As much as I hated to admit it, Isaac was right: We weren’t experts at locating people. My Heroic training had prepared me for a lot of things: Fly like a bird? Check. Punch bad guys in the face? Check. Use my powers to do something as crude as picking up and flinging a massive boulder or something as delicate as using a razor to shave with my eyes closed and my hands tied behind my back? Check. But find a bad guy who obviously didn’t want to be found so I could punch him in the face or drop a boulder on him? Not so much.
And, though I worked at a newspaper, I was little more than a gopher and clerk, a far cry from an investigative reporter who was skilled at finding people.
I slammed to a stop in the air so suddenly that it was almost like hitting a wall. I was so excited by my realization that I barely felt the ache caused by the abrupt halt of my forward momentum.
I’m such an idiot, I thought. That was it! The Astor City Times. I worked for one of the world’s most respected newspapers. Surely one of the more seasoned employees would know how to find someone who didn’t want to be found. How stupid of me to not have thought of it before now. My anger and exhaustion must have made my brain sluggish. I was scheduled to go back to work tomorrow, anyway. I had been thinking about not going in and risk getting fired to continue looking for Antonio. Now I had a reason other than not being fired to show up.
The next morning when I showed up for work, I walked up to Mr. Langley’s desk. As usual, he was in front of his computer, peering at its screen as his fingers flew over the keyboard. I didn’t know how he had avoided glasses considering his age and all the hours he spent staring at a computer. He was always here when I came to work in the morning, and he was always here when I left for the day. Thought I knew he smoked from the way he smelled and the heavy stains on his teeth, I had never seen him leave his desk to take a smoke. Sometimes I wondered if he lived here, if he didn’t need to sleep, and if he was part chimney who generated smoke without a cigarette.
“Do you have a minute?” I asked. Mr. Langley’s clear blue eyes didn’t look up from what he was reading, nor did he stop typing.
“Sure. After all, I’m just lounging here idly by the pool, sipping on a Mai Tai, praying that some youngster will happen along and break up the monotony of the day by asking me a fool question.”
“Who would you go to for help if someone was missing?”
“It’s ‘Whom would you go to.’ You work for a newspaper, not a hip-hop website. Proper English is one of the tools of our trade.”
I suppressed an eye roll. I knew it was whom, and I knew he knew I knew. I think it gave him a kick to bust the balls of the young people in the office.
“Well, whom would you go to?” I asked, emphasizing the correct word.
“The police,” he said immediately.
“Let’s say you tried the police, and they came up empty. Then whom would you go to?”
Mr. Langley looked up for the first time. He stopped typing. His piercing blue eyes looked at me probingly. I hadn’t slept at all last night, and I couldn’t remember when I last shaved and showered. Under Mr. Langley’s gaze I was abruptly hyperaware of the fact that I must have looked like death warmed over.
“Does this have something to do with Hannah Kim’s missing boyfriend? I know you two were friends. You leave early the day her body is discovered, you abruptly use all your leave time and disappear, and then you reappear looking like something the cat dragged in asking about who is good at finding people. I’ve been in this business too long to believe in coincidence. As I reminded you earlier, this is a newspaper. If you know something about her murder that’s newsworthy, spill it.”
I felt like an open book under Mr. Langley’s stare. “This has nothing to do with Hannah,” I said. If I said it did, Mr. Langley would ask more probing questions, none of which I wanted to answer as their answers all involved me being the Hero Kinetic. I had become quite a facile liar since I had started down the road toward being a Hero years ago. I didn’t like what that said about the nature of being a Hero. “The daughter of a friend has run away from home, and she’s understandably worried sick. She’s hoping to hire someone to help find him.”
“Find her.”
“Huh?”
Mr. Langley’s eyes hadn’t left my face. “You said your friend’s daughter is missing. If that’s the case, a daughter is a her, not a him.”
