“No,” he finally said.
“I see.” I started the car and put it into gear. “This was a good chat. I’m glad we had it.” I drove off before he could reply. The guy was liable to talk my ear off.
I drove back to my condo. I went to my closet. I pulled out some clothes I should have thrown out long ago that were probably older than Anastasia. I also grabbed an old pair of shoes and a ratty baseball cap. I carried the bundle downstairs and went to the alley at the back of my building. There was a dumpster there. Garbage had spilled out of it over the years and had decayed to produce a primordial ooze. The next plague was probably happily evolving in it.
I dropped my clothes, shoes, and hat in the muck. For good measure, I stepped on top of it all. I gathered my things back up. My nose wrinkled, repulsed by the stench. I took the soiled clothes back upstairs to my place. I took the stairs instead of assaulting my fellow residents’ noses by taking the elevator. Consideration, thy name is Truman.
I changed into the yucky clothes, including the shoes and hat. Then I gargled with some cheap rum, the smelliest alcohol I had on hand. I dabbed some of it behind my ears and on my neck for good measure. I now smelled like the dumpster in the back of a distillery. I had to flee my condo quickly as I was sorely tempted to do more with the rum than merely gargle with it. It started whispering my name as soon as I put the bottle down. It was shrieking at me by the time I hit the door.
As I fled the siren’s song, it occurred to me, not for the first time, that I had developed a real alcohol problem. I shoved the thought to the side. I’ll deal with it tomorrow, I thought. The problem was tomorrow never seemed to arrive.
I went back downstairs. I passed Salvador, the attendant at the first-floor reception area, on the way to my car in the parking garage. He stared, surprised by my unusual appearance.
“Heading to an early Halloween party,” I said as I went by him. “I’m going as Oscar the Grouch.”
I got into my car again and drove back toward Ethan’s neighborhood. I had of course not given up on the idea of watching Ethan’s place. If I allowed myself to be so easily thwarted by a mustachioed cop on a bicycle, they’d drum me out of the Heroes’ Guild and call me names.
I parked a few blocks away from Ethan’s brownstone. Before opening the car door, I looked at myself in the vanity mirror. My face was much too clean. I closed my eyes and ran my dirty sleeves over my face a few times. I opened my eyes. My face was smudged with black and brown streaks now. Better.
I got out of the car. I walked toward Ethan’s place. As I got closer, I started staggering a little. I had way too much practice staggering lately thanks to my drinking, so pretending to do it was not at all hard. I found myself humming, and then singing a song. It was If Drinkin’ Don’t Kill Me, Her Memory Will, the song made famous by George Jones. The fact my subconscious had picked that one hit a little too close to home.
I collapsed on the sidewalk across the street and several houses down from Ethan’s brownstone. I put my back against the brick facade of a building, with my legs splayed out in front of me. The position was surprisingly comfortable. I had a great view of Ethan’s front door. No one would be able to enter or leave without me seeing them. I pulled my hat low over my head to further obscure my face. I settled in to wait and watch.
It was like watching paint dry, only without the excitement of the paint. Then again, no one had ever told me that the life of a client-spying, house-watching, homeless-pretending, no-Batmobile-having private eye and Hero would be glamorous. Alfred Hitchcock once said drama was life with the boring bits cut out. Clearly Hitchcock had never made a movie about the life of a detective. I hummed songs from time to time, both to stay in character and to stay awake. My knowledge of the Great American Songbook sure was coming in handy. I felt like a down on his luck Frank Sinatra. I kept a sharp lookout for Ava Gardner.
I spent the next three days slumped on various parts of the sidewalk near Ethan’s house. I only left when nature called urgently and for a few hours each day to grab some food and shut-eye. I varied the times I left so I could watch Ethan’s place both at night and during the day. It was times like this I wished I had a sidekick who could admire my abilities to hold my urine and to not be bored to death, and who could watch Ethan’s place the few hours I was forced to leave each day. I would have to add sidekick-hiring to my to-do list. It was too bad my friend Shadow wasn’t here. I wondered what she might be doing now. Sunning herself on a private beach in France, maybe. Or assassinating an African warlord by choking him with her bare hands. Either was equally likely.
