Shadow removed the towel from her face. I was struck anew by how beautiful she was. Her dark face was angular and perfectly symmetrical. If she had made different life decisions, she could have been a model. If she were one, a designer who gave her a hard time would be in for a nasty surprise. Shadow was pretty, of that there was no doubt. A coral snake was pretty too, but that did not detract from its deadliness.
Shadow looked up at me.
“What do you want?” she asked.
It had been a while since I had seen Shadow. With anyone else, I would have extended my hand in greeting. But, Shadow did not shake hands with people. She had told me long ago it was too easy to get attacked by someone while they held your hand. She told me she did not have long hair for the same reason as long hair was too easy to grab. In the rough circles Shadow tended to move in, she was being prudent rather than paranoid.
“What, no small talk?” I asked. “No, ‘Hey, Truman, how’s the detecting biz? Read any good books lately? Beat up on any interesting supervillains?’”
“My mistake,” she said. Shadow plastered a big fake smile on her face. Her even white teeth gleamed. “Hi, Truman! How are you? Did you lose weight? Gee, you sure look swell!” she said in a high-pitched, girlish voice. She sounded like a college cheerleader from the 1950s majoring in school spirit.
After a moment, the smile slid off her face and her face assumed its normal, slightly menacing cast.
“Better?” she asked in her normal voice. “Now, what do you want?”
“I just want to talk. Let’s go over to where we can speak privately.”
Shadow shrugged. The movement made her breasts move provocatively. I tried to ignore them. It was not easy.
Shadow stood. She was tall for a woman, but shorter than I. We walked over to the corner of the weight room away from everyone else. Most of the people there were men, and most of them looked at Shadow as she walked by. They did it covertly, though. Shadow was a bit of a legend at the gym, and was not the kind of woman you rudely ogled even if the contours of her body almost demanded it.
If Shadow noticed the attention, she gave no sign of it. I knew, though, that she was hyper-aware of everything around her even if she did not seem to be. If asked to, she could have closed her eyes and sketched everything and everyone in the room as accurately as a courtroom sketch artist. I had seen her do it before.
“What’s so pressing you need to interrupt my workout?” Shadow asked once we were in the corner. “Need to borrow money? The answer is no.”
“I want to talk to you about the Metahuman Liberation Front. The Pied Piper specifically. I’ve read the MLF has been pulling off some high-end heists lately. Since you know the people who do that kind of work, I thought you might know something about them.”
Shadow pursed her lips and let out a low whistle.
“The MLF?” she said. “There are some pretty dangerous Metas in that group. Crazy, but dangerous. The Pied Piper especially. I’ve met him. He tried to get me to join the MLF. I told him no. What’s your interest in them? Did they steal one of your Boy Scout merit badges?”
Though Shadow and I often worked on different sides of the law, I had known her a long time. She was discreet, and I trusted her. So, I told her about Clara and her powers and how I suspected she had been used by the MLF to pull off the attack on the Dupont Circle subway.
“What does the MLF want with the girl? For that matter, why would they blow up anything?” she asked once I had finished. “There’s no money in blowing up subway stations.”
I shrugged.
“I don’t know. I’ve been reading up on them and their goals. Maybe they’ve moved from the money-making stage of their operation to the try to take over the world through terror stage.”
Shadow looked thoughtful.
“An exploding Meta would be useful to terrorists,” she said. “Getting through security would be a breeze. The metal detectors wouldn’t go off, because there would be no metal to detect. Just an innocent looking teenaged girl. Send the girl into the White House or Congress and bang—no more executive and legislative branches. Plus, if the girl is not destroyed in her own explosions like you say, you’ve got a recyclable bomb. Useful.” Shadow sounded almost wistful, as if she wished she could explode too.
“Am I correct in believing the Pied Piper can control minds?” I asked.
Shadow nodded.
