The door opened, and there was a bunch of sidewalk johnnies there. A man behind them pushed through them.
“Cruz!”
He fired a gun at me!
My father swung at the laser blast and hit it back right at the gunman. The round hit him in his face, and he yelled out as one of his eye sockets began to illuminate. Every sidewalk johnny in the hall jumped him and took him down to the floor. Phishy was in the hall, too, and reached to close the door, but PJ just kicked it closed.
“Why are strangers always trying to shoot me?” I yelled out. I looked at my Pops. “You whacked that laser bullet back at that guy.”
He grinned and twirled the sword around.
“You’ve been tricking me all these years, Pops.”
My Ma pointed at him and said in Spanish-accented English, “Kendo master.”
“Oh, snaps,” I yelled out. “Phishy!”
I ran to the door, and everyone followed me.
“What’s wrong?” PJ asked.
The door opened and Phishy peeked in. We could see the sidewalk johnnies kicking the stuffings out of the downed gunman on the hallway floor.
“Phishy, a gunman got right up to me! I thought you had the place secured. I thought all these were your guys.”
“Cruz, I’m taking care of it. We’re checking everyone now.”
“Phishy, I got my parents in here.”
“I know.”
“Dot and her parents are here.”
“I know, I know.”
“Stupid man,” PJ said to him.
“Phishy, I need your A game.”
“I know. I got it covered.”
He disappeared out the door and began to close it.
“Wait,” I yelled.
He popped back in.
“What’s he wearing?”
I pointed to one of the sidewalk johnnies, who stopped his kicking and stood up straight. Under his jacket, he was wearing a T-shirt of me! My face and wearing my tan fedora.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“That’s you,” the johnny said, beaming. “Cruz, the People’s Detective. The Detective of the Revolution. Liquid Cool Rules Metropolis!”
All I began to say was, “What the—”
When I got back inside, my Pops opened his jacket, and he was wearing a T-shirt of me. My Ma had one in her little purse. Even the Wans opened their jackets to reveal they had them on, too.
“What the heck.”
“They’re selling them in the lobby and on the street in front of the building,” Dot said.
“I’m being franchised.” I looked up. “Phishy!” I looked at PJ.
“Don’t look at me, boss,” she said. “It’s exactly what he would do. You’re a public figure, now, so you better get used to it.”
“Public figure? I am not a public figure. They can’t franchise me.”
“Oh, non. We’re stupid!” PJ ran to her mobile computer. “We need to be franchising you, too. I’ll have a shopping portal up on our virtual storefront in five minutes. We’ll sell the official Liquid Cool T-shirts and hats, too. I need to get paid, so this will bring in a steady income stream.”
“How are people franchising me? What’s going on? I’m a private person.”
My parents and Dot’s parents burst out laughing.
“Why am I being laughed at? Laughed at by even my own parents.”
“You need to catch up on the news,” Dot said.
I shook my head.
“Boss!”
“What?” I yelled back.
I walked over to PJ’s home workstation and she pointed to her mobile computer.
“Wait, what did you just have on the screen?”
“Nothing.”
“I saw ‘Le Liquid Cool.’ What’s that?”
“It my on-screen translator.”
“It’s not ‘Le Liquid Cool’ or ‘El Liquid Cool’ or anything else in front of it. It’s Liquid Cool.”
“Boss, forget that. Here’s what I’m showing you.”
I looked and looked again. “What the—”
Above Metro Police One and City Hall were five spaceships! It was just like you’d see in a classic sci-fi movie, only this was very real, and there was nothing cool about it.
I HAD HELD UP MY HAND and turned my head. First, I was told the city’s police, not the people, were rioting in the streets. Then I was seeing Up-Top spaceships hovering above the city’s seat of power. Now, the police were in Concrete Mama’s lobby, ostensibly to get me. I just walked back to my guest room.
The door was shut only for a few minutes, before there was a knock. I opened it, and there was my Pops.
“Where you going?” he asked.
I didn’t answer.
“You can’t hide in here. Once the toothpaste is out of the toothpaste tube, you have to brush your teeth, even if you already did.”
I laughed. “What does that even mean?” He joined in. “You are a Kendo master and philosopher, all of a sudden. Who are you? What did you do with my Pops?”
“Boss!”
PJ’s yell made us both look out in her direction.
Phishy was back inside and standing with her. From their faces and everyone else’s—Dot, my Ma, the Wans—it was not to be good news.
“What now?”
“The good news is that you’ve sold 50,000 Cruz T-shirts in 30 minutes from your new Liquid Cool virtual merchandise market.”
“Why did you call me?”
“The police are here,” Phishy answered.
“We know that already! The police are here. To do what?”
“They want to see you.”
“Phishy, are you insane?”
“No cops in my place!” PJ yelled.
“I already had one guy try to shoot me.”
“It’s their union leader. He says it’s urgent.”
“You want me to meet with him?”
“Yes,” Phishy replied.
“You don’t like police. Why would you want me to meet with them? They’re here to arrest me. The Mayor and the Police Chief said they’d get me, and that’s why they’re here.”
“Cruz, you need to see the news,” Dot said.
