Super Born: Seduction of Being Read online

  The same old barkeep was there. He came over to take our order, but then, upon recognizing us, he hesitated and began to turn around. I called to him and assured him that we would order something more than just a beer this time, and he came reluctantly.

  “What’s it to be this time, gents? A wee bit of soda water? Cup of ice?” he asked.

  “No, my man, we will each have your finest beer, shaken not stirred.”

  The barkeep was not amused. “Will this be a cash transaction?” he asked sarcastically.

  I pulled out a wad of bills and laid them on the table. “Yes, my dear man, it will be cash and there’s more where that came from,” I said, gesturing toward a reluctant Dr. Jones. “Does this fine establishment serve any varieties of food to go with your outstanding liquors?”

  The barkeep reached in his pocket and pulled out a crumpled black and white photocopy, straightened it a little, and then presented it over his forearm as if it were a menu from a five-star restaurant. “We do, me lord, can I get you anything?”

  I quickly surveyed the four or five selections. “Do you recommend the chili fries?”

  “With me whole bleedin’ heart.”

  “I believe we will try some,” I said, looking at Jones for his agreement and instead finding him baffled by every item on the short list.

  “Will that be one order, two plates, and a doggie bag, or are we blowin’ the wad on two orders?”

  I looked at Jones and said, “That will be two orders, my good man.”

  The old man looked up at the ceiling for a second, as if in thought, then grabbed at my pile of bills until he had extracted full payment, plus a generous tip of his choosing. That done, he turned to leave.

  “I see, my friend, that you come here often,” said Jones, noticing the warmth the barkeep and I had for each other.

  A minute later, the barkeep delivered our beers and the promise, “Your fries are on their way. I wanna make sure they’re good an fresh for ya.” It made me wonder what fresh ingredients or spit he might add to the potatoes.

  I took a long pull on my beer and fell back in the booth. Dr. Jones was uncharacteristically quiet, devoid of his usual energy.

  “I feel like we’re messin’ this up,” I said. “I thought we were so close to her and now…now, it’s just a mess.”

  Jones nodded without looking at me. “Yes, my friend, I am feeling this way too. It used to be so fun, so exciting. Not to mention that I was scoring like a pinball machine while I searched for her…Ahhh Two-for-Tuesdays,” he said dreamily. “But now, I think she does not want to be found. We were so close. We were fools to get drawn into an alliance with the mayor.”

  “Oh yeah, that’s right, you and the mayor. I thought you had forgotten me totally there for a while.”

  “Yes, I am sorry for that.. You know, power can make you crazy sometimes…I liked the media coverage and the limelights,” he said, a bit whimsically. “Did you know that this is my best side?” He turned to show me his left profile. “I never knew until the TV people told me.”

  “Didn’t you say something about having a plan to contact the B.I.B. at that news conference?”

  Jones seemed a bit embarrassed to be reminded of this. “Oh yes. Not a good day for me. No, I don’t remember saying anything like that.”

  “Don’t fuck with a fucker.”

  “I beg your pardon! I don’t play on that team!” said Jones, totally taken aback.

  I shook my head. “No, I mean don’t try to lie to a liar. That’s BS and you know it. What was your stinking plan? Maybe we can use it.”

  “My plan? Oh yes, now I remember saying that. I believe I was referring to the Patagonian Algorithm, which is based on the atomic decay of epsilon particles, very complicated stuff. But it didn’t pan out, so I gave up on it.”

  “Isn’t Patagonia in South America? What does that have to do with mathematics?”

  “There was a famous mathematician, Estevan De Numero, who was from Patagonia. He was the one who came up with this algorithm.”

  “Doesn’t numero mean number?”

  “I wouldn’t know, my friend.”

  “He was from there and had a theory for atomic decay?”

  “Yes.”

  “In Patagonia?”

  “Yes,” said Jones.

  I knew he was lying. I couldn’t figure out why, but I was certain he was. Then I remembered the drawings for an electronic device I had seen in his apartment. “Hey, what about that thing you were building? You know, those drawings I saw at your place?