“Yeah. But, just the minds of kids. I’m not sure what the age cutoff is or how it works, but he definitely can’t control adult minds,” she said. “You’d best stay far away from him. Mentally, you’re probably young enough to be susceptible to his power.”
I let the insult roll off my back. I was Truman the Teflon Man. If I had one, that would be my superhero alias.
“Staying away is not an option,” I said. “I was hired to retrieve Clara, and that’s what I’m going to do. Any truth to the rumors the MLF is headquartered here in Astor City?”
“That’s what I hear, but I don’t know where,” Shadow said. “Astor City is huge. Lots of places to hide.”
“Know any Metas who belong to the MLF?” I asked. “Maybe I’ll find one of them and ask them nicely where I can find the Pied Piper.”
Shadow nodded, and rattled off a list of names and code names. I recognized one of them: Eugene Simmons, also known as the Hopper. He was a small-time crook and a big-time loser. I had some dealings with him before. I knew where to find him.
“Perhaps I’ll go pay a visit to Hopper and ask him where I can find the Pied Piper,” I said. “Thanks for the help Shadow.” I turned to leave. Shadow grabbed me by the arm.
“You’re going up against the Pied Piper and the MLF by yourself?” she asked. “Like I said, they’re crazy, but dangerous.”
“Ah, sweetie, you’re worried about me. I promise I’ll be careful.”
Shadow snorted.
“I’m not worried about you. You’re pretty dangerous yourself, though you wouldn’t know it from all the dumb jokes you’re always making,” Shadow said. She paused thoughtfully. “You did me a favor, a while back. You could have turned me in to the cops, but you didn’t.”
I knew the incident she was talking about. I shrugged.
“What you did was wrong,” I said, “but you did it for the right reasons and it needed to be done. You didn’t deserve prison.”
“All the same, I owe you one. I don’t like being in someone’s debt.”
“Are you saying you’re volunteering to help me to find Clara?” I asked.
Shadow shrugged.
“Why not?” she said. “I’m between jobs right now and don’t have anything better to do. Besides, if I let you go off by yourself and you get killed, you’re ornery enough to come back as a ghost and haunt me for not working off my debt to you.”
I smiled. I was very much used to working alone, but having someone around to watch my back as I tackled a band of superpowered terrorists would be nice.
“On the plus side, you don’t even have to work for free,” I said. “I’ll pay you half of what my client’s paying me.”
“Oh, how much is that?”
“A dollar,” I said.
Shadow looked startled for a second. Then she laughed. Her teeth flashed brilliantly.
“One dollar,” she said. She shook her head. “You really are the last of the Boy Scouts, aren’t you?”
I shrugged modestly.
“Well, I am physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.”
Shadow continued to shake her head at me.
“All right, we’ll share and share alike,” she said. She held out her open palm.
“You want your money now?” I asked. “You know I’m good for it.”
Shadow shook her head in the negative.
“I’ll just bet you’re good for it. That’s what you people always say,” she said. “My people and I are still waiting for our forty acres and a mule.”
“‘You people’?” I said. “Are you cast
ing an aspersion based on my race?”
“Yes,” she said.
I sighed and shook my head in mock sadness.
“Can’t we all just get along?” I asked plaintively. I reached into my pocket, found two quarters, and handed them to Shadow. She slipped them into her sweatpants. I was surprised she didn’t bite into them to verify they were real.
“Okay then,” she said. “You’ve just bought yourself a partner.”
“Partner? I had in mind more of a Hero and sidekick relationship.”
“Me too,” Shadow said. “With you as my sidekick. I just said partners before to be polite.” I couldn’t tell if she was serious or not.
I again turned to walk away. Shadow stopped me by putting her hand on my chest. It felt like a backhoe was pressing against me.
“One more thing,” Shadow said. She smiled sweetly at me. “If you call me sweetie again, I’ll shove my hand down your throat and pull your balls out through your mouth.”
“Duly noted,” I said.