“Oh.” Perhaps I wasn’t as good of a liar as I thought. Telling the truth had been emphasized during my small town Catholic upbringing. Maybe you could take the boy out of the altar, but not the altar out of the boy. “Him. That’s what I meant. I misspoke. She wants to hire someone to help find him.”
Mr. Langley gave me a slight wry smile. I didn’t think he believed my cover story. His eyes returned to his computer screen. He resumed his typing.
“Well, there’s a private investigator on College Avenue not too far from Astor City University named Julian Ward. He’s relatively cheap, especially considering the prices around here. He’s pretty good when he’s not drunk. Unfortunately, he’s drunk a lot. That’s why he’s relatively cheap. Alcohol seems to be an occupational hazard when it comes to PIs.”
I shook my head. “I’m not interested in a drunk. I want somebody who’s both good and sober. Money is no object.” Thanks to having two roommates, I could live in an expensive city like Astor City using just my relatively meager paycheck from the paper. I still had in savings almost all the money from selling Dad’s farm, plus the money the Old Man paid me for being his Apprentice. That, along with the accrued interest, amounted to a pretty penny. I’d spend every dime of it if necessary to find Antonio.
“Well if money’s not an issue, I’ve got just the guy for you.” Mr. Langley stopped typing. He consulted the old-fashioned rolodex he kept by his telephone, and jotted a name, address, and telephone number on a slip of paper. He handed the paper to me. The clattering of his keyboard resumed.
“That guy is better than he seems,” Mr. Langley said. “Maybe even as good as he thinks he is.”
“Better than he seems? What’s that supposed to me?”
“You’ll see. And remember what I said about how we’re in the business of printing what’s newsworthy. If you stumble upon something that fits the bill while you’re helping your friend find the daughter you for some reason refer to in the masculine, don’t keep it to yourself.”
I thanked Mr. Langley and hurried away before he asked more questions I didn’t want to answer. As I went back to the desk I shared with another low man on the Times’ totem pole, I looked down at what Mr. Langley had written.
“Truman Lord, Private Detective and Licensed Hero,” it read.
10
Truman Lord’s office was downtown on Paper Street, within easy walking distance of Star Tower. I walked toward there during my lunch hour. During the walk, I heard the roar of a jet overhead. I looked up. The distinctive S-shaped logo of the Sentinels was on the bottom of the airplane’s wings. One of the Sentinels’ jets, just leaving the Sentinels compound on the outskirts of the city based on its low altitude and the direction it traveled. I had the sudden urge to go airborne and rip it into two. My frustration over Antonio had set my temper on a hair trigger. Besides, my beef was with Mechano, not with all the Sentinels. First I would deal with Antonio, then I would turn my attention back to Mechano. One thing at a time.
The address Mr. Langley had given me was for a brick office building painted off-white. A high-rise directly across the street from it dwarfed it. The office building’s red brick showed through the faded white paint in spots. Many of the building’s windows were dirty. The glass of the front door was cloudy with age and irregular cleaning. It squeaked noisily when I opened it. The vestibule sported old wallpaper that peeled away from the wall in spots. The glass-encased building directory missed several letters. It made finding Lord’s name a puzzle to be solved. Clearly the building had seen better days.
My first impression of Lord based on his building? I was no
t overwhelmed with confidence.
Finally, I found Lord’s name. His office was on the third floor. I waited for the elevator, heard ominous groaning noises through the elevator doors, and started up the stairs instead. After the last few days, getting stuck in an elevator on top of everything else would make me flip my lid.
I had heard of Truman Lord before Mr. Langley had given me his name. Anybody who paid even passing attention to the news over the past few years would recognize Lord’s name. His name and face had become ubiquitous for a little while. First, Lord had uncovered that one of the Heroes who was a member of the Sentinels at the time was a killer. Later, Lord’s fifteen minutes of fame got extended when the Sentinels hired Lord to find Avatar’s murderer. During that investigation, Lord was framed for Avatar’s death. Since Avatar had been beloved the world over, people thinking Lord was responsible for his death turned Lord into an international pariah. When Lord later exposed the true murderer, the people who had been screaming themselves hoarse demanding Lord’s head on a silver platter immediately began singing his praises.
