Black Power- The Superhero Anthology

by Balogun Ojetade

  The two uniformed Municipal Police Officers – Ruiz and Patterson – fired futile shots in the direction of the fleeing van.

  “Hold your fire!” Patterson jumped in surprise. Regency stood at his side, watching the van speed off in a cloud of burning rubber. Patterson had seen how hard the man had hit the ground and he would have bet his next paycheck that nobody would have been able to get up that fast.

  “There are at least a dozen kidnapped girls in the back of that van, officer. That’s why you need to hold your fire.”

  “And how would you know that, mister?”

  “Because I was going to free them until the two of you showed up and queered the deal. Weren’t you informed by Special Inspector Harris about this and told to stay out of the area?”

  Patterson shook his head. “I dunno about all that…my partner and I were in the area on a routine sweep and saw the bunch of you standing in the yard so we decided to investigate.”

  “What the hell are you doing?” Officer Ruiz had her weapon leveled at Regency’s head. “Patterson, since when do we have conversations with suspects?”

  “C’mon, Ruiz, he had a chance to get away and he didn’t. And he mentioned Inspector Harris.”

  “Cuff him.”

  “Ruiz…”

  “I said cuff him, dammit! Do it now! He can tell his story down at the precinct!”

  As Patterson reluctantly handcuffed Regency, Ruiz holstered her weapon and said; “I don’t know who you think you are, but you made a big mistake shooting at me.”

  Regency sighed and the two cops heard slight clicking noises just before Regency held up the handcuffs Patterson had just put on him. “Could you not waste my time with this?”

  Ruiz’s hand dived for her handgun to find it gone. Patterson’s holster was likewise empty. Both weapons were in Regency’s other hand. “Now, if I give you back your side-arms will the two of you take just one minute to listen to me?”

  It was Patterson who nodded and said, “You’ve got my ears, mister. Talk.”

  As he handed back the guns and cuffs, Regency issued swift orders. “Get on your radio and get an APB out on that van and this description of Kenny French. Caucasian male, about 27, five seven, five eight.140 pounds. Sandy hair, blue eyes, some kind of Arabic tattoo on his neck and the back of his left hand. You have three prisoners in the yard that I want taken to Special Inspector Andre Harris for interrogation right now. That should keep the two of you out of trouble for a while.”

  Ruiz asked sarcastically, “And what are we supposed to put in our report? That we were helped out by some mystery man who won’t even give us his name?”

  “Inspector Harris knows all about me.” Regency turned and walked away rapidly. “You just get busy with that APB! If French gets out of the city, those girls will be lost to us.” And one girl in particular would not live to see the morning if Regency couldn’t find her.

  ***

  Municipal Police Department Special Inspector Andre Harris looked up from his computer screen as his office door was abruptly opened. “Dammit, Wilma, didn’t your mother teach you to knock first?”

  Wilma Echavarria grinned sheepishly as she said, “Sorry, sir, but you said you wanted to be notified the minute there was any word on the girl or Regency.”

  Andre picked up a half-empty pack of Brightons and shook one out. “So? You gonna make me pay for the information or what?”

  “Call came in from a couple of patrol cops. Kenny French has the girl we want and a whole bunch of others to boot. Regency couldn’t stop him from getting away. The patrol cops have two of French’s men and a flesh peddler named Culkin. They’re bringing ‘em in now.”

  “Good. Maybe we’ll get a break in this stinking case.” Andre looked at his watch. It was 12:17 AM “Regency’s got a little over six hours to find that girl.”

  “And to add to the fun, Mrs. Garritano is here and she’s brought her lawyers with her.”

  Andre sighed and crushed out his cigarette. “Give me a minute to wash my face and fix my tie, then show her in.”

  ***

  Regency stopped his jet black 1970 Buick GSX in front of a respectable looking four-story mansion that looked as if it had been airlifted from the set of “Gone With The Wind” and dropped right in the middle of Denbrook Heights. Regency locked up his car, then walked up the short flight of Kherry marble steps to the front door and rang the bell. A thin Asian man in a tuxedo opened the door. The man groaned and rolled his eyes upon seeing Regency.

