Gods of Manhattan

by Al Ewing

  Hamilton looked up at him, his face still not registering the situation. "You can't mean to -"

  "A catheter!" Thunder shouted the words, angrily. "You're getting what you wanted, Doctor. My blood! A full pint of it! And unless you want it on the floor, you'll get me a damn catheter!"

  He was yelling now, partly from his anger at himself and at the situation he'd created, and partly from the sheer effort it took to tear a hole in his own skin. A thin rivulet of blood began to trickle down towards his elbow.

  Hamilton fetched the catheter.

  By the time Maya arrived, it was all over. Monk was in the theater, with a pint of Doc's blood hanging over him, being fed to him a trickle at a time along with several pints of his own blood group. Doc's blood would have a healing effect, in time, and from the sound of it Monk was critical but stable and passing further out of danger with every moment.

  For a few minutes at a time - just enough to keep him from dying - Monk would have the recuperative powers of Doc Thunder himself. They were the same blood type - O Negative - or there'd have been nothing he could have done. And even among the O-Negatives, there were those who overdosed, who died instantly as their hearts inflated and burst against their ribcages, whose brains hemorrhaged, whose spines were snapped by the growth of muscle in their backs... he had to pray Monk wouldn't end up one of those. "Small doses," he'd said to Hamilton, and the old man had nodded coldly and said something about how he didn't intend to waste any. Doc had felt like punching him. Instead, he'd shaken his hand, resisting the urge to crush it.

  They'd been friends once. It seemed like forever ago.

  "You were right," smiled Maya as she walked back from her conversation with one of the orderlies. "Monk's alive, thanks to that little stunt. I don't know why I doubted you. Being right is what you do for a living." She leant in to kiss him, and he shook his head, placing a finger at her lips.

  "If I'd been right, I'd never have sent Monk in there alone. I was a damn fool, and he paid for it." He shook his head, wincing. "It's Donner. He's haunting me. Making me sloppy."

  Maya frowned, curious. "I've never seen you like this. You're... almost afraid of him. Even now. What is he to you?"

  Doc Thunder scowled. "It doesn't matter. He's dead. It's his killer we should worry about - and whoever did that to Monk, if he's not the same person." He stood, suddenly, and stalked towards the exit, making her run to keep up. "I'm missing something. Smart as I am, I'm not smart enough..."

  Maya blinked, trying to guess his meaning, then her eyes flew wide open. "No. Doc, no. It's too risky. Every time you use that thing, you run the risk of it killing you. You know that."

  "Monk could still die because I was stupid, Maya." Doc Thunder scowled, cracking his knuckles as the rain began to spatter on the sidewalk. "My mind's made up. First, we get some sleep. Then, it's time for desperate measures."

  He took a deep breath, then turned to her.

  "It's time for the Omega Machine."

  Chapter Five

  The Case of The Man Who Never Smiled

  After he'd finished cleaning the blood from the front of his mask, Parker Crane went to a cocktail party.

  It was a low-key affair at the Astoria; a mere one hundred dollars for a ticket, and thus hardly worth bothering with for most members of the Jameson. A couple even looked askance at Crane's rousing himself for such a mediocre get-together. However, most understood that a large number of strumpets from the fashion 'scene' that Crane was involved in would be there, and young men would always be young men - it was only to be expected that Crane would want to sow a few wild oats. Besides, he was so awfully good at keeping his many and varied affairs from tarnishing the name of the club.

  Crane decided not to call Marlene; she would either be there herself, or more likely embroiled in her own sordid affairs, in which case he knew where he could find her if she was needed. Instead, he made arrangements to go with two of the models he worked with regularly. A pair of twins, attractive enough to dabble in the modeling world, pneumatic enough to preserve his image and wealthy enough to be deemed worthy of his company, although they were, regrettably, new money. Blonde, naturally. Their father was something in dirigible construction. Crane had quite forgotten their names over the course of the carriage ride from their city apartment, where he'd picked them up - something that rhymed? Mandy and Sandy? Chloe and Zoe? He hadn't bothered to find out, or even talk to them beyond what was absolutely necessary. They spent the journey giggling and whispering to each other, while he looked out at the rain falling down on the city.

