Masked (2010) (32 page)

Can’t I turn away for just an instant, just this once?

And somewhere past the edge of hearing, the wailing voice of Sarah Pennington calls out for help that will never arrive, joining the echoes of Cager Freeman’s dying cries, and his father’s pleas for mercy, and my sister Mindel shouting above the crackling flame, and all of the other countless voices crying out to be avenged. . .

. . . and I know that I have my answer.

Peter David
is an author, comic book scribe, and screen and television writer, whose résumé includes over fifty novels (many of them
New York Times
bestsellers), episodes of such television series as
Babylon 5
and
Space Cases
(which he created with Bill Mumy), and a twelve-year run on the comic book series
The Incredible Hulk
. He is the cocreator and author of the bestselling
Star Trek: New Frontier
series for Pocket Books, and scripted issues of such comic titles as
Supergirl, Young Justice, Soulsearchers and Company, Aquaman, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2099, X-Factor, Star Trek, Wolverine, The Phantom, Sachs & Violens,
and many more. Winner of an Eisner Award, as well as many other awards, David wrote the following tale with his wife, Kathleen.

P
ETER
D
AVID AND
K
ATHLEEN
D
AVID

The musician stood
on the curbside, gently strumming his guitar and nodding along with his own aimless tune. The young man sang equally aimless words that had the merit of rhyming without actually conveying any imagery or meaning. He liked that about his songs, believing that it meant they could be anything to anyone. His foot tapped along, half a beat behind. It was so disconcerting that people walking past him would trip slightly as his music put them out of synch.

“You suck,” one guy muttered as he walked past.

“Thank you,” said the musician cheerfully, as if a compliment had just been paid. He’d gotten used to it. Money was piling up in the guitar case that was open in front of him, and most of the people who dropped money in said the same thing: “For God’s sake, get some lessons.” His response continued to be “Thank you” in every case. No sense in pissing off the customers. The public knew
what it wanted: It wanted him to improve and cease being painful to listen to. That was fine with him.

“I had a feeling,” said an annoyed voice.

The musician’s eyes opened. He knew what he was going to see. The knowing didn’t make it any easier. If anything, it made it worse.

“I had a feeling you would be here,” said the man who was facing him. He wore his blue pinstripe suit like a badge of honor.

“A feeling.” The musician didn’t sound impressed. He stopped playing, an action that promptly drew scattered applause from passersby, who were pleased that they could resume their strides without risking tripping over their own feet. “Did that feeling have anything to do with being tipped off by the cops?”

“I am a cop. Of course they tip me off.”

“You’re not a cop, Dad,” he said with weary annoyance. “Working in the community PR department doesn’t make you a cop. It’s like saying the Mets equipment manager plays for them.”

“Maybe he’s not a player, but he’s still part of the team. And the guys on my team look out for me.”

“No, they look out for me. They spy on me. You’re the one they ratted me out to.”

“Look, Ari, you need to—”

“This is what I need to do, Dad,” Ari said firmly. He held up the guitar. “I need to do what I feel like doing.”

“And that’s this? Playing guitar badly on street corners while people toss you pennies?”

“Dollars,” Ari corrected him.

“As if that makes a difference.”

“It does to me. That makes a difference, and this makes a difference.” He held his guitar out toward his father. “This is my life. . .”

“You only started playing six months ago, for God’s sake! This isn’t your life, Ari. This is just the latest thing! And six months from now, it’ll be something else!” He lowered his voice and said intensely, “There are things you can be doing. Should be doing.”

“Like what? Like trying to convince neighborhood teens that Mister Policeman is their friend when the kids know that the cops would just as soon chuck them behind bars as look at them?”

His father ignored the jibe. He took a step closer and lowered his voice. “There was a bank robbery today just three blocks from here.”

“Yeah, I thought I heard something going on. Sirens and everything. Sounded like a mess.”

“You could have helped.”

“I don’t look good in nylons pulled over my face. Some people can make it work as a fashion statement, but—”

“I mean helped stop it! It was our kind of robbery, Ari! Someone who’s invisible, they think. Or a mind wiper. Nobody remembers anything. One minute it’s business as normal, and the next, all the cash drawers are empty.”

Ari moaned. “I don’t want this, Dad. You know that. I don’t want any part of this. . .”

“The security camera recordings were all blank—”

“Dad, for God’s sake, will you just—?”

And suddenly Ari was shoved to the ground. Before he even realized what was happening, someone had grabbed the guitar out of his hand. He had a brief glimpse of a scruffy-looking guy with ratty hair and even rattier coat. His father shouted angrily, made a grab for the guy, but the guy dodged away with the foot speed of a dancer and kept going. He started running.

His father made no effort to pursue him.

“Thanks, Dad,” muttered Ari, still on the ground, and then, taking action before he had the opportunity to think better of it, he slammed his head on the sidewalk.

