Book II Chapter 4

“You wanna know what I think about this? I think it sucks, man. You saved that cop’s life, dammit, and now here she is hunting you. How the hell is that for gratitude?”

“Give it a break, Rockstar. She’s a cop. Why are you so surprised that she’s investigating me?”

“Yeah, well what I want to know is, how did she figure out about the Copely fire? The kid was the only one who ever saw you, and according to his Dad he never really talked about it. So how’d she find out, huh?”

“I’d kinda like to know that myself, Flyboy. But rather than asking questions I know nobody here can answer, I think I’ll spend the night looking over all the incidents you were involved in, the ones where there might have been a police report. I’ll check the logs; see if our Inspector Wu might have uncovered anything else we don’t want her to know.”

“Good idea, Tinker. Check and see if anybody else has been looking at those files, too. I want to know if Molly’s acting on her own, or if she has some sort of official sanction on this. Get back to me in the morning, alright?”

“You got it, Flyboy. Tinker out. ”

“You might as well call it a night too, Rockstar. I’m not going back on patrol until we find out where we stand with our lady cop. Go spend some time with your better half, dude.”

“Yeah, sounds like a good idea. You going to be alright? ”

“Yeah, don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”

“See you in the morning, bro. ”

Mike signed off and suddenly Tom was all alone, which suited him just fine, for now. He had a lot of thinking to do, and most likely some decisions to make, before he saw Pablo or his brother again. Once more things had changed and, as always, in the end it would be his responsibility to decide how they would be handled.

Tom sighed, shifting his body, trying to find a more comfortable position on the hard concrete. Eighty feet below him the ground was dark and hidden, but even without the aid of his special cameras he would have known what was down there. Six acres of blue gum eucalyptus trees gave off a unique and powerful scent, even at night.

It had seemed like an appropriate place to retreat to, to gather his thoughts in private. And there wasn’t a spot more private in San Francisco than sitting on the arm of the giant cross on top of Mount Davidson, the same place where this whole problem had started. It must have been a circus here that night, when he had rescued the kidnapped Molly Wu just over three months ago. He could still see where some of the grass was only now beginning to grow back. Probably trampled to dust by the herd of cops that responded when Molly called in for backup.

Tom sighed, feeling a weight of tiredness descend on him like nightfall. Well, it wasn’t as if they hadn’t anticipated this happening, someday. That the police would eventually become aware of him. After all, how many times can you dress up in an outfit like this and run around the back alleys of San Francisco and still keep it a secret? So he had known it was coming, he just hadn’t expected it so soon.

The smart thing would be to call it quits, right now, tonight. Put away the mask and the toys, and never put them on again. Let ‘the man in black’ become just another urban legend, one that would fade away and be forgotten. No more hero work. Hell, he didn’t even have to give up his flying; he could just move back to Sacramento and play tag with the clouds there if he wanted, up in the foothills and far away from city lights and prying eyes.

He snorted. Tom Blackwood wasn’t a man who deluded himself. If he was honest he’d have to admit the reasons he had started this whole mess in the first place. Most of it really had been from an urge to help others, to use his abilities for something important. But he knew some of it had been ego, too. His life had been crap, and Miko had been whittling away at his self esteem for almost two years. And yes, dammit, maybe he had read too many comic books. The night he had saved Holly and Dieter had been the realization of every childhood fantasy he had ever had, and each time he donned this ominous looking black costume he felt the same kick as he had gotten on that night.

Well, maybe now it was time to grow up. Now that the cops were on to him, wasn’t it just a matter of time before someone figured it all out? Before someone with an attitude came knocking on his door to talk to the freak with the super-conductor tattooed on his back? Getting out, now, would be the smart thing to do.

The thought made Tom chuckle. He shook his head, and under the mask his mouth quirked wryly. Who the hell was he kidding, anyway? He couldn’t go back. Not just to his old life, but back to any kind of life that didn’t include the hero work. Even if he could go somewhere and still fly, the one thing every human being dreamed of but only he could do, he knew it would never be enough.

When he stopped a crime or slapped down a bad guy, he felt strong, and he felt righteous. And when he saved someone’s life, he felt right. As if his whole life before this had been merely the preparation for the one that he was living now. How could he ever give that up?

Maybe he had always been cut out for hero work. Maybe he should have been a cop himself, or a fireman, or an EMT. But he hadn’t gone down that particular road. Instead, he had learned how to fly.

Tom rose to his feet, standing surely on the narrow arm of the cross, and stretched. He felt the muscles in his back pop. And then he let his hold on the earth slip away, as he rose silently as smoke into the night sky.

