Gods of Manhattan (24 page)

Maya reached to grip his shoulder, gently. "You really think it was him? A scheme he didn't live to see completed?"

Doc shook his head. "I don't know." He looked up at her, and she saw the weariness in his eyes. "I don't know, Maya. I don't know the answers. I thought Donner was the only person who knew who I was or how I came to be, so... but I'm probably wrong. I don't know."

He paused, then sat down, reaching for the cold coffee. He took a sip and grimaced. "And I don't know about you and me, either. I don't know if you can trust me - if you want to trust me to never make a mistake again, you can't do that. You can't trust me not to fail." He turned and looked at her. "But I need you anyway. I need you for this. Because I don't know what the hell I'm going to do next, Maya."

She stared at him for a moment, frowning coldly at him. "No, Doc Thunder doesn't know. I think Doc Thunder's about run his course." Then she broke into a half-smile. "But I think you do."

He looked at her for a long moment, then spoke. "Find out who's got my blood, if anyone has. That's priority one-" He was interrupted by the door to the lab opening.

Marcel entered, carrying a try with two cups of hot, steaming coffee, prepared perfectly. "Monsieur, Madame. Everything is worked out, I trust?"

Maya smiled. "Not nearly. But I think we've made a start."

Marcel nodded. "
Très bien!"
He noticed the unopened paper. "Ah, Monsieur - you may want to look in the classified section today." He smiled, opening the paper to the correct page and thrusting it under Thunder's nose.

"What am I looking for?"

"
El Sustantivo -
just there, in the bottom left hand corner."

Doc nodded. "Hmmm. Looks like our friend from last night wants to contact me. Or somebody." He raised an eyebrow at Maya. "About my stolen blood, too. Very convenient."

"You think it could be a trap?" Maya frowned, peeking over his shoulder.

"It's in Grand Central Station. That's a very public place, at least. Still..." He frowned, folding the paper and tossing it onto the workbench. "I think keeping that appointment might prove to be a very big mistake."

Maya nodded. "So. What are you going to do?"

Doc Thunder looked at her.

"Make it."

Chapter Thirteen

The Case of The Quisling of Crime

"
Wuxtry, wuxtry! All the news, all the time, for a dime! Doc Thunder in battle with the Face Of Fear! Don't ask, just buy it. Red Mask sighted on hospital rooftop during deadly affray! Anton Venger returns from grave only to die a second time! Read all about the riddle of the missing doctor and the murdered master of disguise. Face it, true believer, this is the one! It's the pulse-pounding front page scoop we just had to call: 'IF DOOM BE HIS DESTINY!' Wuxtry, wuxtry! All in colour for a dime!"

The paperboy's shrill cries echoed through the bustling station, competing with the grizzled old hot dog vendor -

"
One dollar five! Guaranteed unhealthy! C'mon, you assholes wanna live forever?"

- and the sushi vendor ten feet away, trying to keep the stench of frying onions out of his fish -

"
Nigiri, fifty cents! Roll, sixty cents! We got tuna, we got eel, we got crunchy katsu pork! Just like mama makes!"

- and the pencil-thin young man with his pencil-thin moustache, selling costume jewellery from a cheap suitcase -

"
Gen-yoo-wine fake diamonds! Gen-you-wine necklaces, chokers, bracelets, earrings made from real glass! Three dollars - can you say no, folks? Hand 'em over by candlelight, you can always run in the morning!"

-
and the slick, sharp-dressed breaker kids, taking off their zoot jackets to windmill on a flat sheet of card, two more playing the toms and freestyling over the top while a pair of bulls watched and tapped their feet -

"-
I'm the c-a-s an' the o-v-a an' the rest is f-l-y -"

- and the porters calling the trains, and the passengers calling each other, and the luggage trolleys rumbling over the tiled floor, and the sounds of a thousand pairs of moving feet, echoing back and forth from one wall to the other and back.

Grand Central Station at night.

