by David Liss
That woman next to him. Even in the dark, Bingham could see the badge clipped to her belt. A cop. The pretender needed a cop’s help. It was so pathetic it was sad.
Still…
A cop could spell trouble for Fisk. The fat man would want to know, but Bingham wasn’t about to tell him. Let Fisk solve his own problems. Bingham didn’t work for anyone—regardless of what they thought. He was his own master. Anyone who thought to control him would find out the hard way.
As for the fake web-spinner, Bingham could take him down any time he wanted. Right now if he wanted. There was nothing to it, but it wouldn’t be any fun that way. He wanted to watch the fish flop on the hook for a while. He’d stalk and hunt and torment, and when the time was right, Bingham would make his kill.
THE cup of coffee in his hand was cold, and Peter carried it to the microwave to reheat it for the third time. Maybe the fourth. He stepped over piles of clothes, stacks of books, discarded computer equipment. Usually he chastised himself for the mess. Today it didn’t even register.
When the microwave’s chime rang out, he took the cup back to his bed and turned again to the TV. He clutched the cup as if for warmth, but didn’t lift it to take a drink.
Peter had been up all night, unable to sleep. It seemed frivolous, disrespectful, even to try. Wilson Fisk had murdered someone he knew, someone he worked with. He’d killed eleven other people—people with friends and family and children and parents. He’d targeted that restaurant for a reason. There was no way it could be a coincidence. Maybe Fisk hadn’t set that bomb or detonated it personally, but that didn’t matter.
Fisk was going to pay.
“Spider-Man is going to pay,” someone on the television was saying. A construction worker, it looked like. It was a man-on-the-street interview—and for a final insult, a sign for Fisk’s development company was visible in the background. “He can’t just run around doing whatever he wants, hurting people, and expect to get away with it.”
They switched to another man, an ice cream vendor in Central Park. He shook his head. “If Spider-Man did it, he should be punished, but I heard the recording. It didn’t sound like him.” Then the image cut to a woman behind the wheel of a delivery truck. “Wasn’t Spider-Man. Guy sounded totally different. Had to be a fake.”
They switched to a panel discussion, and J. Jonah Jameson was one of the speakers. They were weighing in on the topic.
“Shocker has no history of using bombs.” That was a professor who had written a book on super villains. “He seems fixated on the vibrations his devices are able to produce. Based on everything we know about him, planting a bomb doesn’t fit his profile. Perhaps even more mystifying, Spider-Man’s behavior was inconsistent with anything we’ve seen from him before.”
“His voice was different,” another panelist said. It was a woman who was an expert on super hero psychology—though Peter was unsure how somebody acquired that expertise. “I think it’s worth stating the obvious,” she continued. “These people wear costumes that conceal their faces, which means there may be no stable identity behind Spider-Man or the Shocker. Both personas may be inhabited by a number of different ‘performers,’ if you will. Alternatively, one or both of the people in that restaurant might have been imposters, taking on the role of the Shocker or the Spider-Man persona.”
Another woman, an author, cut in. “I’m not prepared to comment on Shocker, but that was not Spider-Man,” she pronounced. “We saw footage of Spider-Man coming to the scene, looking for survivors, because that’s what he does. The real Spider-Man is a hero.”
The screen split between the four panelists and the host, who remained silent. Jameson now leaned into the camera, and it looked like he wanted to punch it. The television was filled with his image.
“We’re talking about people who put on masks to terrorize the city,” he said loudly, as if to drown the others out by sheer force of will. “Call them ‘heroes’ or ‘villains,’ they’re all criminals. The heroes are the first responders who risked their lives to help the survivors. Policemen and firemen.”
“Police officers and firefighters, you mean,” the author said. “Though you may not be aware, some first responders are women.”
“You know what I’m saying,” Jameson snapped. “Maybe I’m not the most PC guy in the world, but I know the real heroes—the ordinary citizens who carried the wounded out of the blast zone. Spider-Man isn’t a hero, he’s a troublemaker and a fraud. As for his voice, we’re talking about a nut who wears a mask and pretends he’s a bug. Disguising his voice doesn’t mean a damn thing.”