If this was what he was meant to do, then so be it. There was work to do tonight.

*****

Penny Girl shivered at the wind that blew through the Tenderloin, whistling down the darkened streets, and bringing the clammy touch of the Bay with it. It whipped around her legs and through the thin protection of her fishnet stockings as if they weren’t there, and then up under her mini where it like to freeze the fuzz right off her cootchie whenever she let her legs drift too far apart. Winter in ‘Frisco could be a real bitch for a working girl on the stroll, and soon she’d have to start wearing panties when she went out. Which could be a fuckin’ pain in the ass when you did what Penny Girl did for a living.

She walked down the street for a few feet, moving her hips, giving them that extra bump and roll that was like waving a red flag for old John. Yeah, Sugah, you come get it. Momma’s got what you want. She got her money maker all revved up and just waiting for a big strong stud like you, she got her nice soft hands and her warm wet mouth if that’s what you want. Magic hands and a wicked tongue, that’s what Penny Girl’s got for you. C’mon baby. Come to momma.

Penny stopped and turned back to retrace the twenty feet of sidewalk that was her piece of the stroll. She looked around, taking in the action with the knowing eyes of a seasoned pro. There were about a dozen other girls out there tonight; half of them experienced old hos like herself, the other half new meat, fresh off the bus from Bumfuck, Idaho. Half of those be dead or too strung out to care by this time next year. It was a sad fact, but Penny Girl didn’t let herself think about it much. Hoin’ in the Tenderloin was hard and cruel, and you be a fool to let yourself get too close to the fresh things.

Thinking about it made Penny look to her left, automatically checking for her main bitch, Spooner. But the girl wasn’t there tonight, and Penny knew she wouldn’t be back on the stroll for at least another week. Not ‘til the stitches were out, and the bruises had faded enough for makeup to hide.

Yeah, hoin’ was a real bitch in the Tenderloin.

Penny Girl was looking out at the traffic, trying to make eye contact with the freakin’ tourists who came to gawk at them, find one who wanted more than just to look. She was starting to turn to make her way back up the street when she felt the tap on her bare back, then heard the familiar tiing of metal falling on concrete. She stiffened, then casually glanced down to see the shiny new penny bouncing on the ground at her feet. She watched as it finally rolled off the curb, then turned around as casually as she could and walked into the alley behind her. She knew nobody would notice, or think it was strange even if they did. The girls used the alleys a lot, to service old John when he didn’t have a car to do it in, or to take a quick piss rather than walk three blocks to the only coffee shop that let girls like them use the restrooms.

Tom watched the tall black woman with the long, copper colored hair that was her trademark, as she strode casually towards him into the alley. She kept her gaze carefully straight ahead until she was hidden from the street by the shadows, and only then did she raise her head to eagerly scan the walls above her. He caught the white flash of teeth when she spotted him, clinging to the rail of a long broken fire escape two stories up.

When he was sure she was watching him Tom sprang from the fire escape to the wall opposite and clung to it, clutching the edges of the old brick with only his fingertips and the soles of his boots, willing gravity to press him sideways instead of down. He crawled across the side of the building rapidly, leaping the last ten feet to land in the alley with his body slightly crouched in front of the woman. Penny Girl shook her head and the grin got even wider.

“Damn, Spooky, you sure a sight for sore eyes. I was beginnin’ to think you left for greener pastures, boo.”

“I told you I was going to be gone for a month, Penny. It’s been a month.” The black woman in front of him was tall and lean, and with the stiletto heels she wore she was almost an inch taller than he was. Tom found himself instinctively sucking in his stomach and standing up straighter, and had to force himself to relax. “It sounds like you’ve missed me. Have things gotten dull around here while I was gone?”

“Shit. The stroll may be a lot of things, Sugah, but dull ain’t one of ‘em. So, you hear to talk, or you finally goin’ give Penny Girl a tumble? You know you want it, baby.”

Tom laughed, despite himself. “Thanks, but we both know that wouldn’t be a good idea. I just wanted to let you know I was back in town, and see if anything’s been happening while I was gone. So how are things in your world, Penny?”

“Shit, always work first with you, innit, Spooky? Well, you wanna know ‘bout the stroll, it’s the same as it always is. Nobody I know died this month, so I guess you can say it’s been kinda quiet. Some of the girls, though, they got kinda hurt.”

“Girls are always getting hurt out here, Penny. You’re in a tough business. Are you talking about something new?”

