So he had given up, he had admitted defeat.
Admitted defeat for now at least, with his next drink he was determined to re-enter the angry stage of grief, and then he just wasn't going to let it go.
He had returned to work a couple of days later, and other than a derisory collection in her name, and two or three stilted consoling conversations no one seemed to care there either.
People were sorry yes, but Susie wasn't family, so their grief was absolutely limited. And, since only a few people even knew that he and Susie were going out, never mind engaged, their sympathy for him was also decidedly limited.
His grief was for him alone, no one shared it with him.
The funeral was short uneventful, and really miserable.
Stanley stood at the back, trying not to begrudge the complete lack of attention he was getting.
He knew it was selfish, he knew it was stupid, but he was in the feeling selfish, stupid and sorry for yourself phase of grief at that point.
He was in fact wallowing in it.
And, because he had no family, his parents were dead, and his sister imaginary, he wallowed in it alone.
The crowd were mainly work people, other than a woman who looked achingly like Susie, who it turned out was her sister.
Stanley had introduced himself but from the blank look in her eyes he knew that Susie had not mentioned him.
So he continued to wallow alone.
At one point he had turned away, as the coffin was lowered into the ground, and walked off crying.
When he came back the ceremony was pretty much over, Stanley stood back and watched the people leaving in dribs and drabs, her sister was one of the first to go.
When they had all left he was just about to go back to the grave when he had noticed a man, standing well back, staring at the grave.
He had not seen Stan yet, because Stan had been leaning against a large old gravestone, and now for some reason, he ducked down and pretended to be reading the epitaph.
Stan watched the man out of the corner of his eye as he approached the grave and knelt down beside it. He then ran his fingers through the soft freshly turned earth mumbled something and stood up.
He was tall, clearly well muscled, and had the chiseled good looking features of someone Stanley would have taken an instant dislike to.
He looked like the short of man who stood in the centre of a party holding forth.
He looked like the sort of man who women actively wanted to sleep with.
He looked like the sort of man who knew what it was like to be in hot tub with three naked supermodels, and to make it worse he knew what to do with them.
He looked, in short, like the sort of man that Stanley would hate on sight, the sort of man who was everything that Stan wasn't.
He could have been a former boyfriend, Susie had been very close mouthed about any earlier men in her life. If that was true then she had made a huge step change by going out with Stan, that was for sure.
If that was true then Stan had been punching massively above his weight.
The man stood up and strode, he didn't walk, he strode away from Susie's grave, towards the large metal gate and out of the graveyard.
He was quickly followed by another man, who Stan did not see until he moved out from the shadow of a tree. He was dressed in a grey raincoat, wearing a grey hat and dark sunglasses.
He looked like a cop.
In fact if you went to a fancy dress party as a cop, a private detective or FBI agent, then you would almost certainly have looked exactly like him.
Even down to the large, telephoto lens camera he had clutched in his right hand.
On impulse Stanley followed him, and just got to the gates in time to see him get into a dull grey Volvo estate and drive off. It wasn't until the car was out of sight that Stan remembered to look for the number plate.
Too late, but then he had no idea what he would have done with it anyway.
Stan had wandered then, for hours and hours, before finally coming to rest in this bar.
It was a bar that he had been to a few times before so he felt relatively comfortable. Delanies, catered for the offices around about which as far as he could tell was mainly made up of solicitors, marketing agencies and tossers.
Still, since Stan worked in a marketing agency and had done for years he considered himself to be a tosser as well, and could toss off with the best of them.
When he felt like it
Which was not now.
Delanies had two main areas. the bar, and the tables. Most of the tables were taken up with braying, yipping crowds of young men, all trying to set themselves up as more alpha male than the next one.
The bar was long, and had rows of stools and at the moment was almost empty.
The were in fact only three people in the bar area, including Stan.
As usual they were spread almost equidistantly apart, with 8 or 9 seats separating them.
There was Stan, wearing a soggy black suit, shirt and black tie, drinking his way through as much Jim Bean as he could manage.
There was woman Stan reckoned to be in her mid thirties. She was wearing a blue business suit, short skirt and stockings. Stan noticed them specifically, seeing the line of the suspenders through her skirt, not tights.
She had long black hair was sexy as hell, and was drinking bottles of Budweiser straight from the bottle, one after another. She was either a high class hooker, a solicitor or a captain of industry it was impossible to tell. Either way she was so far out of Stan's league that he wasn't even playing in the same country.
