Marvel Classic Novels--Spider-Man, page 39
Monday he had made a wholly futile attempt to find Dr. Octopus. Unfortunately, Sunday’s run through his usual stoolies proved prophetic for Monday’s: nobody knew anything, and those that might have were nowhere to be found. Spider-Man was starting to get a complex.
The closest he got to good news was hearing that Elias Kitsios would be at Amsterdam Billiards for a tournament Tuesday night. Kitsios was one of the go-to guys if you wanted to buy equipment, usually stolen, of the type needed by guys like Dr. Octopus. When Ock needed anything, from lab equipment to an air conditioner, there was a good chance that Kitsios would be the one to get it for him.
The good news was, at least Spider-Man was able to stop a few more gamma-head rampages, though several straight days of keeping super-powered druggies from doing too much harm, while trying not to do too much harm to them, was taking its toll on even his enhanced stamina. The extra sleep this morning and afternoon had helped, but not nearly enough. As he sat on the wall of the Two-Four’s detective squad room once again, he felt the bones of his arms and legs turning to liquid. He hadn’t had a decent meal in days, though he had promised Aunt May, in a hasty phone call right before he webbed over to the precinct house, that he and Mary Jane would come over for a late dinner tonight. Thrilled at the prospect, Aunt May said she was heading out to the Associated Supermarket on Queens Boulevard to get all the fixings.
Shapiro, Shanahan, and O’Leary were present. Petrocelli was out chasing a lead. Shapiro and Shanahan studiously ignored the wall-crawler, leaving O’Leary to do all the speaking. Given their hostile attitudes, compared with O’Leary’s friendliness, this suited Spider-Man fine.
Fry and Wheeler came walking in, the latter with two mugs of coffee in his hand. To Spider-Man’s surprise, he handed one of those mugs to Spider-Man.
“Heard you been goin’ full tilt. Figured you might need this,” Wheeler said with a small smile.
“Thanks, Detective.” Spider-Man took the steaming mug, figuring this to be a peace offering from Wheeler.
Lifting his mask up to his nose, he took a sip, and then had to gather up all his willpower not to spit it out. This was even worse than Midtown High’s faculty lounge coffee, and that stuff was often mistaken for sewage. Maybe it’s not so much a peace offering as revenge.
Wheeler looked at Shapiro. “So who’s this guy comin’ in?”
“Greg Halprin,” Spider-Man said. “He’s the boyfriend of Valerie McManus, and he’s giving up his supplier.”
Shapiro shot Spider-Man a look. “How’d you know that?” He looked at O’Leary. “Did you—?”
Quickly, O’Leary said, “I just told him we had a possible witness.”
Sitting down at his desk, Wheeler said, “Hang on—Halprin? I talked to that guy today. He sent me back to the theatre, said one’a the other actresses had somethin’ to say.” He grinned. “She didn’t, turns out, but, man, what a babe.”
Fry shook his head. “You hitting on witnesses again, Ty?”
“Didn’t need to—this one was coming on to me.”
O’Leary laughed. “Well then, she couldn’ta been much use as a witness, ’cause if she was hitting on you, then she’s gotta be blind.”
Wheeler good-naturedly tossed a paper clip at O’Leary, who batted it aside.
“If you kids are finished . . . ,” Shapiro said. Everyone else settled down. “Petrocelli’s following up on someone in Inwood who matches Octavius’s description. Meanwhile—”
One of the uniforms walked in, along with Greg Halprin, looking pathetic.
O’Leary leapt to her feet, leading Greg over to her desk. Mary Jane had said in her phone message that Greg was not handling Valerie’s decline very well, and seeing him now, Spider-Man could see that clear as day. As Peter Parker, he had met Greg only once, when they were both in the audience during the callbacks for The Z-Axis, each of them, as Greg had put it, “lending our womenfolk some moral support.” He’d seemed a nice enough guy—a little slow on the uptake, perhaps, but harmless. Based on what Mary Jane had told him, however, he’d been at his best at that callback.
He certainly wasn’t now. When O’Leary asked him his name, he struggled with the concept, and his address took several seconds.