“Yeah,” she answered, her voice going quiet now, all the flirtation gone from it. Whatever she had to tell him, Tom knew she was going to be serious about it.

“There’s this new gorilla moved into the Combat Zone. Calls hisself Snake Man. Got this cowboy hat and these boots made out of rattlesnake skins. Says he from Texas, but I know Oklahoma when I hear it. Mean little wannabe thinks he’s J.R. Ewing. Anyway, he come here and he wanna start his own stable, but he’s not stupid enough to try stealin’ hos from any’ya the local pimps. So he’s been tryin’ to sweat all the out of pocket girls, even outlaws like me ’n Spooner.”

Sometimes it was like conversing in another language, and Tom often had to pause to do a quick translation in his head. And what Penny Girl was telling him didn’t sound very good. ‘Gorillas’ were pimps that controlled their girls with pain and violence, the sadists who got off on hurting women. Out of pocket girls were the independents who tried to make it working the street without a pimp, and outlaws were the ones who succeeded at it.

“You said ‘sweating’. Like in ‘sweating a bitch,’ where a pimp puts pressure on a girl to make her one of his stable?”

“Got it in one, Spooky. Only Snake Man don’t just put the pressure on the ho he tryin’ to collect, he does it by example. He take a couple’a the outlaws and he fucks ‘em up, fucks ‘em bad. Then all the other bitches be afraid to say no to him. Dickless bastard did that to my girl Spooner. You know Spooner, don’t ya, Spooky? Little half-white girl with the long curly hair an’ big ol’ booty? She my bottom bitch, she watch my back an’ I watch hers, but I was doin’ a car trick an’ I come back and she lyin’ right here in this alley, right where you standin’.

“It was bad, Spooky. Really bad. Fucker took a pimp stick to her.”

The banter had long gone from Penny Girl’s voice, and the last words had been heavy with dire meaning. But whatever that meaning was Tom missed it, as he had never heard that term before.

“What do you mean, a ‘pimp stick’? What did this guy do to Spooner?”

She sighed and looked away, muttering something about ‘had to be a white boy unner that mask’. When she turned back there was a haunted anger in her eyes.

“You take a wire coat hanger, an’ you grab it by the hook an’ the bottom, an’ then you pull it out straight. You fold the hook part over an’ you wrap tape around it to make a handle. Then you take some bitch been givin’ you lip, or who just happen to be there when you got a mad on. An’ then you whip her across her back, her ass an’ her legs with that hanger ‘til you don’t feel like doin’ it no more. You never hit ‘em cross the front, ‘cause it’ll ruin a ho. Old John don’t like to see scars on his pussy.”

Tom took a slow, deep breath, and felt a cold that seemed to seep into his bones. It coiled in the pit of his stomach, where it began to kindle, and burn. And as some of that fire began to spark in his eyes he said to the streetwalker before him, “So tell me about him, Penny. Tell me all about the Snake Man.”

*****

Tom was crouched on the roof in the late hours of the night, a motionless shadow lost against the blackness that hung above the street. Other figures moved through that night, slipping soundlessly through the darkness that pooled between the thin light cast from the streetlamps. But to him it was all the same, as the wonder of his night-vision goggles lit the street below as if it were merely a cloudy day. From his high vantage point he watched patiently, and waited.

He thought a lot about Penny Girl, the tough as brass hooker who became his first snitch after he put on the mask. He wasn’t fooled by her, not for a minute. He knew at heart she was exactly what she claimed to be, a survivor and a whore, and that she wouldn’t hesitate to run a scam on him or anybody else to get what she wanted. He knew that this whole Spooner thing could have easily been a lie, a con just to get him to come down hard on some pimp she had a grudge against. He’d listened to her story and he was prepared to act on it, but he wasn’t going to simply take her word for anything. He may not have had her street background, but he wasn’t stupid.

But he had to admit, his gut was telling him to believe her.

He shifted, moving his cramped muscles, and glanced down the street again. Satisfied that Snake Man hadn’t shown, he allowed his mind to drift. He remembered the day he had first met Penny, shortly after he had introduced himself to Dieter and Holly without the mask. One of the big German’s first innovations had been setting up a proper patrol schedule of some of the more crime ridden areas of San Francisco, using a pattern that would be changed often enough to remain unpredictable, yet still allow him to cover the maximum amount of area. It had been the first step in what his brother Mike referred to as ‘Dieter’s Plan for World Conquest’.

