Burning Monday: (Dane Monday 2)

by Liggio, Dennis

  There were two missed calls from Will on her phone. No message, each call right after the other. She decided she wasn't going to call him back. They had argued yesterday, and while they should smooth things over, she was a little annoyed that he had allowed Jameson to lock them out of the crime site so rudely. And she needed to get her bearings first. If she explained she woke up in an alley with a strange man, Will would worry and a new argument would happen. Later, she would call him later.

  Since she had no way of finding Dane and catching up on the case, she decided to head home. She was filthy and smelled like smoke. She could at least shower and have some real breakfast while she waited for Dane to finally to surface from his investigation, coming to her with the expression of a lost puppy.

  Abby had almost forgot that Wong and Meilin had been staying with them until she got home, another sign of how addled she was. Meilin immediately assailed her with questions.

  "Have you seen my husband?" said Meilin urgently.

  "I saw him for a moment," admitted Abby. "But then he was gone quick. He looked very different, though."

  "Where is he?" said Meilin.

  "He was with Dane last I saw, but that was last night sometime. We got separated and I haven't heard from either of them since then. I'm actually wondering where they are too."

  "Separated? How did you get separated?" said Meilin. "You and Dane are inseparable!"

  Abby pointed past her at the television, which was still tuned to the news. Abby only had to glance for a second to know what they were reporting. "Chinatown was burning," said Abby. "There was so much on fire..."

  "Surely it's not as bad as the news says!" said Meilin. "Husband has always said to only trust the news so far!"

  Considering her role as an alternate news source, Abby had to nod in agreement. Some things went unreported; some things were reported wrong. "I agree that is often true. I don't know the full extent of the damage, but what I saw in Chinatown was bad. So much was burning. And... well, I have bad news."

  "What is it?"

  "Among the things that burned were... your shop." Abby winced as she said it, trying to prepare for whatever reaction Meilin had.

  "Our shop!" said Meilin with dismay, sitting down on the couch. "That's all we had!"

  "I know," said Abby, sitting next to her to comfort her. "It was bad. I'm not sure if any of the shop survived. But you're not alone in this. You have friends. We'll do what we can. I'm glad you were here and not in the shop when it caught on fire."

  "But where is my husband?" said Meilin.

  "I honestly have no idea," said Abby. "I assume he is with Dane, but I can't get in touch with Dane either, so who knows where they are?"

  "You have adventured with Dane, you know more specifically how he works. Do you think they are safe?"

  "I would think so, because it's Dane, and things just work out for him. But then I also think they might also be in danger, because it's Dane, and that's how things work out for him. I can't really decide what's more likely."

  "What exactly happened last night?" asked Meilin.

  Abby ran down a quick version of what happened, since she was exhausted and still hadn't showered or eaten anything other than vegetarian sausages. Meilin was very worried hearing about the masked assassins. Abby expected some recognition from Meilin over the strange man in the alley, but she didn't find his appearance interesting. Because of this, she didn't bother retelling the man's strange fairy tale and focused on her returning home.

  "They've been missing all night," said Meilin. "But no calls from either of them. Husband knows to check in when I'm worrying. Especially with all this going on, he should have called. Not good." She sat for a moment. Then she clapped her hands together and stood up. "You take a shower. I cook food!"

  "What?" said Abby.

  "You deal with what's in front of your face in a crisis," said Meilin. "And food solves much. You need to shower and I need to cook you food. We will deal with one thing at a time. First you shower!"

  Abby reluctantly headed to the bathroom to shower - she had no choice, as Meilin shooed her into the bathroom, effectively trapping her. Abby shook her head and took a long shower. She had plenty of ash to wash off.

  When she finally finished, she had a bowl of steaming food thrust into her hands. Some sort of mixed vegetables and meat over rice. She knew that half these ingredients had not been in her pantry a few days ago, but she decided not to question it. She ate and felt better.

  She checked her phone. Still no Dane.

  "Okay, now I'm officially worried," said Abby. "This is too long. Either he's in danger or lost in some other dimension. Maybe his phone is broken, but I doubt that. This is bad."

