Superhero Detective Series (Book 4): Hunted

by Brasher, Darius

  Brass’ face had been getting darker and darker as I spoke. He was furious. He started to heave himself to his feet, looked over at Shadow, and then thought better of it. He settled back into the chair.

  “I’ll kill you if you do that,” he hissed.

  “Maybe. You can try. Lord knows others have. Seems to me you took your best shot at it just a few minutes ago. And yet here I am, holding this gun on you while you’re tied up. I’m not so easy to kill. Besides, killing a licensed Hero is pretty serious business. The cops—the honest ones I mean, not the ones in your pocket—will be all over it. Plus the Heroes’ Guild.”

  “Not to mention me,” Shadow interjected.

  “See, even Shadow here will join in on the fun. You’ll have more problems than a stray dog has fleas.” At me saying Shadow’s name, Brass’ beady eyes widened a bit. He craned his neck to look at her.

  “Wait, you’re Shadow. THE Shadow?” he said. A bit of awe was in his voice. Shadow nodded modestly, like a celebrity who had been recognized by a fan. Shadow was something of a legend in Metahuman criminal circles. Brass looked sick, like he was regretting calling her those names earlier. He licked his lips nervously. “I’d heard rumors you were running around with this jackass, but I didn’t believe it. I thought you operated on my side of the fence. What are you doing hanging out with this do-gooder?”

  “Slumming,” Shadow said. I knew better than to ask whether or not she was kidding. Her answer was liable to hurt my feelings.

  “So it’s up to you Brass,” I said. “Either you tell me what your interest is in the Sentinels, or you can kiss your flesh peddling business goodbye.”

  Brass chewed at his thick lower lip for a bit as he thought. Whatever else he was, Brass was a businessman. The costs and benefits of making a deal were things he could understand, maybe even more than he understood a sock in the jaw.

  “All right,” he said. He lowered his voice, as if he was afraid he would be overheard. “I’ll tell you. But you can’t tell anyone you heard it from me.” First I had to keep the fact Buzz had spoken to me quiet, now Brass. Who did these guys think I was, a father confessor? I nodded in agreement. Brass let out a long breath.

  “The word is that someone killed one of the Sentinels,” he said, still speaking in a conspiratorially low voice. I felt sick to my stomach, but kept the emotion off my face. How did Brass know about Avatar? “I was told to keep a watch on the Sentinels’ mansion and follow anyone going in or out of there.”

  “One of the Sentinels has been killed?” I asked. I was the picture of wide-eyed innocence. I should have gone into acting. More lucrative and less dangerous than the Hero business. Plus, actors had groupies. “Who?”

  Brass shook his head. “I don’t know. All I was told was that it is one of the heavy hitters. I was told to have my men follow anyone who wasn’t one of the Sentinels who visited the mansion,” Brass said. I saw Shadow’s face out of the corner of my eye. I could practically see the wheels of her mind spinning. She knew I had been summoned to meet with the Sentinels. She no doubt deduced I knew who was dead.

  “Why?” I asked. Brass shook his head again.

  “I don’t know that either. All I know is what I told you. When this guy tells me to do something, I do it.”

  “Who? Who are you talking about?” Who in the world had the authority to tell Brass to do something and make him hop to it like he was a bellhop hungry for a tip?

  Brass glanced around like he was afraid the person he was talking about was in the room with us. He leaned forward a bit, getting closer to the desk.

  “The Spider,” he whispered.

  I frowned. I looked up at Shadow. She shrugged slightly. She clearly had no idea either.

  Who the hell was “The Spider”?

  CHAPTER 11

  “I still can’t believe Avatar is dead,” Ginny Southland said. Her head rested on my chest, facing away from me. In my dimly lit bedroom, her flaming red hair looked like a spray of blood on my chest. Her hair smelled much better than blood, though. Unfortunately, I had bled enough over the years to know that for certain.

  “Me neither,” I said. “It’s like finding out Santa Claus has been killed.”

