Superhero (3 page)

William walked around toward the entrance. When he got there, he froze. What he saw reminded him of a war zone, something you’d see in a market in Iraq or Afghanistan after a suicide bombing. Police cruisers were smashed and overturned. The body of one of their own lay on the pavement of the parking lot, his head crushed to a pulp. Bits of displaced pavement surrounded everything.

He walked to the front and nodded to some of the other officers before entering the bank. The first thing he noticed was that the doorway had been bent on the sides, as if a car had driven through the entrance.

William’s partner, Heather Glazer, was speaking to a man that appeared to be management. He held a paper cup filled with water and his hand shook so badly water was spilling out onto the floor. William came up next to them but didn’t say anything.

“Agamemnon,” the banker said, “that’s what he said his name was. Agamemnon.”

“You’re sure?” Heather said.

“Yeah, I’m sure. You don’t forget someone like him.”

“Thank you for time, Mr. Norton. Please have a seat. You’ll be released shortly.”

The man nodded and walked away, glancing once to William.

“Agamemnon, huh?” William said. “That’s cute.”

“I think you better watch the footage, Will.”

He shrugged. “Sure.”

In the back room, William saw some forensic techs making copies of the surveillance videos on a portable digital recorder.

“Show him,” Heather said.

William stood behind everyone else and looked around the room as they cued the video. The room was bare except for a desk, a chair, and a computer. There were no decorations.

“Here it is,” one of the techs said.

William watched the monitor. Though it was in black and white, the picture was clear. It opened to the bank going about the business that a bank does. Customers waited in line, bankers in the side offices gabbed into phones, tellers concentrated on counting out cash.

And then, the screen went gray.

“What happened?” William said.

“That’s not the video,” the tech said, “that’s smoke.”

It took nearly two minutes to clear and every once in a while small, bright flashes would cut through the haze. Gunfire.

Once the smoke cleared William could see several men running around the bank, neutralizing everyone inside and gathering them together. The men were dressed in regular clothing and had dreadlocks. Myrs, William guessed. One of the most violent gangs in the city. But they weren’t into bank robberies; they were into selling dope. What were they doing here?

“This is it,” Heather said.

The doors bent as a figure walked through them. It didn’t register to William that it was human. But as it came into view, William could see the eyes and the nose, though the jaw was covered by a hunk of metal that would flash intermittently. The muscles were enormous, almost comical. But the metal suit caught his attention above everything else. It looked solid, like a steel door, but it moved with the figure. It was flexible. William had never seen a metal capable of doing that.

“What the hell is that?” William mumbled.

Heather shook her head. “Whatever it is, I think we’re going to need more men.”

William flinched as the man broke the neck of a teller and flung the body on the floor like a wet towel. The figure then went outside where the cameras didn’t have a good view, but at one point he could see a police cruiser flipping over and over until it was out of the frame.

The video ended and William asked to watch it again. He pushed past Heather and stood no more than a couple of feet from the monitor as he watched the figure terrorize and kill. When it was over, he stood up straight and shook his head.

“I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Terrorist groups?” Heather asked.

“Don’t even say that. Just mentioning it will make Homeland Security appear, and the last thing I need are a bunch of arrogant pricks running around messing with my witnesses and crime scene. But I don’t think that’s what this is. They would’ve tried to kill everyone. And they usually don’t care about the money. It’s a statement with them. This ain’t a statement.”

Heather took a deep breath. “Well, we better start talking to everybody. Looks like an even split. You want the men?”

“Sure. And I saw a news chopper up there. Get some uniforms to make sure we don’t have any reporters in here.”

“I’m on it.”

William stood a while and then asked the tech to play the video again. He told him to pause it when the figure pushed apart the metal doorframe. William glanced around, making sure no one was watching, and pulled the glasses out of the breast pocket of his button-up shirt. He put them on and leaned forward.