  "You should do something," said Meilin.

  "Me? What can I do?" said Abby. "I just film stuff. Dane's the one with insane ideas! I don't even have a lead on where he was. I could go back to Chinatown, but that's a needle in a haystack. And I think that haystack burned down."

  "If things were reversed and it was you missing and Dane had no leads, what would he do?"

  "Something stupid," said Abby.

  "Sometimes, but what else?" said Meilin.

  Abby though for a moment then shrugged in frustration. "I have no idea."

  "You do know, like we all know," said Meilin. "Husband tells me about what Dane does. When in doubt, Dane relies on his friends. For all his genius, daring, and bluster, his friends are essential to what he does. And now his friends are your friends. It's time to make some calls."

  All Tied Up And No Place To Go

  Dane had recovered from the blow on his head sometime in the middle of the night, though he had no way of knowing it, because he had a bag over his head. He was tied to a chair as well, but of course it was the bag that he most noticed, since he couldn't see anything at all. Of course, he didn't know for sure it was a bag on his head, but it was a fairly safe assumption, since it was the sort of thing that people did when they kidnapped someone, and in particular, when the kidnapped Dane. Dane hadn't been kidnapped more than a handful of times, but he definitely had a bag over his head and due to that previous experience he was confident this was indeed a bag. Or a pillowcase. This time it was softer and he welcomed that - last time it had been burlap and that chafed against his nose whenever he moved his head and it smelled like mildew. This bag was positively heaven compared to that experience.

  Whatever rope that tied him to the chair was very tight. There was an old trick where when someone ties you to a chair, you tense up and flex, so they tie based on those dimensions, then when they are gone you relax and have leeway. But since they tied him when unconscious, not only had he not used that trick, but they tied his slack body and now the rope was uncomfortable - more uncomfortable than normal being tied to a chair by an unknown captor. His arms were tingly and he hoped he wasn't going to have permanent blood flow problems when and if he finally got out of the chair. Probably not a concern of his kidnapper(s), but definitely something he was aware of while his leg was going asleep.

  Listening for a while, Dane was disappointed. No diabolical plans to overhear, no shrieks of abominations not meant to live, not even the wild pings and whirrs of fantastically impossible machines made of Avalon Brass! Of course, with the headache Dane had from being whacked on the back of the head, it was probably good he wasn't listening to shrill shrieks or high pitched pings which would rattle his brain matter. In fact, he could only hear the faint and occasional footsteps from another room. Ah-ha, the expected guard! Just one guard, maybe two who are sitting and playing cards.

  The first thing Dane tried was shouting. They needed to know he was awake. Perhaps they were waiting for him to wake up so they could come into the room, take off the bag, and gloat over their impressively diabolical plan. Or maybe there was some part of their fiendish plot that required Dane to be awake - perhaps they would joust in witticisms as the villain attempted to get valuable information from Dane. It was the sort of situation Dane could t
urn the tables through impressive wordplay and gain information of his own. Dane wasn't sure which way this was going to go, but he could work with any of those things, so he shouted for a guard.

  No one came, despite his throat becoming hoarse. He finally gave up, realizing the futility of the action. Dane was dismayed. This wasn't a situation he could work. Alone, blind, and tied up in a room wasn't one of his go-situations. He had no gadgets, no secret knives, no joints he could dislocate. Being tied up, blind, with no one to talk to was his kryptonite.

  For a while, he thought of who might have kidnapped him. Dane had a long list of enemies, but as far as he knew, none of them had an active plan that Dane was trying to thwart. So it wasn't as if Dane was causing problems for them and needed to remove him from the board. However, some of his enemies did hold grudges. Professor Honnenheim was notable for keeping very long grudges, but Dane decided Honnenheim was an unlikely culprit. The professor would have gloated by now. He also wouldn't have left Dane alone in an empty room. Honnenheim would have left Dane either in an impossibly well lit stainless steel holding cell or hooked up to some Frankenstein-esque electric death trap. Then the professor would have paraded his newest models in front of Dane and then alluded to Dane's inevitable death about half a dozen times. If this was Honnenheim, it was lazy and sloppy. Honnenheim would never live with the shame of tying Dane to a chair with a bag over his head. Honnenheim was off the list.