  “Drawings?”

  “Yeah, they were on your desk, remember? Like a rod with a bunch of tubes sticking out of it.”

  Jones acted as if he was trying to remember, then finally smiled and nodded. “You mean the high-definition anal stimulator! Yes, yes it worked out very well. If you know what I mean,” he said, winking. “My research proved that it was not just a matter of stroke magnitude but finding the harmonic frequency that was the key…I could let you borrow it if you’d like. I believe it’s not scheduled a week from Wednesday say between eight and ten in the evening on the 25th?”

  “Think I’ll pass.”

  “Your choice. It’s quiet an experience.”

  “Oh…sorry I asked. Anyway, we were fools to have drifted so far from our plan.” That was when a thought hit me hard, just like the chili fries would probably hit my stomach. The plan, the friggin’ plan! “You are so right!”

  Dr. Jones looked up at me, startled. “I am?”

  “The plan was working. We just got diverted. Your crazy…sorry…theory about the Super Bowl birth dates was correct.”

  “And how are you knowing this?” Jones asked, a bit affronted.

  “Okay, I haven’t told you everything. The first woman I interviewed with the Super Bowl birthday seemed like an ordinary chick when I meet her. I didn’t lie to you…not then, at least.” Jones leaned toward me, surprised. “But later, I learned that she melted my pen, and then I saw her at the Searchlight Event. Why would she be there?”

  “Melting your pen? She melts your pen and you don’t think it’s important enough to tell good ol’ Dr. Jones? The same Dr. Jones that told you about the Super Born in the first place? Who paid you thousands of dollars for accomplishing diddley squat? I had no idea they had powers such as this. But why—why would she melt this pen of yours? ”

  “All I know is that I left her with the pen and, when I came back a few days later, the busboy tells me about her melting a pen, and I find it embedded in the table. How’s that for your garden-variety weird?” I said, spinning my bottle of beer.

  Jones thought for a long moment. “So I was right! The Super Bowl calculations are right! Let’s go meet this woman!”

  “Hold on, Sherlock,” I said, pushing him back down in his seat. “That’s not all of it. I think there’s more than one. This woman melts pens and was the first-closest born to Super Bowl half time, but she’s not the B.I.B.”

  Now Jones was acting like a little kid who hadn’t been told the secret everyone else knew. “And what is telling you that there are more than one? Just how many are there?”

  I had to think a long time before answering that one. “Let’s just say, there is more than one of them for sure, because I’ve met some of them. I think your Super Bowl theory is correct.”

  He smiled and gave out a little laugh. “I am, you know, right about this, about everything.”

  “You are a genius. Okay, I said it. You are…I’ve got to find the rest of those Super Bowl babies, get back to the plan, right? Is there anything else your calculations say that can help us?”

  “Yes,” he said folding his arms. “They say if you don’t share with me all your information again, you will be finding a black loafer deep up your ass!”

  “Fair enough. I think I’ve told you everything,” I lied. “Are there any other questions you’d like me to answer?”

  “Yes. What is a chili fry?”

  On cue, the bark
eep brought our chili fries in paper baskets and dropped them abruptly on the table. “Bon appétit,” he said.

  “That there, my friend, is what they call a chili fry.”

  “How are you supposed to eat it? Why is it looking at me like that?” asked Jones, suspiciously examining the food.

  I explained to him the art of eating chili fries and soon he had developed his own techniques, based on either licking off the chili or scraping it off by pulling one through a trough he made with his tongue. We stayed for a while, downing a few more beers, finishing our fries, and revisiting our partnership, unmindful of the thuds, clangs, bangs, and gunfire of the RFDs. We were home.

  Before long, Dr. Jones seemed his old self again. He smiled. “I think I shall be going now,” he said, rising. “It is Two-For-Tuesday at The Banshee across that very street,” he added, pointing out the door.

