Marvel Classic Novels--Spider-Man, page 34
He glanced around the gas station for a pay phone, but the only one he saw was dangling loosely off the hook, the earpiece having been broken off. No luck there.
Looking over at the woman pumping gas, he asked, “You have a cell phone?”
“Uh yeah—why?”
“Call 911.”
“I can’t do that!” The woman sounded aghast.
Spider-Man frowned under his mask. “Why not?”
“You crazy? I use a cell phone in the gas station, it’ll blow up!”
“That’s an urban legend,” Spider-Man said with a sigh. “Don’t you watch MythBusters? Trust me, it’ll be fine.”
He then leapt up to the top of the gas station’s kiosk, shot out a web-line to one of the tall buildings on the other side of the FDR, and swung westward in search of a working pay phone. Even if the woman didn’t call 911, he could still let O’Leary know. But he was down to the last of his change, so he wouldn’t be able to do this for much longer.
To his amazement, O’Leary answered her own phone this time. “This is Detective O’Leary.”
“Detective, it’s Spider-Man, and please don’t make me go through the same rigamarole again, just trust that it’s me, and that we’ve got another gamma-head at the gas station by the northbound 34th Street entrance to the FDR. There’ll probably be a 911 call about it soon.”
“Nice job,” she said. “I hear you’ve been all over everywhere today.”
“Just doing my bit. I can do one bit better on this one, though—her name’s Valerie McManus.”
“Valerie McManus?” O’Leary sounded surprised. “Greenwich Village Valerie McManus? Turned into a flying green thing or whatever?”
Spider-Man nodded, though the gesture was lost over the phone. “That’s the one.” He was about to tell her that she was stronger this time, but the only way he could explain how he knew that was to say that he was married to one of the witnesses to Valerie’s first transformation.
“Good. We’ve had a hell of a time getting ahold of her, and her actor chums were all stonewalling.”
That caused a wince, since Spider-Man knew that Mary Jane was one of the stonewallers.
“Listen, can you come up here?”
“I thought Detective Shapiro didn’t like ‘costumes.’”
“He doesn’t—but there are other detectives in this house who feel different. Especially after what’s been going on the last couple of days.” She let out a long breath. “Look, just get your webbed ass up here, okay?”
“All right, all right.” Spider-Man was a bit taken aback by O’Leary’s insistence, and wondered what it was she wasn’t telling him. “I can be there in about twenty minutes or so—assuming I don’t run into any more gamma-heads.”
“Or shoot-outs,” she muttered.
That took Spider-Man even further aback. “Shootouts?”
“Yup. We got us a bona fide drug war on our hands.”
* * *
UNA O’Leary nursed what she figured had to be her thousandth cup of coffee in the past hour as she sat in the coffee room of the 24th Precinct. When Jerry Shapiro had called a meeting of the whole task force, he’d put it in here, since the second shift was now on and using the squad room. Shapiro was standing on one side of the refrigerator, with Fry towering over the other side of the appliance. It isn’t bad enough he has to be taller than everyone else, but he never sits down, O’Leary thought uncharitably, not in the least because she was the shortest person in the Two-Four’s detective squad. Fry’s presence at least kept her from being the youngest, as the immense black man was six months younger than she, though his appearance tended to mute any cracks about his age.
Shanahan, by contrast, was always sitting down, complaining about his knees the whole time. The old, fat, bald detective was just six months from being on the job for thirty years, and he was counting the microseconds until that day came so he could “get the hell away from this job and live a real life” with a veteran’s pension to live off of. He sat opposite O’Leary at the large table. Between them, and perpendicular to both, was Petrocelli, who was chewing and popping his omnipresent bubble gum.
They were waiting on two people. One was Wheeler, who finally came in holding a ream of paper. Wheeler was tall, young, well-built, and good-looking, which would’ve been fine if he himself hadn’t been so overwhelmingly aware of all four qualities. If she saw Wheeler in a bar, she’d think about talking to him, but five minutes after meeting him, she probably would’ve been inclined to throw a drink in his face. At least he was good police . . .
The other, known only to O’Leary and Fry, was Spider-Man.
