Case of the Claw

by Keith DeCandido

  "Just water," Marc said.

  "A bottle of mineral water for the table, perhaps?"

  "That'll be fine, yes, please. And I know what I'm going to order."

  "Me, too," Therese said, having memorized the menu and heard all the specials long before Marc finally got here. "I'll have insalata verde to start, and the salmon special. And another glass of Chianti, please."

  "Si. And for the gentleman?"

  "The same salad, and spaghetti al pomodoro," Marc said. Therese smiled, as he always ordered that.

  "Bene. Grazie, signor, signora."

  The waiter took the menus away, and once he was out of earshot, Therese picked up right where they left off. "The problem, Marc, is that we can't just take the Cowboy's second-hand word for it that the perp did anything. There's some due process involved here. I mean, I know this guy's dirty, but the DP needs to be able to prove that he's dirty."

  "Well, it's too bad, but the Cowboy has done a lot of good for this city. I think that, in the final analysis, that outweighs the occasional problems he might cause."

  "What good? Two unis wasted half a day processing this guy, and then the DP wasted an hour of his life deciding that he couldn't bring him to the grand jury, all because your friend can't be bothered to follow procedure."

  "He's hardly my friend, Therese. I've only met the man a couple of times."

  She was surprised they'd ever met at all. "Really? When?"

  "After Herakles left the Six, they had a recruiting drive, and they considered him for membership. But he turned it down. In any case, Therese, it's a dangerous world out there. Sometimes procedure won't work."

  "Look," she said, "I get that when aliens invade or the Pantheon holds the city hostage or the Osmium Obliterator blows through town, my guys are overmatched. But this is street-level stuff. We—"

  Marc suddenly reached out and grabbed Therese's hand. His fingers were warm and comforting, and suddenly the temper tantrum that she was building to in her rant collapsed like a house of cards. He said, "The Claw's really getting to you, isn't he, sweetness?"

  Therese closed her eyes and let out a long breath. "I guess so. I just feel so helpless, you know? I mean, this is the fourth time he's shown up. My guys can't stop him, and neither can the people in tights. There's no kind of pattern to what he does, he just—he just kills. Usually sprees and serials have some kind of logic—even if it's twisted logic—but this?"

  He stared at her with those perfect blue eyes of his and said, "I know."

  Suddenly, Therese had a tremendous need to get this dinner over with so she could take him home.

  The salads arrived. They ate in companionable silence. Therese found her heart rate slowing down for the first time since she woke up this morning to the News 6 at 6 report about the Claw.

  Then Marc's Zap beeped at the same time that Therese's Zap rang.

  They exchanged glances and guilty smiles as each answered. Marc's was a text message. Therese looked at the display and saw that it was one of HQ's trunk lines. She put the rectangular device to her ear. "Zimmerman."

  "Lieutenant, it's Sergeant Strange. Milewski and MacAvoy just checked in and said you approved them doing OT. Just wanted to make sure you really approved it."

  Zimmerman sighed, feeling her heart rate speed back up. While she appreciated the evening-shift sergeant's attention to detail, interrupting her dinner was going a little overboard. "Darius, they're on the Claw case. There's no more important case anywhere in the city right now."

  "That doesn't always mean OT's approved, Lieutenant."

  She had to concede that particular point. "Well, it is in this case."

  "Thanks, Lieutenant. Sorry to interrupt your dinner."

  Not sorry enough, she thought as she disconnected and put the phone back in her purse.

  Marc shot her a look. "Uh, Therese—"

  "No!" she said a little too loudly, recognizing the pained expression on his face. Several people at surrounding tables whirled to look at her. She smiled sheepishly, then said again more quietly, "No. C'mon, Marc, it's—"

  "I'm sorry, but it turns out that some of those documents were printed improperly. I need to go back to the office now and sign them. They have to go out tonight, so I have to sign them before the FedEx place closes. I'm so sorry."