Some Heroes wanted to be famous. Isaac for example, in one of his more unguarded moments, had admitted he wanted to be. That was another reason he wanted to join one of the major Hero teams since their members were as famous as rock stars. Not me. If Kinetic became no more famous than he already was thanks to my exploits in Washington, D.C. and here in Astor City, that would suit me just fine. What Lord had gone through as a suspect in Avatar’s murder was proof that fame was too fickle for it to be something worth chasing after. As far as I was concerned, fame was like having a pet scorpion—it might not sting you today, and maybe not even tomorrow, but eventually it would. Stinging was in its nature. No thanks.
Lord was the only Hero who was also a private detective, or at least he was the only private detective who was open about the fact that he was also a Hero. Most Heroes kept the fact that they had superpowers a secret when they were out of costume to keep their friends and family from becoming targets of the enemies the Heroes made while in costume. Lord never wore a costume and was completely open about the fact he was a Hero.
I exited the stairwell onto the third floor. Lord’s office door was in the middle of the hallway, next to an accountant and across from an insurance agent. His dark brown wooden door was closed. I faintly heard music playing on the other side.
“Truman Lord, Private Investigations” was spelled out in professional, gold-plated letters on the top half of the door. Under that were three small signs, written in black magic marker on yellow pieces of paper ripped from a legal pad. The first one read:
QUIET!!! A sensational super sleuth, wise worldly wit, groovy gregarious gunslinger, and awesomely alliterative adult works wearilessly within.
The second one read:
Salesmen, proselytizers, and supervillains are shot on sight, so keep out. If you don’t know what proselytizer means, you keep out too. This is a high literacy zone.
The third sign showed a crude drawing depicting two stick figures. The one on the right wore a fedora and held a gun pointed at the figure on the left. The words “POW! POW!” appeared over the gun. The stick figure on the left wore a black cape and lay on the ground, evidently bleeding based on the dots of red ink that dripped from it. “Curses! Foiled again by Truman the Terrific!” read the speech bubble over the prostrated figure’s head.
After seeing the state of disrepair of the building and reading these ridiculous signs, I almost left. I was hardly in a playful mood due to what had happened to Hannah and being exhausted from days of unsuccessfully searching for Antonio. I did not have the time nor the inclination to fool around with someone unserious. Only the knowledge that Lord had been the one to find Avatar’s murderer and the fact that Mr. Langley had recommended him made me swallow my annoyance.
I knocked on Lord’s door instead of turning around and leaving. A man’s voice told me to come in. I opened the door. I took a moment to peer inside before entering.
The room beyond the door was square. The carpeting was thin, almost threadbare. A small, ratty, old couch was against the wall. A metal file cabinet was next to it. On top of the cabinet was a coffee maker. The pot was half full. Next to the coffee maker was a small boombox. Music played out of it, something old, jazzy, and croony that my grandparents likely would have enjoyed.
A bunch of the office’s ceiling tiles were warped and discolored, as if there had been a major water leak at some point. A window was on the other side of the room from where I stood. Its blinds were open, letting enough sun in that the overhead lights were off. In front of the window was a desk. Its thick, old wood looked like it had been salvaged from Noah’s Ark. A desktop computer was on top of it. Though the desktop was ancient, it still looked cutting-edge compared to how old the desk looked. In front of the desk were four battered chairs.
The office was the opposite of ritzy and ostentatious. It matched the building that housed it. If the office had not been spotless, I would have described it as seedy.
Behind the desk sat Truman Lord. He was a white guy with a battered face wearing a maroon polo shirt. I recognized him from the pictures I had seen when he was in the news a lot due to Avatar’s murder. Though I had seen those pictures years ago, Lord looked the same. Though he was much older than I, I was struck by how there was a certain timeless quality to him, as if he had sprung out of his mother fully formed and would go to his grave the same way I saw him now.
