by Nat Kozinn
“Mom says it’s time for Mario to go back to bed. Does that mean we get to try out my new glove?” Luis asked with his eyes full of hope.
“It does,” David said to the little boy and then turned to his older brother. “You let me worry about all this. You worry about getting better.”
The two men/boys then went outside to throw around a real-life baseball. Luis used his glove, and David used his bare hands, missing fingers and all.
◆◆◆
“Another round!” Peter Tulup yelled to a passing waitress as he put down his empty glass.
Peter’s cheeks were red, and his smile was wide. Alexis matched his grin, though hers was forced. They were in the same upscale bar where Alexis had tried to pump Ms. Hanson for information. This time she had some liquid assistance. There were a dozen empty glasses in front of the pair. There was also a tape recorder sitting on the table.
“You sure that’s a good idea? I wouldn’t want anyone to think I was taking advantage of you,” Alexis said, making use of her phony smile.
“It’s a great idea. I’m with a woman who can keep up with me. That’s a rare opportunity. I’m not going to waste it, especially since the Times is paying the tab,” Peter said.
The waitress returned with two more glasses of whiskey. Alexis took hers and downed it in a single gulp. Peter’s eyes went wide. He followed suit, only he choked a little and ended up having to take a second sip to finish. Alexis’s smile turned genuine, but she pretended she was unfazed.
“Oh, you need us to buy because you can’t afford it?” Alexis said.
“There’s something especially delightful about drinking booze someone else is paying for. It’s another rare treat.”
“In that case, let’s get another,” Alexis said and held two fingers up to the waitress leaning against the bar. The waitress shook her head in disapproval but put in the order with the bartender.
“You’re something else, you know that?” Peter said.
“I sure am, but if I’m going to keep spending the Times’s money, then I suppose I should do my job, which means we should get back to our interview. You were talking about the importance of having loyal friends.”
“That’s right. It’s like whoever said it: no man is an island. Look it up who for me so I don’t sound like an idiot. Anyway, we need friends to help us get through life. Someone to open doors, someone to watch your back. I’m sure you know. The problem with being successful like I’ve been is that you don’t get to make friends anymore, not ones you can trust anyway. Anybody I meet nowadays knows how many zeroes I got in my bank account. They all want something from me. The leeches!” he yelled to no one in particular. “But the people you came up with, those are the ticket. If they were your friends before you made it, then you can trust them. Usually anyway.”
“Did you have friends that helped you along the way?”
“Of course. There’s my partner Larry. He’s always worried about the budget and staffing and crap like that. A visionary like me needs a guy like that to keep me grounded, even if I have to ignore him a lot of the time. Then there’s my lawyer, Ed Graves. Good man! You need a lawyer you can trust, even if he does pad his bills most of the time. Those two were my frat brothers at Penn, along with Matty Acado. Excuse me, Alderman Acado. Man, we had some times back then. I met my head of marketing back at school, too. Gabby Rand.”
“Your head of marketing is a woman?” Alexis asked with raised eyebrows.
“Yeah, that’s right. You don’t think I’m progressive? I don’t care what’s between the legs. I just care that she helps me make money. It doesn’t hurt that her ass still looks amazing in a skirt.”
“Sounds like you spent your college days burning bras.”
“I was doing something with them,” Peter said with a smile.
Another drink arrived, and Alexis gulped it down in two sips. Peter eyed her warily and then dove in, coughing and gasping as he forced the liquor down his throat.
“I’m not too much for you, am I?” Alexis asked in a break between the coughs.
“Course not. I just need to catch my second wind,” Peter said. Then he yelled for another round in the vague direction of the bar. When he turned back to Alexis, his eyes were glassy and the edges were bloodshot. It was time for her to make her move.
“So you were in the same fraternity as Alderman Acado?”
“That’s right. Sigma Nu, Sigma Nu, Sigma Nu,” he chanted and pounded on the table, eliciting dirty looks from the upscale patrons around the bar.
“And that relationship helped you how?”
“Matty looks out for his own. That’s for sure. Helped me get my new factory built without a lot of red tape. Got that panel off my back when they got their panties in a bunch about what we were putting in the river. But all good things have to end, or whatever the saying is.” Peter was slurring his speech now, and his eyes were drooping.
“What do you mean?”
“Have you seen his poll numbers? They’re worse than his golf game. He’d have been better off punching a baby than voting how he did. But I guess he’s had enough. Who can blame him? Public service is for public suckers. At least he won’t have to sleep on my couch like when we first moved out here. He figured out a way to land on his feet,” Peter said. He was now only barely in the land of the conscious.
“What’s that?” Alexis said.
“He was volunteering for some shmuck politician, so he couldn’t afford his own place. This one time he brought a girl back. You should have seen her face when she saw his ‘bed,’” Peter said, making incredibly sloppy air quotes.
“I mean about him landing on his feet.”
“Matty’s not stupid. What do you think he’s doing with all that money he’s raising? He’s not throwing it in the trash. It’ll be a nice little egg nest for him. Nest egg,” Peter said and closed his eyes.
“Are you telling me he’s pocketing his campaign money?”
