Flash barely gave him a glance. “Have the pickings been that slim since I’ve been gone?”
Peter knew it was idle ribbing, but he was already tense. He rose to his feet, ready for a fight.
“I thought the Army had changed you. Last I saw you, I swore you were almost human. But if you think that outfit gives you the right to treat me—”
Chuckling, Flash pointed a dismissive thumb at the door. “Screw off, brainiac! When I need a civilian, I’ll ask for one.”
“This isn’t high school anymore,” Peter shot back. “I’m not going to let you put me down in front of Gwen—”
Gwen’s hand flashed in front of his face. “Peter! What’s gotten into you? He was only kidding!”
The good cheer vanished from Thompson’s face. “Maybe I’m the one who was wrong about you. Maybe you’re still the same uptight nerd I always thought you were.”
But Flash’s sneer was lacking its old haughtiness. He actually looked a little hurt, so Peter lowered his hands. “Okay, maybe I overreacted. But no one likes to see some other guy make a play for his girl.”
Flash backed away. “Look, pal, any heteronormative guy that doesn’t make a play for her is ready for embalming. But don’t let me interrupt. I’ll bounce. Thanks for the warm welcome.”
As soon as his sharp uniform disappeared in the rain, an abject Peter turned to Gwen. “I…I was all fired up after hearing what happened to you. I’m sorry…”
Her anger was back in full force. “You should be. For a boy who’s always missing when there’s trouble, it’s strange how hostile you can be to a man who’s been in combat!”
She turned her back and headed out, too. The Coffee Bean’s brass shop bell gave a little tinkle as the door closed.
Peter slumped into his chair.
I heard her. I’m a boy, he’s a man. I’m a coward, he’s selfless. If I’m being honest, I wasn’t just revved up from hearing about last night. I was jealous, afraid of losing Gwen to Flash. And stupid rants like that are exactly what’ll drive her away.
* * *
THE PRECINCT’S basement windows provided at least a little natural light. With the ceiling fixtures sparse, Wesley found himself in the shadow of the dozen guards present since Mr. Fisk’s escape.
New York State required an arraignment within 24 hours of arrest. If they were too busy to get to him before that, it could provide grounds for his release. But Wesley’s heart sank as the cell door opened with a half hour to spare.
Instead of a judge, though, he was taken to a particularly severe-looking officer behind a security window. She gave him his things and asked him to sign for them.
“I’m being released? What is this, some trick? Are you planning to have me followed?”
The woman gave him a world-weary look. “I wouldn’t know. They don’t let me in the room where the tricks get planned. I hear it’s hidden in the sewers with the mole men.”
Wesley sniffed. “I don’t appreciate the sarcasm.”
“I don’t care. Door’s behind you. Unless you’d like to go back to holding?”
He stiffened, grabbed the thick envelope awkwardly stuffed with his belt, wallet, and sundry personal items, and headed out. At the front entrance, his hands full, he waited for another officer to hold the door for him, but the man just laughed. Tucking the envelope under one arm, Wesley shoved the old oak slab open himself and stepped into the pouring rain.
A limo was parked at the curb. A chauffeur in full regalia trotted up and flashed open an umbrella over his head. “May I take your things?”
Increasingly suspicious, Wesley refused both the offer of help and the umbrella. Though the seconds it took him to reach the limo left him soaked, he hesitated to enter. Instead, he leaned down for a look at the occupant.
“Caesar Cicero? What is this about?”
“Why don’t you get out of the rain so we can talk more comfortably?”
Wesley didn’t move. Cicero rolled his eyes.
“You know that thing they always say in the movies, about how if I wanted you dead, you would be already? Hey, you’ve probably said it yourself, right? Get in.”
Once the door closed, the rush of rain disappeared, leaving only the drip-drip-drip of the water falling off Wesley onto the plush leather seats.
Cicero looked out his window. “Funny how fast things change. One minute your friend’s leaving you to rot in jail, the next your enemy’s calling in favors to get you out.”
