Tales of Capes and Cowls, page 11
“She meant so much to me when I was a kid, and now I’ve got a girl of my own, and I was hoping that when she was old enough, she’d be able to look up to her as a role model, too. Now, I guess I’ll have to settle for telling little Teena about her.”
“There is an SCPD presence here in the park, but thus far the vigil has been peaceful. For News 6 at 6, I’m Adriana Berardi.”
Carlotta Farini was home when Milewski and Alvarado knocked on the door of her apartment in the Milligan Arms. “Who is it?” came her muffled voice from behind the wooden door.
“SCPD, ma’am. We’d like to ask you a few questions.” Milewski held up her badge to the peephole so Farini could see it.
“Yeah, okay.” Farini opened the door. She was a short woman with close-cropped dark hair and a round face. “Whaddaya need to ask?”
“I’m Detective Kristin Milewski, this is my partner, Detective Jorge Alvarado. We’re investigating the death of Teen Spirit right here in front of your building.”
“I thought you guys arrested somebody for it?”
“We did,” Alvarado said, “but the deputy prosecutor’s a pain in the ass and wants all the bases covered, y’know?”
“May we come in?” Milewski asked.
Shrugging, Farini said, “Yeah, I guess.” She opened the door wider and led the two detectives into a living room with several bookcases, a wide-screen TV, a very old couch with uneven cushions, and an easy chair that was very worn. Both couch and easy chair had multiple cat scratches, and Milewski briefly saw a tabby. The cat took one look at the new arrivals and ran into one of the doors on the right.
“You want some coffee or water or somethin’?” Farini asked.
“No, thanks,” Milewski said. “We just have a couple quick questions. See, the reason why the DP is being such a pain in the ass, as my partner said, is because Killer Man hired a very good lawyer.”
Farini chuckled and sat down in the easy chair. “Don’t they always?”
“Not usually.” Milewski sat down on the couch, Alvarado sitting next to her. “Most of them can’t afford one. In fact, the last several times Killer Man was arrested, he had a public defender.”
“Which is weird,” Alvarado said. “‘cause it ain’t like he suddenly fell into money.”
“Now, he just got out on parole,” Milewski said, “so we checked into his prison record, including his visitors. Imagine our surprise to find your name on the list.”
Farini just stared at Milewski.
“Nothing to say?”
She stood up. “I don’t got a damn thing to say, and you two should leave.”
Milewski and Alvarado also rose. “That’s it? You visited a murderer in prison four times in the last month.”
“I don’t gotta talk to you if I don’t wanna.”
“True, but you’re now a person of interest in this case, which means if you don’t cooperate, we can probably get a warrant to search your apartment.”
Now Farini grinned. “Knock yourself out, Detective. I ain’t got nothin’ to hide.”
“Yeah, you do,” Alvarado said. “You ain’t told us why you visited Killer Man at Ellis.”
“That ain’t none’a your business, Detective.”
“Since he’s the prime suspect in a murder investigation, it kinda is our business. Especially once we found out who paid for his lawyer.”
Now Farini looked confused. “Excuse me?”
“Bonnie Katz, Killer Man’s lawyer? Her fee is being paid by TS Inc. That’s the company that runs Teen Spirit’s business.”
“Well,” Milewski said, “ran her business. I mean, she’s dead now, so there’s nothing to run.”
Putting her hands on her hips, Farini asked, “How the hell did you find that out? That’s stuff’s supposed to be, like, confidential and stuff.”
“How the hell did you find out?” Milewski asked. “It’s got nothing to do with you, right?”
“I mean—” She shook her head. “Fuck. I’m invoking my right to remain silent.”
“That is completely your right,” Milewski said. “But I gotta ask—whose body is that in the morgue?”
“What? It’s Teen Spirit’s! Couldn’t you tell from the stupid costume?”
“Hey, c’mon,” Alvarado said, “anybody can wear a costume.”
“And Teen Spirit can’t actually be dead if you’re alive.”
Farini burst out laughing. “That’s funny, Detective. Get out of my house.”