“No,” Peter said with an over-the-top wink. “I mean doesn’t he deserve it? Lifetime of serving the public. Should he end up in a shelter?”
“But how can he get away with that?”
“It’s a team effort. Eddy figured it all out. We’re eating the money up and spitting it back out into Matty’s mouth. Like he’s our baby bird.”
Alexis instinctively looked down at her tape recorder to make sure it was still running. Peter saw her look, and that snapped him out of his stupor.
“Hey! This was supposed to be about how I’m a business hero, not Matt’s campaign. You can’t use that!” Peter pleaded.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Tulup. I have to go. Thank you for your time,” Alexis said.
She grabbed her tape recorder off the table. Peter went for it, too, but he was slowed down by the liquor. He missed and fell out of his chair.
“You can’t use that! That’s not right! Get back here, you witch!” Peter yelled.
But Alexis rushed away, smiling wide as this Mississippi.
16
David and three other men lifted a massive plate of glass back into the front window of Mr. Chang’s shop, repairing the damage the now defunct Hood Clowns had done weeks ago. David stepped back after it was placed and let the workmen seal the window.
“Looks great,” Mr. Chang said. “I only wish it didn’t take so long to get a hold of. Freaking insurance company. They hem and haw for weeks over writing me a check, telling me they were reviewing my file. What if I did the same thing with paying my premiums? Hell, they’d cut me off if I was ten minutes late.”
“I never liked insurance companies,” David said. “It’s the only thing on Earth where the business tries not to give the client the product they paid for.”
“I’m lucky I was only trying to squeeze a drop of blood out of them. If those Hood Clown morons had done what they wanted, the place would have burned to the ground, and I’d have turned into a skeleton before the insurance company agreed to write me the check. I’ve got you to thank for
that.”
“Glad to do it. Breaks my heart how terrible some of these kids can be, destroying a business that helps their own neighborhood over something stupid. If any of them have moms, I bet they shop here, and I bet you give ’em a line of credit so they can get the groceries they need.”
“From what I heard, that punk who does all the talking got what was always coming to him, thanks to you,” Mr. Chang said and mimed an explosion with his hand.
“I don’t know if anybody has that coming to them, but I do hope it helps Big H reevaluate his life. It’s going to be hard for him to find a real job with just one hand, but hopefully now he realizes it’s better than losing his life, which was what was going to happen if he kept messing around with the people he was messing around with.”
“I wouldn’t count on it. Punks like that never learn. Some stupid can’t be fixed,” Mr. Chang said.
A brick sailed through the air, right past Mr. Chang’s head. It crashed into the just-installed plate glass window, shattering it to pieces. David and Mr. Chang turned to see one of the heavyset thugs that originally ransacked the shop.
“That’ll teach you some respect, Ching Chong!” the thug said with a wide smile.
“You little punk!” Mr. Chang yelled.
“I’ll teach you respect!” David yelled.
He charged after the young punk, who turned and ran as fast as his legs could carry him. David could always run quickly. While not a Speedster, the power of his legs was enough to make him as fast as an Olympic sprinter—at least, when he was in his prime. Now, weaker and blind in one eye, David was only a tick faster than the thug, and the boy had a lead.
Still, over the course of several blocks, David was gaining on the young man until he failed to see a large pile of bricks, which he plowed into. He broke a few and then bounced off. He stumbled for a few more steps and fell to the ground with a thud.
“Ha ha. You break a hip, old man?” the thug mocked.
“I’m going to break a lot more than that on you,” David said and pushed himself to his feet.
The thug took off running again, now with an even bigger lead than he started with. David kept after him for a few more minutes, but the boy turned into an alley. David slipped and fell again as he attempted to follow, tripped up by a pile of newspapers on the ground. By the time he got back to his feet and went into the alley, the heavyset thug had disappeared into one of the buildings that lined the alley. There were three doors to choose from, and David was not feeling very lucky.
The thugs were getting more brazen. They waited until nightfall for the last act of vandalism, probably because it gave them time to inflict more damage to the store. Why would they settle for just a broken window this time? Maybe because the store wasn’t the real target.
“Mario!” David said to no one.
David turned and ran back the way he came, digging deep and running faster than he did the first time. But it was still too slow. David ran into his apartment building and saw just what he feared. The door to the Marquez’s apartment had been busted open, wood splinters spilling out from the frame. He stepped inside to see a war zone. The apartment was trashed, and virtually every possession the family owned was busted to pieces. The rice David had brought was spread everywhere, and the solar cooker was smashed to bits. There were holes in the walls and spray-painted graffiti everywhere. Those punks worked quickly. There must have been a lot of them.
David heard a soft moaning coming from the bedroom. Inside, he found Fernanda huddled over an unconscious Luis. The boy was bleeding from the mouth and his leg looked broken. It was hard to tell if he was breathing. His mother was only in slightly better shape. She was awake, but barely so. Blood trickled down her forehead.
“Somewhere over the rainbow, they’ll be sun,” Fernanda sung.
“Fernanda?” David said.
The woman had not registered the massive man walking into her room. When she finally saw him, she shrieked and did her best to cover her little son’s body with her own.