  “Aw, c’mon man. I don’t wanna have to deal with your bullshit tonight. Go hassle somebody else, wouldja?”

  “I need to have words with Zuleika, so just back on up and stand out of my way.” Regency shoved the Asian aside and walked on inside the foyer.

  “You know I gotta put up some token resistance, man.”

  “You do and I’ll break both your legs. I’m on the clock and I don’t have time to waste dancing with you.” Regency looked at the man with eyes that were dead black in color. It occurred to the man that he’d never before seen anybody with black eyes. The effect was unnerving. Add to that the unsettling fact that Regency didn’t blink and the little man suddenly had the feeling he was looking into the eyes of a man with no soul.

  “I’ll tell Zuleika you wanta see her.”

  “You do that.”

  ***

  Catherine Garritano radiated wealth and intelligence. She impressed Andre and he didn’t impress easy. But he knew something of her background, as it had been the subject of many newspaper and magazine articles. She had been left a near bankrupt business by her husband who had the poor grace to get himself killed after embezzling ten million dollars. His body had been found. The ten million hadn’t. Through determination and hard work, Catherine Garritano pulled the company together and prospered. Today, her personal worth was somewhere in the neighborhood of seven billion dollars and her company, renamed Epoch Futureworks, was a major player in the fields of communications, practical technology and cutting edge research.

  The company was based in New Jersey but Catherine was being wooed by Denbrook’s Powers-That-Be to open a branch there. If that happened it meant jobs and a significant boost to Denbrook’s economy. Andre’s mandate from those selfsame P-T-B had been put to him as simply as possible: Do whatever it takes to make Catherine Garritano happy.

  Catherine herself was a strikingly tall woman. Without the two inch heels, she would still have been an easy five ten or five eleven. Her mane of platinum hair looked as if she’d come from having it freshly washed and styled. Her black business dress looked simple enough, but Andre would have bet it cost four thousand bucks easy. Andre hoped she was wearing black because she liked the color and not because she was already in mourning for her sister.

  At her back were her lawyers, two men and one woman and they all looked as though they hadn’t been fed cop in quite a while.

  “Mrs. Garritano, you didn’t have to come down here. I promise you that as soon as I have word of your sister, you’ll be contacted.”

  “Funny thing about contacts, Inspector Harris.” Catherine’s voice was that kind of Demi Moor-ish huskiness men found sexy. In Catherine’s case, it came from years of smoking and drinking Scotch straight. “My contacts in the Municpal Police Department tell me that you’ve only got one man handling my sister’s kidnapping and that he’s not even a detective on your staff. Could it be possible that they’re wrong?”

  “No, they’re not wrong Mrs. Garritano.”

  “Allow me to introduce you to my lawyers. They’re from Zimmerman, Zimmerman, Fraley and Finch. You should get to know them since they’re the ones who are going to destroy your career and ruin your life.”

  “Mrs. Garritano, I don’t appreciate you threatening me.”

  “And I don’t appreciate you being so blasé about my sister’s life! You’ve only got one man looking for her? I’d heard that you were one of the best Special Inspector’s on the Police Commissioner’s staff, but
I’m-“

  “Mrs. Garritano, if you’ll send your lawyers out of my office and sit down and talk to me like the intelligent, reasonable woman you are, I can explain my strategy and tell you something about the man I’ve asked to rescue your sister.”

  ***

  Regency entered Zuleika’s office to find her sitting behind her Art Deco French Walnut desk, playing “Fallout 5” on her lime green PS3 while talking into a headset. Zuleika topped out at somewhere near three hundred pounds. A mixture of African, Vietnamese and Brazilian bloods gave her skin a distinct coppery tone, a natural tan envied by men and women who spent hours in tanning salons or baking themselves on the beach to obtain. Her green eyes were both delicate and piercing. Long black hair with a streak of white cascaded down her back and ample behind.