  We were in the bedroom of my condominium in Astor City. It was two nights after Shadow and I had confronted Brass Knuckle. My condo was near downtown, not too far from my office. I had bought the condo years ago during the bust portion of one of the city’s never-ending boom and bust real estate cycles. We were now in the midst of a boom period. The condo now was worth so much, I felt like the goose that had laid the golden egg.

  It was late. Despite the lateness of the hour and the fact the condo was eight floors up, I could still hear the sounds of traffic and the other background noises of city life. I was so used to hearing it, I sometimes forgot it was always there, like the beating of my heart or the sound of my breathing. Like New York, Astor City was a town that never completely slept.

  Ginny and I had just finished having what my Southern grandmother would have called “relations.” Nana and my grandfather had a total of fifteen children, of whom my father had been the second youngest. Nana evidently had loved having relations. I loved jelly doughnuts but, unlike how my Nana obviously had been with my grandfather, I did not eat them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

  I stroked Ginny’s bare back. For some reason, I was always randier than usual after a fight. I think it had something to do with the fact a fight reminded me of the fragility of life in general, and mine in particular. There were few things in life more life-affirming than sex. Especially sex with Ginny. Every time I was with her—even non-horizontally—it was a fresh adventure. I was in love with her. I had not told her that yet. I was not sure what was stopping me from doing so. Maybe it was because if I told her how I felt about her, it would mean my relationship with her serious. I had spent all of my adult life alone. With my parents and sister dead, I had no immediate family. My distant relatives were mostly strangers to me. I had had girlfriends and relationships in the past, of course, but none of them had been serious. I had never let them get serious. A therapist might say that, because of my family’s death during my formative years, I had a fear of commitment and intimacy. Then again, therapists used to recommend lobotomies as a treatment for mental retardation, so what the hell did those knuckleheaded witch doctors know?

  Not having any immediate family or serious relationships was why I, unlike most licensed Heroes, did not wear a mask and costume or use an alias. Those other Heroes had loved ones whose lives and privacy they needed to protect. Until Ginny had come along, I had no one. If I told Ginny how I felt about her, maybe I would also have to revisit how I operated as a Hero. Maybe I was not ready to do that. Or, maybe I was simply just a fraidy-cat. Facing supervillains was something I was used to, something I was trained to do. Having to talk about my feelings was quite a different kettle of fish. I had zero training on how to do that. The very thought of it made my faintly queasy, like that feeling you got when staring down from a great height. Maybe, once this whole thing with Avatar was resolved, I would rectify my lack of adult emotion training by watching re-runs of the Oprah Winfrey Show.

  Though I had not told Ginny I loved her, I did refer to her as my girlfriend. Honestly, I felt pretty silly as a grown man calling someone my girlfriend. The word “girlfriend” evoked in my mind things like promise rings and ice cream socials and sock hops. What Ginny and I had just finished doing had not involved any socks. There had been some hopping, but only because I had wanted to try something new I had read about in the Kama Sutra. A library card and I were a dangerous combination.

  I had not broken my word to the Sentinels by telling Ginny about Avatar’s death. After Shadow and I had left Spread Legs, I had called Pearce, the Sentinels’ butler, using the number he had given me. I had told him about my encounter with Buzz and Brass, and the fact that Brass and someone known as The Spider knew one of the Sentinels was dead. For all I knew, this Spider character kne
w it was Avatar himself who was dead.

  After I had spoken to Pearce, Seer had called me back shortly thereafter. She had told me the Sentinels had held an emergency meeting about what I had learned. In light of the fact that elements of the criminal underworld had somehow learned that one of the Sentinels was death and perhaps even knew Avatar was that Sentinel, they had voted to permit me to talk about Avatar’s death in the course of my investigation. Assuming I would change my mind and investigate Avatar’s death, that was. I had agreed. I had not had to hold a meeting with anyone to make that agreement, either. It was becoming clear to me that the Sentinels coming to a decision about anything more consequential than what kind of toilet paper to buy for the mansion involved more voting than what went on at the United Nations. Operating a one-man shop had its advantages. Another of those advantages was I was the only one who could spend the fat retainer the Sentinels had wired to me and that was sitting in my bank account. It had been a while since I had seen that much money all at once.

