“Yikes!” Ginny said. “TMI!”
“That’s what I said. You never know what piece of information might prove to be useful, though. Anyway, I’ll start my search for Avatar’s secret identity by looking into the men who were reported missing in the city around the time Avatar was killed.” I shook my head. “If I had worked and fought along Avatar as long as some of the Sentinels have, at some point I would have said to him, ‘Hey bro, what’s your real name anyway? After we finish kicking this villain’s butt, wanna come to my crib for some beer and barbecue?’”
Ginny’s eyes danced with amusement. “I can’t picture a single Sentinel saying ‘hey bro’ or ‘crib.’ Come to think of it, I can’t think of anyone who is not still living in the 1990s saying those things, either,” Ginny said. She moved her hand up and down my torso.
“I’m bringing them back. I’ve been trying to bring back big band music too. Neither effort has been successful so far, but I’m known for my persistence.” Ginny rubbing me was making it harder for me to think straight. A lot of people said I had trouble thinking straight without Ginny’s help, but those were the sorts of people I did not invite to my condo.
“Speaking of bringing things back, would you look at what I’ve managed to bring back to life?” she said, grabbing a particularly sensitive part of me. She grinned at me wickedly. “I take back my earlier joke about your size. I’m holding in my hand incontrovertible evidence I was completely wrong.”
“Incontrovertible?” I said. I suppressed a moan with effort. “Wow, that’s quite a word. Learn it in law school?”
“Un-huh. But when I was in college, I learned about a few other things you might be even more interested in.” Ginny smiled at me much the way I imagined Eve smiled at Adam. “You want me to teach them to you?” I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. Ginny shifted, straddling me. Her milky white body almost seemed to glow in the darkened room.
Ginny proceeded to teach me the things she learned in college. In fact, she taught me twice. I was not sure if the lessons really stuck, though. Once I had recovered from her tutorials enough to speak coherently, I told Ginny I might need some remedial courses later.
After all, I had an unquenchable thirst for knowledge.
***
Much later, I found myself tossing and turning. Ginny snored gently beside me. Despite the fact she had worn me out, I could not sleep. I could not stop thinking about Avatar. Though I had barely known the man, Avatar had been as much a fixture of my life as the sun was, always there whether you consciously thought about it or not. Literally billions all over the globe could say the same. Trying to go to sleep knowing I would wake up to a world with no sun was difficult. Trying to go to sleep knowing it was my responsibility to find the person who had snuffed out the sun added a whole new layer of insomnia. And, if Avatar had gone up against someone who was capable of killing an Omega level Metahuman like him, what chance did I have? What was I going to do, quip the killer to death?
I looked over at my alarm clock. It was a little after three a.m. I stared up at the ceiling. I was tired, and yet very much wide awake. I really wanted a drink. Maybe some alcohol would help me get to sleep. How long had it been since I had one? After thinking about it for a moment, I realized the last time I had a drink was when Eugene Poindexter, the man formerly known as the supervillain Ares, had hired me to protect him from some of his former criminal associates. That had been only about a year or so ago, but it simultaneously seemed like both an eternity and just moments ago. My mouth could almost taste what it felt like to have the day’s first swallow of scotch, peaty and full-bodied. From there, the alcohol would spread through the rest of my body, both exciting and relaxing me, like the embrace of an old lover.
Though I was careful to not keep any alcohol in the house, I could get some easily enough, even at this hour. There was a twenty-four-hour liquor store a couple of blocks away. Scotch and the comfort and the temporary forgetfulness it brought were less than five minutes away. The thought whispered my name, like a siren’s call.
I eased out of bed, careful to not awaken Ginny. Groping for clothes in the darkness, I quietly put on shorts and a tee shirt. I padded into my dark living room. I flicked on a lamp. I looked at the closed front door. It would be so easy to open it and walk down to the liquor store. I sighed. If there was one thing I had learned, it was that once that door was opened, it was mighty hard to close it again.
