An Honest Living

by Ben Mariner

  She shrugged me off. “Shut up.”

  “No, you shut up.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  I thought things would go a lot faster now that we had more info from Grace, but it had been three days and we hadn’t gotten any further. Lisa insisted that things were moving as quickly as possible and I had to be patient. Well, she said it a lot less politely. That was the gist of it though. And it was hard to listen to her. I was getting restless sitting inside all day every day. There’s only so much TV a person can watch, ya know.

  The only thing that was helping me get through it was the fact that Grace had broken her silence with me and we were texting again. If I didn’t have our ongoing conversation to focus on, I’d probably have lost my mind. Full-on, cabin fever, Jack Nicholson in The Shining stuff. Maybe minus the attempted axe murder stuff. Maybe.

  Just as another Friends rerun was starting up, Lisa banged on her desk and threw her hands up in the air.

  “Yahtzee!” she cried in triumph.

  My body had gone into a full boredom paralysis so I didn’t move. “What’s up?”

  “I finally got her,” she answered cryptically.

  I sighed. “Any chance you’re going to tell me what’s going on or should I just go back to Friends? I think this is the one where Ross says they were on a break.”

  Lisa got up from her chair and shoved a piece of paper over the back of the couch and into my face. I took it and read it over. My brain was so unfocused I barely even comprehended that there were words on the page. I handed it back to her.

  “Can you just summarize it for me?”

  “Oh my god, Lane,” she groaned. “I just made a huge break in your case. You could at least be a little bit excited about it.”

  “You did?” I asked, intrigued. I forced myself up into a sitting position. “What is it?”

  She wagged the paper at me.

  “This, my dear sweet brother,” said Lisa, grinning. “Is all I need to bury Tabitha Burns’s stupid flame spewing ass for good.”

  I looked at her, confused. “You...you’re going to kill her?”

  Lisa rolled her eyes. “It’s a metaphor. Bury as in get her out of the way. Bump her off.”

  “Bump her off literally means to kill her.”

  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

  “Anyway,” she pressed on. “It took some doing but I was able to confirm that Wayne Grey and The Hotness have been fooling around with each other. They’ve done a very good job at keeping it secret, but nothing can be hidden from the cool, unflappable logic of computer programs.”

  I shrugged. “So you found some love note. What does that have to do with me?”

  Lisa shook her head. “This isn’t a love note. The thing about Wayne Grey is that he’s exceedingly professional, even in his personal emails. Perfect grammar and spelling, precise passive aggressive tones, the whole nine yards. But there were lapses in that from time to time, and it jumped out at me. I’m sure that’s what caught Grace’s eye too. Wayne Grey would never misspell a word or dangle a participle. But Tabitha Burns is basically still a 5th grader. Once I realized they were messing around, I started to suspect more than just a couple people knew about this super-secret server. I wrote an algorithm to analyze these mistakes and basically decode them. Moral of the story, I think The Hotness has been using Wayne Grey’s secure server to send secret messages to someone. This particular message is directly in reference to you.”

  I nodded slowly. “This doesn’t make sense. I mean, it does. Nocturno and The Hotness are pounding it out. I get that. But what does she possibly have against me? I’ve barely spoken six words to this girl, even when you were actually friends. Why would she want to set me up?”

  Lisa shrugged. “I doubt she has anything against you. I think she’s just a pawn. She’s communicating with someone in secret and that person is probably pulling her strings.”

  “And who is that?”

  “I don’t know,” Lisa answered me with a wicked grin. “But I was thinking we could ask Tabby.”

  I’m not a club guy. Forgetting the fact that I have zero rhythm and take up too much of the dance floor, they were always a million degrees from all the sweaty people and so loud you could feel the bass rattling your teeth. Pretty much a worse case scenario for me, so I avoid them at all costs. Unfortunately, that was exactly where I found myself at the moment.