  Therese was about to complain, but it died on her lips. How many dates had he broken or ended early? Florence had been the exception, not the rule, as it was the only time they'd been together for more than twelve hours at a time. He was the head of a huge corporation, responsible for dozens of businesses that the McLean Foundation owned, and that meant he couldn't have much of a social life.

  To be fair, her own schedule wasn't exactly full of free time, and there were plenty of occasions when he was available and she was stuck at the office.

  But tonight—dammit, she had really wanted a night alone with him, both in and out of bed. Given the day she'd had and the day she was likely to have tomorrow, she needed his calming influence, his surety, his strength. Plus, the out-of-this-world sex would've been really beneficial.

  However, she just said, "Go. We'll pick this up tomorrow?"

  "I can't tomorrow, but definitely Wednesday, okay?"

  "Okay," she said, knowing full well that he was likely to break Wednesday's date, too.

  He yanked his jacket off the back of the chair and dashed for the door.

  She finished her green salad, wondering if it was worth keeping this relationship up. They got together so rarely, and half the time when they did, they wound up having some variation on the argument they'd just had.

  The other half, though, he was sweet and generous and wonderful and solicitous. He was very very good to her when he was able to focus his attention. The four days in Florence were some of the happiest days of her life.

  She sighed, and looked over at the window, which was one table away from where she was sitting. Emmanuelli's was located on the second floor of an office building downtown, and she had a view of several other buildings, as well as cars, buses, and taxis slowly moving by on 12th Street. She also saw a streak bisect the night sky—one of the costumes flying through the air. She wondered which one it was, what he or she was up to tonight, and if it was more exciting than eating a green salad alone—or signing misprinted documents before FedEx closed.

  7.15pm

  Fatigue hung on Javier Garcia like a shroud as he initialed the run sheets and the 24-hour reports from his detectives. It was his last duty of the day, a mere twelve hours after his eight-hour shift began. It was the final act he would perform before going home and trying and failing to sleep because he'd be sitting up waiting for the phone to ring. Either he'd get a call telling him that the Claw had been caught, which wasn't very likely, and he didn't expect it, or he'd get one saying that there were several new victims.

  The phone on his desk beeped and the tinny sound of Merkle's voice came through the small speaker. "Commissioner on line two, sir."

  Garcia sighed and again ran his hands through his hair. He should've known better than to think he'd get away without a final call from one of the bosses.

  Letting out a long breath, he picked up the phone, stabbed the pad labeled "2" sharply, and said, "Yes, Enzo?"

  "Catch the Claw yet?"

  "No."

  "What the fuck, Javier?"

  Garcia came up short. Back in the day, Dellamonica was as foul-mouthed as any police, but since being elevated to the top cop position, he'd made an effort to, as he put it, "sound like a schoolboy." Of course, most schoolboys Garcia knew cursed like sailors, but the point was, Dellamonica was strictly PG these days.

  So this f-bomb was unexpected. "Commissioner?"

  "You bitch at me that you need OT, you get the costumes on your side, and it's past the end of the shift, and I have yet to get a call telling me the Claw has been captured."

  Clenching his teeth, Garcia said, "I don't have anything from the costumes. My secretary left a message with both
the Six and the Trio, but we ain't heard back yet."

  "Regardless, Captain, if you want me to give overtime, I need results."

  "Can't get the results without the OT."

  "Fuck you, Javier."

  With that, the commissioner hung up. Again, Garcia stared at the phone. Two fucks in one conversation. That may be a record. The mayor had probably reamed Dellamonica out, so naturally the commissioner kicked it down the line.

  After hanging up, the captain rose, yanking his jacket off the back of the guest chair. He always put it there, since if he put it on his own chair, it would fall off. There was a hook on the back of the door, but every time he hung it there he forgot he did, and spent half an hour searching the office for his jacket.

  Of course, he'd have noticed it today, since the door was closed. He didn't normally do so, but with the Claw case, the ambient noise in HQ was unusually loud, so Garcia had kept the door shut.

