by Jim Butcher
I frowned at that, and fell silent.
"I know you've got a lot of contempt for him," she said in that same quiet voice. "But I've been where he's standing - and I got into it purely for the profit, not to take care of my family, the way he did. He started off with better intentions than I ever had, and he's ended up in a much worse position. It's a bad place to be, Peter. I feel sorry for him."
"I don't," I said quietly.
"And what's the difference, Pete?" she asked. There was no malice in the question. "What's the difference between him and me? What's the difference between him and you, for that matter? I mean, I don't know if anyone ever explained this, but vigilantism isn't exactly smiled upon by the law in this town, and you do it every day."
Which was true, and really inconvenient to this debate. "So what? You think I should drop the mask, go to the police academy, and get a badge?
Right. Like they'd ever let me do that."
She shook her head. "I just think you should think of him as a human being, not some kind of dangerous wild animal. Speaking of which," she said, "didn't it ever strike you as odd that the Ancients hired the bloody Rhino? A goon chock-full of totemic life energy?"
I blinked.
It hadn't.
"I'm not saying you should pull your punches," she continued. "I'm not saying we should give him a hug and sign him up for group therapy. I'm just saying that he's a human being with strengths and flaws, just like anyone else - and that he's in way over his head. He's in as much danger as you are and he probably doesn't even realize it."
I shut the book a little harder than was strictly necessary. "He hurts people for money."
"You hurt people for free!" she said tartly. "That just means he has better business sense than you."
"I fight criminals," I said. "Not bank guards and security personnel."
"One man's security guard is another man's hired thug," she said. "And when you get right down to it, men like the Rhino spend far more time pounding on other criminals than they do on law enforcement."
I stacked the books up to return to the shelves. Most people probably don't make enormous booming noises when stacking books. But I think they would if they had the proportionate strength of a spider and the proportionate patience of the crowd control guys on Jerry Springer. "So what are you saying? There's no difference between the good guy and the bad guy?"
Felicia arched an eyebrow at me. "They're both guys. Aren't they?"
"Yeah. One of them a violent criminal, and the other someone who protects people from violent criminals."
"My point, Peter," she said, "is that when you get down to it, there's very little difference between a wolf in the fold and the sheepdog who protects them."
"Like hell there isn't," I said. "The sheepdog doesn't eat sheep.
Which is a really sorry metaphor to use for New Yorkers in the first place. Your average New Yorker is about as sheeplike as a Cape buffalo."
"Not everyone has a heart like yours, Parker," she snarled, her voice ringing out among the stacks. "Not everyone is as good as you. As noble.
Not everyone sees the difference between right and wrong - and once upon a time you didn't, either, or you wouldn't be who you are." She folded her arms and brought her voice under control with some difficulty. 'And I'd still be doing jobs on jewelers and vaults and..." - she gestured around us, wearily - "libraries."
True enough. Once upon a time, I hadn't seen the difference between right and wrong, and Uncle Ben died for it.
I sighed. "Look, there's nothing else to be gained here. You want to go?"
She nodded. "Yeah. Another library?"
"No," I said. "I have another stop to make."
Chapter 12
Coach Kyle had been right. It wasn't a great neighborhood.
The Larkins' apartment building was well coated with graffiti and neglect. There wasn't a visible streetlight that hadn't been broken. The windows on the lower floors were all barred and covered in boards. There weren't a lot of cars around, and the ones that were looked far too expensive for anyone living there - except for one old Oldsmobile, which had been put on blocks and stripped to a skeleton of its former self.
Most tellingly, on a Saturday afternoon, there was almost no one in sight. I saw one gray-haired woman walking down the street with a hard expression and a purposeful stride. Several young men in gang colors sat on or around one of the expensive cars while a big radio boomed. Other than that, nothing. No pedestrians headed for a corner grocery store. No one taking out the trash or walk-ing to the mailbox. No children out playing in the pleasant weather.
