Silvermane wasn’t buying. It didn’t make sense. Marko was here, and that meant he was a threat. “Liar! Think I’m stupid? That I don’t remember?”
Surprised by his own speed, the former Maggia leader sprinted to the stairs. It was like one of those dreams about flying. He practically sailed across the distance. As soon as he was close enough, he backhanded the dog. “I remember plenty!”
There was a lot of power behind that slap, more than he intended. “I remember that! Do you?”
But Marko didn’t move. He looked to the dame, like she could help him somehow.
Annoyed, Silvermane grabbed Marko’s chin and twisted his face back. “No, you look at me and you keep looking! I could rot until I’m just a set of eyeballs and still remember how to treat a traitor!”
Marko’s face flushed with shame. “But I didn’t—”
When Silvermane slapped him again, Marko twisted and fell to his knees. The sound echoed through the basement.
“That’s what you get!”
The woman gasped and tried to run, but Silvermane grabbed her bony wrist. “You stay and watch! This is my dog! Mine! I stole him fair and square.”
The initial shock faded from her wan face. She looked like…she pitied him. “You’re not making any sense.”
Silvermane shivered, terrified she might be right—but he couldn’t, wouldn’t show it. He let go and pushed her. She fell on the steps. Who was she? Was she his date? Had he gotten too rough again?
He pulled out a wad of bills and tossed a 50 at her. It turned in the air and landed on the folds of her fancy cloak. “Beat it, toots. Get yourself a cab. I’ll call you later.”
“Stop it.”
“Who said that?”
It was Marko. The tone was defiant, but his eyes were still down. Silvermane loomed over the giant, putting his hands on his hips.
“What’re you going to do to make me? Cry?”
Silvermane pulled back to hit him again—but this time, Marko’s long arm reached out.
“No! Not in front of her!”
The giant paw caught Silvermane’s elbow, but when Manfredi exerted some pressure, Marko’s entire body skidded backward.
He was getting crazy strong. Was the alligator, Connors, right about that, too? The more he lost of himself, the more powerful he became?
Marko looked up into his eyes. “I swear, boss, I didn’t know you’d be here!”
“Bull! Then what’re you doing here with…”
He knew the woman. He knew he knew her. He strained, as if his brain were like any another muscle. If he pushed hard enough, he could force the big empty spot inside to give way.
And for a time, it did.
The words came rushing back, reassembling Manfredi’s place in the world. “Vanessa Fisk! The Kingpin’s moll! You brought her here?”
“I’m only doing security for her! Some freelance on the side!”
He raised the tommy gun to Marko’s temple. “Liar. The only question is, do I kill you first, or the widow, so you get to watch it happen?”
A deep, hollow crack echoed above. It was so loud, Silvermane wasn’t sure whether it had come from the world or from his own mind. A section of the ceiling crumbled. Plaster and wood fell in clumps, leaving behind a little hole. A lithe figure leapt through, twirled like a gymnast, and touched down beside the cinderblock throne.
“Nailed the landing! Hi, folks. Should I have been in the Olympics or what?”
“You look like a court jester in that getup. Get away from my chair!”
The jester raised his hands. “Easy, grandpa. You should know, Marko’s not lying. I invited them here.”
“Says you, but that still leaves the question of how you found…”
Silvermane’s face scrunched up, tightening like a wizened gourd ready to crack as he tried to remember something specific about this clown, something lurking right at the edge of his brain. Ah. That was it. Holding the gun in one hand, he used the other to slap at his sides, at his back. He felt along his body with his palm and fingers, as if trying to scratch an itch just out of reach.
“Boss, you okay?”
“Shut up. I’m working here!”
The Fisk woman called to the jester. “Spider-Man! What’s the meaning of this? I did as you asked—”
But the costumed idiot held up a hand to silence her. “You’re going to have to be a little patient, Mrs. Fisk. Trust me.”
Silvermane found it, a small bulge on the edge of his jacket. He ripped the spider-tracer free, tossed it to the floor, and crushed it beneath his heel.