But once he got to the meat of the statement, the words started to flow better. “Look, we took stuff, okay? You try getting through an audition or a callback straight—or try sittin’ around hopin’ that they’ll call you, even though you know they’re gonna go for someone else. You’re too tall, too pale, not blond enough, too wide in the shoulders, not skinny enough, what-the-hell-ever. Can’t expect a dude to face that straight, you just can’t.”
Spider-Man found himself drinking the awful coffee just to cover the bark of derisive laughter he had on standby. He was married to someone in the same business—who’d also spent plenty of time as a model—and she faced it just fine straight. Apart from a bout with cigarettes, Mary Jane had stayed clean.
Then again, not everyone has MJ’s strength.
“So we met this lady. Dude, she was intense. Never got a name, but she had a hawk nose, and purple hair, I remember that much. Wasn’t even stylin’ or nothin’, just regular hair ’cept it was purple.”
O’Leary, who had been typing Greg’s words into the keyboard on her desk, stopped, nodded, then looked at Fry. The tall cop brought over a booklet and dropped it on O’Leary’s desk. She flipped it open to the middle. Peering over, Spider-Man saw that the page O’Leary opened to had five mug shots of women, all in color, each woman with purple hair.
Why does it not surprise me that there are four purple-haired women in this town besides Trainer with rap sheets?
Greg didn’t even hesitate. “That’s her.” His index finger landed right on the picture of Carolyn Trainer.
“All right,” Shapiro said, “Detective O’Leary’s gonna print out your statement. I want you to read it and sign and initial it everywhere the detective tells you, okay?”
Nodding, Greg said, “I just wanna get the people that did this to Val, y’know?”
“I know, son.” Shapiro put a hand on Greg’s shoulder, and spoke in as kind a voice as Spider-Man had heard him use.
O’Leary stood and led Greg over to the printer on the far side of the squad room.
Looking over at Shanahan, Shapiro asked, “We got an address on Trainer?”
“Yeah, but I dunno if it’s current.”
Spider-Man pulled the mask down over his face. “Where?”
“Hang off a second,” Shapiro said, holding up a hand toward Spider-Man. “We take Trainer, I don’t want you within a thousand feet of us.”
“I beg your pardon? Detective, this lady was Doc Ock for a while, and she was actually pretty good at it.”
Shapiro shook his head. “I don’t care, this is the first real lead we’ve had since they formed this damn unit, and I ain’t lettin’ it get screwed up by some technicality ’cause we brought a civilian in a costume on the bust.”
“What difference does it make?” Spider-Man asked. “Can’t you just arrest her on old charges?”
Shapiro said, “There are no old charges.”
Spider-Man blinked under his mask. “What’re you talking about? She was wearing the tentacles, she—”
“Wearing metal arms isn’t a crime,” Shapiro said. “But she was arrested, and—”
Fry spoke up, then. “And she was brought to trial, and a jury of her peers found her not guilty of any of the charges, mostly because the DA couldn’t put a decent case together and her lawyer ripped the prosecution case to shreds. Not surprising, really, since their only witness was her father, who—”
Wincing, Spider-Man said, “Who was killed by the Green Goblin.”
“Yup,” Fry said. “No witness, no case, no conviction.”
“Well,” Shapiro said, “there was one other witness.”
He stared right at Spider-Man. “But he wears a big red mask and doesn’t testify at trials.”
“How do you like them apples?” Shanahan asked with a nasty smile.
Before Spider-Man could respond in kind—or web Shanahan’s mouth shut, an option that was looking more pleasurable by the second—Shapiro went on. “So I can’t take the chance of having you there on Trainer’s bust. Hell, we don’t even know if the address we got for her is current. But if it is, we’ll take her in and get her to flip Octavius.”
Spider-Man couldn’t help it. He laughed. “What’s so goddamn funny?” Shanahan asked.
“You’re not gonna get Trainer to give up Octavius. Not on a drug charge, not on an assault charge, not on the charge of being the second coming of Lucrezia Borgia.”
Shanahan gave him a dirty look. “You think we can’t flip some broad?”
“I know for a fact you can’t flip this one. She’s so devoted to Octavius she had him resurrected from the dead. You really think she’ll give him up?”
