The New Adventures of Foster Fade, The Crime Spectacularist

by Adam Lance Garcia

  Fade arched an exasperated eyebrow. “After the ‘Murder By Mail,’ you mean?”

  The bald man took a quick swig of his drink and coughed. “After that. It was a bit different than your normal stuff, it was… Actually,” he gestured out the window, “it was about Black Rock.”

  Fade hesitated only a moment before he snapped his fingers. “Ah, yeah. I remember that one. ‘The Hollowed Out Mountain.’ Right. Din and I wrote it… God, must have been a year before we printed it. Gubb held off on it saying it was ‘too ridiculous’ and ‘didn’t fit our standard.’ Which, yes, is true, all of our articles are mysteries, crimes, murders and whatnot, but I insisted. There was a point to it, I told him. A method to my madness. Not that he listened, of course. Heck, even Din was skeptical, but I had her write it up anyway. So Gubb tucked it away, told me he’d save it for a ‘rainy day,’ as if Din and I would ever want for material. But, sure enough, the day came when we were one article short, and Din and I were… Actually, that was the day when we were kidnapped by the Lizard People… Actually, they weren’t Lizards and they really weren’t people… Good kissers, though. Now that was a really weird day. Anyways, Gubb had no choice but to drop it in or see his readership drop a couple of thousand.”

  “It was an interesting article.”

  A smile curled in the corner of Fade’s mouth despite himself. “It was, wasn’t it? If I remember it correctly, we talked about how the government was building a super-secret mystery lab beneath one of the hills surrounding the town. South Grand, I think.” He took another swig of his drink, watching to see how the other man would react. “We only had a little bit of evidence, but my source was reliable enough for Gubb to let it through to print. I mean, a hollowed out mountain in Black Rock? I know my gadgets might seem like they’re out of science fiction but… a hollowed out mountain? Come on. Even to me it sounds ridiculous. “ The ice clinked against the glass as Fade sipped at his drink. “But, like I said, not really our normal stuff, but I had my reasons.”

  A cold smile formed on the man’s face, his brown eyes empty. “How did you hear about it?”

  “Ah, ah…” Fade wagged a reprimanding finger. “That’s two questions.”

  “Only the first,” the bald man corrected. “I never asked you anything. You just—”

  “Talked. Yeah. I do that.”

  “So?”

  “How did I hear about it?”

  The bald man nodded.

  “It’s not that big of a mystery, really,” he said eventually with a cryptic smile. “Loads of construction vehicles were flowing in and out of a town that, for the most part, hasn’t been able to find its way out of the squatter camps. You’d think all those people itching to lift a shovel would’ve been hired on the spot, but nope, not a single local was hired. And when they were done nearly two years later there wasn’t a single building built except for a small wooden cabin. Odd, don’t you think? Plus, according to my source, who I trusted implicitly, they were shipping in these big ventilations systems, the sort they use in the Holland Tunnel and what use are those for a cabin in the hills?”

  “And who was that? Your source, I mean.”

  Fade tapped the side of his nose. “A good reporter never reveals his sources. Doctor-patient, Lawyer-client privilege and such.”

  “Hm,” the bald man sounded. “Are you sure you can’t tell?” He asked, moving his hands off the table.

  Fade leaned back in his chair and studied his companion for a moment while subtly tinkering with his right wrist. “Why do you want to know?”

  The man shrugged. “Curiosity.”

  “You know what they say about that and the cat…”

  “Mr. Fade,” the other man said after several moments. “I sense you’ve become a little cold to me all of the sudden.”

  Fade stared at his drinking companion, his face like stone. “I never got your name.”

  “I didn’t give it,” the man replied with a smile, his eyes falling into shadow.

  “And I take it you’re not going to?”

  A sharp metallic click sounded from beneath the table.

  Fade’s gaze instinctually dropped down. “Really?” he sighed.

  “I’m afraid so,” he replied, his voice hollow and his face hard.

  “Well, this is an unpleasant turn of events,” Fade commented, adjusting his tie. “And here I thought we were becoming friends.”