I'd filled Felicia in on Samuel, and she had listened to the whole thing without comment until we got where we were going. "You take me to the nicest places," she said. "Which building?"
"The one with those friendly-looking young men with the radio."
"I thought you'd say that," Felicia said.
We approached the building and got flat-eyed stares from the young men.
They sat with the grips of handguns poking up out of their waistbands or outlined against their loose shirts. None of them were older than nineteen. One couldn't have been fifteen.
"Hey," said one of the larger young men, his tone belligerent. "White bread. Where you think you're going?"
I gestured with a hand without slowing down, as if it had been a polite inquiry instead of a challenge. "Visiting a friend."
The kid came to his feet with an aggressive little bounce and planted himself directly in my way. "I don't know you. Maybe you better just turn around." He looked past me to Felicia. "You're pretty stupid, coming down here with a piece like that. Where do you think you are, man?"
I stopped and looked around, then scratched my head. "Isn't this Sesame Street? I'm sure Mister Snuffalupagus is around here somewhere."
The kid in front of me got mad and got right in my face, eye to eye. The young men with him let out an ugly, growling sound as a whole. "You trying to start something, man? You gonna get a cap, you keep this up."
It was annoying. If I'd been wearing the mask, I could have taken these kids' guns away and scared them off. Peter Parker, part-time science teacher, however, couldn't beat up gangs single-handed. And if anything started, Felicia was sure to pitch in. She could handle herself as well as anyone I knew, but this wasn't the time or the place to look for a fight.
I lifted my hands and said, "Sorry, man, just joking with you. I'm here to see Samuel Larkin."
"What do you care?"
"I'm his basketball coach," I said.
That drew a round of quiet laughs. "Sure you are." He shook his head.
"Time you're leaving."
"No," I said quietly. "I need to see Samuel Larkin."
The young man pulled up his shirt and put his hand on the grip of a semiautomatic stuck in his waistband. "I ain't gonna tell you again."
I met his gaze in silence, and didn't move. He expected me to, I could tell, and as the seconds ticked by he started to get nervous. He had his hand on a gun, all of his friends had guns, and I would have had to be insane not to be afraid. He had expected me to back off or produce a gun of my own, or attack him - anything, really, but stand there calmly. The basic tactics of bullies hadn't changed since I was in school - cause fear and control peo-ple with it. Granted, they hadn't carried around the handguns quite so obviously. And if one of them had backed down back then, it probably would have meant a little bit of embarrassment.
Depending on how hard-core this gang was, backing off could cost this kid his leadership - which could well mean his life, or at least everything he thought was of value in it.
I lowered my voice so that only he could hear it. "Don't," I said quietly. "Please."
He swallowed. Then his shoulder tensed to draw the gun.
"George," bellowed a deep voice from above us. "What you think you doing to my coach?"
I looked up and found Samuel's scowling face looking down from a window on the fourth floor.
&n
bsp; George, presumably, looked away from me and put his hands on his hips to scowl up at Samuel. "I don't know no George."
Samuel rolled his eyes. "Oh, yeah. G. You just G now, huh. George got too many letters."
"You got a big mouth," George said, scowling.
Samuel barked out a laugh. "G, you always been a funny guy." Then he looked at me and said, "Hey, Coach Parker."
"Mr. Larkin," I replied, nodding. "Got a minute to talk?"
"Buzz you in," he said. "Don't be too hard on my man G. Nobody ever gave him a hug or a puppy or anything like that, so he grew up with a bad attitude."
I nodded to him and walked to the door.
Behind me, George stepped in front of Felicia and said, "Now you, girl.
You're fine. Maybe you should stay here and hang with me. Me and my crew will keep you safe from the bad element."
Felicia took off the glasses and smiled at him. Not a pretty smile. It was a slightly unsettling kind of smile, very Lecter-like. "I am the bad element," she said, toothily. "The question you should be asking is, Who is going to keep you and your crew safe from me?"