I looked at the door some more before turning away. I let out a long breath. Not today. Hopefully not tomorrow either. One day at a time.
I picked up the book I had been reading, a new biography about Herbert Hoover. I lay down on the couch to read. Hoover was the thirty-first President of the United States. He had been an engineer, a successful businessman, a self-made millionaire, and had served two other Presidents as Secretary of Commerce before being elected President himself. His one term presidency had been a disaster. Buffeted by economic forces he could not control, Hoover was swept out of office by Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression.
Reading Hoover’s biography right now was a mistake. Every word made me feel worse than I already did. If men like Avatar and Hoover could not succeed, what chance did a Georgia boy like me who was just one generation removed from dirt farming have?
Eventually I dozed off to a fitful sleep. I dreamt of monstrous spiders that were big enough to blot out the sun.
CHAPTER 12
The next morning, I made Ginny and me breakfast: a bowl of steel-cut oatmeal with cinnamon and raisins, half a grapefruit, and a glass of water for her; a bowl of oatmeal, a Western omelet, five slices of bacon, three pieces of toast, a glass of orange juice, and two cups of coffee for me. I was also going to eat the other half of Ginny’s grapefruit but stopped myself in the nick of time. I did not want to be gluttonous. Though looking for a killer made for hungry work, I always kept an eye on my waistline. If I ever assumed a superhero alias and started wearing spandex, I did not want to look ridiculous.
My condominium had an elaborate alarm system, including cameras that monitored the area around my unit. After setting my condo’s alarm, Ginny and I stepped out of my unit into the hallway. Before closing the door completely, I plucked a hair off of my forearm. I put it between the door and the door jamb, closing the door on it so it was held in place a few inches above the doorknob. You would not be able to see it unless you took care to look for it, which I always was careful to do before opening my door. If the hair was gone when I returned home later today, I would know someone had opened my door. Since I did not wear a mask or a costume or use a superheroic alias, it was all too easy to find out where I lived. I had accumulated a lot of enemies over the years. It was best to not take any chances.
“Why do you always do that?” Ginny asked. “You have an alarm system.” She was simply dressed in black pants, a white blouse, and black flats. Her long red hair was pulled back in a chignon. Her face was lightly made up. Her eyes seemed impossibly blue. Even though I had spent the night exploring her naked body, my throat tightened a little as I looked at her. She was beautiful. If both of us did not need to start our days, I would have happily taken her back inside and undressed her with my teeth.
“Alarm systems can be defeated. Another layer of redundancy can’t hurt,” I said. “Besides, this method of getting rid of body hair is cheaper than waxing. Slower though.”
Ginny and I kissed each other goodbye in my building’s underground parking garage and we went our separate ways. Ginny drove off towards her day job at Zenith Fitness, the high end gym where she was the membership director. Actually, saying Zenith was a gym was like describing the Great Pyramid of Giza as a building or Mount Everest as a mountain: descriptive, but it did not even begin to capture the reality of the matter. After watching Ginny drive off, I got into my Nissan Altima. I also drove to the gym, but not Zenith Fitness. I had gotten a short-term membership at Zenith many months ago, but that had been in connection with a case I had been wor
king on. My client back then had footed the considerable bill. Zenith had been where I had met Ginny. Even if I used Ginny’s employee discount, I could not afford to work out at Zenith long-term. One did not become a licensed Hero for the money. My run-down gym containing the bare essentials suited me better than Zenith anyway. At my gym, no one batted an eye if you dropped a heavy dumbbell to the floor after doing a bunch of repetitions to exhaustion. At Zenith, dropping a dumbbell was considered bad form and would generate a more in sorrow than in anger scolding from some perfectly coiffed, perfectly attired, perfectly symmetrical all-American gym employee named Tiffany or Blake or Thaddeus. My gym was located in the basement of a building in the warehouse district of the city, did not even have a name, was owned by a punch-drunk ex-boxer, and was frequented by people who looked like they needed baths and several sessions of laser tattoo removal. At my gym, people were more likely to be named Blade, not Blake.