Milewski didn’t move, though. “Makes sense that you’d stage it where you live. You knew there were cameras on the roof and in the lobby and in the deli across the street. You attacked Killer Man, so he’d be able to mount a self-defense strategy with the lawyer you paid for. He’d get some great street cred as the villain who killed Teen Spirit, and you get to be Powerhouse now.”
“Who the hell is Powerhouse?”
“The brand-new hero with the same super strength as Teen Spirit who brought Killer Man to us.”
“What I don’t get,” Alvarado said, “is why you went to all that trouble. Why not just change your name?”
Farini just stared at Alvarado. “Are you kidding me?”
“No, it’s a serious—”
But Farini interrupted. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
And then she punched a wall. Her fist went right through it.
“You think I didn’t fucking try? I’m twenty-seven fucking years old, and Marisol keeps going on about how I need to be fucking Teen Spirit, because she’s the idol of millions and she raises money for charity, and I have to keep wearing that stupid blonde wig and talking in that idiotic high voice. I just couldn’t take it anymore. So yeah, I worked it out with Lipshitz.”
“And killed an innocent woman.”
“Jesus, no!” Farini looked appalled at the very idea. “What the hell do you think I am? No, I got my hands on the body of a homeless woman who’d died. She’d just been buried in an unmarked grave. I put an old costume on her, Lipshitz did his blasty thing, and we had a crispy-fried corpse that everyone would think was me, and then I could actually fucking move on with my life.”
“As Powerhouse?” Milewski asked.
“As a fucking grown-up, yeah.”
“Just one little problem.”
“What’s that?”
Alvarado shook his head. “You just confessed to a crime, Ms. Farini.”
“Actually, she confessed to two.” Milewski started enumerating points on her fingers. “By confirming that she was the one fighting Lipshitz that night, she’s confessed to assault and battery for one, and for two, she’s also confessed to grave desecration.”
“Are you fucking serious?”
“Completely.”
The three of them regarded each other for several seconds.
Milewski just stared at Farini. A part of her was genuinely worried that the young woman would use her super strength on her and her partner.
But Milewski also had a feeling that Farini wasn’t a bad person. She just wanted out of a shitty situation.
Finally, Milewski broke the silence. “Look, we can make a deal here. We can arrest Carlotta Farini on the grave desecration charge. Nobody needs to know who you really are. You’ll probably hire Katz to be your lawyer, too, and I’m sure she’ll work out a nice deal for you.”
“Or I could just put my fist through both your heads, and nobody’d be the wiser.”
Milewski smiled sweetly, hoping it covered up the knot that suddenly tied in her stomach from the fear that Farini would do that very thing. “The entire SCPD would be the wiser, since we called in saying we were coming to this apartment. If we’re never heard from again, you’re prime suspect number one.”
Alvarado added, “Also you just a minute ago told us you weren’t a murderer.”
“Yeah.” Farini sighed. “Fuck! I just didn’t want to be a goddamn Disney princess for the rest of my life, y’know? I don’t deserve to get arrested for that!”
“Yeah, you kinda do,” Milewski said. “Besides, if you don’t cooperate, we’ll go public with everything. If you do cooperate, Teen Spirit stays dead, Lipshitz gets his street cred for killing her, and once you’re done serving whatever miniscule time you wind up doing after Katz does her dance with the DP, you can go back to being Powerhouse.”
“And best of all,” Alvarado added, “all those kids that are holding candles in Kirby Park right now’ll still think Teen Spirit was a great hero.”
“Hey, I am a great hero, fucknut. I’m just not a goddamn kid anymore, and I’m sick of having to act like one for my fucking image. God. Fine, what do we do?”
“We arrest you and take you to headquarters,” Milewski said as she took out her handcuffs. “I know you can break out of these, but if I put the damps on you, everyone’ll know you have powers.”
“Which they’ll also know if you break out of the bracelets,” Alvarado said.
“It’s fine.” Farini looked suddenly deflated. “Let’s get this shit over with.”
“Carlotta Farini, you’re under arrest for the desecration of a grave in Wein’s Field.”