Other than that timeless quality, the first thing that struck me about him was his size. Even sitting, he was large and imposing. Not fat, but big-boned and well-muscled. His forearms looked like they could crack unshelled Brazil nuts if he pressed them together. Despite the preppy shirt he wore, there was a vaguely menacing, almost thuggish, air about him.
“Though I know I’m pretty, you gonna just stand there with the door open and admire at me, or are you gonna come in?” he said to me, not unkindly. There was a slight, cocky smile on his face. He spoke with a hint of a Southern accent. “I’ve worked and slaved to accumulate an extensive fly collection. You’re letting them all out.”
I stepped inside, closing the door behind me. Lord didn’t stand or offer to shake hands as I approached his desk. I once read that the tradition of men shaking hands developed as a way of demonstrating peaceful intentions by showing neither man had a weapon. If true, it explained why Lord didn’t offer a handshake. His right hand was below the lip of his desk where I could not see it. With my telekinetic touch, I sensed Lord had slid open the top right drawer of his desk. There was a large caliber gun inside. Though he didn’t pick the gun up, his hand rested on the lip of the open drawer where he could get to the gun in a hurry. My chest tightened. I tried to keep the tension from showing on my face. In his defense, a man like Lord who was both a Hero and private detective had probably made a lot of enemies over the years. If I were him, I would keep a gun handy too.
Notwithstanding my body’s automatic stress response, I wasn’t too worried. If Lord pulled his gun on me, he was in for a surprise. I could make him eat that gun if I wanted.
With his left hand, Truman raised a small remote control and clicked off the music. There was a large glass bowl on the corner of his desk, like something you might serve punch from at a party. Rather than punch, water filled this bowl. In front of Truman on the desk was a thick open book. It was an English translation of the Bhagavad Gita, which was sort of like the Hindu equivalent of the Bible. I only knew of it because I had spent so much time with Neha, who was a practicing Hindu.
Lord saw what I was looking at. He said, “Don’t be too impressed with my reading habits. I’m just looking at the pictures.”
I was confused. “A friend of mine is Hindu. There aren’t any pictures in that edition. I don’t know if there are pictures in any edition.”
The book thumped as Lord slammed it shut with his free hand. He looked at the book in disgust, as if it had tricked him. “Explains why I haven’t found any. The cover a
rt duped me. I wish you had shown up hours ago. You could have saved me a lot of time and trouble. Oh well. I’ll try again with a different book later. You know what they say: Liber medicina animi.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s Latin.”
“That much I knew,” I said.
“It means ‘A book is the soul’s medicine.’ Or maybe it means, ‘Hello, I’m Julius Caesar and I’m lost. Which way to Rome?’ I’m not sure. My Latin is rusty.”
Lord motioned slightly with his head at the chairs in front of his desk. I sat. I noticed there was a framed picture of a woman resting on the ledge of the window behind Lord. She was a very attractive redhead with a big toothy smile. Girlfriend or maybe wife, though Lord did not wear a wedding ring. Lord’s unseen right hand still rested on the lip of the open drawer containing the gun.
Now that I was closer to him, I saw that his broad nose was slightly misshapen, as if it had been broken on more than one occasion. His knuckles were scarred and calloused. A fighter’s hands. There was scar tissue on his face, especially around his eyes. Both ears were slightly cauliflowered. There was something unapologetically masculine about the man. It all enhanced the thuggish vibe Lord had. If I hadn’t known he was a Hero and I met him in a dark alley, I would assume I was about to be mugged.
“Mr. Lord, my name is Theodore Conley.”
“Congratulations. Call me Truman. Mr. Lord is what you call God when you’re being formal. I’m not Him. Easy mistake to make though. Happens all the time.”
“I work under Stan Langley at the Times.”
“Congratulations again. Stan’s a big boy. You managing to squeeze from under him to come see me is quite an accomplishment.”
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