“Tell me what happened,” Glenn said.
I desperately wanted to roll my eyes at being asked to do it again, but Glenn would probably use it as an excuse to shoot me. So, I told the story of what happened.
After hearing me out, Glenn bent over the two dead men for a bit, examining them closely. He looked up at me.
“Pretty good shooting,” he said. “Right in the dead center of the chest. Not great, though. You used two bullets on this one guy,” he said, gesturing at the thinner man. “Wasteful.”
“Not everyone can shoot the wings off a fly from twenty yards away,” I said. “Not everybody can be you.”
Glenn nodded.
“Thank God for that,” he said.
Glenn looked down at the dead men again. “Woulda been nice if you had left someone alive I could talk to, though. Mighty hard to get useful information out of a dead guy.”
“I’ll try to keep what’s convenient for you in mind the next time I’m in a fight for my life and someone tries to blast my head off,” I said. I was in no mood to bandy words with Glenn. I just wanted to go home.
Glenn bent over and looked carefully at the face of the thin man on the ground. He nodded to himself. He did the same to the other dead man. He nodded again. The relaxed faces of the dead men made them look innocent and peaceful. Though they were neither, I felt an irrational stab of guilt. I reminded myself if it had not been them lying there, it would have been me. It did not make me feel better.
“You recognize these two?” I asked.
“This one is Scott Trainor,” Glenn said, pointing down at the bigger one. “The other one is Frank Easton. They’re both Metahuman mercenaries. They call themselves Thunder and Lightning.” Glenn shook his head at me. “Where do you people get your names from? Frank can shoot electric blasts from his hands; Scott is super strong. They’re pretty bad dudes. They’re the kind of guys who wouldn’t tell you what day of the week it was unless you paid them first. But pay them enough, and they’ll do anything you say to anyone you want. There are a couple of warrants out for them for assault and battery, and they are subjects of interest in a few unsolved murders.”
Glenn looked at me with his bulging eyes. Was that respect I saw?
“These guys are pretty good. Not too many people go up against them and live to tell about it,” he said. He shook his head. “First someone gets David Hoff to send a couple of goons to try to scare you. Now, someone sics these two Metas on you. You’re moving up in the world.” The side of his mouth twitched. “Next thing you know, someone will pay me to make a run at you. Hell, they might not even have to pay me. I might do it pro bono as a public service.”
I was tired of talking to Glenn. I was tired of cops, tired of standing in the hallway, and tired of feeling bad about shooting Thunder and Lightning. Though I did not drink, I very badly wanted one.
“Do you have any idea of who might have hired these guys?” I asked Glenn.
“No,” he said. “Mighty big coincidence they should turn up in the middle of us looking into George Chase’s death, though.”
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” I said.
Glenn shook his head.
“Neither do I,” he said. I had my jacket off, and Glenn looked at my empty gun holster.
“We take your gun into custody?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Got a spare?” he asked.
I nodded again.
Glenn looked down at Thunder and Lightning, and then back up at me.
“Good,” he said. “You might need it.”
CHAPTER 21
Later that night, I was in bed with Ginny at my condominium. Our lovemaking that evening had that special intensity that often comes from newness. But, what had happened earlier that day with Thunder and Lightning made the sex even more powerful. I had faced death and survived. I knew from experience that having done so made life all the more sweet. Colors seemed brighter, food tasted better, and having a woman in your arms was even more life-affirming.
Once it was over, we lay in bed side by side, holding hands and recovering from our exertions. The room smelled of sex, sweat, fading perfume, and a fundamental underlying odor I was coming to recognize as being distinctly Ginny’s.
The light of the adjacent bathroom was on. I could see Ginny’s naked body clearly. I liked what I saw. Undressing her had been like unwrapping a present.
Ginny was looking up at the ceiling and panting.
“Wow, just . . . wow,” she said.
“You took the words right out of my mouth,” I said. I, too, was breathless.
After a while, our breathing returned to normal. We continued to hold hands. Neither of us spoke. It was a companionable silence.
I thought of Thunder and Lightning. Scott Trainor and Frank Easton. I would never forget their names. Their deaths were bothering me. I needed to talk about it.
“I killed two men today,” I said to the darkened ceiling. My voice sounded unusually loud in the still of the night.
Ginny propped her head up on her arm and looked at me.
“Tell me about it,” she said.
So, I did. As Ginny listened to me intently, the force of her concentration and intelligence was palpable. She was going to be a great lawyer.
“How do you feel about what happened?” Ginny asked once I finished telling her about the events of the day.
I let a hard breath out.
“Conflicted,” I said. “Don’t get me wrong: if Thunder and Lightning had their way, I would be dead and they would be alive rather than the other way around. I’m glad I frustrated their plans. But, I don’t like killing people, even when I don’t have a choice.”
“Isn’t that as it should be, though?” Ginny said. “Do you want to be the kind of guy who kills someone and then is perfectly fine with it afterwards?”
“No,” I said. “Knowing that I should be feeling this way does not make me feel better, though.”
“You’ve killed people before, right?” Ginny said. It was more of a statement than a question.
