“Only one doing magic, though,” James said. He considered. “Actually, this is perfect if you think about it. A bunch of people dress up as him and keep doing good works. We take the actual Motorcycle Man out of the equation, and things peter out very slowly. Eventually, people realize there hasn’t been a major event in a while, and the whole thing dies.”
“You’re forgetting the meeting we have soon,” LeBlanc told him. She checked a pocket watch that she had pulled out of the folds of her dress. “The smear campaign our compatriots are determined to wage.”
“They’ll piss off the motorcycle community,” James said. “Though I suppose that’s not their top concern. Anyway, an I am Spartacus thing will just help us cover our tracks.”
“Perhaps you’re right.” LeBlanc sniffed. “In the meantime, we have an hour before we have to meet them, and I smell something delicious. Shall we eat?”
“You can’t cook whatever it is in your dress?”
“Cooking is an art, James.” She smiled at him and swished off, her skirts swirling around her in a rainbow. “I could pull a painting out, but it wouldn’t be a Van Gogh.”
James shook his head as he followed her. “Someday,” he mumbled, “I am going to figure out how that spell works.”
Ted clapped his friend on the back with unnecessary and excessive force, causing Christian to spill his iced tea on his plate. He moved his sandwich out of the way and stared at the plate, no more or less interested in eating it than he had been a few minutes ago.
“Dude, cheer up!” Ted urged, settling back into his half of the booth. “You got a chick—temporarily rather than permanently, but still—who was way out of your league. If you can score two dates with her, the sky’s the limit. If you ask me, the best thing you can do next is try to up your game and go for an honest-to-god supermodel next time. Maybe Heidi Klum? I mean, start with the classics, right?”
Chris picked up his sandwich and took a dutiful bite. Chewing was a surprisingly energy-intensive process when one had no interest in eating. He gave thanks that the bread wasn’t drenched with tea.
He should probably also be grateful to Ted for getting him out of the house, but he wasn’t quite feeling that yet.
His friend went on. “I’m serious. Like, is she still with that Seal guy? I haven’t been following the whole thing, but I still have special memories of her from when I was pubertal. Or maybe…wait, who’s that chick in the Transformers movies?”
Someone at a table across from them shot Ted a weird look but returned to his platter of spaghetti without comment.
Chris swallowed. “Right. Yeah, but I don’t want any of them. I want Kera. I fell for her, not her face or her body, Ted. Those help, sure, but it was the whole package. Everything. And I turned her down. She might feel as shitty as I do, but there’s no way I can take back whatever I told her.”
It was more painful now that he had accepted what had happened. He’d said something that had fucked it up for all time. He had rejected her, apparently while he was drunk. Kera had seemed confident in her understanding of the event and was merely abiding by his wishes.
Allowing him to reap the agonizing, despondent harvest of his actions.
He just wished he could remember what he’d said. It was all a hazy blur in his mind. He didn’t even know what to be angry at himself about.
Ted was silent for a couple minutes after that, gazing into the distance with a rare philosophical expression as he munched on his cheeseburger. “Hey,” he said, at length, “I’m sorry, buddy. I want you to feel better. That’s all.”
Christian managed a wan smile. “I know, man. Thank you.” He sighed. “So, when are we going back to the Mermaid?”
Ted blinked at him. His mouth hung open, full of mostly-chewed food. “What?”
“Well,” Chris clarified, “aren’t you still trying to get that brunette’s phone number?”
Ted gulped down his mouthful. “Oh, uh, yeah. Actually, it was Stephanie, the black girl. Jenn was the brunette, and she declined. And I wouldn’t mind talking to her, but I’m not going to make you go back to that place. Not after what happened.”
Christian wasn’t sure what to make of his friend’s response. He had expected Ted to leap at the opportunity to flirt with an attractive young woman.
“Ted,” he pointed out, “you helped me get a date with Kera, so I should help you in return.”