The figure’s face was wide and appeared hard. The eyes were set far apart and the forehead protruded. Clearly, the eyes had no pupils: just a ghostly whiteness. The man appeared like he had some sort of disorder. But as far as what it was, William hadn’t a clue.

“Would you like to watch it again, Detective?” the tech said.

“No, thanks. I think I’ve had my fill of him for now. I have a feeling I’m gonna be seeing more of him soon anyway.”

CHAPTER 4

Jack Kane pulled his Dodge Viper to a stop in front of the two-story home with the white picket fence. It appeared like something out of a movie. The perfect couple gets together and buys the perfect house. It even had a red wagon on the lawn.

He took a deep breath and stepped out of the car. The last time he was here, it hadn’t ended well. But that was nearly six years ago and he was a different man then.

Jack walked to the front door and went to knock but instead rang the doorbell. Something seemed too casual about knocking for him. He waited a few moments until he heard the door unlock and open.

A young girl stood there. She looked up at him, curiosity in her eyes, and none of the fear that children her age usually had upon seeing a stranger.

“Who are you?” she said.

Jack couldn’t suppress a smile. He crouched down to eye level. “Now you’re Autumn, aren’t you? Autumn, I remember when you were born. I was there in the hospital. See your daddy was fighting in Iraq and so I was who the nurses gave you too when you first came into this world. You weren’t any bigger than a football. You were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.”

She looked confused. “Who are you again?”

“Jack!” his sister yelled. She ran up from inside and threw her arms around his neck. She kissed him on the cheek and wouldn’t let go of him.

“How are you, Nic?”

“How am I?” she said, finally pulling away. “How am I?” She punched him in the shoulder. “Not even a call in over a year?”

“I was on a project I couldn’t call out on.”

A male voice from inside shouted, “Is that Jack?” A man with orange hair and a matching beard came out, his shirt tucked into some Dockers. He thrust out his hand and Jack shook it. “You look skinny.”

“Haven’t been eating well.”

“We’re gonna change that,” his sister said. “Come on, come in.”

Jack walked into the family home he grew up in and a sudden sense of peace and sadness filled him. Peace because there was nowhere in the world he felt more at ease, and sadness because, after eleven years, he was a stranger here.

“Autumn,” his sister said as she led Jack by the arm into the living room, “this is your uncle Jack. You used to call him Unkie ack. Do you remember that?”

The child smiled but looked confused, unable to pull up the memory.

His sister sat down next to him and Hank and Autumn sat on the sofa across from them. Jack noticed that Hank had gained at least thirty pounds, and the beard was new. He looked old and Jack wondered if time had aged him too but he just hadn’t noticed.

“So tell us everything,” Nicole said.

He smirked, tousling her hair. “You know I don’t want to talk about it.”

“How long are you here for?”

“This is it. I’m done.”

“What’dya mean?”

“I mean I’m done. I resigned from the DEA.”

She threw her arms around his neck again. “You mean you’re home for good?”

“As long as the city’ll have me.”

Hank smiled. “It’s good to see you, Jack. To be honest, I was forgetting what you looked like.”

“I know,” he said, smiling to Autumn. “I’ve neglected what’s important for what’s trivial. It was a mistake. I’m not going to be making that mistake again.”

“Does Mom know?” Nicole interrupted.

“No, I came straight here. Well, after the car dealership.”

“Don’t tell me that red penis mobile at the curb is your car.”

“Hank,” Nicole said, laughing.

“Just kidding. I’m mostly jealous.”

“I bled for that thing, Hank. I don’t think it was a fair trade. How’s my room?”

“Oh you have to go see it,” his sister said. “We kept it the same. Hank wanted to turn it into a billiards room but I knew you’d be back soon.”

Jack leaned down and kissed his sister on the top of the head, feeling emotion swell up inside him as he heard her cell phone dial a number and his mother’s voice come on the line.

Jack was stuffed by the time dinner was over. His entire family was at Nicole’s house, over thirty people including kids. Two of his brothers were arguing about the Democratic Party’s stance on the Second Amendment and Jack used it as an opportunity to sneak away and head upstairs to his old room.