All human life was here - the housewife running from her abusive husband to her sister in Schenectady, the banker who couldn't face his wife's cooking without a couple of tonkatsu pork rolls inside him, the cops on the beat arguing about whether Warhol had finally lost it with all this dreampunk crap, the kid sleeping rough on the streets who'd wandered in to get out of the rain, the British tourists pointing and gawping at everyone else in between looking at their map and wondering how to walk to the Statue Of Liberty...

...and up above them, up, up in the shadowy arches of the station, where the gaslight didn't reach, there was a man in a pitch-black coat and a metallic, blood-red mask with eight glittering lenses, who carried a pair of automatic pistols, and he watched them all.

Watched and waited.

Occasionally, he glanced at the clock that told the bustling crowds how late they were for the trains they could never hope to catch now. Eight fifty-nine, and fifty seconds, fifty-one, fifty-two... he watched, his fingers on the triggers itching, buzzing, yearning, as the second hand passed the top of the arc and began a new circuit around the dial.

Nine o'clock. No sign of him.

The Blood-Spider hissed irritably into his mask.

How typical of Doc Thunder to be late for his own funeral.

"I do so wish you'd reconsider this course of action, Master Parker."

Three hours before, Jonah had expressed his misgivings about the whole venture. It had come very close to ruining an otherwise excellent dinner of roast quail and asparagus tips.

"Surely it would be safer to wait until you had, ah, acquired abilities commensurate to the good Doctor before embarking on a campaign against him?" Jonah swallowed, unused to this sort of confrontation. Crane only smiled.

"Jonah, if I suddenly turn up being able to bend steel and leap the height of a decent-sized office building, he'll put two and two together. He knows
somebody
stole his blood. No, better to pick him off now before he suspects my involvement. Who knows, maybe I'll get lucky and Donner's murderer will turn up as well - warn him of the trap. Two birds with one stone." He lifted a forkful of quail to his lips, chewing meditatively for a moment. "And consider the larger picture, Jonah. America's Greatest Hero, gunned down in public! In the panic and tumult, the question goes up; who will replace him? His friends either die in mysterious circumstances or sail away to their forbidden cities, if they know what's good for them. And then..."

He leaned back, smiling expansively. "A new Doc Thunder, for new times. The Blood Thunder." He laughed. "Blood and thunder! That's rather good, isn't it?"

Jonah swallowed. "Master Parker, please. Remember the cause. The war." He laid his hand gently on Crane's shoulder. "You're taking a terrible risk. You seem to be becoming... unstable. Remember, Sir, that while you do have great power, you also have a grave responsibility."

Crane shook his hand off. "I'll decide what my responsibilities are, Jonah. And I say this is the best chance to further the cause we've had yet. Doc Thunder dead, all his power in my hands... and total war with the inhuman elements of our society. War to the death!"

Jonah looked at him for a long moment, and it was impossible to tell if what lay behind his eyes was reproach or pity. "I see. In that case, I will leave you to prepare, Sir." He began to clear away Crane's meal, then took a look around the dusty confines of the Lower Library. "One more thing, though, Sir, if I may."

"Get on with it."

"Sir -" Jonah took a deep breath. "- you are spending rather a worrying amount of time down here, in this room, sequestered away from the other Jameson Club members. There are other rooms in the club where you may take an early supper without raising quite so many eyebrows."

Crane snorted. "And are there other rooms in the club where I may openly discuss the murder of such a prominent celebrity? With ammunition secured from the ashes of a known terrorist organisation? Hmm? Dry up, Jonah."

"Sir, please -"

"I said dry up!" Crane bellowed the words. "I'm the leader of this particular organisation, Jonah. Do you understand me? I decide what our strategy is! I decide who to
kill!
And I decide whether or not to leave my comfortable little nook here and spend my valuable time with those
overstuffed blowhards
up
there!"
His voice rose, uncaring, until it was almost a shriek.

Jonah looked at him in horror.

"Soundproof walls, Jonah." Crane smiled, his grey eyes mischievous. "Now, tell me again how you'd rather I said all that upstairs in the smoking room while passing out cigars."