  So, I was permitted to discussed Avatar’s death as I needed to in the furtherance of my investigation. The Sentinels probably would disagree that talking Avatar’s death over with my girlfriend was in furtherance of my investigation. If so, they would have been wrong. In addition to a having a face that could launch a thousand ships and a body that inspired a different kind of sea men, Ginny was sharp as a tack. She attended law school at night. I had no doubt she would make a great lawyer, despite the fact the phrase “great lawyer” sounded like an oxymoron. Talking my cases over with her helped me refine my thoughts and often led to me looking at what I was investigating from a different angle.

  Ginny lifted her head from my chest. She twisted to face me, making her naked body rub against mine. One of the perks of Ginny working during the day at a gym was that she was in shape. Her body was firm, yet soft in all the right places. Ginny propped her head up on her arm.

  “On a more positive note than Avatar’s death, you’re working for the Sentinels now,” she said. “Wow! That’s pretty exciting.”

  “I wonder if the Sentinels are lying in bed with their loved ones right now with the loved ones saying, ‘Truman Lord is working for you? Wow, that’s pretty exciting.’” Even saying “loved ones” made me vaguely uncomfortable. I really was a commitmentphobe.

  Ginny’s blue eyes swam with amusement in the dim light.

  “If they’re not, they should be. Then again, you’re my snookums, so I may be a bit biased.”

  “Snookums? How am I supposed to strike fear in the hearts of the wicked if you go around calling me snookums?”

  “A good point.” Ginny frowned in thought. “Love muffin?”

  “No. Since when are muffins scary?”

  “You’ve clearly never tasted my mother’s baking. But I get what you mean.” She gently touched the ear that had been grazed by my own bullet during my fight with Brass. It was now bandaged up. “How about Danger Stud?”

  “Now you’re talking. I should change my business’ name to Danger Stud Investigations. Supervillain thrashing at reasonable rates, boinking for free.”

  Ginny laughed. The laugh quickly turned into a slight frown.

  “To be serious for a moment, I don’t like to see you hurt. I mean I know the wound to your ear is not serious. But the next time, it might be. It scares me.”

  “Imagine how I feel. You’re not the one who almost shot off his own ear. But, the occasional scratch and scrape comes with the Heroic territory. Would you rather I did something else for a living? Though Brass only has female prostitutes, I could always sexually integrate his business and go to work for him as a gigolo. Just think of it. I’d be a civil rights pioneer.”

  “The Rosa Parks of prostitution. You could put that on your business cards.”

  “Or more appropriately, tattoo it on my penis.”

  “You think there’s enough room?” Even in the near darkness, I could see Ginny grinning at me.

  “I wasn’t hearing any complaints about size a little while ago. Quite the opposite, actually.”

  “I was in the throes of passion at the time. You know better than anyone that excited eyewitness testimony is unreliable.” I reached out to pinch her in retaliation. She squirmed and giggled. Then she sobered.

  “So what’s the first step in trying to figure out who killed Avatar?” she asked.

  “Well, I’ve already asked around about who this Spider person might be. Brass has never met him, and only speaks to him on the phone when Spider calls him. The source number is always blocked, so Brass has never been able to figure out where the call originates from. Occasionally Spider sends an intermediary to speak with Brass, but even that is rare and it has never been the same person twice. Shadow has never heard of a Spider. Neither have the Sentinels. I’ve reached out to some other Heroes, some cops, and some of my less savory contacts in the underworld. So far, nada.”

  “Did you do a UWant search for The Spider? The amount of information a UWant search can turn up is freaky.” UWant was the world’s most-used search engine. It had recently overtaken Google in the number of people who routinely used it. As a result, UWant’s founder and chief executive officer Richard Lobb was a household name, one of the richest men on the planet, and about as influential.

  “This is not my first rodeo, you know,” I said about Ginny’s UWant suggestion. “Running a search for The Spider was one of the first things I did. The only thing that turned up was, you guessed it, spiders. On the upside, I’m now an expert on the mating habits of the black widow spider.”