  Who else? It wasn't Mad Doctor Romanov's style either. There was Armitage... but Dane decided that was unlikely. Armitage was... it just wasn't Armitage. He hoped not, at least, though with recent events... He shook his head in the bag. He was assuming it was not Armitage unless he had proof. That was a road he didn't want to go down, not after what went down in Chinatown.

  There were other foes, but none fit the profile. He instead thought about his current woes; it was then likely related to his new enemies. Did this feel more like the work of werewolf bikers or a Chinese ninja fire cult? Or could there be a mysterious third group? Dane would love to meet a mysterious third party to the local problems - that might answer many of the questions he had and would explain a lot. But finding about this phantom third column would require them to actually show up. He couldn't meet them if they had just stashed him somewhere and didn't respond to his shouting. How rude was that? How can you be a proper villain if you ignored your captives? He started shouting again for good measure, in case something had changed or there was a new guard whose job description included giving a damn, but he had no luck.

  He tried rocking left and right on the chair. Normally not a huge fan of movies, Dane had actually seen one when the hero had done this. Dane recalled wondering why the hero hadn't used some special gadget or talked the villain into releasing him instead of rocking back and forth. Now in the situation himself, Dane realized that the options were quite limited. So he rocked his body back and forth... back and forth. Then the chair was tipping and... it hit the ground.

  Now he was on the ground, his bagged face flat against the hard floor. He could feel the coldness of it even through the thin material of the bag. What was the next move? If he had a knife in his boot, this would be the time when he'd be in a position to grab it. But he didn't have a knife in his boot. He didn't even have a boot. His satchel had been taken from him. He couldn't tell if he still had his phone in his pocket, but even on the ground, he didn't have the ability to reach into his pocket. Next he tried wriggling. Using muscles all over his body and the friction of the ground, he attempted to inch along the floor until he found something he could use.

  In theory, that was a great idea. In practice, the chair really slowed down any movement. It added more inertia to the wriggling, made an ugly scraping noise, and was extra weight. He was exhausted quickly and estimated he had only moved two inches.

  At this point he was out of ideas, even including the outlandish and last ditch Hail Marys. He was tired and on the floor. He couldn't even get himself back into a sitting position. He decided he was going to give up and cut his losses. Since he now had a flat surface to rest his head on, he decided to go to sleep and wait for something interesting to happen.

  Dane woke in panicked vertigo, but that moment ended as quickly as it came. Dane wasn't falling, someone had simply hauled his chair back up to a sitting position and the change of gravity woke him out of his slumber. The bag was yanked off his head and the change in light levels momentarily blinded him. He blinked furiously, trying to focus. Someone laughed at his discomfort and then said, "Good morning!"

  When he could focus, Dane saw Rick Hellion in front of him, flanked by two other members of the Howling Rebels. Rick had a smirking smile as he looked down at his victim. Dane tried to say something, but it came out as a rasp through his very sore throat.

  "What?" said Rick.

  Dane rasped again.

  "Water?" suggested Rick, cocking his head but coming no closer. He gestured to one of the bikers to lean closer.

  Dane tried to say something again... "Cuh.. cuh... coffee..."

  "Ged, give him some of your coffee," said Rick.

  "But I just got it!" said Geddy.

  "It's like your fourth cup today," said Rick. "You've already had too much."

  Geddy frowned but left the room to return with a paper cup with a plastic lid. He very carefully let Dane drink from it.

  Geddy stepped back as Dane swallowed the coffee. He looked over his cup wondering if he could still drink out of it, then decided Dane didn't matter and drank some. Rick had stepped back, staring at Dane, but he showed some surprise when Dane swallowed the entire gulp of coffee.

  "Thank you," said Dane, his voice dramatically better.

  "I honestly expected you to spit the hot coffee at us," said Rick with amusement.

  "What? And waste perfectly good coffee?" said Dane indignantly.

  Rick smirked. "Shoulda expected that from Funny Guy."