  He grabbed the knob and pulled, nearly yanking his arm out of its socket as the door didn't move. Snarling, he pulled again, and this time it opened, allowing him to see Merkle at his desk, reading the sports section of today's Gazette. One of the things Garcia admired about Merkle was that he never left until after Garcia did.

  "Merkle," he said as he put the jacket on, "call maintenance and tell them that if they don't fix the door, I'm going to send Singh and the EATers to their offices with tear gas."

  "Uhm—" Merkle hesitated, no doubt wondering if Garcia really would send the Emergency Action Team to gas the maintenance department.

  "Just get them up here to fix my door."

  "They say it isn't broken."

  "And the mayor says the Superior Six and the Terrific Trio are cooperating with the SCPD on the Claw case. Yet here we are, getting no cooperation from the costumes and with a busted door."

  "Yes, sir. I'll call them now. Anything else?"

  "Has anyone caught the Claw?"

  "Er, no, sir."

  "Then I'm going home."

  "Good night, sir," Merkle said as he picked up the phone to call maintenance.

  "Night," Garcia said as he walked down the hall. As he went through the gauntlet of interrogation rooms, praying that no prosecutors would spring out like jacks-in-the-box to talk about plea bargains, his Zap rang. Fishing it out of his jacket pocket, the display informed him that it was his mother. Sighing, he hit talk and put the phone to his ear. "Hi, mami."

  "Have you gone home yet, Javy?"

  "I'm actually about to go into the subway, mami," he lied, "so I need to cut this short, okay?"

  "Why do you leave work so late?"

  "There's a serial killer on the loose, mami," Garcia said, nodding to a couple of unis. "There's a lot of work."

  "You always work late, Javy. You need to keep regular hours. This is why Maria left you."

  "Mami, Maria left me because she had an affair with a firefighter and he got her pregnant." Garcia regretted the words as soon as he said them, and did not elaborate further, as he was still at HQ. That wasn't something he wanted to broadcast to the cops who worked for him.

  "And the only reason she saw this fireman is because you were never home!"

  As he walked outside, the cool evening breeze wafting over him, he said, "Mami, I'm standing at the top of the subway stairs—I need to go down and get home, okay? I'll talk to you later."

  "Okay, Javy."

  Dropping the Zap back in his pocket, Garcia nodded to the various unis and detectives he saw as he headed down the brick staircase to the sidewalk of 61st Street. He stopped at the base of the stairs and gazed across the street at the door to Manny's. The urge to have a drink was suddenly very powerful. He didn't keep much alcohol in the house—a bottle of Jack Daniel's, a bottle of red wine, a beer or two in the fridge—as he hated to drink alone. Generally, though, he only went into Manny's as part of a large group to celebrate: a birthday, a retirement, a big case going down, something like that.

  A sonic boom sounded overhead. Looking up, Garcia saw a blue-and-red streaked afterimage. There goes Spectacular Man, off to get a cat out of a tree. Or maybe he had a lead on the Claw.

  God knew somebody should. Most of Homicide had been pounding the pavement since last night, the lab was working furiously (and, so far, futilely) to try to find a useful piece of physical evidence, politicians were making excuses on the air, and none of the costumes were saying a goddamn thing.

  That was the worst part. Usually when there was a crisis on this scale, either you could see the costumes in action—the Superior Six fighting the Pantheon over the Thomas River, the Terrific Trio battling the Brute Squad in Kirby Park, the Bruiser beating up the Clone Master on Ayers Street, and so on—or they had their publicity people making statements right, left, and center. The ones that had publicity people, anyhow. The Superior Six usually went through four press agents a year, all fresh-faced pretty young women right out of college who used working for costumes as a stepping stone. Garcia had long since given up keeping track of them.

  But today, there was nothing. A vague statement from the Six, nothing from the Terrific Trio or any of the other public heroes.

  And it's only a matter of time before the Claw kills someone else. Or he blows town and leaves us holding the bag again.

