Book II Chapter 13

It was dusk, and Tom Blackwood was in his truck passing through the Tenderloin area of San Francisco. The shadows were still falling, and traffic just beginning to thicken. Commuters and tourists and those on legitimate business, slowly giving way in numbers to those who weren’t so legitimate. The night-time sex denizens of the ‘loin were creeping out of their holes with the coming of the night, purveying there bodies or the bodies of others. The transition always made him think of those horror movies, where the undead rise from their graves to walk the streets at night. Not a bad analogy, when you really thought about it.

Tom tapped his hand on the steering wheel in time with the music from the radio. A smile grew on his face as the living dead thought triggered a memory. The memory was about ‘Lord’ Bennett, the street level deal broker who had become his newest snitch. Tom had gotten his eager cooperation by convincing the petty criminal that he was a vampire, and would someday make Bennett one himself, if he only served Tom now as a faithful ‘minion’. The guy was a total sleaze bag, but he had connections and promised to be a valuable source of future information. And after finding out that Bennett held a strong inclination towards date rape, Tom had even managed to make the little perv take a vow of celibacy. He grinned now, thinking about the whole little stunt, and for the first time in weeks began to feel like he was really back in the game.

After the last meeting of the Planning Committee, his brother Mike and Pablo Murray had come down to San Francisco to help him discover the limits of his new power, which they had ended up calling ‘high gear’. They had met at his loft where, as they had planned, the two tech experts of the Committee had proceeded to rewire the Slam Man punching dummy in the loft’s spacious gym.

The punching dummy was the same type as Dieter and Holly Reisbach used in there string of martial arts dojos. A vaguely human shaped torso that mostly resembled some sort of fictional space alien robot, the dummy was mounted on a stanchion set into a bucket filled with two hundred and forty pounds of sand. Recessed lights set behind high impact plastic lenses blinked on and off in programmed patterns, with variable speed settings that ranged from novice to pro. Sensors in the recesses next to the lights could measure impact, and an onboard mini computer tabulated the results of each programmed session.

Since the electronic punching dummy basically performed the functions they needed already, it didn’t take long for Pablo to modify it. Within an hour he had disabled the simple digital display screen and replaced it with a cable that led across the room to a computer laptop, where Mike had quickly written a simple program to graph the results of the coming tests. The laptop’s internal clock would also provide a much more accurate measurement of the data, in thousandths of a second rather than tenths.

For a baseline comparison they had Tom run the first sequence at regular speed. The count down started, and for the next three minutes he hit the robot shaped dummy with hard, sharp blows, snapping his wrists on the follow through, concentrating on form and speed. It was a good run, and he knew he had done his best when Dieter gave him a slight nod afterwards. For the big, laconic German the gesture was the equivalent of a slap on the back.

Holly went next, and Tom couldn’t help but feel a flush of anticipation when she stepped up to the dummy and took a fighting stance. Mike hit the keyboard on the laptop, and the first light flashed on the dummy as the session started. Holly’s whole body suddenly moved, uncoiling like a snapped watch spring, her fist a mere flicker as it shot out to strike with a sharp snap of contact. She moved through the sequence, her body constantly in motion, a deadly dance awesome in its beauty. She threw herself into the mock fight the same way she did everything else in her life, hard and fast and all out, taking a complete joy in her body and what it could do. When the buzzer sounded at the end of the three minutes she stood there for awhile, gasping, her lithe young body sheened in sweat and a huge grin on her flushed features. Her father looked on approvingly, but Tom noticed that both Mike and Pablo seemed a little out of focus. He turned aside to hide a smile.

It was Dieter’s turn next, and his performance proved as impressive as his beautiful daughter’s, if for different reasons. Where Holly’s session had been like an exhibition of modern dance, Dieter’s was of overwhelming power, resembling more a man with a sledgehammer tearing down a brick wall. His feet were set and his lower body barely moved, but his gloved fists slammed out like pistons, making the dummy rock again and again on its weighted base. Mike and Pablo put their heads together and conferred quietly over the results, occasionally nodding, but gave no other sign of how the tests were going.