O’Leary had confided in Fry, because she figured he’d be reasonable. Petrocelli had his head too far up Shapiro’s ass to do anything Shapiro wouldn’t like, and O’Leary neither trusted nor liked Shanahan or Wheeler.
Meanwhile, Wheeler held up his ream. “Just got the faxes in from the One-Oh about that club mess. Two people were killed when they got trampled and a whole lot more were hurt, a few more were injured when one of the girls ripped the bar out of the floor, a few more by the super-fast one who knocked people over, and the last one bruised a bunch with her ray-beams. The girls were ID’d as Laura Silverstein, Terri Bowles, and Janna Gilman, all students at ESU. Silverstein’s the one who bought the Triple X, but she didn’t know the girl she scored it from—just someone else in the club.” Wheeler shrugged.
Shanahan shook his head. “This is outta hand.”
“That’s why we have a task force, Pat,” Petrocelli said.
“You wanna contribute somethin’ useful, do it, or shut the hell up.”
Pointing an accusatory finger at Petrocelli, Shanahan said, “Shut your yap, you little—”
Petrocelli just laughed. “‘Shut your yap’? You’re Damon Runyon all of a sudden?”
“Both of you, shut up!” Shapiro didn’t raise his voice often, but when he did, the windows shook. The coffee room went silent.
After a moment, Shapiro looked at Fry. “We got anything from any of the other gamma-heads?”
Shaking his head, Fry said, “Nah, most of ’em are unconscious or ain’t talkin’.”
“We got somethin’ else,” Petrocelli said. “I talked with Narcotics, and they ID’d the two vics up on Amsterdam from this morning as well as the one who got shot at over on 110th—all three are part of a crew run by a dealer named Ray-Ray, and the one on 110th had a whole lotta bags of Triple X on him, so we’re talkin’ dealers here, since street yo’s like that don’t buy in bulk, usually.”
O’Leary perked up. “This Ray-Ray work out of Long Island City?”
Petrocelli nodded. “In the Robinsfield Houses.”
Looking at Shapiro, O’Leary said, “That matches—”
Before she could finish, Shapiro held up his hands. “Don’t start that again, Una.”
“Spider-Man told me this stuff was coming out of LIC.”
“I don’t really care, Una, we’re not dealin’ with no costumes.”
O’Leary looked over at Fry. He was about to say something when Shapiro looked back at Petrocelli. “Anything else off that shooting we can use?”
Again, Petrocelli nodded. “Yeah—the guy I talked to at Narcotics nearly blew a gasket when he realized they were all Ray-Ray’s crew. Both blocks that got hit belonged to a buncha Ukrainians for the last year or two. Now we got new crews in both locales and matching shoot-outs. And the witness up on Amsterdam says he saw white guys in the car that threw the shots.”
“Yeah, that’s probably the Ukrainians,” O’Leary said. “Ray-Ray’s taking their territory, now they’re hitting back.”
“Makes sense.” Shapiro sighed. “Christ, this is only gonna get worse.”
There was a pause. O’Leary gave Fry a significant look, since she knew that if she said anything, it would be dismissed out of hand. Picking it up, Fry turned to Shapiro. “Jerry, I think Una’s right—we need to bring the web-head in on this.”
Shapiro shot Fry a look—diluted by having to look up so far at the tall detective’s face. “What’re you, high?”
“Jerry’s right,” Shanahan said. “We don’t need no costumes screwin’ us up.”
To O’Leary’s surprise, it was Wheeler who said, “How’s he screwin’ us up? Right now, he’s the only one containing this. We’ve got seven incidents involving gamma-heads in the last two days. A bunch of them had people injured and about half a dozen fatalities. You know how many of them ended with nobody hurt? Three—the three that Spider-Man’s been involved in. He saved those people down at Madison Square Park and in the zoo, and one that just got called in to the One-Seven with some lady in a gas station.”
O’Leary smiled. Looks like I didn’t give Wheeler enough credit. “He called me after that one—Spider-Man did,” she amended quickly. “Said that’s Valerie McManus, from that theatre downtown.”
Shapiro almost snarled. “And that means I’m supposed to let some costume into my house? No way.”
“Aw, but I promise I’m housebroken.”