“Wall-crawler, right? No, it’s Spider-Man! Still thinking like a stupid kid, huh? Do you realize what happens next? You realize what I do to you?”
Silvermane could swear he saw a brow furrow beneath the webbed mask.
“Are you asking me or telling me?” Spider-Man asked.
“The names, idiot! I know the name of every…”
“Okay! I already heard the offer I can’t refuse, godfather. You wanted this, right?”
He crawled up the wall and along the ceiling to a spot above Silvermane’s head, then yanked a silver case from his back and pulled out a flat stone. There was writing on it. Silvermane knew what it was. He’d have remembered even if Vanessa Fisk hadn’t blurted out:
“The tablet!”
Its color was dull, the details obscured in the scant light, but his attention was glued to it as if it were a diamond. It was the thing he wanted, the thing he needed most. The last stone for his palace.
Silvio Manfredi might have kept right on gawking at it, but Vanessa Fisk whispered, “My husband’s last hope.”
And the treacherous dog answered, “You want me to get it for you, Mrs. Fisk, just say the word.”
Silvermane wheeled on them. “No! It’s mine!”
A single punch to the chest sent Man Mountain flying across the basement. He crashed headfirst into the cinderblocks that formed the throne.
Spider-Man started. “Whoa. Someone’s been eating their Wheaties. How—”
Manfredi cracked his knuckles. “It’s the elixir, Bugsy, making me stronger. And that’s just a taste. Why don’t you make this easy on yourself and hand it over?”
Spider-Man dangled the tablet in front of Silvermane. “Salivate all you want, but this thing is not going to help you. I mean, it’s not like you can even read it, right?”
Vanessa Fisk ran—not for the stone, but toward the fallen Marko. Seeing her concern seemed to make it easier for the dog to shake off the punch.
It didn’t matter to Silvermane. Nothing else mattered. Just the stone. It was so close! Silvermane almost had his hands on it, but Spider-Man snatched the web away at the last instant and held the stone in his hand.
“Hand it over.”
Spider-Man inched along the ceiling toward the staircase hollow that led up to the warehouse proper. “Listen to me. You’re stuck, pal. You’re going to spend all eternity growing up, then growing…down. I guess. Sort of like Peter Pan on steroids—only butt-ugly, and with no Wendy to tell you stories.”
“You’re wrong. Everyone’s still trying to fool me. They think I’m weak, too old, on the way out, but no one fools…no one fools…”
Marko’s ears perked. “Boss, did you just…forget your name?”
Manfredi’s head turned from the tablet above him to Marko, then back to the tablet. He gritted his teeth and crouched.
“I don’t need a name. I know exactly who I am.”
Then he jumped, faster and higher than he ever had, even as a boy, high enough to wrap his hands around the stone.
* * *
GO ON!” Spider-Man yelled, waving at Marko and Vanessa Fisk. “Move it!”
Spider-Man had wanted to use the relic to lead Silvermane out of the basement, but the crazed mob boss had somehow made a 10-foot freestanding jump. Peter still held the tablet in his hand, but Silvermane was hanging off of it.
So much for Plan A! Time to improvise.
He shot a web beyond the stairs, far, far up into the warehouse floors. Sailing through the gaps in the upper floors, it stuck fast to one of the roof’s remaining cross-supports. Straining, he lifted himself, carrying the stone and the crook up with him.
As he pulled them fifty, then a hundred feet up, the unsteady corrugated sheets making up the colossal roof creaked. Silvermane twisted, trying to free the tablet from the wall-crawler’s grip. Either he hadn’t noticed the height, or he didn’t care.
“Let go!” Silvermane said. Wrinkles swam across his face.
He’s aging as I watch!
“No, you let go!”
The gangster’s hair whitened, but his eyes shone like black coals.
Shifting his grip so he could cling to the tablet with one hand, Manfredi reached for Spider-Man with the other. His spider-sense tingled. Before he knew what was happening, Silvermane dug his sharp, bony fingers into Peter’s bicep.
“Yeow!”
His strength is insane! How is it possible?