Finally it was Tom’s turn again, and he could feel the anticipation in the air, thick like a fog. All eyes were unwaveringly on him as he approached the dummy, rolling his shoulders and taking deep, preparatory breaths. He called on his power and felt himself shifting into that new place they had named ‘high gear’. He could hear his own heart beating, a bass drum beginning to drown out all other sound, felt the blood as it rushed through his veins. Time slowed more and more as he fell deeper in, and his concentration sharpened to a keen focus on his mechanical opponent. When the buzzer started and the red light flashed, his right hand flicked out and the session began.

Tom’s style was different from either of the Reisbachs, and yet held portions of both. Instead of dancing as Holly did or pounding away like her father, his body bobbed and weaved, ducked and shifted, his blows hitting with both speed and an uncanny accuracy. He controlled his own personal gravity to shift his body like no one else on earth could, slipping in and out and to the sides, putting weight behind punches that hit every bit as hard as Dieter’s could. The slap-slapping ¬of leather glove against high impact neoprene echoed like gunshots in the vaulted loft. His concentration became so focused that he felt himself slip completely into the moment, so that when the buzzer finally sounded he would have ignored it if the lights that were his targets had not stopped also.

Tom felt time return to its proper place as he paused, his breath heaving, and stepped back from the dummy. Dieter helped him out of the boxing gloves, and then Holly handed him a chilled sports drink which he greedily downed. The three of them exchanged silent glances, before turning to where Mike and Pablo Murray sat hunched over the laptop, tabulating the results. It was the small special effects wizard who finally turned to them with a smug grin.

“Well, Dieter, looks like you’re not so old after all. Holly is a consistent 3% slower than you. Tom, your normal speed averages about 38% of his. Not bad, a little bit better than you’d expect from someone who’s only been training in the martial arts for a few months, compared to someone who does it for a living.

“But, in high gear…” the small man paused dramatically, his grin spreading. “In high gear, you’re average speed is a whopping 90% faster than Dieter’s!”

Tom blinked, stunned. Almost twice as fast as a professional fighting machine like Dieter! It took a moment for the numbers to sink in, but when they did all four sets of eyes had turned on him. Mike and Pablo, grinning smugly, Holly with an almost sexual excitement. And her father, with his measuring gaze that told Tom that his near future would undoubtedly deal with some very creative, and most likely painful new training techniques.

And they would, if the past two days were any indication. Tom’s lips quirked wryly as he thought about them now. The new power, using it, had proven almost as miraculous as when he first learned to fly. Okay, to be honest, it was a freaking rush. To slow time and spar with a man like Dieter Reisbach, and dance around him as if he were standing still. To be able to snatch a thrown knife out of the air as if it were a snowflake, or to throw one himself with uncanny accuracy because he had all the time in the world to take aim.

And his senses! Dieter and Holly had both stalked him inside a darkened basement while wearing night goggles, but when he was in high gear he had known exactly where they were by sound, smell, and the tickle of the hair on his arms as the air moved. He knew it was dangerous feeling this invincible, and Dieter had warned him time and again about the sin of overconfidence. But still he found himself anticipating his next street fight like a kid looking forward to Christmas.

He was sitting at a stoplight with the rest of the evening traffic, watching the early dusk come in. All around him other drivers were switching on their headlights as it got progressively darker, which reminded him to flip on his own.

Out of habit he looked to his left and scanned the street walkers taking their places on the corners, silently putting names to the ones that he knew, making note of the new faces that he didn’t. He could see the breath fogging in front of several of them, and sent them his silent sympathy. It had been a late fall, but it looked like San Francisco’s infamous cold winter was now here. And the girls couldn’t exactly dress for it, could they, not in their business. He made a mental note to check the back alleys that night for homeless and runaways, who might be in danger of exposure.

Tonight Tom was looking forward to going back on patrol. Dieter had argued for another two days of practice and experimentation with his new powers, but he had overruled the older man. He felt the need to get out, into both the skies and the streets, to get back to the mission. The slavery ring case was on hold until they could develop some more leads, but there were always people out here who could use his particular brand of help. He had one stop to make tonight, then a private dinner with Holly back at the loft. But after that it would be time to don the mask, and take to the skies. To fly through the clouds with the city laid out below him, or to leap across the silent rooftops and hunt down the darkened—

The sharp blast of a horn behind him snapped Tom back to the present, and with a sheepish wave of his hand he put the truck into gear and started forward. Better stop thinking about tonight and concentrate on now, he admonished himself, before somebody gets a smashed bumper. He put on his turn signal and eased into the right hand lane, getting ready for his turn that was coming up. He slowed down, waiting patiently as the two cars in front of him were braking for the same turn, and glanced across the street at the corner opposite. What he saw there made him suddenly tense and straighten in his seat.