Wesley did his best not to squirm, but every movement of his damp clothes squeaked against the leather. “If you think I’ll tell you anything about Mr. Fisk, you’re sadly mistaken.”
Barely listening, Cicero buffed his nails against his coat’s fur lapel. “Yeah, yeah. I get it. You’re not gonna leave your man until the day you die. Nice song. Good for you. Don’t sweat it. These days there are probably a few things I could tell you about Wilson Fisk. But this ain’t about him or his dying operation. It’s about an old rock someone swiped from the Exhibition Hall.”
Wesley’s eyes widened. “The tablet?”
Cicero smiled. “You’d be lousy at poker, you know that? We should play some time. Anyway, yeah. It’s ours now.”
Tired, disoriented, Wesley let his shoulders slump. “It’s worthless to you. You have no idea what it means.”
“Worthless, priceless, I hear all kinds of things. Fact is, you don’t know what it says, either. That’s the thing about the really good secrets. They’re secret.” The attorney tapped the partition. The limo pulled so smoothly into traffic, Wesley barely realized they were moving.
“What I do know is that the very thought of figuring out that secret makes your geekhood tremble. How do I know? Because we have access to all the Kingpin’s servers. Every document, every email, no matter how private—yours included.”
Cicero tossed a printout into his lap. As Wesley read, his hair dripped onto the paper. Cicero waited for him to finish, rubbing a stubby index finger adorned with a gaudy ruby ring.
“Get the picture?”
Slack-jawed, Wesley nodded.
Smiling, Cicero nudged him playfully. “Good. Denial can be a mother. Personally, I think it’s a waste of time, but I don’t gotta tell you what it’s like indulging a boss’s eccentricities, do I? Marone a mi, the things I could say about that fossil.” His wide face went stone-cold sober. “But I won’t. Not ever. I’m not only loyal, I’m on the winning team—something you and I do not have in common. I can prove to you a dozen different ways there’s nothing left for you to betray. The Kingpin is over. On the other hand, here’s your big chance to translate that stone.”
Reaching an oddly ominous Gothic Revival skyscraper, the driver took a sharp right. Just before the limo disappeared into its private garage, Wesley recognized the Galby building. They came to a gentle halt before an elevator.
“If I refuse?”
“Then you die—which, sure, we all have to do eventually. But in your case, you die without solving the puzzle that’s been eating at you.”
This time, the driver was less than polite. He yanked Wesley from the car and pulled him to his feet. Cicero reached up to straighten Wesley’s collar and pat him on the cheek.
“We’re not barbarians. You don’t have to decide right now. The elevator ride’s a good 30 seconds.”
The elevator was as smooth as the limo; without windows it was impossible to tell whether it was moving at all. Trapped in the small confines, Wesley’s nostrils flared at Cicero’s cologne.
The Maggia attorney nudged him again. “If it helps, tell yourself that if you play along, you can still somehow turn the tables and help out your old boss. Dead, you’re no good to anybody.”
Wesley had thought Cicero’s gruff mob-speak indicated a second-rate intellect, but now he knew it was a facade. The man was a master manipulator. Wesley had been thinking along similar lines.
The doors opened. Cicero swept his arm like a maître d’ showing a diner to his seat.
&nbs
p; “And hey, if you live, let’s have that poker game sometime.”
The office was so large, its shadows held more than a few somber, silent guards. A mahogany desk stood, tastefully lit, at the far end of the room. Idly, Wesley reflected that it would make a perfect replacement for the original Capone desk destroyed in Mr. Fisk’s gym.
Behind it sat another original: Silvio Manfredi, last of the old-time Maggia leaders. He was likewise carefully maintained, but with less success. His skin tone nearly matched his gray suit. The shirt and tie, clearly meant to complement his blue eyes, brought out their jaundiced yellow instead. The trimmed, perfectly combed white hair made him look like a corpse about to be laid to rest.
In fact, Wesley wasn’t quite sure the man was alive. The body was motionless. Then Manfredi blinked. His eyes focused on Cicero, who deferentially removed his hat. When Manfredi blinked again, he was looking at Wesley.