I walked into my gym. The sadness I had felt the night before was not gone. I did not feel like working out, but I had a workout routine I tried to stick to. Most of the people at the gym now were regulars, as was usually the case. I greeted almost everyone by name, fistbumping the ones who were not in the middle of an exercise. Several people I greeted were ex-cons, and a few others still walked on the other side of the law than I did. I did not discriminate against these more unsavory gym members: I was Truman Lord, licensed Hero and man of the people. Though Shadow also belonged to this gym, I did not see her. She was no doubt off somewhere pulling someone’s fingers off. I was just glad it was not me.
I was dressed in a black tee shirt and red athletic shorts. I stretched a little, and then warmed up on a treadmill for twenty minutes. I then went over to the squat rack. I did a set of squats, paying careful attention to my form. After the second set, I stopped thinking about Avatar and was able to focus exclusively on my workout. I alternated between doing squats and deadlifts until my legs felt like Jell-O. I then moved over to another part of the one floor gym and started doing bench presses, first on a horizontal bench, then on one angled up, then on one angled down. From there, I moved on to doing arm, shoulder, and back exercises. By the time I finished my last exercise of the morning—dips with a dip belt around my waist that had several plates dangling from it—my muscles felt as rubbery as Stretch’s body. It felt good, though. When my body felt this way, I felt like I had accomplished something. I worked out religiously. I considered working out to being critical to being a Hero, especially for someone like me whose powers were not strength, endurance, or speed based. I was not interested in looking good naked, although I would be lying if I did not say that was a nice side benefit. I was primarily interested in endurance, strength, and physical and mental toughness. There were plenty of Metahumans who, because of their powers, were stronger and faster than I. Shadow, for example. But, I did my damnedest to make sure there was nobody tougher than I. Hard training in the gym was a part of that. As my sponsoring Hero Zookeeper used to always say, “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog. If you’re in a fight with a supervillain and he knocks your teeth out and cuts off your arms and legs, I want to see you in there trying to gum that evil bastard to death.” In my line of work, there were two types of people: the tough and the dead. I should have put that line on my business cards.
I took a hot shower. With a towel around my waist, I then started shaving in the locker room mirror. By the time I picked up the razor, I did not feel like cutting my own throat with the razor anymore. Exercise was a terrific antidepressant: cheaper than therapy, and better for you than booze. I shaved slowly and carefully. If this whole Hero thing went sideways, perhaps I would go into male modeling. I did not want to scar up my potential moneymaker. There were far too many people who would be more than happy to do that for me.
I got dressed. Since I was not planning on meeting with any famous superhero teams today, I did not put a suit on. I instead put on khakis, a white polo shirt edged with brown, and soft-soled leather shoes. Though the weather outside was pretty warm, I put on a light jacket to conceal the handgun I had in a shoulder holster. I examined the complete ensemble in the mirror. I frowned. Though I still felt twelve feet tall and ready to wrestle a bear thanks to the post-workout endorphins coursing through my system, I was no male model material. My often-broken nose and the scar tissue on my face and ears made sure of that, assuming I had the right bone structure to start out with. Maybe I could be the stunt double for a male model, instead. Maybe I could stand in for him if he needed to film a nude fight scene with a supermodel. It would be a tough job, but I would be willing to do it. A Hero does not flee from hardship.
I got back into my car and drove to another part of Astor City. I parked at a meter on Winslow Street. I had some change in the car and could have fed the meter, but did not. I was hot on the scent of a killer after all. Exigent circumstances. I walked north, towards the Donut Hole. Foot traffic was sparse as most people were inside at work, toiling away for the Man. A tall, well-proportioned blonde woman in high heels and expensive clothes that probably cost more than my car approached me from the opposite direction. She had on large opaque sunglasses that made her face look like an insect’s. She wore a self-satisfied smile, almost a smirk. Whoever she was, she was very pleased to be her. If I had a body like hers, I would be pleased with myself too. I examined her carefully; the smart detective was ever-vigilant for clues.
