Series Book 3)

by Ben Bequer

  She hissed dismissively between her teeth and took a drink from the emptying bottle of wine. “I would sooner hire you as my assistant than leave you to their justice,” she said, infusing the last word with more contempt than I thought someone in her profession could muster. “I work for a private firm, but plenty of governmental paperwork finds its way across my desk. Clients, just like you, set up to take a fall, covering the crimes of those in power the whole way to prison.”

  “To be fair, I did some of those things.”

  She shook her head and said, “I saw the list of charges. I also saw you take on Lord Mighty in Washington. Did you know they had cameras tracking your whole fight?”

  “I didn’t. How could they follow us? He was moving so fast, and we were all over the district.”

  “The original was mostly a blur, but one of your advocates out there slowed it down and recut it so we could see what you did.”

  I sat back flabbergasted. The resources and talent that must have gone into hacking that information and then re-rendering it must have been staggering. Part of me hoped it was some kid with a chip on his shoulder who wanted to see the truth, but in my gut I knew it was Haha. Portraying me as both heroic and villainous was one of the main undercurrents of his social experiment. Still, it was nice that someone understood I had done some good. I would thank him for it before I ended him.

  “What about your firm and your other clients?”

  She shrugged, “Why should they care if they don’t know?”

  I nodded, liking the answer. “So the Balkans, huh?”

  “I think,” she said. “That or maybe Russia, but the authorities are much stronger there. And they have lots of heroes.

  “What about Iceland” I said.

  “Can you beat Der Valkyr,” she said, referring to a group of heroines that protected the islands of her home.

  I laughed, “Easy.”

  “Then you can come visit,” she said. “Father won’t like you much, but he never liked any of my friends.”

  “He wanted you to be a fisherman,” I said, recalling Iceland’s primary industry.

  “No, he wanted boys and he got three girls. But fuck him, I’m an attorney in one of the largest firms in all of Europe.”

  “What does he know, right?”

  She smiled. “I kid, he’s an okay guy. Just an old timer. Tough and strong. I don’t know how my mother puts up with him.”

  “Do the Balkans have heroes?” I said.

  * * * *

  Annit was full of ideas as to what to do with the money I had left, and respectful enough of my paranoia to not push anything on me. In the end, we stopped off at the Milanese branch of her bank and I left three million in her care. Enough money for her efforts to prove their worth, and little enough that were I to lose it all, it wouldn’t leave me destitute.

  The most important part of our conversation, and the most disheartening, was her warning to me about Swiss accounts and how they’re not as safe as they once were. If I was going to stay “dead”, then I had to avoid them at all costs. The U.S. government had their noses into everything Swiss, and the Europeans were more compliant now than ever. Most of those were seized when Sandy had flipped on me after Hashima, but even then I still had my secrets.

  In my estimation, that left almost ten million left stranded in various Zurich banking entities. What I had left was in a few Cayman and Malaysian banks that she said were still safe. We still were cautious with the transfers, moving the money through payments of loans that she wrote up from her private office, backdating them to call off any suspicions. I spread the money I gave her among several banks, under a shell corporation with her as the main and only shareholder. Another hundred thousand euros in cash, and I was on my way.

  I spent a night in Milan, waiting for the morning train that would start my trek across Europe. Annit was right, Eastern Europe was the perfect place to hide while I could figure out a plan to deal with Mr. Haha.

  I was coming out of the shower of the tiny hotel I was staying at when the phone rang.

  Could Haha have found me so fast? I hesitated, looking at my clothes sitting at the edge of the bed. I could be dressed and out of the room with all my valuables in a few minutes, but then I realized it couldn’t be him. When Haha found me, he would drop out of the sky with a team full of villains, ready to kill me in one shot.