Spider-Man let go of the web, allowing them both to fall. Spinning in midair, he managed to wrest the stone from Silvermane. Hoping to both trap and protect the gangster, he spread out a sticky net beneath his tumbling foe.
Spider-Man landed on his feet. Silvermane hit the net—and immediately tore free.
My webs have the tensile strength of steel. No normal man can do that, let alone a guy who looks like he’s pushing 70!
But something more than age was changing Silvermane’s features. He didn’t glow, exactly, or crackle with the Power Cosmic. But while the warehouse was dark with night, Silvermane looked as if he stood in the noonday sun.
“You thought you’d wait me out, hoped I’d grow too weak and feeble to fight you!”
Yep. That was the idea.
Silvermane forced his fingers into a rusted gap between two of the metal sheets that made up one of the walls. “But I’m only getting stronger!”
The more he evolves, though, the more his identity should slip away. But what do I do about it? Stand around with my web in my hand hoping he reaches a higher spiritual plane and starts singing Kumbaya—or try to take him down before he kills me?
The building rattled as Silvermane pulled one of the metal sheets free and threw it. It sliced through the air, toward the web-slinger, threatening to cut him in half. As it flew, Spider-Man hopped up on it, crawled along the surface, then hopped off, landing back where he’d started.
So much for standing around.
Silvermane charged. Peter leaped to the wall and rushed out of reach.
Maybe if I keep him distracted long enough?
He waved the tablet. “Looks like you’ve got all the power you can handle. What do you need this old rock for?”
The light suffusing Silvermane grew brighter until the highlights of his wrinkles matched his snowy white his hair. “To finish my palace. To be…to be…”
Spider-Man cocked his head. “Or not to be? Just trying to help.”
“To be myself! I’m Silvio Manfredi! I was born in Corleone, Sicily. My mother died protecting me from bullets, and my grandmother hated me for it! I never owned a thing I didn’t take for myself. I never knew anything, never had anything, never was anything that didn’t…hurt.”
The more he spoke, the more the glow subsided.
Spider-Man frowned. “Trust me, I’m not the one to be talking here. But if that’s all you think you are, why don’t you just…let it go?”
“Because I don’t want to!”
Manfredi raced off. At first, Spider-Man thought he was headed for the streets, but he stopped short at the tall outer wall. There, two 20-foot girders ran up the structure’s height, forming one of the remaining supports for the building’s central I-beam. Silverman grabbed the lower girder and pulled. It didn’t come completely free, but the whole side of the warehouse tilted toward the wall-crawler.
“Easy! You’ll bring the place down!”
“Don’t tell me what to do, Bugsy!”
Out of breath, Silvermane looked up. Skyscraper lights shone through the gaps in the roof. Beyond them were swaths of sky and the few stars bold enough to poke though the city’s electric haze. Manfredi gave off a little laugh, redoubled his grip, braced his feet, and pulled on the girder again.
“I may be losing some of that power, but I’m still strong enough to use this to swat you!”
Manfredi was half-right. He was strong enough to tear the lower girder away from its weld-points, but not strong enough to use it as a weapon or keep it from tumbling.
Spider-Man didn’t need any help from his spider-sense to know that if he didn’t do something fast, the warehouse would collapse. Barely aware he’d let go of the tablet, Peter ran toward the falling girder.
Catching it with both hands, he barely managed to keep the steel edge from cracking his skull.
Now, the hard part: getting it back in place.
Every muscle in his arms, legs, and back felt as if they were tearing but, slowly, he tried to push it back upright. Above, the higher girder that supported the central I-beam began to buckle. Only a few rusted rivets kept it in place against the wall. The remaining supports screeched. The warehouse, neglected for so long, rained stray wood and metal.
In a game of inches, Spider-Man pushed the heavy steel higher. The footpads of his uniform ripped as they pressed against the concrete floor, but at last, he wedged the top of the lower girder back in below its brother.
It wasn’t enough. The I-beam listed at an angle. The weight of the entire warehouse pressed down against the lower girder. It slid back toward Spider-Man, but somehow he found the strength to push yet again and force it back toward the wall.