As we got closer to one another, I gave the woman my half-smile. Women have been known to strip naked and try to molest me under the wattage of my full smile. I did not want that to happen as I loved Ginny and was faithful to her. The bug-eyed woman bore up well under my half-smile as we passed each other. She bore up so well, she swept right past me as if she had not seen me at all. Weird. Maybe she had not heard about how many squats I had done today.
I went inside Donut Hole and bought a box of assorted doughnuts. I also bought a large cup of coffee, two jelly-filled doughnuts, and a blueberry scone—the jelly doughnuts because I like them, the scone because eating one made me feel more refined. I ate the jelly-filled doughnuts and the scone while standing by the shop’s window facing the sidewalk. After the workout I had just completely, breakfast seemed like a long time ago. Yes, I was still watching my waistline, but there was no sense in being a fanatic about it. Moderation in all things.
I people-watched as I washed down the doughnuts and scone with the coffee. It was my third cup of the day, and it was not even noon yet. It helped me stay alert for any sign of Avatar’s murderer. Unfortunately, no one walked by wearing a sign identifying him as the killer. Nothing in life was ever easy.
I left Donut Hole, and walked northeast a couple of blocks, towards Precinct Five of the Astor City Police Department. The two story cinder block building looked like it had been designed by someone who loved prison architecture and the color gray. Normally I found merely looking at the building depressing, but today I was full of endorphins and baked goods, the twin pillars of a cheery outlook. I went inside, armed with my box of doughnuts. I was greeted by a low hum of various conversations and the smell of cigarette smoke that seemed to be baked into the yellowing walls. I paused dramatically once I reached the police bullpen, striking a heroic pose. No one looked at me or paid me the slightest bit of attention. Apparently police, like hot blondes, did not care about how many squats I had done. Swallowing the bitter pill of my disappointment, I resumed walking. I threaded my way through a maze of desks until I reach the office of Homicide Detective Glenn Pearson. Glenn was behind his desk, slowly typing something with two fingers into his computer. I rapped on his open door.
“I’m here to report a crime against humanity: no one seems to care how many squats I’ve done today,” I said. Glenn’s bulging eyes flicked up at me, and then back to his keyboard. I went into his office and put the doughnuts down on his desk. I sat down in one of the chairs across from Glenn. The chair creaked ominously under my weight. At least the chair
cared about how swole I was.
“Put me down in the also don’t care category, Truman,” Glenn said without looking up. He continued to type. He was a short and stout man. He looked just the way Buddha would look if Buddha were white, had bullfrog eyes, dressed in a rumpled suit and knit tie, could not type, was smart as a whip, and could shoot the wings off a mosquito. “The last time I saw you, you looked like a piece of bruised fruit. Aside from that bandage on your ear, you look much better than last time. Not good, mind you, but better. What did you do to your ear?”
“Cut myself shaving.”
“On your ear?”
“I’m very manly. My body has an unusually high level of testosterone. That means hairy ears.”
“And an empty head,” Glenn said, still not looking up. “So what do you want?”
“What makes you think I want something?”
Glenn’s eyes flicked up again. He looked pointedly at the box of doughnuts for a moment before his gaze lowered to his keyboard again. Perhaps he was recording in his diary I had graced him with my presence. Dear diary: Truman is so dreamy!
“I’m a detective,” he said. He continued to slowly type. I was tempted to suggest he use his detective skills to help him find the letters he wanted faster, but insulting the person you sought help from did not seem like the right move. Persuasion 101.
“As a matter of fact, the fact you are a detective is what brings me here today,” I said. “I’m looking for a missing person and thought you might be able to help me.”
“Wrong building, wrong department, wrong person. The Missing Persons Unit is housed across town. I’m a homicide detective. It says so right on my office door. That means I deal with dead, not missing, people.”
Superhero Detective Series (Book 4): Hunted Page 15