  Club Orzo was just about as cliché as a nightclub could be. Lots of neon and flashing lights, a bare minimum of furniture, insanely overpriced drinks, a DJ pumping out EDM at a decibel level that was almost high enough to rupture my ear drums. There was a rumor that the club’s owner came up with the name one night when he was out of his mind on drugs at an Italian restaurant, and he didn’t learn what orzo was until it was way too late to make a change.

  “She’ll be in VIP,” Lisa shouted to me over the music.

  We pushed our way through the crowd. Made me feel like a salmon swimming upstream, but a lot sweatier. Lisa had a much easier time than me. Her slender frame was basically tailor made for slipping through the cracks. You can’t imagine the dirty looks you get when you have to harsh someone’s high so you can get past them. You also probably can’t imagine just how ridiculous that person’s incredulity looks when they have a glow-in-the-dark pacifier in their mouth.

  The VIP area was up a flight of stairs at the back of the room. Flanking the stairs were two security guys trying to look tough in their cheap suits and black t-shirts. Lisa tried to sneak past them, but the guy on the right put his hand up to stop her. He tried to impose his stature over her for effect, but when he realized I dwarfed him out like he was a toddler, he shrank back a bit.

  “Private party,” he informed us.

  Lisa looked unamused. “I know, your mom invited me.”

  Anger flashed across his face, but then he glanced at me and relaxed.

  “We’re going up,” she said, putting a hand on his face. I could see frost spreading across his cheek. “Got it?”

  The security guard yanked his face back and nodded, a little terrified.

  Lisa started climbing the stairs. As I passed him, I put a hand on his shoulder and said, “She’s way scarier than me, buddy. You did the right thing.”

  It was like night and day comparing the VIP area to the ground level. Lots of plush couches, buckets of ice chilling champagne, servers in ties and vests, even the music seemed to fade out a little bit. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at us as if we’d just crawled out of the sewers and decided to hit the club. Made me a little self-conscious, not gonna lie.

  Lisa nudged me with her elbow and drew my attention to the back of the VIP area where The Hotness, or Tabitha as she was going by at the moment, was lounging with a glass of champagne in her hand and chatting to several girls who looked almost identical to her. It didn’t take long for her to notice us coming her way. Instead of getting spooked like I thought she would, a smile split across her face and she shrieked in glee.

  “Lisa!” Tabitha squealed. “I can’t believe you’re here! I’ve missed you so much!”

  I had to try pretty hard not to laugh at the stunned look of confusion on Lisa’s face. Tabitha threw her arms around my sister’s neck, launching the champagne from her glass. She pulled back and kissed Lisa once on both cheeks before letting her go.

  “Umm…” Lisa said dumbly. “What the hell is going on?”

  Tabitha looked around conspiratorially before leaning in. “I’m a little drunk.”

  “Ah, gotcha,” Lisa said with understanding. “Can we talk to you somewhere more private?”

  But Tabitha wasn’t paying attention. She was trying to catch the eye of a young lady nearby who was grinding up on some guy.

  “Brenda,” Tabitha called out to her. When Brenda didn’t look, she tried again. “Brenda. Brenda. Brenda. Brenda! Brenda look at me! Brenda.”

  “Are you sure her name is Brenda?” I asked since Brenda clearly wasn’t answering
to her name.

  Tabitha narrowed her eyes and looked at the young woman closer before bursting into laughter.

  “Oh my god, that’s Lisa,” she giggled. “I haven’t seen her in forever.”

  “No, I’m Lisa,” my sister corrected her.

  Tabitha looked at her as if it was the first time she was seeing her.

  “Lisa!” she squealed. “I can’t believe you’re here! I’ve missed you so much!”

  Before Tabitha could go back in for another hug, Lisa pressed on.

  “We know about you and Wayne Grey.”

  Those were the magic words. Tabitha went from a sloppy mess to stone cold sober in the blink of an eye.

  “What about him?” she said, brushing hair back from her face. “That he’s a friend and colleague and nothing more?”

  Lisa and I exchanged bemused glances.