O’Leary turned around to see Spider-Man sitting on the wall by the door to the coffee room, his back and feet flat against the wall, his knees bent. Standing in the doorway was the corpulent form of Sergeant Green.
Shapiro stepped forward and looked accusingly at O’Leary. “What the hell’s he doing here?”
Before O’Leary could try to defend her decision to invite him, Green spoke up. “I let him in, Detective. You have a problem with that, Detective?”
Transferring his look to the sergeant, Shapiro started to say something, then thought better of it, knowing what Green’s reaction would be if he said the wrong thing. “I’m just peachy with it, Joll.”
A broad grin spread on Green’s round face. “Good. I like ‘peachy.’ ‘Peachy’ is good. ‘Peachy’ means harmony and happiness and, best of all, a task force that can bring a case in, necessitating a nice press conference in which the commissioner sings the praises of the fine detectives of the Two-Four and makes us all look good to the bosses. It is my considered opinion that the presence of this costumed gentleman”—he pointed a pudgy finger at Spider-Man—“will make that happy outcome considerably more likely. It is also the opinion of Detectives O’Leary, Fry, and Wheeler, three detectives that you specifically requested for this detail, leading me to think that maybe you trust their judgment. Am I making myself entirely clear here, Detective Shapiro?”
“Yeah.” Shapiro looked over at Spider-Man on the wall. “You got something useful to tell us?”
“A couple things. I—”
“Before you do that,” Shapiro said, “I just want to say one thing for the record. I don’t like you. I don’t want you involved in police work.” He looked over at Green. “My sergeant says otherwise, so I’m letting you help us out, but I just want you to know up front that I think you’re an asshole who hides his face and doesn’t deserve to be in the same room with real police.”
Spider-Man sounded nonplussed in his reply. “Sorry you feel that way, Detective. But I’m here to help however I can. You don’t want me, I’ll go back out there and keep those gamma-heads from tearing up the city.”
Petrocelli said, “We got Code: Blue for that.”
Rolling her eyes, O’Leary said, “The same Code: Blue who had their budget slashed last year? The same Code: Blue whose equipment is breaking down?”
“Detective Shapiro,” Green said, “you seem to be having some difficulties focusing your task force.”
Shapiro smiled insincerely at the sergeant. “Just a free exchange of ideas, Joll. Keeps the police work fresh.”
“Good rationalization,” Green said. “Spider-Man, welcome to the Triple X Task Force. That’s the task force commander, Detective Jeroen Shapiro. We all call him Jerry, mainly ’cause Jeroen’s a sissy name.”
Normally that got a smile out of Shapiro, but he was too busy staring daggers at the new arrival.
Green continued. “The landmass to Detective Shapiro’s right is Detective Jimmy Fry, who looks down on all of us.” Moving over to the sink: “Over there is Detective Ty ‘Pretty Boy’ Wheeler—I believe the nickname’s etymology should be self-evident. Seated at the table are Detectives Lou Petrocelli and Pat Shanahan. And, of course, you know Detective Una O’Leary.”
O’Leary smiled at him.
“Pleased to meet you all,” Spider-Man said with a nod and sounding much more polite than O’Leary expected. I guess his momma raised him right.
“It ain’t mutual,” Shanahan muttered. “What the hell you gonna tell us we don’t already know?”
Spider-Man actually seemed to consider Shanahan’s mouthy words. “Well, for starters, I can tell you that this Ray-Ray kid who’s dealing the drugs isn’t the supplier. I’ve checked out his HQ, and he’s got mostly teenagers working for him. To make ecstasy do what this stuff is doing requires a level of smarts that very few people have.”
“We’re already looking into that,” Shapiro said. O’Leary snorted.
“Something wrong, Una?” Shapiro asked snidely.
“Not at all, Jerry,” O’Leary said quickly. She had suggested looking into it two days ago, but Shapiro kept taking her off it every time she started. To be fair, that was in part because so many gamma-heads were turning up, combined with the sudden drug war, so there were more immediate things for her, and the rest of the task force, to be involved in.
“Most of the users seem to be students,” Spider-Man said.
“That don’t mean nothin’,” Shanahan said. “X is a kids’ drug. If you really belonged in this room, you’d know that.”
Looking at O’Leary, Spider-Man asked, “He always this cheery?”