When the tough talking, streetwalking Penny Girl had become one of his main sources of information months ago, they had worked out a system for contacting each other. If he wanted to talk to her, he would pitch a penny at her from out of the shadows. She would then meet him in the nearest darkened alley. If she needed to talk to him, she would go to her usual area on the Stroll and wear a brightly colored scarf around her neck. A green scarf meant not urgent, and a blue one that it was important. But a red scarf meant that someone was about to die.

Penny Girl was wearing a white mini dress and knee high matching boots, with a scarf so red it almost glowed. Wrapped twice around her throat, it hung both front and back almost to her knees. She might as well have been wearing a neon sign.

Tom considered his options as he pulled down the street. He could go back to the loft and suit up, but he dismissed that idea right away. Even if he went straight home it would still take him at least half an hour, maybe forty five minutes in this traffic. Instead he drove two more blocks until he found a parking garage, where he turned in and bought a ticket. He followed the ramp all the way up, to the sixth and top floor, finding himself the only vehicle there. He parked to the side and got out, scanned the rooftop one last time, then went to the back of the pickup and unlocked the large cargo box and began to rummage around.

He could wait, but that red scarf meant time was important, so he would just have to handle it with what he had to hand. Unfortunately they had never planned for such a situation, and the cargo box held very little of use. None of his weapons or equipment, and certainly not an extra black suit. Some of his camping gear, most of it useless right now, except for a long sleeved thermal undershirt. In the end the only thing he found that he could make use of was a pair of leather work gloves and the old ski mask he had originally used when he first found out he could fly.

Following the policy he himself had come up with never to carry anything on a patrol that might identify him, he emptied his pockets and locked everything in the truck. Before he did though he paused and used his cell phone to call Holly. Her phone was busy, so he called Murray instead, telling the special effects expert what the situation was and how he intended to handle it. When the little man started to object furiously, Tom said a quick goodbye and hung up, locking the phone with his other things inside the glove box. He could hear it already ringing when he locked the door, then hid the keys behind the right front wheel. He pulled on the mask and then the leather gloves, then stepped up to the low retaining wall and leapt off.

Tom landed lightly three floors below on top of the building next to the parking garage. He ran quickly to the opposite side and leapt again, staying in the shadows, making his way like that from building to building. Although it was too light out to be able to fly unobserved, sticking to the rooftops like this severely limited any view someone might have of his passage. Also, incredible as it might be, if anyone saw him it would just be a man jumping, not flying. Leaping twenty to thirty feet at a time, still not good, but the best that he could come up with for the time being.

*****

Penny Girl was pacing. The same fifteen, twenty feet of sidewalk, over and over again, her long legs in their spiked heels eating up the distance nervously. A dozen steps, then turn, then another twelve steps and turn, occasionally kicking one of the several cigarettes she had dropped on her path only half smoked. She paused to light another one, using the motion to hide a quick glance into the darkened mouth of the alley at her back.

The tall black streetwalker stood still while she puffed on the cigarette, taking two deep drags, then a third, before she dropped it to the ground with the others and ground it out underfoot. Her eyes never showed where her real attention was, but her ears probed the night like radar, straining to hear the sound of a copper coin striking pavement. But the sound never came, and eventually she turned to once again start her cat-in-a-cage pacing. Damn it, Spooky, where the fuck were you?

She couldn’t work like this. Customers, some of them valued regulars, kept drifting by in their slow moving cars. Rolling down their windows, looking at her expectantly, only to frown when she shook her head and waved them on. This shit was going to cost her, not only tonight but later on down the road, too. But it couldn’t be helped; she had to be out here where the Spook could see her, not doing a car trick with Old John in a parking lot. Damn it, Spooky, where the fuck where—

Suddenly Penny froze, stiffening, as she felt the familiar tap strike between her shoulder blades. Followed a half second later by the ti-ingg of metal striking concrete down by her feet. She caught her breath, forcing herself not to look down, to turn slowly and walk as casually as her stiffened legs and six inch heels would allow. In moments she was out of the glare from the streets, and enveloped in dimness.

“Spooky!” she hissed, and was immediately rewarded by a softly spoken, “Here.”