Peter snapped off the television. He’d had enough.
* * *
THE lab felt like a funeral home. Even Theodore Peyton seemed shaken.
“This is a most unfortunate day,” he said, his voice quiet. “Everyone is devastated.”
Peter nodded. “It’s just hard to process.” Then he looked up and saw two strangers standing by Anika’s workstation. They were clearly older, and the man looked astonishingly like a middle-aged male version of Anika. They had to be her parents.
He had no idea what he could possibly say to them, but he knew he had to try to say something. He went over to the workstation and introduced himself.
“I didn’t know her long,” he said, “but she was smart and funny and great at what she did. I can’t imagine what you’re going through, but if there’s anything I can do, please let me know.”
“Thank you,” Anika’s mother said, and then she began to cry.
“She liked to take risks,” her father said. “She went skydiving and rock climbing, and we worried terribly about her. But for something like this to happen at an ordinary restaurant…” He shook his head.
Peter nodded and tried to hold back his own tears. It was impossible to see these grieving parents and not want to do something, but there was nothing to be done. Not now and not yet.
The time would come, though.
He would make it happen.
FISK sat in his office while Bingham was shown in. The man had demonstrated his power and his defiance, but in the two weeks that followed he had remained relatively quiet. Perhaps he had purged it from his system. Or perhaps he had exhausted the limits of his imagination. There was a chance, he thought, that Bingham might yet be brought to heel.
The attack at the restaurant had been brutal and sloppy and wholly amateurish. The fact that anyone considered it remotely possible that the real Spider-Man had been involved was a testimony to the public’s credulity and the vehemence of certain voices within an easily manipulated media. These were the same forces—those with the desire to bring on “experts” who could debate opposing sides of any issue—that had enabled Fisk to rehabilitate his reputation.
Was Bingham clever enough to have anticipated this, or simply lucky enough to have wandered into a process that worked in his favor? It was difficult to know. There was no doubt that Fisk himself was responsible in part for Bingham’s success. After all, he had funded some of those voices who denounced Spider-Man. The most powerful of these was turning out to be J. Jonah Jameson, whose new radio show led the charge against the web-spinner.
The irony was that, when he ran the Bugle, Jameson had been no friend. There was no one he enjoyed bashing more than Spider-Man, but Fisk himself had been a close second. Now Jameson was playing right into Fisk’s hands.
This was how the game was played, and it was why he won. Sometimes force was required, certainly. Sometimes there was no choice but to use threats and violence in order to terrify, and manipulate, but he liked it best when he could bring people into line without them even suspecting they were serving him. If his new scheme succeeded—and it would—then the entire city would serve him, and never even suspect.
As for Bingham, the man needed to be reined in, but it would be a mistake for Fisk to overplay his hand. The man didn’t respond well to threats, and while he was not bright, he understood his own chaotic power. While the man was artless, a
nd very probably insane, he managed to get the job done.
When Bingham came into the office, he looked around as if he’d never been in there before, taking in the furnishings and decorations as if he was in a museum. He hadn’t dressed to show any respect, however, wearing jeans, a black T-shirt, and a leather jacket.
“What do you want?” Bingham asked when he sat across from Fisk. “I’m a busy man.”
“The effort at the restaurant was clumsy, but… effective,” Fisk began. “You certainly attracted the target’s attention, but it could have been done in a manner that didn’t raise so many questions. I’d like to suggest some ways to help quiet those voices in the media who don’t believe you are the real Spider-Man.”
“But I am the real Spider-Man.” Bingham’s eyes narrowed. “That’s what I’m showing them.”
“Point taken.” Fisk forced a tight smile. “Please allow me to clarify. Many people believe it wasn’t the person they have traditionally believed to be Spider-Man.”