  “Look,” my sister continued, putting her arm around Tabitha’s shoulder. “We get it. You’re hot. He’s hot. Makes sense. We don’t care. We aren’t here to bust your chops about it. We just think things are a little, let’s say, suspicious with how things went down with Lane. We think you might know something.”

  Tabitha fake laughed pretty heartily.

  “Yeah right,” she said nervously. “As if. Whatever.”

  Maybe we had stepped through a wormhole to 1997.

  “Who are you working with, Tabby?” Lisa pressed.

  Out of nowhere, the mood shifted. Tabitha was looking at us like she was an animal we had cornered. She shrugged Lisa’s arm off and backed up a couple steps.

  “Oh, boy,” I said uncertainly. “We’re in trouble now.”

  “Lane Raskin,” said Tabitha with authority, “by the power granted to me by Maxima City as a member of the Liberty Gang, I hereby place you under arrest for your crimes against the city. Come quietly or I will have no choice but to use force.”

  In one fluid motion, Tabitha ripped her dress off to reveal the costume that she had been wearing underneath. Her demeanor had shifted, turning her from sloppy drunk club girl to The Hotness.

  “Yes, because of course you’d be wearing that ridiculous get up at all times,” Lisa groaned and rolled her eyes.

  “Just take it easy, Tabitha,” I said, putting a hand up. “We don’t want to fight. Let’s just talk.”

  “The time for talk is done!” The Hotness shrieked. “You’re under arrest!”

  She reared her fist back, but before she could hurl flames at us, Lisa blasted her with a shot of ice. It didn’t do much, but it did stun her for a moment. The commotion sent the rest of the people in the VIP area running for the exit, which made the people on the ground level join them in their panic.

  “She’s drunk and out of control,” Lisa shouted at me. “I’ll hold her off. Help these people get out of here safely.”

  Lisa let out another blast of ice, but this time The Hotness was ready and met it with her own spout of flame.

  “I have a better idea,” I said, reaching down and activating my suit. A moment later I reached down and reduced gravity to about a negative five. “Distract her.”

  Lisa nodded and froze the ground under The Hotness’s feet. The force of the flames coming out of her hands was enough to make her lose her footing. I leapt forward and scooped the fire talent up in my arms. Before she could react, I squared my feet up and jumped up as hard as I could. In my head, I expected it to work pretty much just like it had at the bank when I burst through the floor only in reverse. I did not, however, take into account the fact that gravity pulls things down. It doesn’t push them up. My back collided with the ceiling hard. If I hadn’t been impervious to pain, it probably would have knocked me out. As it was, the blow made me lose grip of The Hotness and she tumbled back to the ground hard.

  On the upside, I happened to smash into one of the sprinklers, shattering it, which set off all the other sprinklers in the building. Lisa was able to use the excess water to freeze The Hotness to the floor. I brought gravity back to normal and dropped unceremoniously back to the floor, somehow avoiding the ice.

  “Was that your plan?” Lisa teased me.

  I shook the drywall off my head. “Not exactly, but it worked didn’t it?”

  She nodded. “This girl must be drunk. She could’ve melted this ice in a second.”

  I watched The Hotness struggle against her icy restraints. “I think she’s forgotten how to use her powers.”

  I walked over to Tabitha’s side and knelt down.

  “Sorry about that,” I told her, trying to be as nice as possible. “I really didn’t want it to come to this.”

  “Let me out of here, evil doer!” the fire talent snarled.

  “Look, just tell me who you’re working with and this will be over,” I explained.

  She stopped struggling, looking defeated. “I can’t tell you. I’ll never tell you.”

  I hung my head in frustration. “Fine, be that way. We’ll leave you here until you change your mind or sober up and remember that you can produce fire.”

  She gave me a sidelong glance of embarrassment before the ice sizzled and melted away. I stood up and walked to Lisa’s side.

  “Let’s go, sis,” I said to her. “This is a lost cause.”

  I turned to leave, but Lisa stayed put.

  “I should stay and look after her,” she told me, giving The Hotness a pitying look. “She’s too drunk to be on her own.”