And at the end of the bar was Samuel L Jackson. Not the actor, no, just a man who, to Stan's eyes looked exactly like him. In that he was a tall, well dressed, well built, black man with short hair and a slightly evil gleam in his eye. He was slowly drinking cranberry juice, which even to Stan in his befuddled state, was decidedly odd.
The three people ignored each other, no one broke the code of silence that enveloped them.
Then Stan, feeling more than a little drunk, and more than a little bored with his own company looked over at the woman and said, "Lady, do you mind if I ask you a question?"
The woman looked over at him and to his surprise smiled, she looked him up and down assessing him. She realised quickly that he was clearly not a threat, she was after all taller than him, and she suspected stronger, so she tipped her bottle back, drank some more bud and said, "Just the one?"
"No," Stanley thought for a second, "no, it may be more than one, it may in fact be quite a few, when I get going I have a tendency to just keep going. So let me rephrase, may I ask you a couple, in fact any number of questions."
"As long as none of then end up with "do you want to come back to my place," or "get your coat, you've pulled" then yes, ask away. Not that "Get your coat, you've pulled" is really a question, but you get my meaning."
Stan smiled, got up, picked up his drink and walked over to her in that stumbling lurch familiar to drunks all over the world.
He pointed to the stool next to her, she nodded so he sat down, "Stanley," he said, holding out his hand, she shook it, her hand was warm, her grip firm.
"Margaret," she replied.
"Another beer for the lady, and another Jim for me please. Oh and another cranberry juice for the gentlemen at the end of the bar" Stan grinned at Samuel L who didn't smile back, miserable bastard.
"The question?" Margaret asked.
"If your husband," he started.
"I'm not married."
"Ok, if your boyfriend.."
"I don't have one."
"Ok, now it's starting to feel like you are going to ask me back to your place," Stan said smiling. "I think I should tell you now, you are well out of my league, so don't bother persuading me."
"No," Margaret said grinning,"I just don't have either a husband or a boyfriend, and before your mind goes off on a seedy little tangent, I don't have a girlfriend either, I'm just single woman, at the moment any
way."
"Kids?"
"Nope."
"Mum, dad, dog?"
"Dead, died, and no, I can't think of anything worse."
"What's up with dogs? Dogs are cute, dogs are always, and I mean always happy to see you, what's up with dogs?"
"There is nothing sadder than picking up your dog's shit in a plastic bag and carrying it around town with you."
"Other than picking up some other dogs shit and carrying it around town with you."
Margaret laughed, "No, you're right, but I just hate dog shit, and so I hate dogs."
"Ok," Stan grinned, "since you are currently unattached can I change the question I was originally going to ask then?"
"Well since I didn't know what it was in the first place I don't see why not," she sipped again, and Stan ordered another beer for her.
"Why not indeed?" he said, "so why no husband or boyfriend, I mean have you seen yourself, have you looked in the mirror recently. You are hot stuff if you don't mind me saying. So why are you on your own, I can understand me being on my own, but you, no, it's beyond belief."
"Hmm now that is a very good question," she sipped, "not one I'm going to answer, not without a lot more beer inside me anyway."
"Ok, I didn't think there was much more beer to be had, anyway, back to my original question. Imagine that you had had a husband, and he was murdered, what would you do?"
"Were we in love?"
"Well you were married, so I really hope so."
"It's not always the case, and is getting rare you know."
"Yes," Stan said, "you were very much in love."
"Ah," Margaret said, "you are a romantic, a rare find these days, so when did she die?"
"Who?"
"Your girlfriend," Margaret asked, "since there is no wedding ring, nor any marks on your finger where they would be, I reckon it was a girlfriend not a wife. I'm pretty sure you would be the sort of man to wear a ring, so no marks means no wife. And since not many people either wear black suits and ties to go out for the evening, or then walk around in the rain for hours on end, I think her funeral must have been today. So that explains why you are drunk, and brave enough to talk to me. So, when did she die?"
"A week ago," Stanley said quietly, "you are smart, she would have liked you I think."
"I doubt it," Margaret said, "most people don't, they are put off."
"Why?"
"I'm a psychiatrist," she said, "I get under people's skin, and it can get on people's nerves. It's hard to turn it off really, I am very good at getting information out of people, but not so good at giving it."
"Hence why you are avoiding answering my earlier question perhaps."
"Perhaps, anyway, moving on rapidly, so my husband, if I had one, who I loved, has been murdered."