“Even if she doesn’t,” Shapiro said before Shanahan could say something else stupid, “she’s still in on this. Right now, we need an arrest. We need to show the inspector and the commissioner and the mayor and the newspapers that we’re doing something. An arrest will go a long way toward keeping people calm.”
“Maybe,” Spider-Man said, “but I’m not about to just sit on my hands and let you guys—”
The desk sergeant—Larsen—burst into the squad room. “We just got a call from the One-Twelve. Some old lady in a supermarket’s turned green and is firing ray-beams outta her eyes.”
For the second time in two days, a fist of ice clenched Spider-Man’s heart, but this one was bigger and colder. “What supermarket?” he asked.
Looking down at the Post-it he was holding, Larsen said, “An Associated on Queens Boulevard over by—”
The word “boulevard” had barely escaped Larsen’s mouth when Spider-Man was out the window.
Of all the people Ock would go after, Spider-Man had hoped, had prayed, that May Parker would have been left off the list. After all, she hadn’t actually done anything to him. Then again, neither did Gaxton, really, and that didn’t stop Ock from hitting him with the drug. . . .
Years ago, Dr. Octopus had learned that May was in line to inherit an island containing a nuclear power plant. When Spider-Man later learned the whole story, he had thought it an odd thing to bequeath, but May would only say that it was from the “side of the Reillys we try not to talk about.” In order to get his hands on the plant, Ock had courted May, and got her to agree to marry him. Spider-Man hadn’t actually stopped them himself, being beaten to it by a mob boss who went by the sobriquet of “Hammerhead.” Between them, Ock and Hammerhead blew up the power plant and destroyed the island, though both somehow managed to escape with their lives. With the island gone, so too was Ock’s interest in marrying Peter’s aunt.
I guess, Spider-Man thought as he webbed across Manhattan in record time, it was too much to hope that Ock would’ve forgotten about her. May had been at death’s door more than once since Peter Parker became Spider-Man, and he even thought her to be dead for a brief time, and he wasn’t about to let her be taken from him by Ock’s sick revenge scheme.
Queens Boulevard, one of the major thoroughfares of the borough for which it was named, had both a main road and a service road. Traffic on the eastbound side was snarled, as the cars couldn’t get past the giant crater on the divider between the eastbound service road and main road, as well as the tree that had been knocked across the road, both right in front of a giant Associated Supermarket.
A green beam of light shot across and hit one of the street lamps. People were shouting and running away from the supermarket as Spider-Man swung into the parking lot, which seemed to be the source of the beam.
Several blue-and-whites were surrounding a single female figure, with over a dozen uniformed officers standing in a position that kept their cars between them and her.
Said figure was skinny, green, and shooting beams from her head. Even from this distance, and with the new skin tone, Spider-Man instantly recognized May Parker.
As he swung into the parking lot he saw another beam fired and heard a familiar voice yelling, “I’m sorry! So sorry!”
Spider-Man landed on a car behind one of the blue-and-whites. “Not your usual gamma-head, is she?” he said to the one cop not in a uniform.
Whirling around, the cop—a heavyset Latino man with a bald head and a thick mustache—said, “About time you showed up. Shapiro said you’d be here.”
Nice to be wanted. “I think I can convince her to come quietly.”
“Yeah, we tried that.” The detective pointed at one of the blue-and-whites, which was missing its entire trunk. “But I ain’t about to tell these guys to open fire on an old lady, even if she is green. Christ, she must be, like, ninety years old or somethin’.”
“As it happens, she’s a fan of mine. Wrote some nice letters to the Daily Bugle and everything. So I think I’ve got a shot here.”
“Good—’cause if you don’t, I do.”
Nodding his understanding and silently swearing he wouldn’t let any harm come to his aunt, Spider-Man leapt over to a car next to her. “Mrs. Parker, this is Spider-Man. Just take it easy.”
“Spi—Spider-Man?” Another beam shot out and demolished a Dumpster.
“Easy, Mrs. Parker—listen, just close your eyes.”
“But then I can’t see.”