“Fernanda, it’s me David, the Savior of Seattle. We’ve got to get you and Luis help,” David said and leaned down closer to the poor injured family.
“Oh, Savior, it’s you,” Fernanda said, but it was hard to tell what her recognition was really worth. “Luis can’t play right now.”
“Can I see him?”
Fernanda pulled away and gave David a view of Luis. He was breathing, but they were shallow breaths.
“I need to get you two to the hospital. I’m going to carry you there, okay?”
“Okay, it’s been a while since he’s had a checkup,” Fernanda said.
“Fernanda, do you know where Mario is?”
“They took him. Those mean men took him. Why were they so angry?” she said and started to cry.
“It’s okay. I’ll find him. Now, let’s get you two to the hospital.”
David leaned down and picked up Luis, cradling the ten-year-old boy in the nook of his arm like he was holding an infant. He put his other arm around Fernanda’s waist and hoisted her up off the ground. Then he ran out of the apartment, moving as fast as he could while making sure he didn’t hurt the family any worse than they already were.
◆◆◆
The Heights hospital fit the neighborhood well in that it was in terrible shape. It had been pieced together from the bones of a hospital built before the Plagues, hastily repaired from the damage they brought, and then expanded to fit the sudden explosion of population when the Metro Area was formed. What that meant in a hospital as poorly funded as this was unpainted, unfinished B-Crete walls and exposed pipes everywhere, obscured only by the fact that the hallways lacked enough WormLights to properly illuminate the facility.
David stood in an overcrowded waiting room, surrounded by bleeding and broken people whose injuries, while gruesome, were not serious enough to move them to the top of the priority list for the scant supply of medical attention the hospital provided. Those poor souls occupied the few unbroken chairs, forcing David to stand. Not that any public places had chairs strong enough for him anyway. Some people stared, but most people were lost in their own world of injury.
David spotted a doctor rushing by—the doctor treating Fernanda and Luis. He rushed to catch up to the woman before she disappeared back into the bowels of the hospital.
“Dr. Dao, Dr. Dao!” David said as he dashed toward her. She did not slow down but turned to him as he caught up and walked next to her.
“How can I help you?” she said without a hint of warmth.
“The Marquezes, how are they doing? Are they going to be okay? What about Luis, the kid?”
“Fernanda Marquez is awake and should be allowed visitors soon. I will leave it to her as to whether she wishes to share the medical information of a minor with an unrelated individual.”
“I’m not asking for a full diagnosis, doc. Just tell me he’s going to be okay. I’m going nuts out here,” David pleaded.
“Was I not clear with my answer?” Dr. Dao said coldly.
“What’s with the hostility? I’m not the one who hurt them. I’m the one who carried them here. I helped,” David asked.
Dr. Dao finally stopped walking and turned to David.
“I do not know the particulars of how they ended up in this hospital, but I do know that in the past two weeks, the entire family has been admitted while suffering from serious injuries. If that’s you helping, perhaps the family would be better off without it. You cannot get hurt, but the people around you don’t have the same luxury. Luckily, for your conscience, it looks like the boy will live. But do not make the mistake of letting that lighten your burden.”
David opened his mouth to reply, but he could find no words. Dr. Dao walked away down a corridor. David went back to the waiting room. When he got there, Alexis was waiting for him.
David walked right up to her, the crowd of people in the room parting like a certain crimson-colored sea.
“Can we talk?” Alexis asked.
David threw his hands up to say, “why not?” Alexis led them back down the hallway and tried a door marking a supply room. It was unlocked, a mistake for sure, but one the pair pounced on. They had privacy now, even if it meant getting up close and personal with big bottles of Sparkle Clean.
“Why are you here?” David asked.
“That’s nice. Did I earn nothing from my morning watching over you? Did you see a word about it in any newspapers? Hell, that one would have been syndicated on think.Net for sure. Savior of Seattle knocked out by local street punks. Breaking News sits around all day waiting for stories like that. Hell, I could have gotten a week out of the fact that you wear a hairpiece.”
“Maybe you’re just setting me up for a bigger payday,” David said, but his scowl had softened.
“I should be. If I ran this story, maybe somebody in the government would read it and decide to intervene before you go do the stupid thing we both know you’re going to do.”
“How do you know what I’m going to do?”
“Sister Berta told me what happened.”
“And she told me she had to leave the hospital so she could prepare for Sunday service, not make a think.Net call.”
“Good thing she’s always in the right spot for a confession. I’m so sorry, David. I can’t believe what those animals did. They hurt that sweet little boy? Who does something like that? How does that prove you’re tough to anybody?”
“I don’t know, and I’m not sure I’ll have a chance to ask many questions when I find them.”
“So you’re going to go after them, even after what they did to you last time? They know they can hurt you now. You showed you can be cut, and now there’s blood in the water, metaphorically speaking. The sharks are going to be ready for you, and they are going to feast,” Alexis said.
“I don’t have any choice. They have Mario. Besides, the punks don’t want to kill me. That would be enough to make the cops do something about them. Even those idiots are smart enough to see that.”
“Wow, well there’s an idea. How about you call the police before you die? You know, what us normal humans do. Which is pretty close to what you are at this point. Kinda.”