The photos in the hallway upstairs hadn’t been changed. Him in his martial arts uniforms, boxing, wrestling…and some of his father, who had passed four years ago. Jack had been on assignment in Japan and wasn’t able to attend the funeral.

“He’s already gone,” he had told Nicole over the phone, “it won’t matter if I come back.” But, somehow, he knew it did matter. He was the eldest son and his not being at the funeral was a disappointment to his family.

His siblings weren’t as athletic but a few photos featured Nicole at chess tournaments throughout California, something she gave up when she got married. He wished they had taken down the photo at the end. It was of him at three years old, sitting on the steps of St. Catherine’s Youth Home, waiting for his biological parents to pick him up. He didn’t remember what they looked like now and he was grateful. His family was here; in every way that mattered, this was his family.

But he still thought about them. He remembered his mother in a white laboratory coat smiling and kissing him though her face was blank now. Faded with the sands of time. He wondered if she looked like him. He figured she must’ve been some sort of professional though he didn’t remember anything about his father.

He went to his old room and stood at the doorway. The bed was exactly the same. They hadn’t even changed his sheets. He walked in and sat down on the bed. Posters of Michael Jordan and Miami Vice were up on the wall. On the small desk in the corner was a photo of him and Master Uyeshiba, his sensei when he had spent the few years after high school in Kyoto, training at the master’s academy.

He thought of the little old man throwing two-hundred-pound students across the room as easily as one would pillows. He thought he was superhuman at the time. Age and physics didn’t seem to affect him.

Jack rose and took in a deep breath, unable to suppress his smile.

CHAPTER 5

Despite the insistence of his sister and her husband, Jack bought a condo in Burbank twenty minutes from their home rather than stay with them. The place was empty and he didn’t have the desire to decorate it so he hired an interior decorator and told him to furnish it as well.

Jack had no need of money, as his biological parents had left no heir upon their deaths. The executor of their estate knew about Jack, and tracked him down rather than letting the government get their hands on the family money. But he still wondered what he was going to do for work.

He once learned about a thought experiment that said you should imagine yourself walking into a bookstore. The first section that you go to is the field you’re supposed to have your career in. Jack always went to the martial arts and then the science sections; his undergraduate degree was in mathematics.

Though he didn’t need it, he understood that work occupied the mind and gave a person purpose. Without it, you would drift aimlessly and then adopt a nihilist stance that could lead to depression. He’d always wanted his own martial arts studio to pass down everything he had learned to others and decided he would go scout out locations today. But first, there was someone he had to visit.

He took Santa Monica Boulevard for the view, and eventually, after an hour and a half of driving and watching the crystal-blue of the ocean spread out before him, he made it to the LAPD’s Hollywood Division. He parked in visitor parking and it hit him that he forgot to get an alarm installed on his Viper. Something else for the to-do list.

He walked into the precinct and to the reception desk. A woman in a police uniform was helping a man make a report, and Jack waited patiently behind him. Hollywood Division wasn’t exactly South Central, but still, a good number of drunks and prostitutes and wife-beaters yelled from the holding cells and had fingerprints and photographs taken.

When the man in front of him had finished, he stepped forward and said, “Officer William Yates please.”

“
Detective
Yates is currently in a meeting. You can have a seat if you want and I’ll buzz him when he’s done.”

“That would be great, thank you.”

Jack sat down on some chairs set out as a waiting area and looked to the small, circular coffee table with old magazines piled on it. He sifted through them but found nothing interesting except a three-month-old copy of
Sports Illustrated
. He started flipping through it when someone screamed near the entrance.

He glanced over and saw an officer holding his neck, blood running over his fingers, and two other officers jump on a man with dreadlocks. The man with the dreadlocks was laughing hysterically, blood dribbling down his chin, his teeth stained red. The two officers tackled him and one of them strapped a gag over his mouth to prevent any more biting. Lifting him by his arms, they carried him to a cell.