  I grabbed the phone and it was Annit, inviting me to dinner at a small restaurant. It didn't make sense to be out and about in a town as worldly as Milan, not if they were looking for me. The plane had fallen apart over the Mediterranean Sea, so finding the remains of the crew and heroes would be time consuming, and only then would they realize that there was one passenger missing. Superdynamic would know, as would Apogee. They'd seen me perform some unreal feats, and surviving a fall out of a dismembered C-17 from thirty thousand feet was right up my alley. Showing my face all over town was last on my list of things to do, even with the hat and scarf Annit made me buy earlier in the day.

  What got me out of the hotel was the thought of a night with her, and frankly, I was starving. I threw on my heavy coat and scarf/hat disguise and was out the door ten minutes after her call. The place was a small trattoria a few miles from the hotel, so I made the effort to walk it, using the GPS of my throwaway phone. I wasn't more than a mile from the hotel when my legs started aching, from the tips of my toes to my ankles, knees and hips. My back was also bothering me, and I was forced to have a seat and wait for the pain to pass.

  A taxi drove by once, then did a U-turn and came back, stopping beside me.

  “Ubriaco,” the cabbie said through the open driver side window.

  I shook my head, "Nel dolore," I told him, gesturing to my legs.

  "Inglese," he said, cutting through my terrible Italian. I'd been with Annit most of the day, and heard the village folk talking earlier on, but it was hardly enough to get past the harsh Gringo accent.

  I nodded, standing.

  "Tratoria del Cielo," I said, pointing down the road. "Devo andare."

  The cabbie smiled and waved me over. A few minutes and ten euros later, he had me there.

  The outside of the place was well lit, despite it being near midnight, and the street was full of passersby, so I made sure the scarf covered my mouth and chin as I stepped into the restaurant. Inside, it had a strange fusion of modern and classic, with brick inlaid walls and curved ceiling giving the place the feel of a deep underground bunker or wine cellar. The furniture was a later style, mid-50s art deco, with simple place settings dominated by a full complement of wine glasses in the middle of each table for steady drinking.

  The door slammed loudly behind me, surprising me and drawing the attention of everyone in the restaurant. I must've looked like a 6'5" psycho killer from the shocked faces that greeted me. A heavy set woman in her mid-sixties came around a countertop, chastising me in rapid-fire Italian, herding me back outside as if to throw me out. I was about to get a bit mean, when Annit diffused the situation, appearing from out of nowhere and talking the woman down.

  "You really need to read the signs," she chided me. "It says 'careful with the door' on the one outside."

  I laughed, my only nervous response to the older woman's contemptuous glare. "I thought it was the name of the place."

  Annit pursed her lips in disbelief, "It says 'Attenti con la porta', Dale..."

  "To be honest," I said. "I caught a whiff of the smell coming from that wood oven," I pointed past Annit, "and I would've walked in here even if the sign said, 'Superhero Convention'. You know what I mean?"

  My lawyer turned back to the old woman, relating my compliment about the smell and assuaging her anger only slightly.

  "Come on," Annit said, leading me into the bowels of the narrow building. "I want Vandela to meet you."

  I followed, ducking under the wood beams designed to humble a big man like me into bowing low, her swaying hips dominating my eye-line. She was dressed in casual clothing now, with
tight-fitting black leather pants and high boots and a loose blue sweater of a material I couldn't identify, low cut along her bust line, making it hard for me to keep from staring.

  Sitting at her table was Vandela, a woman with a model's figure and the darkest skin I've ever seen. She was a beauty, with large, green eyes and a wide smile as I approached. Vandela wore a getup like out of a 50s greaser movie, with a black leather jacket, torn jeans and a white t-shirt. She stood and walked around the table, giving me a hug, her long arms barely wrapping around my trunk, and gesturing for me to sit. Annit and Vandela sat across from me on a bench against the back wall, close enough to each other that it was clear they were together.

  "Did I tell you," Annit said.

  Vandela was giddy, clearly star struck. She was beaming as she closed the small gap between her and Annit, weaving an arm through hers, and smiling wide. She took me in, not even a little intimidated, then her expression turned down in worry. "You look a lot bigger before," she said, her French accent heavy.