  Regency walked over to the bar and helped himself to a shot of tequila while Zuleika finished her call. She removed the headphone, paused the game and said to her guest; “Thank you for not crippling anybody on your way in. I’m still paying medical bills from your last visit.”

  “I’m not here to make trouble, Zuleika. Quite the opposite. I need your help.”

  “Oh, really?” Zuleika leaned back in the matching Art Deco chair which had been reinforced to support her weight. Nobody knew how she had come to run a high-class bordello in Denbrook. There were rumors that she had been one of the most sought after courtesans in Europe and the Middle East and had known the favors of princes and potentates. “And how can I help?”

  “You know Kenny French?”

  “I know of him,” Zuleika said carefully.

  “I have to find him in the next five hours. There’s a girl he has that will die unless I find her.”

  Zuleika shrugged. “Girls die in that business all the time. You know that.”

  “Zuleika…I know you better than that. The girls that work for you do so willingly. They come to you; you hold no truck with having children kidnapped off the street like French does. You really mean to say you would sit back and do nothing while a girl…a baby, really, is forced into a life of degradation and filth?”

  ***

  The lawyers were dismissed with instructions to stay nearby just in case. Catherine took a flask from her purse and poured sizeable measures of Tullamore into plastic cups Andre produced from his left desk drawer. He also took a thick paperback novel from a desk drawer and passed it over to her.

  Catherine Garritano looked at the garishly lurid cover that depicted a black man in a trench coat and fedora fighting four rather wicked looking ninja types while all were overshadowed by a laughing, jeweled demon’s mask.

  She read the title and the author’s name out loud; “The Laughing Devil: A RegencyAdventure by Lowell O’Neal. You’re sitting there trying to tell me that the man you claim is going to save my sister is a fictional character?”

  “Well…yes and no. You ever read any of them?”

  “Inspector Harris, I’m an extremely busy woman. If it’s not related to the running of my company, I don’t have time to read it.”

  “There are five books in the series so far and except for some of the names being changed and dates and locations, they’re mostly true.”

  Catherine impatiently ground out her cigarette in the dangerously overflowing ashtray. “Stop wasting my time and get to the point of all this. What’s this book got to do with my sister being rescued?”

  “Lowell O’Neal comes from a wealthy family. They’re not the Rockefellers, but you won’t find any O’Neal’s shoveling coal. One of Lowell’s ancestors was an escaped slave who made it north and became one of the first black lawyers in the United States. Law became the family profession. You may have heard of Lowell’s parents. Preston O’Neal sat on the bench of the state Supreme Court and Sandra O’Neal was at one time the most sought after defense lawyers in the city. Lowell went to Harvard and graduated at the top of his class but instead of joining the family firm, he was approached by the government and opted for another kind of life.”

  “I take it he didn’t join the Post Office.”

  Andre grinned and nodded. “Lowell was not only tops in law, but he was quite an exceptional athlete. That, combined with his aptitude in several other areas made him a prime candidate to be recruited into a special team.”

  “Black Ops?”

  “The blackest you can imagine; an outfit codenamed Omega Elite. That’s where he got the nickname Regency.” Andre paused for a bit, wondering if he should tell her about the dangerous experiment Lowell had volunteered for and survived. The experiment had given him the ability to consciously trigger his adrenal glands to pump adrenaline into his system, giving him a boost to his already exceptional levels of strength, speed and agility, enabling him to perform near superhuman feats for short periods of time. He decided against it. That ability was Lowell’s secret weapon. And Andre wouldn’t even be telling her this much about the unique relationship between Lowell and Regency if it hadn’t been for the fact he had checked up on her and found to his surprise that due to some government contracts her company had been awarded, Catherine Garritano had a pretty high security clearance. Which meant that she could be trusted to a certain degree.

  “Why Regency?”

  Andre shrugged. “The leader of the team then was a man named Milo Dane and he liked giving nicknames to his team members. There was one woman he called ‘Hatrack’ another guy he called ‘The Maestro’. Dane and Regency are pretty formidable men, let me assure you.”