Step one of that plan had been to make his presence felt on the streets, to find crimes in progress and to stop them. Step two was to gather what Holly’s father referred to as resources, or in other words, ‘snitches’. As he had pointed out they needed information, and although the taps they had incorporated into the police computer systems were invaluable, they definitely weren’t going to be enough. Cops, the big man had pointed out, never put everything they knew into their reports. The information they developed always came from ‘informed sources,’ or was based on a knowledge of the local streets picked up bit by bit over the years. The computer records could show them who had done this and been convicted of that, but it couldn’t tell them who was doing it now. Who ran the streets, who called the shots, who were the ones that the police couldn’t touch, but that Tom and his people might.

That night had been particularly foggy, which explained how a hardened and careful pro like Penny hadn’t seen the two figures coming towards her down the street. She had just gotten into a late model Lexus for a car trick when the two men had come up from behind and jumped into the car after her. The driver, their accomplice, had floored the gas and sped off down the street. And Tom, who had seen it all through the infra-red lens that cut through the fog like a knife, had followed along like a shadow in the night.

The car hadn’t gone far, less than half a mile before it had pulled into a darkened alley. Tom had dropped to the ground and come up on them silently, until he was close enough to see the red haired hooker struggling in the back, close enough to hear her muffled screams. He had wrenched the door open and hooked one of the rapists out by the neck with his cane, using his entire weight to pull the man from the car and drag him across the floor of the filthy alley. He received an elbow in the face for his troubles, but he ignored it. He untangled the cane from the man’s neck, and while the bastard rolled on the ground making gasping noises Tom whipped the hard rattan against the back of his thigh, hard. He knew the leg wasn’t broken, but it would be totally useless for at least ten minutes.

The second man had seen what had happened to his friend and had scrambled out of the car ready for a fight, but Tom was prepared for him. From across the width of the alley he seemed to jump, his full two hundred pounds behind the kick that sank into rapist number two’s belly, driving the breath from his lungs and dropping him to the ground like a sack of wet laundry. Tom reached down and hauled him to his feet, then heaved him across the alley to fall next to the first man. He turned to the car, belatedly remembering the last assailant, but then stopped at the sight before him.

The third man, the driver, was frantically trying to scramble out of the open door of the car, held back by the weight of the furious black woman clinging to his back. One arm was looped around the man’s neck, the other rose with piston like precision, battering away at the man’s head and shoulders with one of her spike heeled shoes, as she screamed and cursed him with some of the most inventive language Tom had ever heard.

With one last frantic heave of his shoulders the driver managed to throw the screaming woman off of his back, and then crawled through the door out into the darkened alley. He climbed to his feet hastily, only to stop at the strange, ominous figure now standing before him. He managed to blink once before Tom’s fist lashed out and cracked against his jaw, dropping him to the ground like a rock.

After Tom made sure that the three potential rapists weren’t moving, he turned his attention to their victim, the red haired black woman who now stood with her back against the alley wall, clutching at her shoe and glaring at him warily, her breath coming in ragged gasps.

“So who you supposed to be? Fucking Batman?” she snapped.

Tom laughed, and shook his head. Man, this girl had a lot of guts!

“No. Maybe. I don’t really know, anymore. Those are a hell of a pair of shoes you’ve got there.”

“Yeah, killer heels. Just ask dickhead over there.”

Maybe it was just the reaction to the aftermath of the fight, but Tom couldn’t help it. He laughed, hard, and knew that some sort of friendship was being born.

*****

In the here and now Tom stared out into the darkened street below, and smiled now at the memory. Just as he’d thought, Penny Girl had turned out to be quite a character. In many ways, she was the ultimate realist. Or at least fanatically practical. She quickly accepted the fact that the masked man in the bizarre costume wasn’t going to hurt her, and then had turned to the ‘practical’ task of helping Tom tie the three rapists up, while at the same time helping herself to their wallets. He hadn’t objected, especially after informing him that she had heard of these three before from other working girls like herself, who hadn’t been as lucky as she had. In fact, while he was using the cameras in his suit to photograph their ID’s and the other contents of their wallets, he also didn’t raise any objections while she got creative with their car, using a piece of pipe she found in the alley.

Afterwards he had walked her through the back streets to her home, a ratty looking tenement in a neighborhood of the same caliber. All the way she had kept up a mostly one sided conversation, talking about anything and everything, but never once asking him who he was or why he was wearing a mask. That fact more than anything had been the reason he had left her by climbing a three story wall before disappearing into the night.

Exposing himself in that way had been Tom’s own idea, part of something he had been working out since before he had ever put on the outfit. From that idea had come the policy for how he was to handle exposure to anyone outside of the planning committee.