“If they’re that stupid, it’s not my problem,” Bingham said, stretching out his legs. “Guys like you, you’re all into—what do they call it?—messaging. I don’t care about messaging, about how to get the word across. I care about the message itself. You get the difference, right? Sometimes smart guys don’t get anything. You one of those smart guys, Fisk?”
Fisk felt his smile grow heavy and brittle, like ice about to shatter.
“It would be useful if we could review what you plan next,” he said evenly. “Hiring the Shocker was… innovative, but it came with certain risks.”
Bingham took out a cell phone and began tapping and swiping. From where Fisk was sitting, it looked as if he was scrolling through messages on his phone.
“Perhaps,” Fisk continued, “if you brief me on what you have planned next, I can offer some feedback to help you control the operation more effectively.”
Bingham thumbed his way down the phone’s screen for a few minutes before looking up.
“Wilson, I’m not a flunky,” he said. “I’m a force of nature. You wanted an earthquake, and now the ground is rumbling. Too late to complain about the dust that’s falling into your soup. You want to do something to make your life better once the earthquake starts? Take shelter.”
* * *
MAYA couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
As she watched the meeting through her hidden cameras, Bingham behaved dismissively and disrespectfully, and Mr. Fisk simply took it. She’d seen him hospitalize men for less, and while she was happy that Mr. Fisk had mastered his emotions, she wasn’t sure she understood why he would do so now.
She applauded, albeit reluctantly, Bingham’s efforts to undermine the myth of the benevolent Spider-Man, though the deaths concerned her deeply. Mr. Fisk clearly felt something had to be done, but he seemed unable to put a collar on this lunatic.
“This adversarial posture doesn’t serve either of us,” Mr. Fisk said. “We share the same goal—destroying Spider-Man’s reputation. If you allow me to guide you, we can achieve that goal much more efficiently.”
“Are your ears too fat to hear me?” Bingham asked. “I am Spider-Man. I’m showing New York what the real Spider-Man is all about. I’ve got plans, fat man. Big plans that involve things you don’t know about. You can just sit there and stuff your face and watch.”
Bingham took a photograph out of his jacket pocket. It was folded, and when he opened it, holding it so Mr. Fisk couldn’t see, it showed Spider-Man on a rooftop talking with a woman. Maya had to strain to make out the detail, and realized she had a badge clipped to her belt.
So, Spider-Man was working directly with a person or people inside the police department. Either he had lied to them, or corruption was rampant within the department. Either way, it was impressive that Bingham had discovered this key information. Perhaps he wasn’t as useless as he appeared to be.
He folded the paper and put it back in his jacket pocket.
“What do you mean, things I don’t know about?” Mr. Fisk asked, an edge to his voice.
Bingham laughed. “Oh, a little of this, a little of that,” he taunted. “Or maybe a lot.” He looked around. “I wouldn’t mind an office like this. How come you get an office and I don’t? I come in here and tell you what to do, and you have to take it. How come I don’t get an office?”
Maya gasped, and felt her heart pounding. Bingham didn’t say anything about the cop, and that was information Mr. Fisk needed to have. She couldn’t tell him, though, because then she’d have to admit she had been watching him.
Why was Mr. Fisk letting Bingham treat him this way? Yes, the man had impressive abilities, but that shouldn’t be enough. Mr. Fisk was deliberately restraining himself. She knew that look on his face, understood her mentor was playing a long game, but to what end?
She started to wish she’d never set up these cameras, never gotten herself involved with Bingham. She was in too deep, though, and she had no choice but to see it through.
* * *
BINGHAM had agreed to the meeting because he liked the idea of Wilson Fisk sucking up to him. It was also possible that the fat man would have something important to say, but it was nothing like that.
Fisk was just afraid. Everyone was afraid of him now, and that was how Bingham liked it. Things had been different when he was younger, but back then he hadn’t known that he was Spider-Man. It was possible, he knew, that he might have gone his whole life without realizing he was Spider-Man. He might have lived all those years imagining he was someone else. He might never have been himself.