  “Who was your source at Black Rock?”

  “You actually hollowed out South Grand?” Fade asked conspiratorially, but the man’s expression was unreadable. Fade sighed, leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers together. “Well, look if you’re going to kill me, which I assume is the logical end to this, could you at least tell me who you’re working for or am I going to have to guess?”

  The man stared at Fade for a moment. “Call it a collective of individuals who’d rather stay out of the papers.”

  Fade rolled his eyes. “I’m glad we’re getting specific.” He toasted and finished off the last of his whiskey with one quick swig. “Well, at least you bought me a drink.”

  The man nodded. “It was the polite thing to do. Now, if you would reciprocate.”

  “I’m afraid I’m going to have to be rude,” he said evenly. “No offense, of course, you seem like a perfectly friendly assassin—probably the nicest I’ve ever met, and I’ve met a few.”

  “Must you make this difficult, Mr. Fade?”

  “Of course.” Fade nodded in assent. “You’re not about to kill me right here, in front of all these people,” he said, gesturing to the other passengers milling about the dining cart.

  “Who says I won’t just kill them as well?” the man replied with a dead voice.

  Fade’s eyes narrowed. “Well, then, you’ve just made this a lot easier.” There was an audible click as Fade quickly flicked his wrist, ejecting a small pistol from the inside of his sleeve into his hand.

  The man eyed Fade’s pistol and smiled. “Hidden in your sleeve?”

  “Designed it myself,” Fade replied with a broad smile, sounding more thrilled with himself than was proper. “It only houses one shot, but at this range, it’ll do the job. Honestly, I can’t believe I’m getting a chance to use it again so soon.”

  “Hm. I should get one of those for myself.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “You should.”

  “I guess this leaves us at an impasse.”

  The man arched a quizzical eyebrow. “Does it?”

  “Well, not really,” Fade said with bravado. “You see, I’m Foster Fade and I’m really quite famous. And not just poster-boy famous, though Lord knows I have the looks. I’m a hero, sometimes with a capital ‘H.’ The sort that weeds out villainy and all that ridiculousness. The Crime Spectacularist, they call me. I even have a billboard in Times Square. Hell, I could even have a fan club with one of those dumb secret decoder rings if I wanted.”

  “Which means…?”

  “Which means, if people see me shoot someone, you can be sure they’ll assume I’m in the right.”

  The man gave him a thin smile. “Is that so?”

  Fade heard a soft pop from beneath the table and felt a sharp pain in his side. He glanced down at his stomach in shock.

  “A silencer,” the man commented off Fade’s stunned expression. “That wasn’t a kill shot, Mr. Fade, but I can promise you if you don’t tell me what I need to know, the next one will be.”

  Fade didn’t hesitate to fire.

  ***

  The heat radiated from Din’s cigarette and filled her lungs, giving her a hint of relief. They kept it cold in the Arctic Lounge. They said it was better for the liquor and the aesthetic, but Din knew it was a holdover from Prohibition when the lounge was a speakeasy tucked inside a meat locker. Waiters snaked between the tables, serving trays filled with cocktails so complex they bordered on chemistry. It was still too early for dancers so the band played light, soft strings and horns, barely audib
le beneath the babble.

  “You could at least look at me when I’m talking to you,” Luke said, his brow furrowed to the point of being mountainous. He took a long drag of his cigarette, waiting to see if Din would respond.

  Din tapped her cigarette into the ashtray, black, grey and red embers fluttering down like snow. She noticed the fingers on her left hand were tapping the air. She was writing again, just fifty keys short of a keyboard. “I’m sorry, were you talking?”

  Luke let out a long sigh, cigarette smoke and frozen breath steaming. “I’m not even sure why I’m here.”