“We keep him around for morale,” O’Leary deadpanned.
“Good work.” Spider-Man gave Shanahan a thumbs-up.
Shanahan gave Spider-Man the finger.
Shapiro looked at his watch. “Christ, it’s after midnight. All right, we all need some sleep. Una, keep checking those possibilities on the supplier. Ty, Jimmy,” he said to Wheeler and Fry, “keep on the hospitals where the gamma-heads’ve been taken. Maybe one of ’em’ll decide to talk. Lou, Pat,” he said to Petrocelli and Shanahan, “do the same for the families of the three shooting vics.”
Petrocelli looked at him like he was nuts. “You really think they’ll talk?”
“They sure as hell won’t if you don’t talk to them,” Shapiro snapped. He then looked up at Spider-Man. “As for you—do whatever it is you do. You find out anything useful, tell us.”
“Unfortunately, I’m running out of change to call you guys—and if you have something for me—”
“Like that’s gonna happen,” Shanahan muttered.
Ignoring him, Spider-Man continued: “—it’d be nice if you could call. Like if you hear about a gamma-head rampage that your guys can’t handle.”
“You think we can’t handle this?” Shanahan asked.
Spider-Man stared at him with his featureless mask. “You ever take on someone who was high on X and could bench-press the Empire State Building, Detective? I have, several times over the past few days.”
To O’Leary’s amazement, that shut Shanahan up.
Then she rose from her chair. “I got an idea. We can give him Ursitti’s phone.”
Shapiro frowned at her. “Ain’t Ursitti too busy usin’ it?”
O’Leary shook her head. “He left it in his desk when he went on vacation so nobody could reach him.”
“Figures,” Petrocelli muttered. “Fine, that’ll work,” Shapiro said.
“Thanks,” Spider-Man said to O’Leary.
“No problem.”
“All right,” Shapiro said, “let’s get moving.” He looked over at Green. Green just nodded and turned and left the coffee room.
Aside from Shanahan, just Spider-Man and O’Leary were left in the coffee room after a moment, and she was only staying to finish off her coffee before going to Ursitti’s desk to retrieve his phone. O’Leary assumed that Shanahan wanted to take his time getting up from the chair.
However, he apparently wanted to fire a few more verbal shots at Spider-Man. “No way I’m callin’ this guy on no police phone.”
“You have a problem with me, Detective Shanahan?”
“I got lotsa problems with you, but the biggie is that thing on your face.”
“What, my mask?”
Shanahan nodded. “Yeah. I don’t like somebody who claims to be on this side of the fence who can’t stand behind what he does.”
“Look, Detective—I really kinda have to hide my face. Occupational hazard.”
“Bullshit.”
“Excuse me?” Spider-Man said.
“Look,” O’Leary said, “we’re—”
Shanahan ignored her, like usual, instead turning around to look at Spider-Man. “I said ‘bullshit.’ You have to hide your face? That’s the biggest load’a crap I ever heard in my life, and I been alive a lot longer than you.”
O’Leary found herself jumping to Spider-Man’s defense. “If people knew who he was, there would be all kinds of consequences to his family and—”
“Was I talkin’ to you, girlie?” Shanahan snapped.
“Hey, watch it,” Spider-Man said, a defense that O’Leary appreciated, but didn’t really need. That Shanahan was a sexist jerk was hardly a news flash.
Shanahan turned back to Spider-Man. “You think, ’cause you deal with scumbags all the time, that you gotta hide who you are? You wanna know somethin’? I deal with scumbags all the time, too. An’ when I arrest one of ’em, I’m wearin’ a badge with a number on it that belongs to me. An’ when I bring ’em back here, I type up a report that has my name on it. An’ when that scumbag goes into the system, my name gets attached to his sheet. An’ when it goes to trial, if it goes to trial, then I get on a goddamn witness stand in front of a judge an’ a jury an’ lawyers an’ whoever the hell else is in the courtroom, and I give my name an’ address an’ testimony that’s entered in the public record.” He stood up slowly. O’Leary could hear his knees crack. “Ow! Goddammit!” He put one hand to his left knee, then turned back to Spider-Man. “You don’t stand behind what you do, then what you do ain’t worth shit.”