  His city.

  He was regretting not putting a bullet through the ape man's head. He'd assumed the throwback had died, but he'd seen the flare lighting up the Manhattan sky as Marlene had driven him back to his regular drop-off point, and he knew what it meant. The Gorilla Reporter had called in his lovers to bail him out.

  The Blood-Spider disapproved of Doc Thunder - his permissive attitudes were the least of it - and he had no doubt that Thunder's simian sidekick had planned to kill him, perhaps in order to cover up an involvement in Donner's murder. Could he add Thunder to the list of suspects? And if so, how could he be dealt with? What bullet could bring down the bulletproof man?

  Something to consider for the future. If Thunder turned out to have been the one to take Donner's life, neither he nor any member of his freakish entourage would live to regret it. Perhaps it would be best, he considered, if Olsen did not die from the bullet wounds, although it would be an unlikely outcome. If he survived, he could be interrogated.

  The Blood-Spider would have his answers, once way or another.

  On pulling up to the Astoria, Crane and his two dates were greeted by the expected barrage of flashbulbs. As usual, there was a gaggle of photographers armed with box cameras, and a secondary crowd of sketchers scribbling away with coloured pencils on small notepads. He set his face in a careful, studied mask of contempt, one girl on each arm, their matched backless dresses complimenting perfectly the cut of his tuxedo - a Gunn original, hand-stitched by the master himself. Crane felt the mask becoming real as his hands drifted down to the naked smalls of their backs, and the myriad documenters of his social life clustered about him to record the moment for posterity. To them, all he was was this persona, this disguise he'd created for himself. For them, his entire self boiled down to a string of listless, bored copulations, to parties and openings, launches and premieres, rumours and scandals and endless, beautiful women. And not one of them knew the truth - that was what filled him with that cold, coiling hatred, lying like a snake in his gut. Not a single one of these vultures knew the reality of the man they were so desperate to tell the world about in their filthy little publications.

  The corner of his mouth twitched, almost involuntarily, in a smile. And if they did know... if the great unwashed who pored over these yellow rags, these scandal-sheets, if they knew his intimate secrets - what? Would they praise him? Understand the cause that burned in him like a fire? He liked to think they might.

  Some would want him dead, of course. The criminals. The inhuman. But he and they were at war, a war that never ended. Nestled against warm, yielding flesh, his trigger fingers itched, unsatisfied, denied their kill.

  Inside, the girls ran quickly to powder their noses, leaving him blessedly alone. As he plucked a glass of champagne from the tray of a passing waiter, he felt his ears burning, and he turned his attention to the source - a rather loud argument near a potted plant, which the waiters were studiously avoiding as if attempting to starve it into silence, but which had drawn a small throng despite their efforts.

  "What you don't understand, Mister Big-Shit Doctor A-hole, is the Blood-Spider's keepin' our streets safe, capeesh? Every one of these pieces of crap he puts down means lives saved! People in the line walkin' away from the jackpot and breathin' for another day! You ever told an officer's widow her husband's lying in the ground because some spic had more rights than he did? Huh? You ever did that, asshole, 'caus
e I have!"

  The voice was loud, belligerent and rough, sandpapery from decades of nicotine abuse. Crane recognised it immediately. Detective Harry Stacey, forty-three years old, five feet and two inches tall. Hair a muddy grey with still the occasional streak of red. A handlebar moustache to match. A tan suit that had seen better days. He stank of whiskey, cheap cigars and light corruption. Crane had no doubt that he'd scrounged up the hundred dollars admission though gambling or stealing cash from the evidence locker, and presumably he was only here in the first place to grease a few palms or find a new mistress to put in the apartment he kept for that purpose across town.

  In many respects, the man was a human sewer, but he had qualities that Crane couldn't help but admire. For example, he had an iron determination to protect the decent people in society from the undesirables, those who would prey on them - those inhuman devils who would revel in their sins, as it were - and he never allowed his weaknesses to compromise that. Not to mention that his deep connections with the more squalid elements of the police department allowed him to be useful to the Blood-Spider as a member of the Spider's Web.