  I slapped him on the back as he put on his coat.. “That’s what I like to hear, the old Dr. Jones getting back in the saddle. By the look of your new chili fry techniques, I can tell some girl is in for the time of her life.”

  “Girls, my friend, we are talking ‘girls’ in the plural, as in many of them. I’ve some catching up to do.”

  “Go get ‘em, Tiger.”

  With that, he quickly shuffled out of the bar and the barkeep closed in. “Another beer for you? No? How’d you like them fries?”

  “My compliments to the chef. Those were potatoes, right? No…extras?”

  “Nothing but the finest for our best customers.”

  I lifted my finger with a quizzical look on my face and hesitated, about to ask the barkeep a question. But he was two chapters ahead of me. “The blond bird? No, she ain’t been here since we last spoke. Heaven knows my wallet could sure use her visit. Like you said, 200$ to call you if she shows…or was it 300$... Good tipper too, that one…and them hazel eyes…” he said, drifting away a bit.

  “Yeah,” was all I said, dejected, thinking how far down the list of her assets and values good tipping was.

  “And I ain’t forgot, you owe me another hundred if she shows up here and I give you a call.”

  The barkeep could sense how much it mattered to me. He put his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry, friend, she’ll show up one day.” He seemed truly sincere, and he even squeezed my shoulder. “But you’ll have to get to her after me!” he said, and walked away.

  I tried to chuckle. “Ha ha, very funny, you old fart,” I called after him. But then I slipped into self-pity. Where was she? With all my efforts to find her, all I had of her were dazzling but brief memories. Had I imagined that connection between us that seemed so real? Was I fated to find her again? Now that I knew what I was missing, why did it friggin’ hurt so bad?

  Chapter 21

  The B.I.B. Is Dead

  With all my workers gone for the day, I was pulling another all-nighter at Camino Waste headquarters in my small, temporary office. Just as the workers were in the process of putting my office back together, I was in the process of putting together a plan to finish that devil in black who had dared to attack me—me!—in my very home. She was dead. She was still walking, but she was dead. I wasn’t content anymore to publicly disgrace her. I would dance on her grave.

  I picked up a bottle of Miner’s and slipped over to the doors to my real office. I snapped on the lights, and looked inside to see the progress that had been made. The gaping wound in the floor was still there, but the roof and much of the support structures had been rebuilt. It made me feel good—as my office was being rebuilt, so was my confidence.

  I snapped off the lights in my soon- to- be office, and when I turned, heard a whirling fan running in the silence of the office. I turned to my left and tracked the sound to my secretary’s office. There I saw the tiny light that indicated my secretary’s computer was still on. When I brought its screen back to life, there was the B.I.B. Rescue on the screen with the game paused.

  “Son of a fucking bitch!” I yelled. “My own fucking people!”

  I looked in disgust at the image of the B.I.B. avatar swooping down to save a beer truck from hitting my secretary’s avatar. I hit play and the B.I.B. flew off with the beer truck. My secretary was awarded fifty points and her avatar smiled.

  Then inspiration hit me. (You never know when that little bastard will strike.) That’s it! That’s fucking it! “Ha!” I laughed. “We’ll let her kill herself! That’s fucking it!” From that moment on, I knew what I had to do.

  I had been in contact with every one of Gambrelli’s men, now in prison, who had taken part in the ill-fated attempt to liberate The Tool and finish off the B.I.B. When asked about going another round with her, they all shook their heads; some immediately began to pace nervously at just the thought of it. They all talked about her speed and her power, the way she’d put their lights out with one fist. Not one wanted a rematch. Not one except Dennis Mastrangelo.

  Mastrangelo was a cocky young thug. I had seen the type before and almost dismissed him. “Yeah, I’d love a rematch with the bitch,” he said. “I cut her, ya know. I cut her good right here.” He lifted his right arm, pointing to his ribs. “We’d have had her too, if I’d had some help. While she was putting out Benny, I sneaks in, catlike, and give her a slash. If someone had been there to help, I’d have cut her like a pig. Instead, her arm comes down and puts me out, like that. Hit me like a fuckin’ hammer, she did.”