Silvermane flicked a finger at his second-incommand. “He thinks I’m a doddering old fool for bringing the Kingpin’s pawn to our headquarters. But he’s also hoping it’ll make me look stupid, so he can move in. I can smell it on him—every foul, treacherous thought.”
Cicero’s lips twitched. “Not even you can talk to me like that.”
Silvermane either ignored him or hadn’t heard. “On your way out, tell Marko to come in.”
Cicero kept sneering as he exited, leaving the door open. As they waited, Wesley realized his back still felt damp, but a stream of hot air in front of him had already dried the rain on his face. The lights weren’t only for illumination—they were there to keep the old man warm.
A moment later, someone nearly as wide as Wilson Fisk, but taller, appeared in the hall. As he entered the office, he had to duck to avoid hitting his head on the door frame.
Manfredi pointed at the giant. “I like big dogs. The dumber the better. A pat on the head and they’ll defend you to the death.”
Wesley wasn’t sure who Silvermane was talking to, or what point there was in insulting his own men. Was it dementia? But the newcomer didn’t seem to mind. If anything, he looked happy he’d been allowed into the office.
“You got it, Marko?”
“Yes, Mr. Silvermane.” The man held up the tablet, half-wrapped in an old cloth.
“Good boy. I knew you wouldn’t fail me.”
Marko placed the tablet on the desk with a thud that made Wesley wince. Thankfully, it didn’t seem damaged.
“Go on, take a closer look. Make sure it’s genuine.”
As if from nowhere, one of the mob soldiers in the shadows brought out a chair and handed Wesley a high-powered magnifying glass. To his later embarrassment, Wesley’s every thought of Wilson Fisk vanished as he scrutinized the finely chiseled glyphs.
“It’s real. I’d know it anywhere.”
As soon as he said it, he felt guilty. For the first time, he was confused about his loyalties. However sarcastically Cicero’s advice had been offered, he was correct: Wesley would be no good to the Kingpin dead. And here was the tablet, in his hands.
Silvermane gave a faint smile. “All those other translators thought it was a recipe, like from a cookbook. But you think it’s a chemical formula.”
“That’s my theory.”
Manfredi’s eyes had a faraway look, as if his spirit was barely tethered to his body. As he spoke, they grew more distant. “No. Not a theory. Don’t ask me how I know, but it’s true.”
“You understand, there’s not much I can do on my own.”
Silvermane nodded. “I know. You wanted that biochemist to help with the translation—Dr. Curtis Connors. He’ll be here soon, too.”
* * *
GEORGE Stacy lay propped up in his big wood-frame bed, faded blue pajamas mostly covered by thick blankets, as his daughter arranged pillows of various sizes. Spider-Man watched from a branch outside. He was close enough to the slightly open window to see and hear everything without being seen himself.
Eavesdropping made him feel guilty, but shocking Gwen with his sudden costumed appearance was out of the question, so he’d have to wait until she left. He’d hurt her enough already.
The captain looked torn between allowing his eager daughter to ease her worries, or begging her to stop fussing.
“I’m fine, Gwen, really, good as new.”
She kept arranging the pillows—so tenderly, it made Peter’s heart ache.
“Are you sure? Can I bring you anything?”
He put a hand on her wrist. “No, thanks, honey, really.”
She patted the hand. “Okay, but if you want something, just bellow, promise?” She paused. “Um… did Peter call on the landline?”
Stacy appeared delighted to have the subject shift away from his health—but Spider-Man’s gut twisted. “No. Why? Were you expecting him?”
“I did think…ah, he’s not the only boy in the world.”
Exactly. There’s handsome Flash Thompson, for instance.
“Then why do your eyes glow whenever you mention him?”
She gently slapped her father’s shoulder. “Could you stop being a detective for a minute? I’m just worried he’s still angry about his run-in with Flash yesterday.”
Me? Really? I figured she’d still be angry with me.
“Then why don’t you call him?”