After Milewski read her her Miranda rights, they lead her out of the apartment. As the three of them walked toward the elevator, Farini asked, “By the way, Detectives—how did you know that TS Inc. paid for Bonnie to represent Lipshitz?”
Alvarado grinned. “We didn’t—it was a guess.”
Farini’s face fell. “Sonofabitch. You fucking lied to me?”
“Seems only fair, you lied to us. C’mon, let’s get you processed.”
As they got on the elevator, Farini muttered, “Shoulda punched you two in the head when I had a chance…”
Legit Out of Order
By Aaron Rosenberg
With a head as big as mine, you get used to bumping into things: doorframes, lamp posts, lemonade stands, and so on. And people, of course. Lots and lots of people.
But usually that’s ’cause they’re strolling along while texting like they own the place and don’t bother looking up.
This is the first time I ever had somebody bounce off me because they got flung through the air like a big, flailing, screaming Frisbee.
“Whoa!” I reel back a bit, more from surprise than the impact itself. When you’ve got feet the size of snowshoes, you’re typically braced better than most small houses. “Watch it, dude!”
The guy in question manages to glare at me, snarl, and whimper all at the same time, and all while picking himself up off the ground. And I thought I was good at multi-tasking! “Silence, you blithering buffoon!” he snaps with a twirl of his long mustaches. Yeah, he really does twirl ’em, just like some cartoon character. I half expect him to shout, “You must pay the rent!” next, but instead he cuts off what he was about to say and drops to a crouch, hands floating up over his head. “Don’t let them get me!” he wails.
Them? Them who? The Mustache Adjudication League? But my question’s answered even before I can vocalize it—which is rare, because there’s usually less of a gap between a thought popping into my head and it leaking out my mouth than there is space between two cars parked on a New York City street—as a shadow falls over me.
I look up.
It’s big and bulky and metallic, and it makes a funny whooshing sound as it lowers to the ground. You remember those fake “Build your own anti-gravity machine!” ads they used to have in the back of comics, the ones that promised that, with the plans you bought from them and a standard vacuum cleaner engine, you could make a flying car?
Well, this looks like somebody finally got those ads to make good on their promise. And then built it a bit bigger and out of living room sofas so they could bring their friends along for the ride.
The first one to hop out is big, and I mean BIG, like you took a tank and just molded it into human form. She’s got shoulders broad enough that even my head wouldn’t look out of place atop them, and the rest of her is built to match, like what you really picture when you think “Amazon,” an actual warrior woman.
Her hair’s a shocking orange and trimmed short on the sides, standing up in front and flowing down the back in something between a Mohawk and a horse’s mane. But, y’know, cool.
“Hold it right there, Snarky,” she declares, stomping forward with steps that make the sidewalk quake under even my feet. “We’re taking you in.”
“That’s right,” someone else adds, a slim, cowled figure rising from the car and not coming down, just floating higher and higher. “Make this easy on everyone and give up now.”
“Either way,” a third person states, also leaping out of the flying car, and this one’s wiry and moves with the kind of certainty you used to see on high school jocks who ruled the school and knew it. “You’re going to pay for your crimes.” The guy’s eyes are bright, and I don’t mean cheerful, I mean incandescent, little glowing orbs I can barely look at.
Which doesn’t stop me from staring, especially as the rest of the team clambers out to ring Mr. Mustache, who I now realize is none other than Snarky Whipstache, a baddie whose mustaches can extend like little shiny black tentacles. But it’s not him I’m goggling at, it’s them:
Legit. The Big Apple’s very own superhero team. And they’re right here, so close I could reach out and smack ’em upside the head—not that I would, of course. But how amazeballs is that!
“You’ll never take me!” Captain Facial Hair insists, leaping to his feet, and his mustaches sweep out, the tips cracking like bullwhips as they dart toward the first two heroes in line, Epic and Lit. Epic doesn’t even bother to duck, she just grins as the mustache strikes her on the cheek—and doesn’t leave so much as a red mark. Lit glares at the offending hair, and twin beams shoot from his eyes, incinerating part of the mustache and causing the villain to scream in pain. Then the cowled figure, Aces, is there, swooping in—literally, gliding through the air like a person-shaped paper airplane—to grab the man’s hands and wrestle them behind his back, and Props tosses them something that might be a zip tie or maybe a large rubber band, but which wraps around the baddie’s wrists tighter than a fashion model’s jeans. All while Word stands at the ready, making sure nobody sneaks up on them or anything.