She stumbled to a halt and whirled, looking upwards, to catch a shadowy figure clinging two floors up on the left hand side of the alley. Suddenly the figure sprang, leaping across the alley to the platform of a fire escape on the other side. It hung there for a moment by it’s hands, swinging back and forth like a pendulum, before releasing it’s grip and dropping lightly to the alley a bare ten feet in front of her. Penny gasped, stepping back, suddenly unsure. It had to be him, but the figure looked…different.

“I-is zat you?” she asked, hesitantly.

“Do you know anybody else who makes an entrance like that?” came the reply, in a familiar voice. She felt a wash of pure relief, and an immediate easing of the knot that had been growing in her stomach for the past three days. She took a step backwards, looking the strange man who she now realized had made such an impact in her life. Instead of the usual fright mask with goggles, black hooded sweatshirt and bandoleer; he was now wearing a simple ski mask and a black, v-necked sweater. Brown leather work gloves, faded blue jeans, and a pair of Nike running shoes.

The scary, night stalking son of a bitch who had saved her ass months ago was no longer looking so scary. Damn.

“Spooky, where’s all your shit? I almost din’t know you.”

“This was all I had with me when I saw you flashing that scarf. From the look on your face I didn’t think you wanted to wait another hour while I went home and changed. Was I wrong?”

She hesitated. “No…no, you right. This can’t wait. Spooky, I, I need you to find someone, fast. I need you to find my cousin, Marcus.”

“Your cousin. Okay, how can I help him? What kind of trouble is he in?”

“Marcus ain’t in trouble, he is trouble!” Penny spat, the worried look on her face suddenly doing a backflip to something darker. “And I don’ need you to help him, I need you to kill the sonuvabitch!”

Time froze in the dark San Francisco alley, as its two sole occupants stared across the damp concrete at each other. Penny glared at him, her breath coming loudly in the silence, her body shivering with her held in emotions. Tom watched, feeling the muscles of his face tighten.

“You know I don’t do that, Penny. If you have some personal problems with your cousin, handle it yourself. I’m not your private hitman.” Tom let some of the anger he felt into his voice, that and the disappointment. He had always known that the young streetwalker was a mercenary at heart, and had expected her to try and hustle him sooner or later. And he wouldn’t have blamed her for it, either; he knew that survival out here meant grabbing every advantage. But expecting him to kill someone for her, that went beyond too far. Abruptly he turned to go, moving into the anonymity of the shadows.

“Wait! Damn you, Spooky, you waitaminnit. Spooky!” From behind Tom heard Penny chasing after him, her spiked heels making a clacking sound on the hard concrete as she ran. She passed him by and spun, standing in his path and blocking his way with one out raised hand. “You owe me, damn you,” she hissed, glaring defiantly.

Tom moved forward until her hand rested against his hard chest, both of them knowing she couldn’t have stopped him if he didn’t allow it. But he did stop, looking down at her and matching her fierce gaze with a cold, hard one of his own.

“That’s debatable. But I sure as hell don’t owe you a body.”

“Then you owe me a listen.”

Under the mask, Tom felt his eyebrows raise. “So what is that supposed to mean?”

“It means you gotta listen when I tell you something’s important. You don’t have to do nothin’, you don’t even have to believe me. But you gotta least listen. After all I done for you, Spooky, you owe me that.”

Tom stood there looking at the young streetwalker. Measuring, debating with himself. Once again she was surprising him. The Penny Girl he had always known was tough, smart talking, and above all sure of herself. He had never seen this Penny before. This one seemed, what? Desperate?

Scared?

“All right. I’m not agreeing to anything yet, and I sure as hell won’t kill somebody for you, no matter what you tell me. But I will listen. Make it good, and don’t leave anything out.”

At his words Penny seemed to deflate just a little, as if some pressure inside had been at least partway released. She stepped back from him, looking away, as she marshaled her thoughts. When she turned back her voice for the first time was steady, and there was strength behind her words.

“Me an’ Marcus grew up in Oakland. Even when we was kids he was mean. Big and mean. He liked to hurt people, y’know what Ah’m sayin’? Just plain liked it. We all learned real early to stay the hell away from him.