Ted shook his head. “No way, man. There are tons of bars and tons of hot girls in the world, especially in LA. We don’t need to go back to the Mermaid. You look like shit right now, but you seem better than you did yesterday, so, you know, I don’t want to screw that up.”
Chris was nearly embarrassed by his gratitude, and he blushed. In his current emotional state, knowing that someone gave a shit...
“Thanks, Ted. You’re a pretty decent human being after all.”
“Shit, don’t tell anyone.” Ted shuddered. “I have a reputation to maintain.”
“Who wants to be known as a jerk?” Christian demanded.
Ted laughed, and they cheered up a little as they finished their lunch and left the diner behind to head back to work.
As they strode out, neither of them noticed a trim, average-sized man with black hair and a dark suit who had been sitting at the booth behind Chris, listening to their every word.
“Isn’t that precious?” Johnny Torrez smirked into his coffee. “The great and glorious reina de las ángeles rubias got herself turned down by a nerdy-ass office worker.”
He had put a few moves of his own on Kera a couple weeks back, but for some reason, she’d been standoffish and unresponsive. As the current situation clearly demonstrated, her taste in men was terrible. At least he had shot up her oh-so-slick motorbike later that same night.
And since the Mermaid was still on Pauline’s list of places they needed to penetrate, any information about it or its employees or patrons that he happened to collect might come in handy. Sure, right now, she was more interested in Motorcycle Man than anything else, but that would eventually change.
After all, despite last night’s failure, Johnny was fairly sure they were getting closer. From a distance, he had seen how the trap worked. Ben might have a concussion, and his group had more than a few broken bones between them, but they were getting closer to taking Motorcycle Man out.
Then they’d return to their original plans.
His waitress came by. “Hey. Do you need anything else?”
“No,” Johnny told her. “What’re you doing later tonight, though?”
After another afternoon of Pauline yelling at all of them, he might as well have some fun.
Kera was going to be early to work, so she figured she would have plenty of time to research shirts. It wasn’t something she would normally look forward to, but she was excited about doing something boring for a change.
Huh. That was a paradox.
She was drifting through the outskirts of the area, looking for a likely-looking coffee shop, when a car caught her eye.
That Mustang. She would know that Mustang anywhere.
She didn’t pause to think. She followed the Mustang, keeping a few car-lengths back. She always had her don’t-notice-me spells up these days, but those only went so far. They didn’t work if you made yourself obvious.
To her surprise, the Mustang headed downtown, and to her further surprise, turned into the parking lot of an office building. Kera continued past the parking structure and looped around to the front, where she snagged a street parking space. The beauty of motorcycles was that they could fit anywhere.
She trotted up to the front door of the building and slipped into the lobby, her helmet under her arm, to look for one of the boards that would show every company in the building. The parking structure, after all, had said EMPLOYEES ONLY.
She looked through the names, all of them vague and tech-sounding.
“Huh.” Maybe their nighttime mugger had a day job.
That was odd but no
t impossible. She filed the piece of information for further thought later and headed back to her bike before anyone could notice her on the security cameras.
Chapter Twelve
Doug flicked a crumpled-up straw wrapper into the trash can. It was weird being back in the office after how much time he and Mia had spent in the field lately. He was already bored.
He was also antsy. He and Mia had received their summons to be here for a meeting with “law enforcement,” a term that was non-specific enough to be worrisome. Between that and their close call with the gangs, Doug hadn’t slept well last night.
Mia either had slept well, or she had hopped herself up on coffee. He couldn’t tell which. She was sitting at her desktop PC, alternating between periods of brief but furious typing and long stretches of silence when she read things over.
He saw her frown before she spoke up. “Frank says it’s the FBI.”
Doug raised his eyebrows. Frank Tranh was their boss, and he was much more mild-mannered than the stereotype of the newspaper editor yelling about pictures of Spiderman. Frank generally looked out for them, and this heads-up was another way of showing that.