  “You cut her?” I asked. “You saw blood?”

  “Hell, yeah. On her clothes and on my knife before she whacked me.”

  “You’re sure?” I insisted, leaning over the table in the visiting room and staring at him, deadly serious.

  Mastrangelo leaned back over the table at me and stared me in the eye “On my dead grandmother’s grave.”

  Immediately, I made a mental note to cut a deal and spring Mastrangelo. Here was a man who had gone toe-to-toe with the B.I.B. and was willing to do it again. Also, he had seen her, and that could be very valuable with the B.I.B. now in hiding.

  If it bleeds, I can kill it, I thought. If it bleeds, I can kill it. If it bleeds it can die.

  ***

  Flying over the city at night in the rain had to be the worst. But crime didn’t stop just because the weather was crappy, and the world didn’t operate for my convenience.

  I first heard about the beer truck on the police frequency but they seemed to be taking a really long time to respond. The first call was about a Miner’s truck out of the impound lot parked in a mostly commercial area, nothing dramatic. But then the second and third calls mentioned that there were sounds of people, mostly children, coming from inside the truck.

  Miner’s trucks being a special hobby of mine, I was immediately curious. How could kids have gotten trapped inside a beer truck? Concern for their safety overrode any questions I should have asked.

  When I flew over the truck, I could see a few curious bystanders observing on the streets around the truck or sheltered under nearby doorways. It was an old part of town with short brick buildings that renovation had passed over. I also saw police lights flashing a block away.

  I debated whether this was a job for me or not. There were police officers on the scene, but they were doing nothing. Then again, it was a beer truck, after all, and I wanted to make sure no more beer trucks were injured during the beer embargo. Heaven knows we would need as many as possible once it ended, and the fleet had taken a number of losses already. (What? I know it sounds silly, but I’ve grown attached to those lil’ suckers.) Oh, and I was worried about the kids too.

  That was when I heard the loud scream of a little girl come from the truck. The sound instantly triggered memories of Paige. I didn’t think, I just dove through a pelting rain and landed behind the truck. I heard the few people around cheer and call my name.

  I stood in the rain, looking more like a wet rat than a superhero, and listened for a moment. That was when I heard what sounded like a flock of birds flying past me and into the truck, one
after the other. It took me a tragic second to change from concern for the people in the truck to concern for myself. But when I had done that, I realized that the birds flying past me were ultra-high-caliber sniper rounds penetrating deep into the aluminum walls of the truck. My movements had been slow, but luckily quick enough that all the rounds zipping passed me had missed by fractions of an inch—except for the last one, which sliced over my arm despite my diving away from the truck. I could feel the impact and the pain, but my arm still worked and I was breathing.

  My breathing didn’t stop until the explosion reached me. The thunderous roar of the explosion of the truck sent a shock wave that caught me and threw me fifty feet down an alley. It collapsed parts of the three building closest to the blast and shattered windows for blocks around.

  Now the police responder had another call to place. Several of the people who witnessed the blast were down and not moving. Others cried in anguish for help.

  But I couldn’t help them. I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t feel anything. It was like I was alive only in my mind. I felt myself calmly drifting away. I hovered up above the alley and saw the flames of the burning remains of the truck and watched those who had survived scurrying away in the rain. I looked down and saw my black form still lying facedown in the alley, but somehow I didn’t feel surprise or concern. Memories flashed as I watched my still body—it was just like any pile of inanimate material; like a rock or a cloud, my body was there, but it was no longer me.

  Then I thought of Paige, as a baby, as a child, and imagined her as the woman she would be. I remembered how the last few months had made me feel alive with a burning passion that was the opposite of the calm indifference of death. I stared at the black hulk that had once been me and, that was when my passivity changed to panic. “Come on, Allie!” I screamed, but just kept drifting away. “Please!” I cried. “Please, Allie, come on!” But then as I continued to float away, I calmed a bit. “Paige, I am so sorry…so sorry.”