“He got even worse when he grew up some. Ten years ago Marcus beat his girlfriend into a coma, then into a wheelchair. He spent six years in Pelican Bay for that. While he was there he got into all that weight lifting shit, and got even bigger than he was before. An’ Marcus, he liked bein’ bigger an’ badder than anybody else. Liked it so much, when he got out he started that Schwarzenegger body buildin’ crap, and poppin’ them steroid pills like they was peanuts.

“You know what that stuff does to you, right? Makes you big as a house but it also makes you crazy, an’ Marcus was a’ready halfway there. He got more an’ more outta control. He spent the past four years since he got out workin’ as muscle for whoever’d pay him, but lately even the sharks and the bangers won’t touch him. So he started comin’ down here to the stroll, takin’ it out on any ho who was dumb enough to go into a back alley with him.”

Penny had been telling the tale coldly, her tone hard and uncompromising as a piece of iron. But now she stopped, her voice catching. She turned and stepped away, wrapping her arms around herself, not speaking. The brassy, ballsy lady was abruptly gone, giving Tom a never before seen glimpse of Penny as vulnerable. Was this it, he wondered. Was this the con? She’d tell him some horror story about her cousin, maybe try and convince him that if he didn’t kill Marcus, then Marcus would kill her. He waited, saying nothing until she spoke again, her back to him and her words so soft he had to strain to hear them.

“Three days ago… Martinique, you ‘member her? Skinny ol’ island girl, always wears a red mini? Real pretty. Marcus, he killed her, not four blocks from here, in a alley behind that Korean market. I saw when they pulled her out. Her f-face…”

She paused, looking into the dark shadows playing against a brick wall, but seeing somewhere else. Eventually she continued, “You don’t believe me, but that’s okay. The cops took her away, and they gots a warrant out on Marcus. You got your ways, I know you can check it. They hung around here for a couple days, but what they gonna do? The ‘Loins a big place, and Marcus knows it as good as any street girl.

“I hear he’s been partyin’ hard since he killed Martinique, throwin’ his money around like he’s tryin’ to spend it all fast as he can. Best booze, best blow, best smack. He ain’t smart enough to run forever, an’ he knows that. Sooner or later they’ll get him. He’s just tryin’ to get as much action in as he can before they do.”

Penny stopped, and just like that the vulnerability was gone. She turned around, her hands dropping to her side and forming fists as she moved towards him. Her voice was a low growl when she spoke.

“He ain’t comin’ after me. He already had me, when we was kids. But now that the cops’re gone, he’s sure as shit gonna be lookin’ for someone. You got to find him, Spooky, or one of them dumb ho’s out there is gonna die tonight. An’ you can’t just beat on him like all them bangers an’ psychos you been doin’. Not with Marcus. You gonna have to put him down to stop him. Ain’t no other way.”

Tom met her gaze for awhile before answering, considering his words carefully. “I told you I’m not a hitman, Penny. If you’re telling me the truth, I’ll find your cousin and I’ll take him down. But I’ll do it my way. Now do you have any suggestions on where I should start looking? Like you said, the Tenderloin is a big place.”

Penny bit her lip in thought then nodded, rubbing her arms, reacting to the cold for the first time that night. “Not the Theater District or Little Saigon. Also not Mid Market, nuthin’ there but winos. Same with Boeddeker Park. Post and Polk Street are where the T girls strut, Marcus don’t want none’a that.

“Shit, Spooky, you know the stroll by now. It moves around some, but just follow the street girls. Marcus’ll stay away from the bright lights and the main streets, so watch the alleys.”

The weird guy in the black mask who she was pinning all her desperate hopes on studied her for a long minute after Penny had finished talking. For the first time in many years she met someone’s gaze and hid nothing, held nothing back. The masked man finally nodded, turned away and crossed the alley, and without another word he climbed the three story wall as fast as most men would walk the same distance.

Penny Girl watched the spot where the hero guy had disappeared for a long time, before turning away and heading back to her place out on the stroll. She felt the weight lift a little from her shoulders, but the cold fear still clutched at her. She had told the Spook the truth about Marcus, but had lied about one thing. If her cousin found her out on the streets on this night, he would kill her as readily as he would any other whore he caught. She wanted to run, to grab a bus, a plane, get the hell out of Dodge and never come back. But she couldn’t, not knowing that her own flesh and blood would kill someone else in her place. So she had pinned all her hopes on some freak in a ski mask who thought he was Don fuckin’ Quixote.

Penny Girl peered down the street, and shuddered. Sweet baby Jesus, she was so scared.