The warehouse was no longer in danger of collapsing, but only as long as he didn’t move.
Sweat beaded along his body, on his forehead, some absorbed by the fabric of his mask, some dripping into his eyes.
“It’s mine!”
The croaking voice reminded him he’d lost track of Silvermane. Still glowing, but wizened, balding and stooped, he stood atop a pile of debris, holding aloft the ancient stone.
He’s got the tablet!
“I will never forget! Never let go! I am Silvio Manfredi! Silvio Manfredi!”
He might have gone on shouting his own name over and over, but Vanessa Fisk’s voice carried above both the old man’s croaks and the building’s creaks.
“Silvermane!”
The plaster splotches and dirt covering her coat and face did nothing to diminish her stiff dignity. Marko was at her side, an electronic device in his hands.
“Your prize collection has been soaked with gasoline. An ignitor is connected to the detonator Michael is holding. That was what Spider-Man asked me to come here to do. I assumed it would be in exchange for the tablet.”
Vanessa Fisk glanced back and forth between the two—the web-slinger braced against the girder, the aged Manfredi panting as he held the tablet. “But it looks as if ownership has changed hands. That stone is my husband’s only hope. As such, I’d be willing to exchange it for the detonator. Once my people have studied it…”
Spider-Man tried to warn her. “Mrs. Fisk, you don’t understand. He can’t be reasoned with!”
She gave him a world-weary look. “He’s still a man, isn’t he? In my experience, any man can be reasoned with.”
But Manfredi’s feral growl didn’t sound human. It was barely possible to make out what he was shouting as he raced toward her.
“My palace! My territory! My walls! My sky!”
The dimming light that covered Silvermane grew erratic. It went dark, then flared again. Against the warehouse shadows, he seemed to flash in and out of existence. Fast as Manfredi was, the distance gave Marko time to place himself between the madman and Vanessa Fisk.
Manfredi hit Man Mountain square in the chest. Marko fell. The detonator he held went flying. It bounced along the refuse. At first it threatened to land harmlessly on its side—but then, as it ro
lled, the button on it clicked not once, but three times.
Bright reds and yellows erupted from the basement, rising like a molten ocean through the hollow of the stairs. Silvermane scrambled over Marko’s body and threw himself down the steps, screaming, “No!”
Spider-Man couldn’t tell whether Silvermane was still lit by that inner glow, or just the spreading fire.
Marko rose, a grin on his face. He held up the tablet and handed it to Vanessa Fisk.
“Why, thank you, Michael.”
“For a classy lady like you, any time.”
Still holding the girder, Spider-Man gritted his teeth. She’ll get away with the tablet…but I can’t let Silvermane die. Even if he is nuts, even if it means my identity is exposed…
“Look, I can’t hold on anymore! Both of you have to run for it, now!”
They fled, Marko looming over Vanessa Fisk like a shield. Once they were gone, Spider-Man eyed the distance to the flaming stairs, pivoted, and then let go. As the girder slid behind him, he pushed against it with both feet, executing a kick that sent him flying half the distance to the stairwell.
The girder he’d been holding fell to the side. The wall bent toward him. Touching down, he curled and again kicked into the air. As soon as his outstretched hands hit the floor, he pulled himself forward, bent his legs, and made a final leap into the basement inferno.
Above, it sounded as if the world was ending. Here, all he could see were the flames, writhing and licking, forming and unforming a thousand shapes as they ate away at anything that wasn’t stone. Silvio Manfredi stood in the heart of the blaze, that strange inner light still shining as he tried to pull curling, blackening papers from the fire.
Spider-Man struggled to get to him. “We’ve got to get out of here!”
Hearing him, Silvermane whirled. He looked as old as a person could get, but the look in his eyes was still that of the boy who’d broken into the police annex, just a few days ago.
Shaking his head, Manfredi fled, ashes trailing from the crumbling papers in his hands. The wall-crawler chased the mobster around the maze of Silvermane’s palace—until there was another great crash from above.
Spider-Man Page 23