George let out a laugh, but it sort of died a strangled death a second or two in.
Felicia kept smiling and took a step closer to him.
George took a wary step back from her.
"That's good, G," she told him. "That's smart. Smart men are sexy."
The door buzzed, and I opened it for Felicia. She sauntered through, giving George a dazzling smile on the way, and vanished into the building.
I nodded to George, pointed a finger at my temple, and spun it in a little circle.
"Yeah," George said, shaking his head as the door closed. "Crazy white people."
The elevator was out, so we took the stairs up to the fourth floor, then found the Larkins' apartment. I knocked. It took Samuel a minute to get to the door. He opened it, stepped out, and closed it behind him, so that we didn't get to see the apartment.
"Mister Science," he said. He looked from me to Felicia. "I really wasn't expecting to see this kind of thing until college recruiters started showing up."
Felicia asked me, sweetly, "How hard is it to play basketball without kneecaps?"
I put a hand on her arm and said to Samuel, "Thanks for stepping in with those guys down there."
He shrugged. "You get killed here, there's gonna be a lot of trouble for people I know. It ain't 'cause I like you, Mister Science."
"Yeah. I can tell what a public enemy you are," I said. "I came by to see if you'd had any luck with getting the shots set up."
"Oh sure," he said. "Soon as my driver gets back with the limo, he gonna take me to my private doctor. Doc's on vacation in Fiji, but I got my personal jet waiting to pick me up."
I gave him a flat look for a minute. Then I said, "I'm serious."
"Then you're stupid," he replied, his tone frank and not bitter. He stared at me for a second and then said, "Shoot." (Which he didn't say, again.) "You really think that I was gonna get to a doctor?"
"I think you really want to," I said. "I thought maybe there'd be something I could do to help you."
"And you came down here? And with your woman, too. And you face off with G." He shook his head. "You gotta be brave or stupid or crazy, Mister Science."
"I am not his woman," Felicia said, tartly.
"And my name is Parker," I said, putting a re-straining hand on Felicia's arm again. "Look, Samuel, if there's something I can do to help you, I want to do it."
"Like what?" the big young man said. "You gonna get my father back to New York, back with my mom, maybe? So he can work a job, so my mom got time to get us taken care of? Maybe you can make her arthritis disappear." He shook his head. "That ain't gonna happen."
"I know that," I said.
"You even know any doctors?" he asked.
"Um. Not the medical doctor kind," I said. I didn't think Doctors Octavius, Conners, Osborne, or Banner would have the most recent inoculations sitting around ready to go. Reed Richards might, or might know someone, but I didn't like the idea of asking him for his help for something so... normal. Mister Fantastic's time is pretty well eaten up by cosmic devices and mad Latverian dictators and threats to the entire universe.
"What use are you then, huh? Part-time science teacher gonna save us urban kids. You're a bad joke, man."
Felicia's hands clenched, the way they did when she wore the gloves with the built-in claws.
"Easy," I said to her. "Samuel. Look. If you don't want my help, you can tell me that. You don't have to keep trying to insult Ms. Hardy and me so that I'll get mad and walk away."
Samuel fell quiet for a long minute, and the door to his apartment opened. A little girl, maybe four or five years old, came out. She was cuter than a whole jar of buttons, with little pink bows in her hair, blue overalls, and a pink T-shirt.
"Samm'l," she wheezed, rubbing at her eyes. "Chris'fer keeps kicking me."
Samuel glanced at us once, suddenly nervous, and turned to kneel down and speak to the little girl, picking her up as he did. "Did you tell him to stop that?"
"Yeah, but he's sleepin'."
"Oh," Samuel said, and his voice was warm and gentle. "Well, he doesn't mean to do that. You know that, right?"
"He won't stop."
"Uh-huh," he said. "How 'bout I put you in my bed for your nap."
She frowned. "And Peter Rabbit?"
He snorted. "Okay. And Peter Rabbit. But only once."
The little girl smiled at him. " 'Kay."