  "That's what almost dying and having all your bones replaced will do," I said, sipping at the glass of water sitting in front of me. "I'm here by the grace of high-technology, and the efforts of the smartest man I've ever known."

  "Washington, D.C.," Vandela said.

  I nodded and grabbed the last remaining bread, gesturing to a passing waiter with the basket, and plopped it in my mouth.

  "You want to hear the whole story, I suppose," I said, catching a thankful nod from Annit.

  "I want to hear everything," Vandela said, taking a sip from her wine and reaching for the bottle to pour me a glass.

  "We're going to need more wine," I said as she emptied the bottle's contents into my glass.

  I wove the tale of my heroics on Hashima Island, of the first meeting of four of the Original Seven in decades, of a battle that started as a reluctant exercise and turned into something far more personal. When the fight with Epic came up, Vandela leaned in, her eyes bright, almost wild. I tried to remember as much about our duel as I could, but in the end all that came to mind was that last hit. I remembered the crater we had made and everyone else’s disbelief, but a lot of the details were less vivid. I embellished quite a bit. I finished speaking and took a sip, and Vandela gave me a little toast with her wine glass.

  "I really hate that guy," she said. "He thinks too much of himself."

  "It's worse in person," I said. "Anyway, he needed a couple of new teeth when I was done with him."

  "He slid off you, like begging for mercy?"

  I nodded, downing the last of the wine. Annit took the bottle from me and lifted it in the air, getting the waiter's attention. He waved back and ducked into the back of the tiny place, soon to return with our fourth bottle.

  "Is it true that you broke your hands trying to save Apogee?"

  I laughed, wondering what the stories were about and handed her my right fist. She took my big paw into her delicate fingers and traced the spider web of scars that wove around the back of my hand.

  "Wow," she said.

  "Dr. Retcon designed the walls of his inner sanctum to be impregnable,” I said. "He needed privacy for the procedure. See, he was going to coat the whole planet with a kind of energy that would be deadly to the Lightbringers. It was a display of power that, hopefully, would make them change their mind about destroying our planet."

  Vandela returned my hand, a bit confused by my rambling. “Anyway, Zundergrub turned on us. He killed Retcon’s daughter, and Retcon snapped.”

  "Wait a minute," Annit said as the waiter returned with a replacement bottle. "Isn't it true what they say that heroes aren't able to...you know."

  I let the guy refill my glass and took a sip. "We can do anything normals can," I said with a fiendish grin that made them both laugh. "But no, I don’t think we can reproduce. At least that’s what they say. But Dr. Retcon made his daughter in a test tube. She was a clone of his, with select changes to her DNA to make her a female. Retcon's wife had died wanting to have a daughter."

  I trailed off, remembering her body lying on the ground at my feet, her lab coat spattered with crimson and her eyes closed, face peaceful. I saw his face in those last moments, the crushing grief turning to despair, the rage overcoming all of his good intentions, spiraling into ugliness. It was an emotion I had since come to know well, a state of blood-curdling, teeth grinding, destructive anger, a release from the troubles of conscience or consequence.

  "And what was that thing that happened in the prison," Vandela asked. "And was it you that made that mess in Australia?"

  I toasted her, acknowledging my involvement.

  "Australia was a mistake," I said. "Dr. Zundergrub wanted me dead, and with the help of Mr. Haha, they tracked me to some isolated outpost in the outback and sent an army after me."

  "An army?"

  I thought back to the rows of supers waiting for their turn to charge at me, the initial challenge by the famous Russian villain Nevsky. I ended that duel when I bit his cheek off and threw him at the others.

  I told them all about it. It was the first time I had really talked about the horrors of that day, and as the story unfolded, I understood why. All of the cheer drained from their faces, and they were both leaning away from me, almost unconsciously. For the first time since Annit had identified me on the train, she looked frightened, and Vandela’s sunny voyeurism had turned to a thin layer of disgust.