“Look,” he had said, explaining it for the first time to the others. “We know that sooner or later people are going to see me in action, and when they do they’re going to talk about it. And if enough people start talking about a man who can fly, sure as hell somebody is going to start wondering. But what if they only see me doing things other than flying, things that they can understand, or at least explain away?

“With my power to boost me, I can run fifty, sixty miles an hour easy. I can move faster, jump higher than any other creature on the planet, or at least seem like it. Hell, I can do just about anything that you see done in the movies, and all without wires.

“People see that kind of action all the time. Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, hell even Bruce Willis. Movies, TV, cartoons and comic books. Every day we’re swamped with images of human beings doing things that are physically impossible. So if somebody sees me in an alley doing the impossible, is anybody going to believe them? Or are they going to think they’ve been watching the Kung Fu Channel again?”

Tom’s idea turned out to be remarkably easy to apply. With the speed and mobility his power gave him he could be in and out of a bad situation in seconds, his black outfit allowing him to disappear almost instantly into the shadows from where he had come. There were no doubt some pretty incredible tales of the things he had done, but as far as he knew no one had any reason to think that the man in black could fly.

Tom’s thoughts were interrupted as a distinctive vehicle edged its way down the street, stopping at the alleyway of the building on which he was crouched. The late model Cadillac, painted silver with spoke rims and a front bumper electroplated in gold, was the very image of the traditional urban pimp mobile. It stopped at the alleyway and turned, its heavy Detroit body ghosting over the pavement, giving out no sound louder than a kitten’s purr. Tom turned and sped silently across the rooftops, hurrying to get ahead of the flashy car. It was showtime.

*****

Del Conklin, AKA the Snake Man, smiled at the feel of the big engine underneath the hood of his oh-so-sweet ride. He loved the car; the way it looked and the way it made him look. The way it made him feel, like a big shot. Big enough that he could easily forget the scrawny little street rat with a knife that used to run wild in the streets of Tulsa.

Tulsa, Oklahoma. Christ, he hated that place, hated even being from there. The neighborhoods there were just as miserable and tough as any other city in the country, but try telling that to people. Say you’re from New York or Chicago, hell even Miami, and you get a certain amount of respect. But say you’re from goddamned Tulsa, and sure as hell all you get is laughed at.

Which was what brought Del here in the first place, dammit. San Francisco, the capital of fags and niggers, but still a hell of a lot better than where he came from. Del loved it here. The action was hot, and the streets were absolutely crawling with some of the most beautiful bitches he had ever seen. The perfect place for Del Conklin to disappear, and for the Snake Man to get his start.

Hell, pimping wasn’t even hard, it was easy. Del had started out at twelve as a catcher, a sort of watchdog who kept an eye on a pimp’s whores while they were out on the street, making sure they followed the rules and didn’t try and hold out on their ‘Daddy’. He got paid chump change, but also all the free pussy he could want. When he got older he became a tracker, a sort of bounty hunter who ran down the whores who tried to run away from their pimps and the ‘sporting life’. That job suited his temperament much more, the money was better and he got a hell of a lot more respect. And as a bonus, he was allowed to do a lot more to the girls while he was bringing them back than he had ever been able to before. After all, the idea was to punish them for running, wasn’t it?

But nothing beat the thrill of owning your own stable of hos. The pure adrenalin rush you got, when a bitch looked at you with terror in her eyes, knowing you had the power of God Almighty over her. The power to hurt, or to cripple, or even to kill. No, dude, even coke didn’t get him as hard as the rush from that look.

Del was grinning as he parked the Caddie, thinking about the roll he had picked up from that nights work. He had five girls working for him now, and he planned on having a sixth one by the end of the week. Mystique, the girl who was fast becoming his bottom bitch, was making sure the other girls went straight back to the two bedroom apartment he provided as a crib for them. Then she was to meet him back here in an hour, and then he would spend the night winding down with a little party. Del had recently invested a large chunk of his stash in the purchase of a whole key of coke from one of the chink gangs, which he knew he could more than triple with a quick drive down to L.A. He’d get high and mighty tonight, then replace what little he used from the key with baby powder. The yuppie nose fiends in LALA-Land wouldn’t know the difference…

Del’s pleasant thoughts were jarringly interrupted. He had turned off the engine of the big machine and was just pocketing the keys when he caught a sudden movement out of the corner of his eye. A fast moving shadow lost amidst the rest of the blackness in the darkened alley, it seemed to suddenly appear in front of the Caddie. Del stiffened, the instincts of a childhood spent on the streets urging him to lock the door and grab a weapon. Before he could do that, however, the shadow moved. It moved fast, incredibly so, so quickly that if he blinked he would have missed it completely. As it was he would have doubted his senses if it wasn’t for the way the car around him moved, and the thunder of running footsteps on the roof over his head.