The people on the sidewalk who walked by me gave me a wide berth, but otherwise paid me no attention. Even the black cop who had rousted me days before pedaled by a few times and did not give me a second glance. Pretending to be a homeless drunk was as effective as having invisibility as a superpower.
It was around dusk the fifth day when I was thinking about no longer wasting my time watching Ethan’s place and instead spending the time volunteering at a homeless shelter when a BMW passed me on the street. It slowed, and parked about half a block up from Ethan’s place. It was a four-door silver, high-end, late model sedan that sparkled with shine. A brown-skinned man with black hair was behind the wheel.
The description of the man Anastasia had seen kissing Ethan ran through my mind. Apparently Anastasia’s “blow my wad” mnemonic had been spot-on.
The BMW driver got out of the car. He was in his mid-twenties, smaller than I, trim, and in shape. He glanced around. His eyes flowed right past me without seeming to really register me just like everyone else’s had during my vagrant impersonation. The man walked up the short flight of stairs to Ethan’s door and knocked. The door opened, the man went inside, and the door closed again after him.
Aha, Hydro Kid! I exulted silently to my imaginary sidekick. Could this be the beginning glimmers of a case development? Hydro Kid didn’t respond. Maybe he was shocked into silence by us finally witnessing a possible clue. Or, maybe he didn’t like the name Hydro Kid. Picky little drip. After all I had imaginarily done for that squirt.
I thought about going across the street and busting in on Ethan and his guest. But, what would that get me? The certain knowledge that Ethan’s sexuality swung both ways? I didn’t care if Ethan liked men or women or both, or if he humped the nearest fire hydrant when neither were available. All I cared about was whether or not he had killed his wife. Instead of busting in on the two possible lovebirds, I decided to keep watching. Maybe, when the BMW driver came back out, I would have a chat with him. Perhaps he knew more about this whole situation than I did. Since I knew almost nothing, it would be hard for him not to.
I crossed the street and peeked into the BMW. The interior was as spotless as the exterior. There wasn’t a note taped to the seat telling me who had killed Ethan’s wife. Nothing’s ever easy.
I slumped back down onto the sidewalk, this time resting my back against the BMW’s driver side door. The black-haired driver was the first person I had to talk to lately about this case other than myself, and I was not about to let him drive away without us having a tête-à-tête first.
I did not have long to wait. Less than fifteen minutes after he had gone into Ethan’s brownstone, the BMW driver stormed out of it. He slammed the door behind himself. His face was red and stormy. He stalked over to the BMW. He looked down at me like I was a dog turd he had found on his shoe.
“This is my car,” he said.
“Congratulations.”
“Move it,” he snarled. “I’m in no mood to fool around with you.”
I stood. It was satisfying to now look down at him. “I want to talk to you first.”
The man didn’t seem the slightest bit intimidated by my size. “I don’t have any money to give you, and even if I did, I wouldn’t. Now move.” He put his hand on my upper arm and shoved. Or at least he tried to. Despite the fact this guy was in good shape, I don’t shove easily, especially when I’m braced against it
.
The man’s eyes widened in surprise at the fact I was as immobile as a sequoia. Not too many homeless people were in the kind of shape I was in, even though I hadn’t seen the inside of my gym since I had started drinking.
As the man continued to try to push me aside, I smiled down at him, aiming for a combination of patronizing and menacing. Then, the man abruptly glowed yellow-white, as if he was suddenly surrounded by a full-body halo. The man shoved me again.
This time I was the one who was surprised. I was launched into the air toward a nearby parked car like a wad of thrown paper.
Well I didn’t see this coming, I thought as I rocketed toward the car.
Holy unexpected Metahuman! my imaginary sidekick might have exclaimed.
CHAPTER 9
I smacked against the side of the parked car hard, with a teeth-rattling thump. The car was rocked from the force of the impact. So was I. The air whooshed out of me. There was the sound of breaking glass. I was lucky there wasn’t the sound of breaking bones.