  “Because you choose to be.” She took another drag and winced. She didn’t mean to sound so cold. Luke had been courting Din off-and-on for the better part of a year. He was a crime reporter for the Herald-Tribune, though Luke sometimes moonlighted at the Amalgamated Press as a writer for the late-night news hour. Despite the round-the-clock lifestyle Luke was still fit and trim, and save for a thatch of grey on his right temple, looked no older than thirty. He had met Din some time after the firestorm that was the Post Box Killer and the two had gotten along well enough for Din to accept an invitation to dinner, out of curiosity if nothing else. She liked him usually, but the rest of the time her eyes and her mind seemed to wander, waiting for something to pop up around the corner; another murder, another crime, another something. “Sorry,” she said sincerely, “that sounded more philosophical than I meant it to be.”

  Luke quietly tapped his cigarette into the ashtray. “Where are you right now?” he asked after a moment.

  Upstate, Din didn’t say. “Here. I’m here. I promise, I’m here.”

  Luke arched an eyebrow. “You promise?”

  She smiled. “Promise.”

  “Then, can you tell me what this thing is?” He pointed to the large contraption piled in the center of the table. “Or are we just going to keep on ignoring it for the rest of the evening?”

  Din scratched her temple. “It’s Foster’s… thing.”

  Luke nodded slowly. “Okay… And what does ‘Foster’s thing’ do?”

  Din arched an amused eyebrow. “Why are you asking?”

  “Well, for one it’s taking up most of the table, which will make dinner a lot more cumbersome.”

  “And two?”

  “It’s a giant pile of machinery never before seen this side of the sun! Also, I have nowhere to put my drink.”

  A waiter appeared, placing two drinks in between them. Din’s was a cloudy brown, while Luke’s was practically invisible. Din swallowed her drink and quickly puffed at her cigarette to block the aftertaste. “It’s a phone,” she said under her breath.

  “That’s a phone,” Luke said, moving his finger closer to the mess of machinery as if it would make it more real. “It looks like a vest. From the future.”

  Din sighed; she couldn’t believe she was saying this aloud. “It’s a portable phone.”

  Luke pulled his hand away, and then pointed it forward again. “That’s a phone? Seriously?”

  “No, it’s all one big ruse to bemuse and befuddle people,” Din replied dryly. “I’m so happy it’s working.”

  Luke opened and closed his mouth, trying to process the idea. “How is that a phone?” he eventually managed. “Doesn’t it need wires and cables and um… other things?”

  A low bell chimed from somewhere within the pile of machinery.

  “Well, it rings,” Din said pleasantly in response. “So that’s half the battle.”

  Louis blinked slowly in befuddlement. “Aren’t you going to answer it?”

  Din smiled. “Unless you want to.”

  Luke reached for the small handset hooked to what looked like a belt before he stopped himself. “Who’s on the other side?”

  “Try and guess.”

  Luke withdrew his hand and returned to his drink, letting the phone ring. “He ever give you a night off?”

  “I think a better question is, do I ever give myself the night off.”

  “You two act like a married couple,” Luke said over his drink. “I often wonder if I should be jealous.”

  “It’s not so complicated. He adventures, I write.”

  “But he gets the all the glory,” he added pointedly.

  “That’s how ghostwriting works,” she said. “All that matters is if my name is on the check. Dinamenta Stevens,” she said, stabbing her cigarette into the air with each syllable. “And it’s a very big check.”

  Luke chuckled. “Okay, now there I’m jealous. Maybe I should be a little more forward thinking and have you cover this one.”

  “Need a few more drinks in me before that can happen.” She waved over the waiter.

  “Anything else, Miss Stevens?” the waiter meekly asked.

  “Nothing besides this,” Din said, handing him her empty glass. “And twice as strong.” She took a hard drag of her cigarette. “And for the fella here…”

  Luke leaned back in his chair and took a patient drag off his cigarette.

  “Why don’t you surprise him?”

  They let the phone between them continued to ring.

  “Are you going to answer it?” Luke said with a nod.

  Din smiled coyly. “Unless you want to.”

  ***

  Fade clutched his side, dark fluid leaking between his fingers, the phone’s handset clutched between his head and shoulder as he kicked open the door to the next car. Behind him the rush of air and the sliding door cut out the screams of shocked patrons. “Din! Dammit, Din, pick up!” he shouted, the low warble ringing madly in his ear. Why on Earth had he thought this would be a good sound for phone calls? “Pick up the phone!”