“The fu—!” he began, but was cut off in mid curse by the sound of smashing glass. The back window of his Cadillac had been shattered, star patterns of broken safety glass like frost emanating out from at least three places where the glass had been struck. Del shouted, his face turning first white in shock, then a bright and florid red as he realized what had just happened. Raw fury overwhelmed him, his hands fumbled at the door latch as he scrambled hurriedly from the car, pausing only long enough to snatch the .32 pistol from under his front seat.

Tom Blackwood crouched against the side of the building, ten feet above Snake Man’s head and totally invisible in the shadows. He watched as the enraged pimp stalked the alley, waving the little nickel plated gun around and shouting curses. The man wasn’t all that much to look at, he thought, as the irate figure pulled off two shots at the far end of the alley out of pure frustration. Take away the expensive, flashy clothes and the mostly gold jewelry and all you were left with was a skinny guy with long, greasy blond hair and pointed rat like features. Probably terrifying to a beaten down prostitute or some little girl just off the bus, but not all that impressive to a fully grown man Tommy’s size. Of course, there was the gun…

With a flick of a couple of switches on his equipment belt Tom’s visual array came online, cycling quickly through the available lenses until he came to the infra-red. The right lens of his goggles now glowed behind its electro chromic shield, as he carefully studied the figure below him, trying to spot any other weapons underneath Snake Man’s clothing. The silk pants might as well have been translucent, for all the good they did, but the heavy reptile skinned coat proved to be another thing. It was a failing of the system that they had found out early on, the lens could give him an edge sometimes, but not always, not against leather or really heavy cloth. He’d just have to be more careful, that’s all.

Snake Man had given up the fruitless search, and was getting back into his car. It was obvious that he had no intention of leaving the expensive pimp mobile here to be further vandalized while he was gone. When he opened the door and was temporarily blinded by the dome light, Tom fell silently to the ground twenty feet away. Quickly he dropped to his belly and started to crawl, pushed rapidly along on fingers and toes, the rest of his body hovering inches above the ground. It was a technique he and Dieter had worked long hours on, and it had proved to be an extremely effective way to cover short distances rapidly and unseen. Tom crossed the twenty feet between him and the Caddie faster and smoother than any reptile, and managed to grab one of Snake Man’s ankles in both hands.

Del yelped as he felt the ground yanked out from under him. His arms flailed uselessly as he was dragged out of the car, his chin striking the steering wheel and sending stars shooting across his eyes. The force that had grabbed a hold of his foot pulled him from the Caddie and out into the night, face downwards against the filthy concrete of the alley. He tried to kick, to twist around and shoot the sumbitch that had ambushed him but he couldn’t, he simply didn’t have any leverage. And then a second hand grabbed his other foot, and Del was suddenly being dragged down the darkened alley.

He screamed as he and his attacker picked up speed, frantically arching his back to protect his face. Faster and faster he was dragged, his clothing and skin tearing as he was battered against the rough ground. He knew now that there must be at least two of them; no way could one man drag him so fast by himself. The gun in his hand went flying, lost in the darkness, and by the time they came to a stop the breath was knocked out of him and he was barely conscious. His snake-skin jacket, once his trademark pride and joy but now a torn and filthy rag, was forcefully wrenched from his body. The razor-sharp bowie knife he carried sheathed at his back was removed, as was the switchblade in his back pocket.

Tom quickly scanned the huddled figure before him for more weapons, but he didn’t see any. He watched the bruised and battered man, heard him moaning, and for a moment he felt the nausea of guilt. Had he gone too far? The man might have been a pimp, but was he bad enough to deserve this? Hell, all he had to go on was Penny’s word that this guy was a sadist who got off on fear and torture, and he knew she wasn’t above lying to him to get what she wanted. Did he have a right to do this to another man without any more proof than that?

Tom’s soul searching ended and his eyes tightened at an object in the alley, something that had fallen out of Snake Man’s jacket pocket when Tom had pulled it off the man. He bent and picked it up, almost gingerly, examining it in the dimness with the aid of his low light optics. It was a wire coat hanger, the hook bent over and wrapped with tape, folded over twice to fit into a pocket. Tom grasped it, slowly straightening it out, not missing the dried flakes that fell from the metal wire.