“Yes,” PJ said. “Toute suite.”
“Yes,” Dot said. “Toute suite.”
“What’s toute suite?” Phishy asked.
“Phishy, focus. No, I’m not doing that. There is no way, no how I’m meeting them.”
“They’re on our side,” Dot said.
“What are you talking about?”
“They’re rioting at City Hall, but they’re not with the Mayor or the Police Chief.”
“They’re on the people’s side,” PJ said.
I had a splitting headache at this point.
“Their union leader is waiting for you. His name is Wilford G. Jr.”
I stopped. “Wilford G.?”
“Yes, why?”
“It couldn’t be,” I said to myself.
“Wilford G. was your father?”
The police officer was escorted to PJ’s place by dozens of johnnies. I had my own sidewalk johnny army at my disposal, courtesy of Phishy, all of them wearing fedoras. My Pops stood on one side of me, with his sword, my parents-in-law from hell stood on the other side. PJ had her rifle, and my Ma was standing behind me, so I couldn’t see her hands, but I knew she was packing. I thought the detective industry turned me into a quasi-criminal, but it seemed like it turned everyone around me into quasi-gangsters.
The man was forty-ish and in his dress blues.
“Yes, he was. Died at 92.”
“He didn’t mention anything about family.”
“You mean his books?” The man smiled. “He never did. He kept us private when it came to his work. Never even had pictures of us in his office after seventy years of work. You read his book?”
“I own his book.”
“Oh, you’re the one purchaser. How to be….” The emotions were welling up insid
e of him, and his eyes teared up. “Yeah, we miss him. Best there ever was.”
My attitude towards him was different now. He was the son of my adopted mentor.
“I’m not sure I can be of any help, though. As you can see, I’m trying to hide out.”
“Too late for that,” he said. “The revolution is in full swing.”
“Revolution?”
“Well, that’s what it’s being called. There’s not one police person on the streets. The criminals have free reign.”
“Then, your men have to get back out there.”
“My men?” He grinned. “I’m the union president; that’s all. Not one of us is moving until the Mayor and Chief are gone. And they’re not going. We were going to rush Police One, but then, the Up-Top spaceships came in to provide them with protection. They have about 10,000 Interspace police. Numerically, nothing compared to us, but their digital technology is far more advanced than our analog tech. My faction that wants to wait is growing weaker. At some point, we’ll take our chances and attack. Whoever wins, it will be a bloodbath and, ultimately, that means the criminals win, and the people lose.”
“What do you want to talk to me for then? This is beyond me. I’m just one guy who read your dad’s book and thinks he can play detective.”
“I think you’re doing far better than that, but I just have one question before I answer yours. The allegations you made on that interview show. How did you know there were no tapes? How could you possibly know that?”
“I reasoned it out. The police were out in force for the shootout, and the kidnapping of that girl was within range of your body-cams. You all would have seen the kidnapping happen and the kidnapper. You wouldn’t have sat on that footage, so I took a guess there was no footage to sit on. Which meant some kind of conspiracy was going on.”
“That was a big, big gamble on your part.”
“Not really. Just logical reasoning with my bit of knowledge of procedure. Also, I was at the CIC, myself. They keep the originals of all body-cam footage, not Police One. Most people don’t know that. All the footage of the incident was not there, none of it.”
“Conspiracy, indeed. Only two people would have the authority to quarantine the footage.” Wilford G. Jr. clenched his teeth in anger. “That cuts it. We’re going in to get the Mayor and the Chief, today.”
“Can I ask another question?”
“What?”
“Are all police…?” I stopped and looked at everyone. They were all hanging on my every word. “Maybe we should talk private.”
“No!” everyone yelled out. They had a front seat to the biggest conversation in the City.
“Just ask the question.”
“Police body-cams. They are always recording?”
“Always recording?”
“And it’s monitored live?”
“Yes. Everyone knows that.”
He stopped. He realized what I was saying.
“Oh my God,” Wilford G. Jr. yelled out. “They’re all in on the conspiracy that killed our officers!”
PART NINE
Monkeys, Spaceships, and the Watch Conspiracy
Chapter 57
Run-Time
WHEN YOU APPROACH YOUR forties and can say you knew someone when you were both barely out diapers, then that’s a hell of a long time. You’ve known them forever.
My Pops was right. Hiding time was over. I put Dot in charge of parent protection, PJ in charge of keeping everyone in her apartment, and Phishy in charge of Concrete Mama security, which was greatly aided by Wilford G. Jr. stationing fifteen police cruisers around the building. I left PJ’s place with Wilford G. Jr., and we were joined by several police waiting outside.
Wilford Jr. was a seething mass waiting to explode with the information I revealed. He only promised me that he’d keep it from the rank-and-file, because I convinced him that before we set the city on fire, we owed the people of Metropolis to find out, for certain, everyone involved in the conspiracy and cover-up. I would be the detective and he, the police officer, and we’d investigate the crimes to a conclusion. I got him to agree to that.