I bounced off the car like a tossed ball. I hit the ground, tucking and rolling, using my momentum to bring me back to my feet. After slamming into that car, I considered standing a major victory.
I was too shaken to focus sufficiently to incapacitate without killing the formerly brown-skinned but now glowing-skinned Meta who had shoved me so violently. I wasn’t too shaken to retaliate, though.
I triggered my powers. I made a jet of water burst out of a nearby fire hydrant with a roar. It stormed toward the Meta. The city’s Department of Public Works would probably send me hate mail again. I broke fire hydrants at the rate Ethan broke his wedding vows.
The highly pressurized water jet slammed into the glowing man. It in turn made him slam into the side of his car. I pinned him there with the water’s intense pressure. I dropped the temperature of the water pummeling him.
More quickly than it takes to talk about it, the man was encased from the neck down in a thick cocoon of ice. I left his head free because I wanted to neutralize him, not suffocate him.
The still-glowing man strained mightily against the ice. Though I felt it crack a little, the ice held.
I then froze the water at its source, also encasing the fire hydrant in a thick sheath of ice. The rushing water suddenly stopped. The street was abruptly quiet again, as if the roar of a waterfall had been shut off with the flip of a switch.
I reached under my shirt and pulled out my pistol. I held the gun down at my side, not pointing it at the struggling man, but I could have changed that in a heartbeat. I approached the man warily, getting close to him. Though no one else was around, I didn’t want to shout out the man’s secret to the rooftops.
“I know you’re the Hero Nimbus,” I said. Nimbus’ angry and frustrated eyes bored into mine. I had to concentrate more than normally on forming words. Thanks to my literal run-in with the parked car, my head felt like a shaken snow globe. “I recognize your powers, if not your outfit since you’re not in costume. My name’s Truman Lord. I too am a Hero. I’m also the guy who’ll shoot you in the mouth if you don’t use it right this second to tell me what in the hell is going on.”
***
“Ethan and I are lovers,” said Santiago Garcia, which was, as it turned out, Nimbus’ real name.
“Color me shocked,” I said. “I’m beginning to believe I’m the only one Ethan isn’t sleeping with. I think I’m insulted.”
Santiago sat across from me in front of my desk in my third-floor downtown office. Containing only the desk, an old couch, a filing cabinet, client chairs, and a prehistoric desktop computer, my small square office was nothing fancy. What it lacked in splendor it made up for in character. Three bullet holes were in the wall behind me near the window overlooking Paper Street; a man-shaped plasma scorch mark was on the wall to my right; a plaster-patched cannonball hole (it’s a long story) was in the left wall; and a bunch of warped and discolored tiles were overhead thanks to me bursting the water pipe that ran through the ceiling when I needed to fend off a Rogue years ago. If these walls could talk, they’d say, “Get out, and take us with you! It’s not safe here.”
I was behind my desk with a cup of coffee in my hands. I ached to add some bourbon to it, but my mind was spinning enough as it was, and not simply because I hadn’t fully recovered from being slammed into that parked car. I had released Santiago from his icy bonds once I was convinced he wouldn’t try to shove me into traffic again. We had come here to my office so we could speak privately without being overheard by a passerby and without being seen by Ethan should he happen to peer out of his brownstone. Once here, Santiago had shared his real name with me. I was already familiar with his crime-fighting work as the Hero Nimbus, which was how I had recognized his power-set.
Santiago shook his head at me. He had a handsome face, though it was marred by bags under his eyes, as if he hadn’t slept in a while. “When I say Ethan and I are lovers, I don’t mean that we sleep together.” He paused and smiled ruefully. “Though we certainly do that. Or at least we used to. I mean we are in love.”
“I see,” I said, though I was not at all certain I did. “So that means what? Ethan is bisexual? A closeted gay with a beard for a wife? Or merely adulterously indecisive? Or should it be, ‘indecisively adulterous’?”
I regretted my flippancy. Santiago had a look on his face like he was in physical pain. “He’s bisexual. I on the other hand am very much gay. And, very much in the closet. Except with Ethan, of course.” He shook his head. His long shiny-black hair brushed his shoulders. “Me being in the closet is why Ethan is lying. He’s willing to go to jail to protect me.”