Del was just working his way to his knees when he felt the presence looming over him. He winced, readying himself for the beating he was expecting, but still not prepared for the flash and screech of metal on stone as his pimp stick whipped the concrete inches away from his face.

“There’s still blood on it, you son of a bitch!” a voice growled, as the wire hanger whipped down again. Del shrieked in abject terror and tried to crawl away, but the whistling wire struck again, this time on the other side of his head. Del scuttled down the alley on all fours, the huge, almost invisible figure following him. The wire hanger he had used himself just hours earlier, now striking the concrete on either side of him again and again. Finally, moaning in almost mindless fear, Del found himself cowering against the cold bulk of a garbage dumpster, trying to shield his head with his arms against the blows that somehow never seemed to actually strike flesh.

Tom stood over the huddled form, his breath coming in huge, raw gulps. He had heard stories about animals like Snake Man, but somehow the reality had hit him so much harder than he had ever imagined it would. He wanted to smash the vicious little bastard into a red pulp, hell he wanted to kill him! And he found himself shaking with the effort to stop, to not cross over that line. He knew he couldn’t. There had to be some point, some place that Tom wasn’t willing to go, if he wanted to keep a defining difference between himself and the beasts like this one before him.

Tom had known this and given it careful thought while he waited on the rooftops earlier. He knew he couldn’t turn Snake Man over to the cops, just as he knew he couldn’t really hurt him. Physically he hadn’t actually done the pimp that much damage. Some scrapes and bruises, nothing that required stitches, or that wouldn’t fade into memory inside of a week or so. Much less than what the bastard had done to Spooner. What he had to do was to scare him, break him. Drive him out of town in such a way that he not only never came back, but would never take up this kind of life again somewhere else. Seeing the blood caked pimp stick was going to make that much easier to stomach.

Tom reached down and grabbed Snake by his shirt, pulling him to his feet and slamming him painfully against the side of the dumpster. He bent down, pushing his hooded face into that of the whimpering man before him.

“Listen, you piece of filth! You are leaving this town, right now, tonight. You take only what you can carry in those flashy wheels of yours. You don’t take any of those girls you’ve shanghaied, and you never come back. Because if I ever see you in this city, if I ever hear about you pimping again, you and I will finish this talk. Do you understand, asshole?”

Del could only nod his head jerkily, frantically agreeing to the sinister figure’s orders. He stood there shivering, until the big figure slowly moved away and to the side. Del quickly darted past him, moving as fast as his battered body could go. Fifty feet away he stopped at the side door to the building he lived in, fishing for the keys in his pocket, glancing fearfully over his shoulder. But the giant guy in black just stood there, watching him. Del swallowed, as his fingers finally fumbled the lock open and he stumbled inside.

*****

Del Conklin stumbled his way up the two flights of stairs, his strength returning in fits and starts as he fought to control his body’s reactions. The adrenaline jitters caused by his fear made him jerk, even as the burn of his disgrace left his whole frame shaking with fury. He ached from his bruises, and the scrapes on his face and upper torso were beginning to sting like crazy. His nose was clogged with a combination of mucus and blood, and yet he could still smell his own rankness. It was a combination of sour fear and sweat, the filth from the alley, and worst of all the stench of where his bladder had let go.

At the top of the third floor he stopped at his apartment, fumbling once again for the keys, stopping to pound on the door in a sudden blind rage. His hands left bloody smears of red on the panel, but he ignored it. Finally he got control of his rage, and with an effort of will he forced his hands to stop shaking long enough to open the door.

Once inside Del quickly locked the door behind him and bolted it, drew the chain, and then for good measure he laboriously dragged and pushed the sofa across the living room until it was flush up against the door. Only then did he actually switch on the lights, turn and face the room, to find another shock waiting for him.

The room, the whole apartment, was a complete and total disaster. There was no other description that fit. Most of the furniture was turned over or lying on its side, cushions had been pulled off and thrown into corners. Every drawer and cabinet that he could see, both here and in the tiny kitchenette, were also open, their contents strewn all over the floor. It looked as if giant hands had picked the whole apartment up, shaken it vigorously, before setting it back down once more.

Del could only stare in shock, unable to process what had happened. In the space of only a few minutes his sweet good life had been ripped apart and discarded, just like this room. Done deliberately, but why and by whom he still did not know. The experience had left him battered, and reeling in both body and mind. For several long, silent minutes, all he could do was stand and stare at the devastation before him.