  There was a pop and click of static and Fade felt a sudden tremor of panic just before he heard a voice crackle through.

  “Hello?” the voice sounded distance, almost as if it was someone whispering from the bottom of a well. But impossibly, the phone worked.

  “Din!” Fade nearly shouted with delight.

  The male voice on the other end chuckled. “’Fraid not, Foster.”

  Fade stopped short and nearly fell over. “Who the hell is this?”

  “Luke,” the other man replied pleasantly. “Luke Jaconetti. We met a few months back during the—”

  “Who?”

  The other man cleared his throat. “Well, my pride’s just been wounded a little. I think he wants to talk to—”

  A brief rattle echoed through the line before Din’s voice came on. “Hello, Fade.”

  “Din?”

  Din let out a long electronic sigh. “Yes?”

  “Din, it’s me!”

  “Who else would it be?”

  “Who the hell is Luke Jaconetti?”

  “Crime reporter for the—”

  “It doesn’t matter. Din, there’s been a spot of trouble,” he whispered as passengers watched him run by. He grabbed a large briefcase off the overhead rack, briefly stumbling from the weight. One man jumped up and cursed, fists clenched but Fade shoved him back into his seat.

  “Am I supposed to be surprised?”

  Fade struggled to unlock the door into the first class car, his hand slick. He rammed his elbow against the door handle to no avail. What he wouldn’t give for his missing screwdriver. He moved to kick open the door when a bullet whizzed past his head, shattering the window. Fade spun away in time, covering his face with his arm. He glanced back and saw the assassin racing toward him, gun raised. “You know I could really not use the sarcasm right now!”

  “And yet you called me.”

  Fade knocked away the remaining bits of glass in the window, reached through and unlocked the door. He felt another bullet zip past as he dove forward into the first class car. He landed hard on his back, briefly knocking the wind from his lungs.

  There was something faint echoing beneath the static. Fade pulled the handset from his ear and eyed it suspiciously as he tried to identify the rhythmic tone that almost sounded like— “Is that music?”

  It was several
moments before Din replied. “Possibly.”

  “Where are you?”

  “The Arctic Lounge.”

  “Are you—Are you on a date?”

  Din hesitated. Din never hesitated. “No.”

  “Why would you be on a date when we’re testing the… phone thing?”

  “And look, it works!” she replied happily.

  “Do you remember the Black Rock article?” he asked, ignoring her comment as he dropped to his knees, locked the door and propped the suitcase between the door and the wall.

  “The what-what article?”

  “Black. Rock. Black Rock,” he barked in frustration as he crawled along the floor, testing the doors of each compartment and finding all of them locked. “Do you remember the article?”

  “Wait… Wait… That was the one you had me write up because of—Wait. You mean the ‘bait’?!”

  “Yes!” Fade hissed.

  “It worked!?” Din said excitedly, her voice ringing in Fade’s ear. “You found him! You found the man who murdered—”

  “Yes, and he shot me in the stomach!”

  “How are you still alive?”

  “The bullet ricocheted off the phone, busted the fluid reserve,” Fade replied. He glanced down at the leaking canister on his side, thankful, not for the first time, he had designed the prototype as a vest and not a belt as he had originally planned. He wiped the oil off his fingers onto his pant legs.

  “Why would a phone need a fluid reserve?”

  “It’s experimental,” he said defensively.

  “Then how are you talking to me?”

  “Right now I’m willing to believe in magic.”

  “What about your friend?”

  “I shot him.”

  “Is he still alive?”

  Fade heard the cacophony of glass shatter and the smack of wood cracking as the assassin tried to force open the door. Fade risked a glance over his shoulder and quickly moved over to the next compartment. He had a minute, maybe seconds left before he broke through. “He was wearing a bullet-proof vest!” he hissed.

  “That’s why you always aim for the head.”