“Because I’m still angry with him.”
There it is. Who wouldn’t be?
“I won’t pretend to understand that, but as I’ve said before, my dear, he couldn’t make you so angry if you didn’t—”
Cutting him off, she whirled to leave. “Sorry, homework’s waiting.”
The door closed. Stacy waited a few moments, then looked at the window. “She’s gone, if you’d care to come in, son.”
Gut-knot tightening, Spider-Man sheepishly pulled up the sash and perched on the sill. “How’d you…?”
He seemed bemused. “I’ve lived here long enough to have a pretty good idea how the shadows outside my own window usually behave.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here last night. Are you okay?”
Stacy sighed. “If you’re here about my health, a get-well card would have sufficed. I’d rather not deal with uninvited guests two nights in a row.”
“Sorry. Sorry.”
“So you said. Anything else?”
“I want to track down the tablet. Is there anything you can tell me about who took it?”
Stacy wrinkled his brow. “Just because I don’t think you’re as bad as the press makes you out to be, doesn’t mean I feel comfortable telling you about an ongoing investigation.” He gave off a second sigh. “It was taken by Man Mountain Marko, a Maggia enforcer.”
“Man Mountain? So I guess he’s big, huh?” Seeing Stacy’s stony face, he went on. “Uh, why is the Maggia interested?”
“I don’t know, but there’s more. Earlier today we received word from Florida that a Dr. Curt Connors and his family were abducted by known…”
Doc Connors?
Without waiting for Stacy to finish, Spider-Man tumbled backwards into the night, leaving Stacy to call out at his back:
“You know the name? Is there something the police need to know, son?”
Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t tell him that Connors is also the Lizard. If I hadn’t trapped the doc in a refrigerator car, where the low temps made his primal side go dormant, he’d still be wandering the Everglades, eating small mammals and plotting the rise of reptiles to their “rightful” place at the top of the food chain.
What does the Maggia want with him?
TEN
WHAT have you done with Martha and Billy?” Dr. Curt Connors asked.
Something ached beneath the skin and cauterized muscle of the rounded stub that had once been his right arm. To someone else, it would be a phantom pain, a stray twinge. To him, it was a warning.
The old man who was obviously in charge said nothing, letting the squat one in the gaudy tie— Cicero—answer instead.
“Nothing yet,
aside from tying them up a little for their own safety. That boy of yours is a real firecracker.”
The thought of his family bound and gagged made the pain shoot across his arm so sharply he stumbled. Part of his brain was already hewing to more primal urges. He felt torn between using his remaining hand to rub the blunted limb, or to reach out and steady himself.
Realizing he wasn’t faking, his captors looked at each other.
Cicero took Connors’ elbow and steered him to the edge of the desk where he could support himself. Their aged leader flicked a finger, and Connors heard the sound of pouring liquid.
“War wound acting up?”
These gangsters thought their research told them everything they needed to know about him. They had known enough to find his remote Everglades home, enough to grab his wife and child first, and to threaten their lives to ensure his cooperation.
But they had no idea how dangerous he could be.
The mortar attack that had destroyed Connors’ arm had also made him determined to find a way to heal himself, as well as millions of other amputees. He thought he’d found the key in the regenerative abilities of certain lizards. Green anoles, salamanders, geckoes, and chameleons could lose their prehensile tails and regrow them. Why wouldn’t the right gene therapy allow humans to do the same? But the experimental serum had transformed him, embedding his brain with ancient predatory instincts that saw other beings purely as a food source.
Maybe next time he should try working with white mice, like everyone else.
Since his capture, a battle had been playing out in his heart and mind. The primal need to save his wife and child struggled against the knowledge that anything he tried could leave them dead. Once the private jet had brought them all to New York, their captors had separated them. No longer being able to see Martha or Billy weakened his reason as much as it fed his rage.
As a result, he found himself caring less and less whether the kidnappers lived or died. The thought that it might be at his own hands brought a sickening sense of relish.
Another sign of the change.
Spider-Man Page 9