  Andre had seen for himself just how formidable three summers ago. He still got the shakes when he thought of that night when he, Regency, Milo Dane and the global instigator known only as Dillon had faced a howling thing with forty blood-red eyes in a filthy basement in The Barrens that had crawled at them over the two dozen dismembered bodies of a Denbrook SWAT team.

  “After he left Omega Elite, Lowell settled in Brooklyn and wanted to fulfill a childhood dream of being a writer. Problem was the poor guy couldn’t give his stories and novels away. He collected a stack of rejection letters six feet high and was about to go back to law when he hit on an idea. He’d always been told in his writing courses that a writer should write what he knows, so he created the alter ego of Regency and contacted me. I knew him from his Omega Elite days since two of their operations brought them to Denbrook and he pitched his idea to me. Since I was familiar with his skills, I saw the advantages of allowing him to operate here. Denbrook is a somewhat unique American city…as I’m sure you’ve noticed. So we turn a blind eye to his freelancing and in return, he looks out for us when we’ve got a difficult case.

  “As Regency, he uses his considerable talents and skills to aid and assist those who need aid and assistance and then, as O’Neal, he writes up those adventures. And so far, it’s worked. He’s turned out four best-selling books. There’s even a Regency comic book out now and the Netflix series starts next year.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. How does he get away with this? Don’t people know O’Neal’s just pretending to be this Regency?”

  “First off, Lowell doesn’t pretend to be Regency. Very few people who have met Lowell have met Regency and vice versa. They just don’t travel in the same circles. And the few who have met the both of them are convinced they’re two different men. It’s really sorta spooky if you ask me. Lowell has a completely different set of mannerisms, body language, speech patterns…there’s a physical resemblance, sure…but they act nothing alike. I know people who have met Lowell and then an hour later met Regency and never caught on that they were the same man.

  “So you’ve got a self-made schizophrenic on the job of finding my sister? Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “Exactly. Understand something, Mrs. Garritano; Regency operates without red tape holding him back. He works fast and he does what has to be done. In a situation like this, where time is our enemy, he’s the best hope your sister has.”

  ***

  “Explain to me why this girl is so important to you and
maybe I can do a little something.” Zuleika said, pretending to not be very interested.

  Regency poured another shot of tequila and spoke slowly, yet urgently. “Elise Garritano was snatched off the street by Kenny French’s boys over in the city. She was hanging out with some friends at McGee’s VRcade. One minute she was there, the next she was gone. The friends called the police and Andre Harris called me. I was able to find out French was in town and snatching girls, but that is all anybody seems to know. Nobody knows whom he is working for these days or what he is going to do with those girls.

  “Elise Garritano has a rare blood disorder called Pembrook’s Malady. She needs to take an injection at least once in a forty-eight hour period. She can miss maybe one injection, but not two in a row. Her sister is pretty sure she skipped taking her last injection, which means that she has to have the next one. If not, she’ll have seizures and go into a coma and then she will be dead soon after. I have to find her.”

  “This girl. She’s related to Catherine Garritano, correct?”

  “Correct.” Regency leaned forward, his eyes crafty and knowing. “I think I can safely say that Mrs. Garritano would be most generous towards anybody helping to save the life of her sister.”

  “And you?” Zuleika smiled sweetly. “What would I get from you?”

  “I’ll owe you a favor. But nothing illegal. Nothing against the police and nothing against any innocent person.”

  “But you wouldn’t mind if the favor involved one of my competitors.”

  “You insult me, Zuleika. I’m hardly a common leg breaker. You would be better off storing up the favor for when you really need it. You know I’m good for it.”

  Indeed she did. Regency didn’t offer his favors out often. He was usually the one collecting the favors.

  “Okay, you’ve got a deal. How do I reach you?”

  “Here’s my number,” he said, sliding a slip of folded paper toward Zuleika. You will have something for me?”

  She nodded. “I’ll make some calls.”

  Regency came over and bent down to kiss one rounded, chipmunk cheek. “Thank you, Zuleika.”