  Of course, if he hadn't proved himself so useful, he would have probably been killed by now. That made his blind loyalty a source of endless amusement to Crane, although naturally the Blood-Spider would never allow it to show. Idly, Crane looked over at his opponent in the one-sided debate.

  'A tall, thin man, dressed in a grey suit and leaning on a gold-handled cane, with longish white hair and beard, hollow cheeks and grey, sunken eyes with large bags underneath them. The face was emotionless, almost supernaturally calm in the face of Stacey's tirade, and the only movement the man made was to occasionally take a long sip from the champagne glass in his left hand.

  What had Stacey called the man? A doctor?

  "It just seems somewhat unconstitutional, doesn't it? Shooting a young man in the street in cold blood. What about the basic freedoms?" The voice was cold, disinterested, and this attitude only enraged Stacey more. The scotch in his glass spilled over his clutching hand as he aimed a stubby finger at his debating partner.

  "Freedoms? Screw your god-damn freedoms, Mister Med School! What about my freedoms? Where's my right to take a walk through the South Bronx at night without some freakin' jig sticking a knife up my ass? Where're the freedoms of all the decent folk, like - like schoolteachers, not the stinking commie ones, the ones who teach sports, where's their freedom not to have to look over their shoulders all the time in case there's a Jap with a giant freakin' pair of, I don't know, those sticks with the chains, what are they called, standing there waiting to knock their balls right off 'em and wear 'em like a friggin' hat? If it was up to you, Hamilton, you'd just give all the chinks and the spics who're terrorising the streets of this city a, a little slap on the wrist and a don't-do-it-again-"

  "Can we do this without the racial invective?" murmured the doctor - Hamilton, that was his name. His expression had not changed, and he looked bored by the whole discussion. There was something about him that rubbed Crane the wrong way. His stoicism in the face of Stacey's drunken tirade seemed unnatural, somehow.

  Not to mention his disapproval of the cause, which was suspicious in itself. This Hamilton would bear watching.

  "Racial - up your ass, pal! I'm no racist!" Stacey flushed red, knuckles white on his glass as he tossed the rest of the scotch down his throat. "You god-damned progressives, you're pretty damned quick to call a guy a bigot just for speaking his mind, aincha? Maybe you're the racist, pal! Ever think of that? Maybe you're racist against people like me who friggin' work for a living - in the line - keepin' the streets safe like my buddy the Blood-Spider! Friggin'... friggin' cop racist!"

  "I think we're done here." Hamilton turned on his heel, taking the bulk of the crowd with him. Stacey stared balefully after him for a moment, hurled his dead cigar angrily onto the polished floor and then charged off in the other direction, banging immediately into a waiter carrying a tray of canapés and sending miniature smoked salmon rolls scattering in all directions. Crane watched Stacey curse the man out and then head down a corridor in the direction of the gents' toilets.

  Crane checked that no eyes were on him and then surreptitiously followed, making sure to keep several paces behind the detective, moving silently. Once they were out of sight of the main throng, Stacey stopped, digging in his inside pocket for a fresh cigar. Crane smiled, taking a handkerchief from his own pocket and using it to disguise his voice as he crept up behind the older man.

  It was all in the timing. Crane, silent, waited until Stacey had raised the stogie to his lips and was attempting to light it with a book of matches he'd taken from one of the city's many strip clubs. Then he spoke.

  "Detective."

  The Blood-Spider's voice. That unearthly hiss, low, sibilant and menacing. Harry Stacey nearly leapt out of his skin. "Christ-" The match went flying, thankfully going out before it burned a hole in the carpet. The cigar slipped from suddenly trembling fingers, bouncing off an unpolished shoe.

  "Turn around and you will be killed, Detective. Do we understand each other?"

  Stacey had been half turning, but now stood straight as a ramrod, beads of sweat appearing on goose bumped flesh, staring straight ahead. "Aw, crap. I mean yessir. Whatever you say. I won't turn around, you can count on your buddy Harry Stacey, Mr. Blood-Spider, sir, 'cause I'm right there with you in the friggin' line, pal -"

  "Be quiet."