“I’ve got things to do.” Bingham stood up. “You’re wasting my time.”
Fisk didn’t move. He squirms like—Bingham had to struggle to think of something—like an octopus in a little rock cave, he thought. That’s what Fisk was like—a slimy fish with tentacles. It was disgusting.
“Not until we arrive at an understanding,” the fat man said. “You must agree to let me know before you act again.”
“Not how this works, Wilson,” Bingham said. He loved calling Fisk by his first name. It reminded the guy who had the power.
“If I can’t count on you to cooperate,” Fisk droned on, “then I will have to reconsider our arrangement.”
“Reconsider all you want, Willie,” Bingham said. He pushed himself out of the chair with a theatrical little leap—just to remind the guy who had moves, and who was a big lump—and walked out of the office door. At the last moment he turned back. “Can’t you hire any girls to sit at your desk? Men secretaries—that’s what’s wrong with this city. Everything is the opposite of what it oughta be.”
* * *
HIGH school had been hard for Bingham. It shouldn’t have been that way. His name was Bingham, and he grew up in Binghamton. That meant it should’ve been his town. He’d always said it when he was little, and people told him how funny he was. They’d loved it, and he’d kept saying it. In high school, though, people didn’t love it anymore. Worse, they didn’t respect him. Kids would mess with him in the halls.
“Whose town is it, Mikey,” they’d say, shoving him or surrounding him. Big kids—bigger than him, thinner than him.
“This is my town,” he’d answer. They’d laugh. Laugh. Sometimes he’d lash out, and usually he got beaten—but that wasn’t what bothered him. It was the constant laughter.
They put him in a special class with other kids—ones who had problems. Kids who weren’t smart or had something wrong with them, and even those kids were mean to him. Julie was deaf, and he thought she’d be nice to him. She talked all the time like she had a cold, so other kids made fun of her, but that didn’t make her sensitive. Julie was the meanest of all to him. She called him fat, which wasn’t nice.
People couldn’t help what they looked like.
He’d never had a father, so Bingham always kind of thought of the city itself as his parent. It taught him things. Binghamton had seen better days. It was falling apart and had little to look forward
to, but that made it no different than a lot of the fathers he saw around.
Sometimes his mom invited men to stay with them, and each time Bingham wondered if he would have a new father. Most of them didn’t want to talk to a kid, though. Sometimes they were mean to him and called him words Bingham wouldn’t repeat because they were bad. One of them had been nice, though. He was a big man named Rick who laughed a lot and who said he used to be a fighter. He decided to teach Bingham to fight, and they would spend hours with their fists up, circling each other.
“A man has to be able to defend himself,” Rick would say, but Bingham couldn’t imagine actually hitting someone, even though sometimes the other kids hit him. Sometimes they knocked him down. He hated the pain, but even more, he hated the feeling of powerlessness. He’d never wish that feeling on anyone else.
Rick went away, though. They all did, and then his mom stopped having men stay with them. She became tired and sad, and he preferred the memories of what she had been instead of who she became.
He remembered her making him the special grilled cheese sandwiches he liked and taking him to the movies. He remembered her hugging him. He remembered asking how he knew if she really loved him, and she would say that true things didn’t need to be explained. He liked remembering those days.
Bingham’s mother became thin and her skin grew brittle. She worked long hours cleaning rooms at the motel, and when she wasn’t working, she was out with friends—that’s what she said, but Bingham never met any of them—or she would just sleep the hours away in her room. She’d turn on the TV, get under the covers, and sleep. The time of day didn’t matter. Once he realized he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her eat anything. She didn’t make him sandwiches anymore.
Then she got sick, and the doctors said they weren’t going to help her. Maybe they said they couldn’t help her, but it sounded the same to him. They didn’t care about her and didn’t care about him. Whatever actual words came out of their mouths, it all added up to the fact that she was going to die and he was going to be on his own.