  Deciding that he was going to be an unpleasant drunk, he turned away from Manny's and joined the dozens of other people who were all walking down 61st toward Nantier Boulevard, intending to catch the Silver Line. Garcia had a battered old Toyota Corolla that was comfortable, sturdy, and screamed middle-aged man's reliable car—which wasn't great, but it was better than a midlife-crisismobile, which he couldn't afford anyhow.

  However, he preferred not to drive into and out of the heart of SuperCity during the week. Taking a Super Transit Train was faster and easier. Besides, after a long shift (and they were all long shifts, it seemed), driving was more work than he was willing to do to get home.

  No, to my apartment. "Home" is the place Maria's living in with her son out in Fingerville. That's the home I bought. The firefighter had left the picture before the third trimester. That had been the worst part of it for Garcia. Maria had destroyed their marriage for a fling with a guy with whom she couldn't manage a long-term relationship.

  Since the divorce, he was living in a studio apartment in Woodcrest. It was a decent enough neighborhood, but the rents were low due to it being a popular spot for the Dread Gang to hit. And the building had a basement garage where he could keep his car.

  He turned onto Nantier. A wide street, with a tree-lined divider between the westbound and eastbound sides, Garcia always looked up when he reached it, allowing him to see the night sky. It was supposed to be a crescent moon tonight, and Garcia always liked crescent moons.

  But the view was blocked by the Superior Six's blimp headquarters, which circled the city. And the other pedestrians kept jostling him and muttering curses as they maneuvered around his standing form.

  His shoulders slumped, Garcia continued north on the Nantier Boulevard sidewalk, catching up to and passing the people who jostled him, eventually coming to the stone staircase that led to the STT's 63rd Street station. As he walked down the steps, his eyes passed over four billboards: One encouraging kids to apply for the Terrific Trio Scholarship, designed to help "economically disadvantaged children"—poor kids—go to college. Another for FOX's Monday night television lineup. Then an ad for Sliney and Shalvey, Attorneys-at-Law, who specialized in injury lawsuits against costumes, complete with web site and toll-free number for information about a free consultation. And finally a reminder that there was a Dunkin Donuts in the station.

  When he arrived at the station, he approached the turnstile, taking out his ZP500. The turnstile scanned it for his fare. Each Zap had a unique signature—like a barcode, but which Ms. Terrific had insisted in the press release was "more unique," whatever that meant—that linked to the owner's personal information. Among the options was to start an STT account linked to the phone that deduc
ted the fare every time you had your Zap scanned.

  One time at Manny's, for Lieutenant Modzeliewski's retirement shindig, Detective MacAvoy went on a lengthy rant about how the Terrific Trio was using the Zaps to gather information about everyone and were planning to use it to take over the world. Someone else—Garcia couldn't remember who, as both he and Mac were pretty drunk at that point—said that that was crazy, the Trio stopped people from taking over the world. Mac just said they were keeping other folks from getting at it ahead of them.

  The next morning, Mac denied ever saying that, but Garcia always thought of it whenever he used the Zap.

  But he kept using it anyhow.

  One advantage of staying late at work was that the worst of the rush-hour crush was past, and so the platform for the Silver Line wasn't packed like sardines, the way it would be at 5.30 or so. Sixty-third Street was a transfer point for the Gold Line, so it was never completely empty.

  To his amazement, a Silver Line train pulled in only seconds after he went through the turnstile. He joined the masses lingering near where the doors would be when the train came to a complete stop. Once the train screeched to a halt and the doors whistled open, a surge of humanity poured out, about half heading for the exit, the other half heading to the down escalator that would take them to the Gold Line.

  As usual, Garcia felt as if he could just go limp and let the crowd carry him, but instead he shuffled forward with everybody else.

  There were no seats available—the people who'd gotten up from them to get off had had their seats taken by the folks remaining in the train—so Garcia immediately did an inventory of the people sitting on the long benches against the walls of the car between the doors. The Silver Line ran under Nantier through Eisnerville, an upscale neighborhood, and Leesfield before reaching Woodcrest and going on to Heckton.