Like clockwork, a video-call was routed to our police cruiser, and we postponed my visit with the widows and widower of the fallen police officers, who wanted to meet me. We flew to Let It Ride Enterprises, where Run-Time was waiting for me. On the way, I caught up on the news I had tried to avoid. I wanted to hurt the Mayor and the Chief, but set in motion a chain of events that no one could predict. Who knew how many people had been and would be victims of criminal punks, because there were no police on the streets, because of me. Within an hour of my “performance” on Holly Live’s news interview show, the Police Chief’s inner circle confronted him in a private meeting. During that meeting, the Police Chief was fatally shot, and two other captains were shot. That same day, police officers walked off the job, taking their police cruisers and weapons with them. By nightfall, all 500,000 had quit and had surrounded Metro Police One.
In the old days, you could set a building on fire, but it was a world of monolith towers that couldn’t burn so the police dumped enough trash around the building and set it ablaze. They also barricaded the Mayor and staff in City Hall. The Mayor called a state of emergency, which was unprecedented in itself, but went a step further—he called in Interpol, who agreed to take control of the City and arrest the police. That started a war, and now, there was a stalemate with five Interpol spaceships hovering above City Hall to protect the buildings and the Mayor, who had not been out of the tower in five days. The City was holding its breath.
Run-Time looked like he hadn’t slept in five days. “Let me ask you,” he began, “do you understand what has been set in motion?”
“You mean, what I started.”
“You said it.”
Run-Time warned me, but I didn’t listen. I acknowledged that he understood the politics of things better than I ever would. However, I knew that fact profoundly, now. I was the cause of the chaos. All because of ego. Would I ever be able to sleep if people died because of my ego?
“The Mayor and the Chief were going to destroy my life. They were going to let a kidnap victim die. They were going to let a psycho cyborg criminal get away to kill more people and do more violence.”
Run-Time shook his head. “You don’t know that.”
“Is this one of those ‘see the big picture’ speeches? Run-Time, you’ve known me practically all my life. I don’t care and never have cared about the ‘big picture.’ I’m a simple guy. Did you scratch my car or not? I don’t care about the socio-economic forces that led to your father losing his job and your parents turning to a life of crime and beating you up and you becoming a bad person. I don’t care. Did you scratch my car or not? Did you kill that old man or not? Did you run down that girl in your hovercar and flee the scene of the crime or not? If people spent more time with the ‘little picture,’ then the ‘big picture’ wouldn’t be so screwed up.”
Run-Time was always Mr. Optimism, even as a child. But the man who stood in front of me was so far from that, it scared me. He stayed quiet for a moment. I don’t know if he was trying to think of the best response or was just plain tired.
“I’d like you to meet someone.”
“Run-Time, they want me to meet some police widows and widowers.”
“I know, but this is important. The big picture shouldn’t trump little pictures, but the little pictures shouldn’t destroy the big picture either. Where will we be if Metropolis goes up in flames? You and I live here, you know.”
“Who do you want me to meet with?”
“The Vice President of the Police Watch Commission.”
“Ah,” I said. “The people who probably orchestrated the murder of Easy Chair Charlie, but definitely, the cover-up.”
Chapter 58
Exe
RUN-TIME IGNORED MY comment. For a second, I wondered if he had even heard me.
I was now in a foul mood. The least of which was the
fact that a lifelong friendship was on the verge of dissolution. Friends were hard to come by in Metropolis, and friends you could count on were even more rare. Losing Run-Time’s friendship would be a serious blow. However, I couldn’t quite figure out what his involvement was in this whole thing. As a businessman, he had to be friends with everyone—uber-governments, megacorporations, multinationals, the Average Joe and Jane—that’s how you not only grew your business in the City, but kept it. But there was a deeper level of involvement here behind the scenes. He didn’t tell me, and I couldn’t guess. That was what annoyed me. Obviously, he’d have friends in the city that I hated. That was life, but some of the players in the city would try to destroy my life. That’s what gave me pause. How friendly was Run-Time with them? Was he going to allow them to crush me?
His third VP, Mr. “Mick,” joined us. I figured I’d be seeing a lot more of him and a lot less of the Lebanese and West Indian female VPs, going forward, if Run-Time and I continued any relationship. The Mick had refreshments brought in, and Run-Time and I moved to the lounge area of his office to wait for our guest.
Exe (pronounced EX-EE) was brought in fairly soon afterward. She wore a crimson pants suit and matching beret on her head, with a sheer white and yellow scarf around her neck. She had been a member of the Metropolis Police Watch Commission for decades. The lead members rotated through the official titles, and this term, she was the Vice President of the body. She had been its President before and would be again. She was a very gregarious woman and greeted me with a vigorous handshake and small talk as if we had been friends for ages. I don’t think I ever saw her before, and surely, I wouldn’t recognize any Police Watch member by sight.
The Metropolis Police Department was the largest and most powerful in the world, but the civilian Police Watch Commission kept them in check. Supposedly, they were the ones who monitored every single transaction of the police with the public, suspects, and criminals.
It was a strange fact, because they were powerful civilian members of government. Technically, they weren’t part of the government at all. But who were we fooling? You hang out with government for so long, even as watchdogs, no matter how aggressive or antagonistic, you become de-facto part of the government yourself.
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