"Yes, what would you do?"
"It depends."
"What on?" this was getting more complex than Stan's drunken mind could come to terms with, he felt like he had the mental faculties of a three year old.
"Do I know who killed him?"
"No."
"Ok, I'd go to the police?"
"And if they were not interested."
"Then I would want to know why they were not interested," she paused, "so why aren't they Stan?"
"I don't know, I really don't, they say it is out of their jurisdiction, but still, she was killed in broad daylight, in front of hundreds of witnesses."
"Ok, so, you only have a few alternatives, you can go on with your life, and get over it."
"Not a good option, my life is now officially shit. It was shit before and it was only her that made it less shit."
"Or, you can drink yourself into an early grave."
"Any other alternatives, while that one appeals, I'm not sure I have the funds for it."
"Or, you could try to find out who the murderer is yourself, but.."
"But.."
"Well life isn't a film Stanley," although Margaret knew that quite often it felt like it. Her life for example over the last few weeks had been more than a little cinematic, "and you don't strike me as the Columbo, Jim Rockford, Sherlock Holmes type."
"No, so that just leaves me with option 2."
"I'm afraid so, look," she said, reaching into her bag and giving him a card, "come and see me, next week, I might be able to help."
"I think Margaret," Stan said, "when it is obvious that I don't have enough funds to drink myself to death, I am pretty sure that you are far more than I could afford."
"The first three sessions are free," she said, "then we can talk about the cost, give me a call. I have enough high paying clients to do a favour every once in a while, you'll make a change from some of the nut bags and freaks I have to deal with. I could do with a normal, screwed up human being, you can be my coffee break."
"Thanks," Stan said, pushing his seat back, leaving money of the tab of the bar.
"Go home Stan," Margaret looked at him. I'll never see him again she thought, "go home."
Stan smiled, pocketed her card and left the bar, but he didn't go home.
In fact Stan never went home again.
Chapter 5 - Margaret meets someone special
Margaret Mason had had one hell of a difficult week. Starting as it did with the suicide of the world's most powerful superhero in her office, and ending with a visit at 4.30 that day from her latest and possibly least stable client.
She had really needed a drink.
She really needed ten or twelve drinks, and maybe some meaningless sex.
Meaningless sex, now that would be nice.
Watching Stan leave the bar for a moment she felt sad, then as she had been trained to do she put him, and his problems to one side. Professional detachment was something she had mastered years ago, so nowadays she sometimes found it at the bottom of a bottle of beer, well she wasn't complaining.
She could listen for hours to other peoples worries, understand them, help them, and then ten minutes later have difficulty remembering any of it.
Sometimes she could barely remember their names.
That used to be true anyway.
Now, with the death of The Guardian, it appeared that her life was taking a slightly different course, and she felt out of her depth, she was unable to switch off so easily.
When it had become clear than the Guardian was indeed well and truly dead, that there was to be no miraculous recovery, that he wasn't going to stand up any second, that it had not been a joke, she had stood, smoothed out her skirt and called the police.
The officer who was first on the scene, Officer Murdoch had been surprisingly on the ball, despite his appalling body odour. He had carefully listened to her story, taken copious notes and then used her phone to call in the incident to his superiors.
She noticed that he had not used the Guardian's name at any time, but had referred to the incident as a code 32 alpha.
Whatever that meant it'd had the desired effect.
Within 15 minutes she was being bundled out of her office into the back of a dark blue 4x4 Hummer with blacked out windows, and, she noticed, no door handles on the inside. Next she was told politely, but firmly to stay there, not to move.
Within 30 minutes she was sitting in a small, featureless office, having been driven to an unknown destination, walked across a featureless underground car park and taken down endless, unidentifiable corridors.
She had no idea where she was, which, she had to admit unnerved her somewhat.
The men who taken her had not spoken a word, other than through short barked commands, "sit here," "stand there." They all had the same buzz cut hair, grim faces and all wore the same cheap, off the shelf grey suits.
They were polite, but firm, and while Margaret do not feel under any direct threat the overall effect left her feeling lost and uneasy.
In the end, after what seemed like hours of questioning, she had been released. This was done in the same unimpressive way that she had been taken.
The men had made it a
bundantly clear to her that she was not to talk to anyone about what had happened. That if she was asked she could say that a client had killed themselves but nothing more.
They had made it clear that she would be watched from now on and that the consequences of talking to anyone would be rapid and severe.
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