It was a stray thought that finally seemed to break the spell, something strange that couldn’t be seen at first glance. You had to stare at the disorder and mess as he had before you noticed that none of it was broken. The furniture, the TV, the stereo, all where still whole. Even the two pictures that had come with the apartment had been taken off the wall carefully, the glass in their frames not even scratched. It was almost as if, bizarre as it seemed, whoever had done this hadn’t been trying to trash his place. As if, maybe…

It hit Del like a slap in the face, the truth bursting through his shock. With a curse he spun and pushed his way through the chaos and down the short hallway and into his bedroom, to be greeted by more of the same. The blankets and the silk sheets had been stripped from his king sized bed and thrown into a corner, the mattress had been lifted off and was now leaning against the wall. The drawers from the dresser had been pulled out, their contents emptied into a pile on top of the box springs, then stacked carefully next to them. His clothing and shoes had been dragged from the closet and left in the middle of the floor, even the hangers were pulled from the rod.

It didn’t take long for Del to find what was missing. His stash, all the money that he had made since he had come to this town and started his stable, plus the nest egg he had brought with him. His jewelry, the shotgun and the 9mm Sig he kept for emergencies. The straight razor he used to carry in Tulsa, before he got the Bowie.

And the key of coke.

With a wordless scream of pure, animal fury, Del grabbed the first thing that came to hand and started smashing.

*****

From his seat on the wall outside of Snake Man’s apartment Tommy listened, clearly hearing the pimp’s rampage through the broken bathroom window he had used to gain entrance hours earlier. Inside were the sounds of crashing and breaking, all the items that he had been careful not to harm, now being destroyed by their owner. And over it all was the enraged curses of the man who got so much sick pleasure out of beating helpless women. It made for quite a show.

After listening to the tirade for several minutes and realizing that it wasn’t showing any signs of abating, Tom sighed and climbed to his feet. Rising straight out from the wall as if it was a level floor he stood, his tendons popping as he stretched. It had been a good plan, but unfortunately it hadn’t worked. He had hoped to have broken Snake Man, but the violence and fury the pimp was now venting showed that he had failed. Yeah, the guy would probably leave town alright, Tom knew the little psychopath had enough survival sense to do that much. But sure as hell he would start up again somewhere else. More young women turning tricks, more wire hangers with blood. More Spooners, lying in hospital beds wondering how badly they were scarred. Nothing would have changed, except for the location.

Tom lifted off from the wall, willing himself across the street to the rooftop where he had stashed what he had taken from the pimp’s apartment. The money and jewelry would go to Penny Girl, who would use it to pay Spooners medical bills, and divide the rest up amongst Snake Man’s girls after he was gone. But Tommy had other plans for the guns and the cocaine.

First, though, he had to wake up Pablo Murray. He needed the little man to boot up the artificial larynx program, and to make a special call to the San Francisco PD.

“…and then he SHOT at me! I wasn’t doing anything, I’d never even SEEN this guy before, but he starts shooting at me for no reason!

“I, I ran, but there was no place to go, it was a dead end. So I hid behind a trash can and watched. He got into this car, it was a silver color Cadillac, I think. It had a gold front bumper and rims, and one of the headlights was smashed. I think he put the gun under the front seat. Look, he’s about five ten and skinny, long blond hair, and his face was all bruised up. Looked like he had been in a fight. He just left right now; if you hurry you can catch the little bastard…”

Tom had Murray wait until Snake Man had finished loading his few belongings into the Caddie before making the call. The little special effects wizard rerouted the call so that it appeared to come from an anonymous cell phone somewhere in the city, and then sent it through to the 911 dispatcher. He played the hysterical sounding recording as is and then hung up before it became obvious the woman on the end of the line wasn’t going to answer any questions.

Tom followed Snake Man’s car from overhead, and watched as three patrol units pulled him over with lights flashing just before he got onto the highway. He saw as, guns drawn, they dragged the pimp from the front seat and threw him onto the ground.

Tom turned and left, letting the force of bent gravity pull him towards the Richmond district and his home in the warehouse. He knew they’d find the gun from the alley under the front passenger seat, freshly fired and covered with the pimp’s fingerprints. After all, he’d put it there. But he also knew that first they’d find the other guns and the kilo of cocaine under the driver’s seat, also covered with Snake Man’s prints. And a full kilo was dealer weight, not just possession. It would be a long, long time before Snake Man beat another woman.

The cold wind whistled past his hooded face, and underneath the dark mask he wore a grim smile.