  “As upsides go, that one sucks.”

  “Agreed.” I shook my head. “Anyway, whoever Spider is, maybe he killed Avatar. Then again, maybe he had nothing to do with Avatar’s death. Maybe he just heard that one of the Sentinels had been killed and he had Brass’ men watch the Sentinels’ mansion for some relatively benign purpose.” I shrugged. “I’ll say this, though: the fact Spider had a piece of crap like Brass keep a watch on the Sentinels tells me that whatever motivates Spider, it’s hardly benign.”

  “Why is this Brass Knuckle guy doing what Spider tells him anyway? From what you’ve told me, Brass is the kind of guy who tells people what to do, not the other way around.”

  “Spider apparently helped Brass launch his prostitution career. Brass had been a mere street pimp with a small stable of hookers years ago when a representative from Spider approached him with a deal: help Spider from time to time by loaning him men, providing information about what was going on in the streets, who was cheating on their wives and girlfriends with Brass’ girls, that sort of thing, in exchange for The Spider bankrolling Brass’ business and smoothing the path when Brass had a confrontation with the law. According to Brass, Spider wields a lot of influence with the authorities. Why and how, he doesn’t know. At the time, Brass was nothing more than an ambitious street thug, so he jumped at the opportunity. Thanks to The Spider’s money and Brass’ powers and drive, Brass is the king of Astor City prostitution he is today. Though Brass doesn’t need Spider’s money anymore, Brass still calls on Spider for help when Brass has a problem with the law Brass can’t handle on his own.”

  “So that’s why Brass does what Spider tells him to do? Gratitude?”

  “Hardly. Brass can’t spell gratitude, much less experience it as an emotion,” I said. “Brass is scared of Spider. That’s saying something as he doesn’t scare easily. A few years back apparently Brass had decided he did not need Spider’s help anymore as Brass had gotten to be a pretty big deal. So, when Spider called him up one day and told Brass he needed Gunslinger to kill someone for him, Brass told him no. Brass woke up two days later to find his brother’s severed right hand on top of his kitchen table. Brass’ brother Piero is his chief lieutenant and the only thing other than money Brass gives a hell about. Attached to Piero’s thumb was a note. The note read: ‘Refuse me again, and the next time I’ll have your brother’s head removed. Refuse me a third time, and I’ll have your head removed.
’ The alarms on Brass’ house had not been tripped, nor had the security contingent Brass always kept around him seen anything. When Brass spoke to Piero later, Piero told him he had simply gone to sleep in his house as usual. When he woke up, he was in a hospital with his hand already removed. Brass never did figure out how Spider or his men removed Piero’s hand and got through Brass’ security, but it seems pretty clear Spider is either a Meta or has Metas other than Brass he uses to do his dirty work. Though Brass is too proud and too worried about looking tough to have said it this way to me, but he gave me the distinct impression that since the episode with his brother’s hand, whenever Spider says ‘Jump,’ Brass’ immediate response is ‘How high?’”

  “So what’s your next move? Like you said, you seem to be at a dead end when it comes to figuring out who this Spider person is.”

  “I thought I’d tackle Avatar’s murder the way I would any other murder case: take a hard look at his friends, family, and acquaintances. Most murders are committed by people the victim knows, after all.”

  “Fifty-four percent of murder victims die at the hands of people they know,” Ginny said in agreement. “My corporate law classes bore me into a coma, but the criminal law classes are fascinating.”

  “The problem I have is the Sentinels have no idea what Avatar’s secret identity is. Seer seemed rather embarrassed by that fact when I asked about it. They do think he had one, though, as it did not appear that Avatar was a Hero twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. They also think he lived here in the city under an alias. They don’t think he has a wife or kids.” I hesitated, embarrassed. “Seer told me Avatar had once told her he could not be intimate with a woman because his orgasms were too powerful. Powerful enough to kill, apparently.” I had the sudden unwanted mental image of a bullet being shot into a watermelon, making it explode into a wet sticky mess.