CHAPTER 11
That night, Shadow and I sat inside my car parked across the street from Grisham’s Bar. The sign over the door was in neon. The letter B was dark, making it look like it read “Grisham’s ar.” Grisham should have considered making the bar pirate themed. My marketing genius was wasted in the detective business. I shared my plan with Shadow, who, as usual, was dressed in all black. She snorted derisively, shook her head, and said nothing more. Genius is so often misunderstood in its own time.
Grisham’s Bar was in a part of Astor City known as Dog Cellar. I had no idea how the neighborhood had gotten such a colorful name. Perhaps it was because even dogs’ spirits fell down in the dumps when they found themselves in Dog Cellar. That was just speculation on my part, though. Dog Cellar was on the bad side of town. Every side of Astor City had bad things going on in them. The ritzier parts of the city just hid them better. Dog Cellar made no effort to hide its bad parts: it paraded them out in the open, like it was proud of them. If you wanted porn that would make Hugh Hefner blush, a thug for hire, stolen goods, hookers, drugs, or your own throat cut, you could find it all on the mean streets of Dog Cellar.
Shadow and I had been waiting for Eugene Simmons, or Hopper, for over two hours. It was close to midnight. It was a cold winter night, though the temperature was above freezing. It had been drizzling rain, off and on, the entire time we had been sitting there.
“You sure Hopper will make an appearance?” Shadow asked.
I nodded, keeping an eye on the door of the bar. A light mounted over it lit up the surrounding sidewalk. I wouldn’t miss Hopper if he went into the bar.
“Hopper’s a creature of habit. He comes here every night to play pool and to have a few drinks. Not to mention to ingest God knows what other kinds of substances. He’ll show. It’s just a matter of time,” I said.
“It’s not a good idea to be such a predictable creature of habit if you’re a criminal,” Shadow said. “Too easy for people to find you.”
“That would be one of the reasons why Hopper is not a very successful criminal.”
We were silent for a while.
“I’m cold,” Shadow eventually said. “I know you can’t start the car and run the heat because an idling car draws too much attention. But, next time, have the good sense to schedule a stakeout during the spring.”
“Next time,” I promised.
We waited a while longer. A few times while we waited, several teenaged boys walked by. They were young enough that they should have been at home in bed. Though they were of various races, they all wore baggy jeans that sagged partially off of their butts. I felt like an anthropologist in the wild, observing young thugs in training wearing gangster chic in their natural habitat. With their pants falling off of them, I wasn’t sure how they kept their genitals from freezing.
The boys peered into each parked car as they walked by them. Perhaps they were doing what they thought was their Christian duty and making sure someone had not accidentally left her baby or dog behind in a locked car. Perhaps it was the inner fire of the boys’ righteousness that kept their partially exposed genitals warm. It was more likely they were looking for something to steal, though. But I was old and cynical, and perhaps did the boys an injustice by thinking ill of them.
A few of the boys looked at us as they walked by. A scowl was on their young faces. They were trying mightily to look tough and intimidating, while all the while their baby faces apologized for the effort. Perhaps years down the road they would master the stare of death so many hardened criminals had. In the meantime, the boys just looked silly and like they were trying too hard. I would have laughed at them, but I didn’t want to hurt their feelings. Or, for that matter, get shot.
Shadow smiled widely at each of them as they passed. Usually when a beautiful woman smiled at a young man who was brimful of testosterone, the young man would take that as a green light to hit on the woman. Not these young men, though. When Shadow smiled at them, they immediately averted their gaze and hastened their stride. I felt their pain. When Shadow smiled at you, it was like being smiled at by a cobra.
“Lay off of them,” I warned Shadow when yet another boy hustled past us at the look Shadow gave him. “You’re going to give someone a heart attack.”
Shadow looked at me. Innocence filled her eyes.
“I was just being friendly,” she said. It was my turn to snort in disbelief then.