“So, we’re still thinking this is about Motorcycle Man?” Doug asked.
“Who else?” Mia asked with a shrug.
Doug nodded. He was impressed, though not surprised, that the FBI had concerns about how the media was reporting on the issue. Given the overall level of unsubstantiated information out on the streets, not to mention the public’s perception of what the LEOs seemed to consider a potential threat, it made sense.
He went to peer over Mia’s shoulder, scanning the email Frank had forwarded. It was long-winded in the extreme and concluded with a vague request for cooperation.
It was difficult to tease out what was meant, though.
“Christ,” Doug complained. “This is why I hate working with law enforcement. Seventy bajillion pages of legalese and bullshit government jargon and evasion. If they want us to do something, why the hell can’t they ask in plain English?”
Mia frowned the way she did when thinking hard and crossed her arms over her chest. “That’s the feds for you.”
“Maybe we should talk to Boss Man before the meeting,” Doug suggested. “He might have more context, or there might be an obscure rule about working with the FBI that we haven’t had to deal with before.”
They walked down the hall, Doug looking around for unfamiliar faces. There weren’t any yet, and the office was fairly quiet since it was lunchtime.
When they stepped into Frank’s office, he was lounging in his chair and looking at them evenly. He’d clearly expected them and was prepared, if not enthusiastic, about the discussion.
“Hi,” Doug said. “So, we’re here for the meeting in a few, but we wanted to ask about that email you forwarded us. We only have a general idea of what the hell they mean. Something about cooperating with them on the Motorcycle Man story is our guess?”
“We don’t want them, of all people, mad at us,” Mia added. “We’d just like some clarification before we do anything further.”
Frank nodded and sighed, rubbing his eyes. “Yes, I read the damn thing four times. The gist of the message, as near as I can tell, is that they want us to stop puffing this mysterious guy up with good publicity. They are going to ask us to hang back and suggest that the situation is more complicated. Specifically, to sow the idea that Motorcycle Man might be the bad guy after all.”
Doug’s eyebrows snapped together in a frown. “Why?”
Frank shifted in his seat. “Requests like this from the government are rare. I don’t think either one of you has gotten one before, right?”
Doug and Mia shook their heads.
“Right. They’re usually about international news or political reporting. The thing is, we try to take them seriously and really consider whether we want to go along with it. They have their reasons and we have ours, but they can’t always tell us theirs.”
“How do we know theirs are on the level, then?” Doug asked.
Frank tried to soften the blow. “Consider this.” He held up his hands, palms outward. “They have access to classified information about ongoing investigations. They often know things we do not. There might be a whole other side to the story we have not uncovered yet. If we make someone out to be a hero and they turn out to be a total asshole, it could interfere with what law enforcement is trying to achieve, get innocent people hurt, and make us look stupid. Then we lose viewers, readers, and the public trust.”
Doug bit his tongue, trying to mediate his words as a tremor of rage went through him. Everything in him wanted to walk out and not go to the meeting now.
“But Motorcycle Man is a hero,” he countered when his voice was steady. “He’s been doing all kinds of dangerous stuff and going out of his way to save people’s lives at great personal risk. Of course, the public wants to hear about that, and since he’s taken measures to protect his identity, it’s not like we’re libeling anyone.”
Frank pointed a finger and raised his eyebrows. “Yes, and why doesn’t he want to be identified?”
Mia jumped in. “There could be multiple reasons. Law enforcement has a tendency to throw the book at vigilantes as hard—or harder—than they do at regular criminals. Media exposure means the friends of people he’s beaten up might show up at his home. Stuff like that. Or maybe he—or she—doesn’t want to compromise their employer. There are plenty of reasons his actions might not be nefarious.”
The supervisor inhaled deeply and let the air out in a long, ragged breath of exasperation. “Look, I’m sorry, but you two are going to need to go into that meeting and be polite. The traditional news business has more competition than ever from random websites and social media influencers, and the last thing we need is to end up on the FBI’s shit list.”