“Yes,” I said. Thankfully, Ginny was sensitive enough to not ask me how many. The answer was too many.
“And did you feel the way you’re feeling now those times?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“So, it doesn’t get any easier?”
I thought about it.
“No,” I said.
“That is probably as it should be,” Ginny said.
The room fell silent again for a while. Ginny was the first to speak again.
“You know how people who are the least consequential take themselves the most seriously?” she said. “When I was in college, I had an English professor. His name was Dr. Harris. Dr. Harris’ specialty was colonial era American literature. Now I ask you, who gives a flying fig about colonial era American literature except maybe the men and women back then who wrote it? The way Dr. Harris carried himself, though, you would think he was the President of the United States, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Jesus Christ, and the Prophet Muhammad rolled into one long-winded package. He was a black hole of seriousness. God forbid if you did not take him as seriously as he did.
“You’re the opposite though,” she said. “You deal with matters of life and death, right and wrong, every day. Yet, you don’t take yourself or anything else seriously. You act like everything is a big joke. You’re the opposite of Dr. Harris. He was a trivial person dealing with trivial things, yet he took them and himself very seriously. I think that, underneath all the jokes and cockiness, you are a serious person dealing with serious things. Like what happened today with Thunder and Lightning.
“You don’t wear a mask, tights, or a cape. But I think your true identity is masked just as thoroughly as the identity of costumed Heroes. You know how strong you are; you know the things you can do to people; you know you hold life and death in your hands. But, you mask it all under a veneer of humor. Like a Hero donning a costume, you’ve donned a joking,
non-serious personality so you can deal with the things that would scare the hell out of a regular person,” she said.
I thought about what Ginny said. She snuggled up against me. Her breasts pillowed against my body. I could feel her heartbeat, both with my body and with my powers. She was warm, vital, and very much alive. I was glad I was alive, too, to share this moment with her.
“You know, you’re pretty insightful for someone who’s still in law school,” I said.
“I know,” she said with a smile. “Just imagine how much more insightful I’ll be once I graduate.”
Ginny put her head on my chest. She was quiet for a while.
“Here is something this insightful law student doesn’t understand, though,” she eventually said. “The people in the office across the street had already called the police on you. Why not wait until they showed up and say ‘Officer, someone is waiting to jump me in my office across the street,’ and then let the police deal with it?”
I was dumbfounded.
“I honestly did not even think of that,” I said. I shook my head at myself. I was so used to resolving my own problems that it had not even occurred to me to ask for help.
“But, here’s the thing,” I said. “Even if it had occurred to me, I could not just hand the problem off to the cops, or, for that matter, to anyone else. I live life the way I want and according to my own rules. I don’t answer to anybody. It’s why me working for that security firm years ago didn’t work out, and it’s why I’m my own boss. If I am going to continue to live the way I want to and do the work I want to do, I have to be able to take care of my own problems. If I have to wait to be rescued every time I’m in a fix, I’m not a Hero. I’m just a potential victim. And, I don’t like the idea of being a victim.”
Ginny regarded me with her big eyes for a bit.
“Wow, that’s a pretty thoughtful and insightful answer,” she said. She grinned. “And you’re not even a law student.”
“Maybe you’re rubbing off on me,” I said.
Ginny looked down at my naked body. A wicked smile slowly spread over her face.
“Speaking of rubbing off on me, guess what part of you has just come back to life? And after all that hard work it just did, too. Are you sure you don’t have super stamina in addition to your water powers?” she asked.
I rolled on top of her.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Let’s find out.”
CHAPTER 22
A few days later, I was in my office. I was staring out of the window thinking. Years ago, an old detective who had not only been around the block, but had rolled around in the dirt a few times on the way as well, told me if you did not spend a good percentage of your time staring out the window and thinking about your case, you weren’t doing your job right. I tended to agree with him. He was diagnosed with dementia shortly after he told me that though, so maybe all that time he spent woolgathering while looking out the window had not actually been spent mulling over cases.
I thought about what I knew about the George Chase matter and what had happened so far. It was a much shorter list than what I did not know, so I started with it.
In addition to my client Eileen, George Chase had been sleeping with more women than a veteran porn star. I had confronted George about Eileen, and days later two of David Hoff’s men came to my office to attempt to scare me away. I had managed to suppress my terror of them, and had chased them away instead. Then George had been shot with a .45 caliber gun, apparently by someone whom he knew. I had paid a visit to David Hoff, and he told me a woman hired him to send his men to me. Hoff had been so afraid of that woman he would not identify her even in the face of the threat of bodily harm at the hands of yours truly. Days later, Hoff was shot. Glenn had called me earlier and confirmed that ballistics tests showed George Chase and Hoff had been shot with the same gun. And then, Metahuman mercenaries named Thunder and Lightning had paid a visit to me, whether to kill me outright or just to slap me around. Fortunately for me, that had not gone according to their plan.
The primarily question, of course, was who had killed George. But, there were a bunch of ancillary questions, the answer to which would lead to the answer of the primary one. Why had George been shot? Who shot David Hoff, and why? Who hired Thunder and Lightning to come after me? Why were they hired? Who was the woman Hoff was so afraid of? And, finally, why did such a handsome and intrepid detective such as myself have so many questions and so few answers? Was something amiss with the universe?