A while later, I finally spotted Hopper. He walked into the circle of brightness cast by the light over the bar’s door. He was white, of average height, skinny, and had a narrow face with a prominent nose. Even from this far away, he looked furtive and jittery. He looked in need of a bath and a flea dip. He looked like what he was: an unsuccessful crook, and a very successful drug addict. If he was representative of the Metahuman Liberation Front, I was not impressed by their membership.
Shadow saw me staring at the man.
“That Hopper?” she asked. “I know of him, but I’ve never seen him before.”
I nodded and I watched Hopper open the bar door and go inside.
“Let’s wait a bit before we go talk to him, though. He’ll be easier to deal with once he’s self-medicated some first,” I said.
“You just want to see how long I can stand the cold,” Shadow said. She turned to stare straight ahead. “I don’t care. I’m tough.” I noticed she slipped her hands inside the pockets of her leather jacket, though. I didn’t point that out. God alone knew how she might react. Though I was not exactly afraid of her, I did have a healthy respect for her fierceness. I resisted the urge to put on my gloves. I would show Shadow who was tough.
After a suitable wait time, Shadow and I climbed out of the car.
“Was that a sigh of relief I just heard from you?” I asked her.
“No. You’re imagining things,” Shadow said. I had not imagined the fact her teeth had chattered when she said that, though. With satisfaction, I mentally added a slash mark to the Truman column in the “Who is Tougher?” ledger I was keeping in my head.
We went across the street and into the bar. Though the hour was late, the place was moderately crowded. Those who patronized Grisham’s were not the types of people who had to get to bed early to be ready for early morning conference calls at the office. Acrid smoke hung in the air, a combination of tobacco and marijuana. I would get high if I stayed in there for long breathing the unventilated air. The smell was so thick, I might have gotten a contact high from just walking inside.
An enclosed bar area was to the right. It was surrounded by stools on which perched men and women who looked like they had been there since the Bronze Age. They looked like vultures on perches waiting for something to die. Maybe it was they themselves they were waiting for the deaths of. If so, I was sure the bartender Antonio, a tall Hispanic man in a red plaid shirt, would be happy to give them something other than stale beer to speed the process along. He kept more drugs than a pharmacy in locked boxes bolted to the floor
. I was pretty sure he did not have a license to dispense medication, though. Perhaps I should have reported him to the American Medical Association.
A thick-bodied bouncer dressed in jeans and leather stood to the left of the door. I recognized him. His name was Bill. He wasn’t too bad of a guy, but he moved in some rough circles. I nodded at him in recognition. Bill nodded back. His eyes slid from me to Shadow and back again.
“I don’t want no trouble,” he said. I had been in the place before. The last time I had been there, I had to knock a few heads together to get the answers I needed. Not all citizens cooperated with Heroes or were as civic minded as one would hope.
“I’m not looking for trouble,” I said. Bill could save me the time and trouble of wandering around the dark, smoky bar. “What I’m looking for is Hopper. You seen him?”
Bill hesitated. As if it was written on his face, I could see him trying to decide if I already knew Hopper was in the bar and weighing whether it was smarter to piss me off or to piss Hopper off. He finally made the right decision.
“He’s in the back playing pool,” he said in a low voice. “But, I’m not the one who told you so.”
“Of course not,” I said. “A little birdie told me.” I shot Bill with my thumb and forefinger.
I started walking towards the room where the pool tables were. Shadow followed in my wake. The bar was shaped like a dumbbell, with the bar area at one end and the pool room at the other, with a narrow corridor connecting the two. As we moved down the corridor, we had to weave past couples who were making out. One couple was particularly immodest. The woman was pressed against the wall and moaning in a low voice. The man, with his pants halfway down his legs and his pimpled butt exposed, was thrusting away into her like a jackhammer and grunting like a wild boar. Nobody else seemed to be paying them the slightest bit of attention. Whether it was out of respect or because such things happened all the time at the bar, I didn’t know.
Superhero Detective Series (Book 2): The Missing Exploding Girl Page 8