When Doug and Mia said nothing, just glowered back, Frank leaned forward. “Understand? I’m not saying you need to promise anything, but I am telling you not to just run your mouth in there. I’m also suggesting that maybe our owners won’t want to run interference on your behalf, so be clear with yourselves about whether you’re willing to lose your jobs over this.”
Mia’s hands clenched.
“I am trying to keep you two safe,” Frank said. “Please, do me a single goddamned favor, okay?”
“What?” Doug ground out.
“Go into this meeting acknowledging the possibility that they know something you don’t,” Frank said. “Just think about their request. Evaluate it on its own merits, okay?”
Doug glowered but nodded, not trusting his voice.
After a moment, Mia nodded too.
“Okay,” Frank said. “They’re in Room 204. They asked to meet with just the two of you.”
“Great,” Doug muttered. “So, can I ask a single goddamned favor of you? If we’re not back in an hour, send a search party.”
“You got it,” Frank agreed.
“The answer I was looking for was, ‘You’re being paranoid,’ but okay.” Doug sighed and held the door for Mia. “Come on, let’s go see what those bastards want.”
In room 205, James and LeBlanc sat at a table and kept their eyes fixed on the monitor in front of them.
They had agreed to join the FBI agents at the news station but had opted not to be in the meeting. MacDonald and Richardson had agreed it was best not to give the press anything more to work with than necessary, and that it was also not a good idea to have James and LeBlanc do anything unpredictable.
James did not mention that he and LeBlanc felt much the same about the FBI.
They watched the video feed from MacDonald’s lapel pin as the two reporters came into the room. Mia Angel was surprisingly short, whereas her partner was tall, big-boned, and looked very unhappy to be there.
“Ms. Angel,” Agent MacDonald said. “Mr. Lopez. Good to meet you. I’m Agent MacDonald, and this is Agent Richardson. Thank you for meeting with us.”
The reporters made
noncommittal noises.
“We understand that what we’re about to ask of you seems strange,” Richardson broke in. “You have a commitment to reporting the unbiased truth, and we respect that. In fact, we’ve been very impressed by your reporting on Motorcycle Man so far.”
Neither of the reporters spoke, though Doug Lopez was openly glowering now.
“You will perhaps have noticed,” Richardson went on, “that there has been a rise in gang violence within the greater Los Angeles area, as well as several clashes between gang members and Motorcycle Man. Allegedly, of course, since we’re unable to get either the gang members or Motorcycle Man to confirm their identities.” He tried a smile.
The reporters moved their mouths into the appropriate shape, but the smiles did not reach their eyes.
“They’re not receptive,” LeBlanc remarked.
“Reporters in the United States have a very strong belief in freedom of the press,” James pointed out.
“Yes, James, I know. I’ve lived here for quite some time.” She shot him a look. “I think we should arrange our own meeting with those two.”
“Why?”
“Because they aren’t receptive to the FBI so far, but neither were we. It’s one of the reasons I didn’t want to be part of this meeting. I wanted them to see working with us as separate from working with the feds.”
“Hmmm.” James considered. “Well, let’s see if they make any headway first.”
On the video stream, Doug and Mia were strenuously objecting to the agents’ assertions about Motorcycle Man.
“You’re seriously expecting us to put out there as if we know it to be true that the rise in gang violence is the result of Motorcycle Man, not the other way around?” Doug Lopez looked like he was going to have an aneurysm. “You realize that would be conjecture.”
“I’m not asking you for conjecture,” Richardson said simply. “I’m asking you to research it. We have seen this cycle before. A vigilante attempts to bypass law enforcement, and the streets get more dangerous for everyone. We’re asking you to consider that possibility here. We’re asking you to introduce that question into your reporting.”
How To Be A Badass Witch: Book Three Page 10