Samuel kissed her on the head and set her back down. "Go on. I'll be right there."
The little girl nodded, gave me and Felicia a shy little glance, then fled inside.
Samuel stood up slowly and shut the door after her. Then he turned to face us, clearly uncomfortable. "My little brother does a lot of running around in his sleep," he explained. "They share a bed. Hard on her sometimes."
"She's a beautiful child," I said.
Samuel glanced back at the door and smiled.
"Yeah, she..." He was quiet for a moment, and the smile faded. "She's a sweetheart."
"Okay," I said. "You want to stop with the insults now?"
He rolled one shoulder in a shrug. "I guess you mean well, at least. You shouldn't have come down here, though. Dangerous." He looked up at Felicia and gave her a nod that somehow conveyed an apology. "Especially for you, Ms. Hardy. But there's nothing much you can do."
"Samuel," I said. "Maybe I can talk to someone. I might be able to - "
"I don't want you to," Samuel said, his tone hardening. "I don't want your help. Your charity. I'll do it on my own."
"Even if it means suspension," I said.
He shrugged. "Shoot. Good as I am, the college boys aren't even gonna look at that. Once they see me, that's that."
"They're going to have a hard time seeing you if you get suspended. I checked regulations. You aren't going to be eligible to play for the rest of this season."
He shrugged. "So I arrange something else. I don't need your help, Mister Science."
I exhaled heavily. "Everyone needs help sometime."
"Not me," he said. "Nice of you to come by, but it ain't helping me any.
Best if you just go."
"You sure?" I asked him. "It could mean a lot, in the long run. Making sure you're on the team."
"My life. I'll handle it." He shrugged. "I can't do ball, I'll do something else. My mom can't do it alone no more."
"G and his buddies seem to like you," I noted.
"Grew up together here," Samuel said, nodding. "I don't like what they do, but... people gotta live."
I stood there for a moment, feeling stupid and awkward. Then I nodded to him and said, "Your call, then." I pulled a scrap of paper out of my notebook and wrote down my number. "But here's my number. In case you change your mind."
"I won't," he said, making no move to take the paper I offered.
"In case," I said. "Keep your options open."
; He glowered for a moment and shook his head. Then he took the paper and said, "Just to get rid of you."
We headed for the nearest subway station, Felicia watching me steadily the whole time.
"Sometimes I don't know how you do that," she said.
"Do what?"
"Think about other people. You're up to your neck in trouble, but you're worried about some loudmouthed prima donna. Going out of your way to see him."
"I have to," I said.
"Why?"
"The same reason I won't leave town."
"Which is?"
"If I let my fear of the Ancients force me to aban-don my life, if I run away from everything I think is important, they've already killed me. If I hadn't come here, then this time next week, I'd feel pretty bad about leaving Samuel in the lurch without even trying to help."
"If you're alive in a week," she pointed out.
"Right," I said. "I'm planning on its happening. That's one of the things that's helped me survive this long."
Felicia shook her head. "He seems like a pretty good kid, once you get past the attitude."
"Yeah," I said.
"You're going to do everything you can to help him, aren't you."
"Yes I am."
"Even though you're up to your tights in alligators already," she said, her voice amused.
"When am I not?"
She laughed, and we walked in companionable silence for a while. I stopped at the entrance to the subway.
She tilted her head at me. "What is it?"
"I hate this mystic stuff," I said, frustrated. "Way too nebulous. I've got nothing but speculation. Theories. Hot air. I've got the next best thing to nothing when it comes to empirical data. What I need is someone who's actually been around the Ancients, who knows them."
"Seems to me that they don't like to go public. I doubt anyone close enough to have seen them in action survived to talk about it."
"But without some kind of information, I'm at a dead end. There's no record, no evidence of - "
Suddenly an idea hit me, and I had to sit there frowning furiously until my brain ran the numbers.
"What is it?" she asked.
"There is evidence," I said. "Or there might be."