I had a sudden flash of insight. “Ethan wasn’t with Maureen Jansen the night his wife was killed. He was with you.”
Santiago nodded. “The irony is that night was to be the last one we were together as Ethan was breaking things off. With a baby on the way, he wanted to do the right thing and recommit to being faithful to Sabrina. I wasn’t happy about it, but I understood. Despite the fact he cheated on her, Ethan really did love Sabrina. Just as he loves me. Despite all the people Ethan’s been with over the years, Sabrina and I are the only ones he’s ever really given a damn about. Everybody else was just for fun, just a sex partner. Including Maureen.”
I wondered how many other of Ethan’s sex partners over the years had thought he was in love with them and only them, but the pained look on Santiago’s face made me keep the thought to myself. “I don’t get it. Why doesn’t Ethan simply tell the police he was with you when his wife was killed? For that matter, why don’t you tell the police that yourself?”
“If either of us tells the police where Ethan really was when his wife was killed, it will out both of us.” Santiago made it sound like being exposed as gay was like climbing into an electric chair.
“So? This isn’t the seventeenth century. Most people won’t care if you’re gay and Ethan is bisexual.”
Santiago snorted. “You should tell my father that. He is a very wealthy man. Thanks to him, I don’t have to work, other than being a Hero. I haven’t monetized my Heroic exploits the way Ethan has. Without my father, I’d be destitute. I’m ashamed to say my lifestyle depends entirely on staying in his good graces. If my proud Catholic father found out his only son was a maricón, he would disown me and never speak to me again.” Santiago said the word maricón bitterly, spitting it out like it left a bad taste in his mouth. I didn’t know what the Spanish word meant, but I could guess. “Plus, if it came out that Ethan’s bisexual, a lot of people would stop buying the stuff he sells. His endorsements would dry up. He’d be ruined financially. Despite what you say, my father is not alone in his thinking as to what the natural order of things is supposed to be.
“So instead of exposing either of us, Ethan hatched the idea of Maureen lying and saying she was with him the night Sabrina was killed. Maureen was willing to do it. She believed Ethan when he told her he wasn’t involved in the death of his wife. The hope was that
the police would believe Ethan’s and Maureen’s story and stop looking at him as a suspect. In case the cops didn’t buy the story, Ethan also hired you to look for the real killer. I’ve been doing the same using contacts I’ve acquired as a Hero over the years.”
“Any luck?”
“No. That’s why I went to see Ethan today. I told him his plan wasn’t working. Despite using Maureen as an alibi, the police and prosecutors still see Ethan as the prime suspect, which is why he’s stuck in that house, unable to go anywhere. I told him I wanted to come forward and tell the cops where Ethan really was when Sabrina died.” Santiago’s dark eyes flashed with sadness mixed with anger. “We had a fight about it. Which is why I stormed out of his place. The damned fool doesn’t want me to come forward. ‘It’ll ruin your life and cripple me financially,’ he told me. ‘I’m innocent, and the truth will come out eventually,’ he said. I don’t share his confidence. There are plenty of innocent people in prison. If Ethan goes to prison for a crime he didn’t commit, he won’t be the first.”
“Did anyone see you and Ethan together the night of the murder?” So many people had lied to me recently that I was even more suspicious of what someone told me than usual, and I was already a guy who walked around with cynical as his default setting. If the President of the United States walked into my office at that moment, I’d ask to see some ID and the nuclear launch codes before I’d take him at face value.
“No. We were alone in my home. No one else saw us.”
“So even if you came forward, the cops might be disinclined to believe you, just like they don’t believe Maureen.”
Santiago nodded. “Maybe, but maybe if I also reveal to them I’m a Hero, my word will carry a little more weight.” He shook his head in frustration. “Honestly, I’m tempted to ignore Ethan’s wishes and come forward anyway. I can’t let him rot in prison for something he didn’t do.”
“Does Maureen know where Ethan really was the night she says they were together? Does she know about you?”
Superhero Detective Series (Book 5): Accused Hero Page 7