I sighed. I would have to leave the last of those questions to philosophers and theologians. Someone once defined a theologian as a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that was not there. I knew how theologians felt. I was groping around in darkness, and had yet to turn up a black cat. Unlike with theologians, though, my black cat clearly existed. A ghost had not shot George and David.
As I turned those questions over in my mind, I sensed someone approaching my office door. I turned around to face my desk. I opened the desk drawer that contained my gun. I had seen this movie before. Maybe the person in the hallway was not coming to my office. But, as the Boy Scouts say, be prepared. Due to recent events, I was as jumpy as a cat on a hot tin roof. As the person I sensed in the hall approached my door, I thought about why I seemed to have a sudden obsession with cats.
As I sat there ready for anything, I then sensed two others approach the first person. Through my closed door, I heard excited raised voices. I stayed where I was with my eyes on the door and my hand near the open drawer.
I felt the second two people walk away. The first person I had sensed was now directly in front of my door. The door to my office opened. I tensed. Then, Lady Justice of the Sentinels superhero team walked out of the news and my dreams and into my life.
She was even more spectacular in person than she was in pictures and in news footage. A small black mask was around her eyes, leaving the rest of her face bare. Her flashing eyes were a piercingly ice-blue. Shiny jet black wavy hair cascaded down her back. Her arms and shoulders were bare. They were muscular, yet still femininely rounded. She wore a silver colored corset that looked like it had been sewn onto her. It shone like metal, but moved on her body like it was cloth. Her large breasts bulged out of the top of it. Her legs were so long, it was as if they went all the way up to her neck. She had on stiletto heeled, black leather boots that went up to the middle of her toned thighs. Her legs were bare from her boots to her groin, where she had on a sparkling white bottom that barely concealed from view what my grandmother would have called her womanhood. A dull silver band was around her neck. Thick bracelets of the same color were around her wrists. Unlike many of the other members of the Sentinels, Lady Justice did not wear a cape. Perhaps she did not want people’s view of her backside being obstructed. If so, I heartily agreed with her fashion choice.
Lady Justice looked like she had been drawn by a horny sixteen-year-old who liked superheroes and curves. I knew she was no cartoon character, though. I had followed her exploits for years. I knew she was powerful enough to twist my head off like she was opening a bottle of soda. But, the knowledge of her power did not detract from her beauty. She was so spectacularly beautiful it was almost hard to look at her directly. It was like looking directly at the sun.
Lady Justice stood framed in my doorway for a moment. She was a world-famous Hero, and seemed to have a flair for the dramatic. Then, she closed the door. Her gaze swept over my small office. Her face had a faintly disdainful cast to it as she looked around. It looked like she thought a rabid rat might leap out of the corner and bite her. The look on her face kind of irritated me.
Lady Justice walked toward me and sat down in one of my client chairs. She crossed her legs. I got a tantalizing look at a muscular white thigh.
Lady Justice looked at me as I looked at her. Her gaze was imperious and regal.
Yowzah, I thought. Despite her attitude, Lady Justice was spectacularly attractive. But, I was too cool to say so aloud. That,
and for a moment or two I was incapable of speech.
“You are Truman Lord, I assume,” Lady Justice said.
I finally found my tongue.
“The one and only,” I said. “There being two of me would be more than the world could stand.”
Lady Justice smiled in what was a transparently ingratiating fashion and continued to look at me. Her teeth were even, white, and perfect. Of course they were. I smiled back with my less than perfect teeth and looked right back at her. We were just two Heroes beaming at each other and having a grand old time.
She did not bother to introduce herself. The attitude that the whole world knew who she was oozed out of her pores. Frankly, that attitude irked me a bit. She was, in fact, world-renowned, but the aura of entitlement that emanated from her was starting to bug me.
“That’s quite an outfit you almost have on,” I said. “What holds it up?”
“Modesty,” she said. “That, and double-sided tape. But mostly modesty.”
I started to realize that, despite how stunning she was, she was almost too perfect. She was more like a work of art than a real woman. It was as if she was not quite real. I unconsciously started to compare her to Ginny. I realized if I had to choose between the two, I would choose Ginny. Ginny was a living, breathing, vital woman. Lady Justice, while gorgeous, almost seemed like she was carved out of marble.
Maybe my tastes were maturing. I almost shuddered at the thought of it. Too often maturing simply meant getting old.
I wondered what brought Lady Justice here. Perhaps she wanted my advice in defeating a supervillain. Or, perhaps she had heard of my exploits and wanted to come and admire me in the flesh. Or, maybe she wanted some advice on where she could buy some more corsets. If the latter, she was barking up the wrong tree. I was more of a Spanx man.
“Did you come here to ask me to join the Sentinels?” I finally said. “Honestly, I am shocked it took you all this long to realize you all were in dire need of my services.”
Lady Justice smiled that perfect smile again.
Superhero Detective Series (Book 1): Superhero Detective For Hire Page 13