  I looked at The Hotness who was struggling to get to her feet.

  “Maybe I can get some more info out of her,” Lisa suggested.

  I nodded. “Fine. I’ll see you at home.”

  It was almost three in the morning when Lisa stumbled in drunk, laughing at nothing. Had I been asleep, she certainly would have woken me up. I sat up on the couch to see what she was doing, and she looked shocked to see me.

  “Lane!” she said eagerly. “I’m so glad you’re here. I went to your apartment and you weren’t there.”

  “You’ve been to my apartment?” I asked, getting up and going to her side. She definitely needed some help.

  “Man,” Lisa said breathlessly, plopping down in her computer chair. “That Tabby is fun. We had such a good time. Why don’t we hang out anymore?”

  “Because she’s good and you’re bad and you hate each other?”

  Drunken comprehension dawned on Lisa’s face. “Right. Right, I remember that now. But damn, she is fun.”

  “You said that already.”

  I went to the kitchen and filled the biggest glass I could find with water and gave it to Lisa. She immediately began gulping it down like she’d been walking through the desert for a week with no canteen.

  “Did you find anything else out?” I asked hopefully, but didn’t expect much.

  Lisa wiped some water off her chin and screwed up her face in concentration.

  “I found out that...Tabby is fun.”

  I sighed. I guess it would have to wait until the morning. I hauled her to her feet and pointed her in the direction of her bedroom, but she stopped me.

  “Oh yeah,” she said as if some epiphany just struck her. She reached into her pocket and produced a cocktail napkin which she handed to me. “This is super important. This is the key to everything. Don’t lose this.”

  With that, she staggered into her bedroom and fell face first onto her bed. I watched for a long moment and she didn’t move a muscle. She was already asleep.

  “Goodnight, sis,” I laughed and went back to the couch.

  The napkin was stained and wrinkled almost into oblivion, but I could still make out Lisa’s chicken scratch. Had to read it a few times to get around the drunken penmanship, but once I did, it appeared to be a meeting place.

  Colossal Park.

  Noon.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Colossal Park is not nearly as big as it sounds. It didn’t even take up an entire block. Or a quarter of a block, for that matter. I don’t even know how they got away with calling it a park. It wasn’t much mo
re than a patch of grass and a couple of benches jammed in between two high rise buildings downtown. The park was named after Maybelle Clementine, who was a Bennie by the name of Colossal. She could grow up to fifty feet tall at will. Pretty cool thing. There was a statue of her in the center of the park, but it really just took up a lot of the prime real estate.

  “Everyone in position?” I heard Grace’s voice through my earpiece.

  “In position, schnookums,” I replied.

  “Roger that, honey bear,” said Grace. I could hear the smile in her voice.

  Once we had told her everything we’d found about The Hotness, Grace had almost instantly gone back to being completely on my side. It felt great to have that closeness back.

  “Can we not use pet names right now please?” Lisa put in, sounding grossed out.

  “Let’s call them code names,” I told her. “You can be ice bunny.”

  “If you call me ice bunny,” Lisa scolded me, “I’ll jam my foot up your butt and drop it to absolute zero.”

  “Fine,” I conceded. “Your code name is party pooper.”

  “Are you in position?” Grace asked again.

  “Affirmative,” answered Lisa. “In position.”

  I was standing on the second floor of one of the office buildings on the south side of the park. Lisa hacked their system and set me up as an employee so I could get inside without any fuss. Sis was down on the sidewalk in a hoodie and a pair of sunglasses, looking for all the world like someone who was definitely trying to be incognito. Grace was way up above us, keeping an eye on things from a distance.

  “Remember,” she reminded us. “We need pictures and audio. Otherwise, whoever this is can talk their way out of it with no problem.”

  “We know, Grace,” Lisa said with a hint of impatience. “We’ve gone over this a million times. Why are you reminding us?”

  There was a brief pause.

  “Because,” Grace said finally. “Just so everyone is up to speed.”