  Stacey was quiet.

  "Two days ago, a man was found dead, Detective. Murdered in his home. He was killed with a sword."

  Stacey frowned. "Killed in his home... wait, was this that recluse guy everybody thought was dead? Danner, Donner, what was his name -"

  Crane thrust the tip of a finger into the man's back, and he jerked as if he'd been stung by a wasp.

  "Be quiet, I said."

  Stacey nodded, dumbly, trying to swallow.

  "I need information, Detective. Anyone who's been killed or injured with a sword in Manhattan. If you bring this information to my... mail drop..."

  "Aw, not that douchebag Crane! Jesus, every time I set foot in that friggin' rich-boy hellhole I get a case of the hives -" The finger jerked in his back again. "I love that guy."

  "Crane. If you bring him the intelligence I require, I will allow you to continue serving the cause. If not... your sins are deep and steep, Detective, and they lie black upon your heart. I know about the gambling, the bribes, the kickbacks, the whores. Some would say the Spider's Web has no place for you."

  "So what, you'd kick me out?" Stacey scowled. "Just 'cause I cream a little off the top here and there? A guy's gotta make a living, buddy - uh, sir."

  Crane jabbed the finger into his back once more, leaning closer. "Yes. I would kick you out."

  His hiss dropped slightly. "Of a window."

  Stacey stiffened, the sweat glistening on the back of his neck. Unconsciously, he raised his arms. "Please, I - I got a family! I got a grandmother with, with lumbago, she needs me - I got two! Another with the consumption! She needs me too! I'm needed in this world!"

  Crane chuckled dryly.

  "I'd hate to deprive your 'grandmothers' of your continued affection, Detective. The information. Tomorrow, without fail, as soon as your shift ends. Do we have an understanding?"

  Stacey nodded, and Crane took a perverse delight in noting the dark stain spreading across the front of his tan suit trousers.

  "Don't turn around."

  Harry Stacey didn't turn around.

  He remained, with his arms raised and the front of his trousers coated with his own urine, for six minutes and fourteen seconds, until finally the two pneumatic blondes who Parker Crane would spend the evening entertaining in various ways exited the ladies toilets and asked him if he'd had a stroke.

  On his way out, with the girls in place on his arms and another coming along for good measure - a statuesque redhead, the daughter of a Wall Street financier, who believed in seizing each moment as
it came or some such philosophy, Parker Crane turned back and met the gaze of Doctor Hamilton. There was no emotion in that gaze. It reminded Crane of nothing so much as a dead fish on a slab, but all the same, he found something in it unpleasant. Threatening, almost.

  "Can I help you?" he said, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice.

  "Parker Crane, the fashion photographer." Hamilton thrust out a hand, which Crane didn't take. "A pleasure to meet you. I'm..." He seemed to be searching for the correct words. "...an admirer of your work. I think you've made quite a valuable contribution to the culture of this city."

  Something in the phrasing bothered Crane. "What do you mean?"

  "What I say. I've watched your career with interest. In fact, I think we may have a mutual acquaintance..." His eyes narrowed, speculatively, though his expression did not betray the slightest hint of what he was thinking.

  Crane stood for a moment, before one of the blondes - Mandy? Sandy? - tugged his arm, giggling. "Par-ker, we want to see your place. You said you'd show us your etchings..." They dissolved into tipsy giggles and led him away towards a waiting hansom. As he walked out through the great double doors of the Astoria, Crane turned to look back at the strange man who'd accosted him.

  But Doctor Hamilton was gone.

  Later, in his palatial room, Parker Crane lay back on silk sheets soaked with champagne and the sweat of beautiful women, ears filled with drunken laughter and soft, wet noises, and mused that none of this seemed real to him. Occasionally, all of the luxury, these endless dalliances and pleasures of his other self, his fake self - all of it disgusted him. Yes, there was a release there, a form of pleasure, but it was nothing compared to that feeling in him when he pulled the trigger and removed evil from the world. True pleasure came from the barrel of a gun.