It all takes maybe two minutes, tops, and then they’re bundling Señor ’Stache off toward their vehicle.
Right past me.
“Wow!” I manage to squeak, my voice cracking like I’m back in fourth grade drama and performing in front of the whole school for the first time all over again. “That was awesome!”
“Thanks,” Word tells me. She smiles, and it’s as charming as any newscaster ever could’ve hoped, or any used car salesman could’ve dreamed. It’s Aces who continues, though: “Just doing our job keeping the city safe.”
“Well, you guys are amazing,” I tell them, and mean it. A few of the others smile and wave, and I just stand there like a big ole idiot tourist, gawping as they settle themselves back in their flying car and float back up, up, until they’re maybe three stories high—and then shoot forward, vanishing down the street in a blur.
Man, I’ve seen some weird stuff before, and some cool stuff, and some scary stuff. But nothing beats running into real live superheroes.
I can’t wait to tell Mary and the guys about this! They’re never gonna believe me!
We’ve only gone a few blocks before somebody says it. Not surprisingly, it’s Epic, since she’s got all the tact of a baseball bat. I’m just impressed she waited this long. “Okay,” she asks, “was it just me, or did that guy have a duck head?”
“Oh, you noticed that?” Lit drawls, sprawling back in his seat to glare at her. “I’m impressed.”
No, Lit isn’t Southern or Texan or anything else that would actually require a drawl. He just does it to piss the rest of us off. And it works.
“Shut it, Lit,” Word demands, slapping him on the arm and drawing a satisfied smirk from him. “And yes, I saw it too. What was up with that?”
“What was up with what?” Props asks over his shoulder from the driver’s seat as he whips the Legitmobile—hey, I didn’t name it!—around a corner, taking us in on what I can only hope is the quickest route to the nearest police station. That’s typical, too, him being oblivious to everything except his current project, and him not telling us what’s up with it.
“That guy,” Epic reminds him. “The one back there? The one who looked like a duck?”
Props shrugs but I see Word frown, then brighten. “Oh, yeah, him. That was weird, right?” She’s already frowning again, though, and I figure she’s forgotten what we’re talking about. I like her, I do, but she’s got the memory of a goldfish.
I sigh but suppose I’d better step in before this all goes off the rails. Again. “He’s clearly undergone some kind of body modification,” I point out. “At a guess? Aliens.”
I don’t even know why I’m surprised when everyone else—except for Props, thankfully, since the autopilot’s on strike again—turns to stare at me. “There’re aliens?” Epic blurts out. “Real ones? Dude!”
This gets a squawk of outrage—from our captive, placed between me and Epic in the back seat, since we bound his wrists and Props put some weird doohickeys like little metal caps on the tips of his mustache, but we didn’t bother covering his mouth. “Of course there are aliens, you idiots!” he snaps, which is way more “outrage-y” than “snarky,” if you ask me. “What did you think that thing you fought last month was? The big one with all the limbs and lights and toothy mouths? It was all over the five o’clock news!” He shudders, his mustaches curling up protectively even with the little guards on them. “You couldn’t pay me enough to go up against something like that!”
I can’t help nodding—at both the sentiment and the reminder—then try not to sigh again as half my teammates shrug and the others just look confused. How is that our foes are ten times smarter and more together than my partners?
For maybe the thousandth time I wonder how the hell I wound up in a group this messed up.
After dropping our grumbling adversary off with the police, we head back to the Legit Lair—I know, I know, but it’s a whole branding thing. As soon as we’re down I hop out of the car and head for the living areas. Along the way I shuck my goggles and aviator cap, running a hand through my hair to release it where it’s been tamped down for so long. “Ah, that’s better.” I keep it short for just this reason, but even so, it winds up being molded to my skull.