  I cut the story short, and drank my wine in the awkward silence that followed. I guess it was a long way from spitting in the face of authority figures, like the pompous Epic, to the ruination of bodies, ripping them apart and using limbs as weapons, crushing skulls underfoot, feeling the warm splash of blood across your face.

  It was too much for the girls.

  My saving grace was the D.C. fight. Lord Mighty had ever been an enigmatic figure, despite his good deeds. Feared as much as respected, it probably didn’t surprise many people that he went dark, but the results were devastating. This tale was obviously why I had been invited, and it was freshest in my mind. I put as much panache into it as I could, and I think that spending most of the fight getting knocked across the district helped soften the near genocide I had committed in Australia. I almost omitted the part where I tore his jaw off, but I could tell they had both seen the video. I left as much to the imagination as I could and the evening was done.

  Annit made a show of covering the check, while Vandela sat quietly digesting. The vibrant enthusiasm was gone, her eyes darting to mine without holding contact, and by the time Annit had settled our bill she wouldn’t even do that. I sat rigid in my seat, wary that her skittishness would draw attention to me. Few things drew a crowd faster than a beautiful woman being victimized. Annit nodded at me, the conspiratorial joy replaced with professional stiffness as she laid a gentle hand on Vandela’s shoulder and eased her out of the seat. They left without another word.

  I ordered four more bottles of wine and tucked them into my coat pockets, heading back to the hotel. In the wine-induced euphoria, I forgot about the pain in my knees and hips, and walked all the way back.

  Chapter Five

  I awoke to the sound of my hotel door slamming shut. I lay naked on the floor, sunlight flooding through the room’s small rectangular window. I tried standing, but found it easier to crawl to the door, and I saw a woman in a drab gray and white uniform hustling down the hall, pushing a cart full of cleaning supplies and fresh towels in front of her. My brain felt swollen in my skull and my legs trembled as I steadied myself on the door to stand.

  That’s when I saw the wrecked remains of my hotel room.

  The bed lay in splinters, the mattress torn in half, the metal springs jutting at odd angles from the carcass. The small bureau was cracked down the center, the newly separated halves collapsed on each other holding it in place. In true rock star style, the television was embedded in the wall, the cord dangling like a limp tail from behind it the screen marred with a hole the shape of my fist. Ther
e was a crater in the floor, the wood planks shattered, broken nails poking through at dangerous angles. The damage was thorough and structural.

  “Shit,” I muttered and stumbled to the bathroom, washing my face and getting my clothes on as fast as I could. As I did, flashes of the previous night came to my mind, the long, angry walk back from the restaurant and the methodical destruction of the hotel room in a fit of rage. I supposed the drunken stupor limit on my super body was four or five bottles of wine.

  I hit the street in five minutes and took the first cab I saw. Before heading to the train station, I stopped at a local mall and bought a few bags and some clothing, along with a serious winter coat to keep me warm in the coming cold. In my bag were also some extra bills, a dozen throw away phones to call Annit, and graph paper and pencils to begin the schematic for my super computer, the tool I was going to use to find and catch Mr. Haha once and for all.

  Two hours later, I was on a train east. We decided on Romania, simply because it was less chaotic than the Balkan countries, and slightly less violent. I wanted to go into hiding, not into war. The less I was seen or heard of, the better.

  I got a private cabin this time, making certain the clerk understood what I meant before handing over the cash, and settled in for the ride to Verona. There I met an associate of Annit’s who handed me a fake Romanian passport with my picture on it. The passport was good enough to pass through customs, or at least that’s what Annit said. I had pretty much bargained my life against her being reliable, and though I doubt she had any illusions about me, her arrangements had been solid and her advice sound.

  When the man approached me, I had a fleeting, paranoid moment where I thought the small folded passport would be a badge, and supers of every size and shape would descend on me. She had been pretty horrified the previous night. If the man had noticed my tension, he ignored it, moving through me with a solid bump, kind of a reverse pickpocket move that ended with the new documents slipped into my coat pocket. He slipped past me into the crowded rail station, and I admired his ability to disappear.