His spider-sense buzzing, Spider-Man leapt just as another beam shot out of his aunt’s eyes, totaling the car he was on. Hope the owner’s insured.
Landing in front of her as she said, “I’m so sorry!” Spider-Man grabbed her arms.
“It’s okay, Mrs. Parker, really.”
“I don’t feel very well,” she said. “Ever since that nice woman with the purple hair gave me those free ice cream samples, I . . .”
Then she collapsed in his arms.
“Move in!” the detective cried, just as an ambulance pulled up.
Waving off the uniformed cops who ran toward him, Spider-Man said, “She’s fine, I got her.”
“Sir,” one of the uniforms said, “we got to—”
“I said, I got her! Back off!”
Refusing to let any cop near her, Spider-Man waited until the EMTs rolled up with their gurney, at which point he gently placed his aunt on it, then let the pros take over.
He then tore into the supermarket itself, making a beeline for the frozen foods section. Sure enough, there was a table with some small spoons and empty cups on it, with a sign reading FREE SAMPLES.
The supermarket had been evacuated, of course, and somehow Spider-Man doubted that Trainer would hang around once her objective of poisoning Aunt May was accomplished. I wonder if she just pushed it on everyone here, or had a special batch ready for when Aunt May came by. Probably the latter, since Queens Boulevard wasn’t being overrun with gamma-heads.
Spider-Man ran out the front door and leapt up to a nearby high-rise, being careful to avoid any of the cops or EMTs—or members of the press, for that matter, several of whom filmed his departure.
When he alighted on the roof, he took out Ursitti’s cell phone and called O’Leary.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“I want Trainer’s address, and I want it now. I’m going to beat that woman until she bleeds.”
“I can’t do that, and you know why. Shapiro’s getting the warrant on the address right now. It’s gotta be a clean bust.”
“I don’t care! What she and Ock are doing—” Spider-Man cut himself off. He couldn’t very well tell O’Leary that the latest target was the woman who raised him.
“You think we don’t know what they’re doing? But if we don’t do this right, Trainer will walk, especially since our only witness is a drugged-out actor whose girlfriend is dying. We gotta be real careful with her.” She paused. “But only with her.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, Trainer’s clean, but Octavius isn’t. Got about a dozen outstanding warrants, at least. Doesn’t matter how he’s brought in.”
Spider-Man started to say something, then stopped. “What time is it?”
“About six-thirty. Why?”
Forcing himself to calm down, Spider-Man said, “I’ve got a pool game to catch.” He closed the phone without another word.
Shooting a web-line off to one of the trees on the Queens Boulevard service road, Spider-Man thought, The tournament isn’t starting until nine, but if Kitsios is playing pool for real tonight, chances are he’s at that place on 8th that has the cheap booze he likes, so he can liquor up. . . .
* * *
ELIAS Kitsios leaned over the crappy pool table and lined up a shot. He’d knock the seven in the corner and bank it off the side to sink the two. After that, the eight-ball would be all set up and he’d take this idiot’s money.
This was all just a warm-up for Kitsios. Tonight was the tournament, playing on a real regulation table, not the dinky thing they put in bars like this dump on 8th Street. Usually, he just came here for the drinks—this was the only place in Manhattan that had ouzo at what Kitsios considered a reasonable price—but when some black kid started trash-talking about how he was a pool god, Kitsios decided to make a little extra money. It’d be good prep for tonight.
And the extra cash didn’t hurt. Not that he needed it. He had plenty of clients, including one who was rolling in it and spending like there was no tomorrow.
Now just gotta sink the last two and take this idiot for everything he—
“The important thing,” a voice from above him said suddenly, forcing Kitsios to scratch his shot, “when you’re playing pool is to focus, to never lose your concentration.”
Slamming the stick down on the table, Kitsios whirled around. “Who—?”
But there wasn’t anybody in the bar who hadn’t been there before. The ones who were, though, were all looking up.
Kitsios followed their gazes to see Spider-Man hanging upside down from the ceiling.
“What do you want, arachne?”
“Dr. Octopus.”
Letting out a breath, Kitsios asked point-blank, “I tell you where to find him, you let me get back to my game?”