  Dane ran his tongue over the inside of his mouth as he thought. "Strong, hint of hazelnut still stuck to the pot from their limited time promotion six months ago, poor creamer, still using off-market sugar. A 5.5, drinkable, but only worthwhile if nothing else available. I'm guessing a Samsara Donuts location."

  "Wow, that's right!" said Geddy. "I just grabbed it over on -"

  "Don't say where we are," said Rick tersely.

  "From a Samsara Donuts," corrected Geddy. "That's still amazing!"

  "I love coffee," said Dane. "I've always wanted to find the perfect cup. And then drink it forever."

  "Y'know, I'd love to find a perfect cup," said Geddy, "but I always find that -"

  "I don't have time for you two ladies to talk all day about coffee," said Rick. "There's business to discuss." Geddy nodded and backed off.

  "That's kind of rude," said Dane.

  "I'm kind of a rude person," said Rick with a grin. He pulled over a chair and sat down in front of Dane. Then he said nothing, he just stared at Dane. Shrugging at the lack of conversation, Dane took this moment to look around. He was probably in a warehouse. By the fishy smell in the air, likely let in when the bikers opened the door, the warehouse was probably by the river. Shipping docks, probably. Was he in Riverside? Lakeside?

  Rick still had said nothing. Dane prompted him. "So is this the part where you tell me why I'm here and what horrible thing you have planned?" He looked for a reaction on Rick's face but found nothing but the stare and the grin. "What's the nefarious plan? Conquering the city and turning everyone into cattle for your wolfen friends? Tampering with the water supply? Creating a world of permanent full moon?"

  Rick's grin broke with a laugh. He shook his head. "None of that crap. Money, it's all about money. Cold hard cash."

  "Money?" said Dane with confusion. What villain designs a ridiculously complicated doomsday plan for money? They general cost fantastic amounts of money to implement. Money was a prerequisite for most villains, not an end. "That's thinking a little small, isn't it?"

  "I'm not surprised
you smart guys think that way. Everything has to be big, a million moving parts. Grand schemes for grand intellects. Except you guys always foul it up. Too many parts, too much goes wrong. You're not clever, and that's the problem. All those brains but no cleverness. You don't have to be smart if you're clever. Just get your money, get out. Plan something new, do it all again. Nothing insane."

  "Then how am I involved?" asked Dane. This seemed like someone else's villain. Where were all the endless moving parts which were easy to disrupt? Dane didn't care if someone stole money as long as nobody was getting hurt.

  "That's what I want to know," said Rick. "Which is why we're having this little chat. We grabbed you easy enough, so it's not like you're a fighter. Why are you so important? Why were we warned about you? Who are you? FBI? CIA? NAPD?"

  Dane shook his head. "None of those."

  "Okay, then who do you work for?"

  "I don't work for anyone," said Dane.

  "What, so you're just this guy who investigates danger for... what? For kicks?"

  "You'll find there's a long history of that," said Dane. "For example, Sherlock Holmes often -"

  "Sherlock Holmes was fictional," said Rick.

  "Okay, so there was Miss Marple -"

  "She's also fictional."

  Dane was silent for a moment. "Magnum PI is also fictional, isn't he?"

  "He's also a PI - a private investigator. Right there in the name," said Rick, grinning with enjoyment. "He works for somebody. He gets paid to give a damn and find out stuff. Is someone paying you?"

  Dane shook his head. "Money really isn't one of my big motivations."

  "So what, you do all this for free?"

  Dane shrugged. "I've never put it that way, I mean, someone needs to do something. I guess I do sort of do it for free."

  Rick shook his head in disbelief. "So you're just some guy who has watched too much TV and thinks he can be a detective. Why don't I believe that?"

  "Why don't you believe that?"

  "Because here we are," said Rick, stretching his arms to gesture at the dirty warehouse room and the chair Dane was tied to. "If you're just some rich douche playing a game, this game has gone too far. Yet you don't seem scared. Rather than begging for your life, you're still trying to get information out of me. A sane dabbler would be scared. I don't buy that you're nobody."