Jonah blinked, the look of shock still palpable on his face, and turned to leave. He did not say a word.

"Oh, and Jonah - telephone. I'm going to need Ms. Lang tonight, I think.
She
at least knows how to obey an order."

Nine o' clock.

Marlene Lang waited patiently. Back straight in the leather seat, cap pulled down over blonde hair styled in a very severe bun, mirrored sunglasses. Hands in the ten and two position, unmoving. Lips frowning in an icy pout.

She'd held the position for fifteen minutes, and fully intended to hold it until the Blood-Spider's business in the station was concluded, whatever it might be. At which point, he would make his way to the Silver Ghost, parked in a dark alley two blocks away, and they would drive to a safe location which he would make known to her at that time, and not before. It was all deliciously professional.

Professionalism was her new watchword, she had decided.

David had called earlier in the day, and she had told him, in what she felt was a very reasonable tone, that she would no longer be modelling for him at his studio. She'd let him have his say, quietly enduring his wheedling, passive-aggressive tone as he'd begged her to reconsider, his voice echoing tinnily over the receiver as he told her that without her as his muse he had no reason to create his art, that his talent needed her beauty as its essential focus - lies of that nature. She had sighed, like a schoolmistress lecturing a petulant child.

"David, it's very simple. I just have better things to do with my time."

And with that, she'd hung up on him. She would probably have done the same if Jack had called, or Easton. Even Parker - her fellow crime-fighter - would find her closed for anything other than the most pressing business. Since the trouble of the previous night, she'd found herself infused with an almost religious fervour for the cause. It had been the first time she had fully entertained the possibility, which she surmised was still quite real, that the Blood-Spider could be exposed or killed at any moment, and might even end up dragging her down with him. Faced with a choice between dealing herself out of the game before things escalated further and throwing herself into the whole dangerous enterprise wholeheartedly and without restraint, she had chosen the latter. Well, of course she had.

Any other choice would simply have been too dreary for words.

She idly checked her eyeshadow in the rear view mirror. Professionalism was the new watchword in all things, and that meant keeping herself immaculate.

When her eyes looked forward again, there was a man standing in front of the auto.

He was a well-built man, of Latin descent, handsome apart from a freshly broken nose and the wet, bedraggled state of his hair. Although that was somewhat made up for by his wearing nothing but a pair of tuxedo trousers and red sash tied around his face with two holes in it. In his right hand, he was holding a very dangerous looking sword.

"Nice wheels."

She stared at him for a long moment, then went for the pistol she'd hidden under her seat, ducking her head for a moment and grabbing the handle of the gun in a practiced motion, bringing it up to fire at - nothing.

The man was gone, as suddenly as he'd appeared.

She blinked, looking up and down the alley for any sign of him. Nothing. He'd simply vanished. Uneasily, she fingered the safety on the pistol, then laid it on the seat next to her. She wanted to be ready if that strange man - whoever he turned out to be - should appear again.

She wondered why his hair had been wet.

Two blocks away, Doc Thunder walked into Grand Central Station.

For a moment, he simply stood on the balcony overlooking the main concourse, closed his eyes and breathed it all in; the smell of roasting onions, hot dogs, sticky rice, shoe polish, perfume, honest sweat. The soft, insistent buzz of conversation, the shuffle of feet, the yell of station announcements, the tapping-out of the beat of a pair of toms, the whistle of the trains on their distant platforms.

Humanity, in all its glory.

When he opened his eyes, the crowd was looking back at him.

One by one, they'd turned to look at the big man in the blue t-shirt, the man who'd fought back against the Hidden Empire when all seemed lost, who'd stopped Untergang, N.I.G.H.T.M.A.R.E., Lars Lomax, Anton Venger, Professor Zeppelin, the steam-powered giant robot ape Titanicus, Mordus Madgrave and his army of the risen dead, Captain Death and the Pirates of Wall Street, the Orchestra Of Fear, Jason Satan and so many others. A rogue's gallery of maniacs, mutants, monsters and madmen. For fifty years, while others had come and gone, he'd stood firm against them all.