It hurt like hell, which was typical.

The instant his skull banged against the sidewalk, an earsplitting blast of sound erupted from all around. People staggered, clutching at their ears, but the target of the sound blast was the thief. He was blasted right off his feet, sent flying through the air to
crash-land several feet down from where he’d been before. He lay there, looking stunned.

Ari staggered to his feet, the world swimming around him. His father was saying something to him, speaking with some urgency, but Ari couldn’t hear him. He knew the ringing would subside; it always did.

Pushing his father aside, he moved quickly down the sidewalk, staggering as he did so. He shook it off and made it to the fallen guitar thief. He yanked the guitar away from him and gave him a swift kick in the gut. The thief moaned. “This isn’t yours!” Ari told him angrily.

The thief glared up at him. “You can’t play worth a damn.”

His instinct was to say that he heard that a lot, but instead Ari said nothing. He could have called a cop or something, but he didn’t even want to be bothered with it. Instead he slung his guitar over his shoulder, moved back through the various pedestrians who were trying to shake off the effects of the thunder blast, and scooped out the money from his guitar case. His father said nothing, but instead just stood there and watched as Ari shoved the guitar into the case, closed the lid, snapped it shut, and stalked away.

His father watched him go, shaking his head. The thief who had stolen the guitar staggered up to him and glared. “You owe me, Ted,” he said. “You
so
owe me.”

“We’re trying to serve a greater good, Barry. Set my son on the right track.”

Barry rubbed his midsection. “That’s easy for you to say. You’re not the one who got kicked. I was ready to arrest the little jerk for assaulting a police officer.”

“Well, you
did
steal his guitar. . .”

“Because you asked me to, and it’s not like I couldn’t have busted him for vagrancy in the first place, and besides, stopping him from inflicting what he considers music on the public. . . that’s serving and protecting, if you ask me.” He winced once more.

“Sorry about that,” said Ted, indicating the injury. “Need some aspirin. . . ?”

“Bite me,” said Barry as he walked away, still rubbing his chest.

It was quiet at the DMZ that afternoon, except for Simon Wang’s high-pitched shouting, which was attracting the amused attention of the other patrons scattered throughout the pub. They nodded toward him and muttered, “There he goes again” and “Ignore him; he thrives on attention.” Simon didn’t hear any of it, and wouldn’t have cared if he had.

Simon hated the fact that his voice tended to go into upper registers when he was upset. He fought it as best he could, but it wasn’t something over which he had a good deal of control. The stocky young Asian man was thudding the table repeatedly with his open hand, or paw as some would have called it because of its being covered with thick, dark bristling hair, as was much of the rest of his body. “You swore to me, Xander! You swore it was a sure thing! You told me it was a sure thing!”

The object of his wrath, Xander Abono, looked up at him with bleary, red-rimmed eyes. His age was indeterminate; sometimes he seemed Simon’s age, sometimes younger, sometimes older. He was disheveled as always, wearing the only clothes he appeared to own: jeans, a dirty T-shirt with the Cleveland Cavaliers logo on it for reasons long forgotten if ever known, and a moth-eaten blue denim jacket. He took a slow drag on his bong, sighed contendedly, and then refocused on Hairbag. “I did?”

“Yes! You sat right there! You sat right there and you told me that it was going to be the Astros in four!”

“You mean in the World Series.”

“Yes! I asked you for a World Series prediction, and you said, ‘The Astros in four!’”

Xander squinted, looking inward rather than outward. “Yeah. Yeah, that sounds right. Okay.”

“And I bet on that! I bet big!”

“Okay.”

“And they lost!”

“Okay.”

“No, man! Not okay! They were blown out! They lost in four straight!”

“Yeah.”

Simon gaped at him. “Wait. You’re saying that’s the prediction you saw coming? Not that they were going to win in four straight, but that they were going to lose in four straight?”

“Looks like.”

“Then why the hell didn’t you say that?”

“I just kinda think losing is more interesting than winning.”

Simon moaned and sank down onto a chair.

From behind the pub’s bar, the bartender called over in her amused lilt, “Why do ye do this to yuirself, Hairbag? Why do ye keep asking him for predictions or to read peoples’ minds for ye?
Look
at him, for the love of Christ!”

“He’s the only seer I know, Selkie, and I don’t remember asking you, and by the way, I hate that name.”

“Christ?”

“
Hairbag!
I hate it when you call me Hairbag!”

“It’s yuir superhero name.”

“My hero name,” he reminded her archly, “is Monkey King. Because I’m descended from the Monkey King. So if you’re going to call me by a hero name, then call me Monkey King.”

“And what’ll ye do if I keep calling ye Hairbag? Throw poop at me?”

“Yeah, that joke just never gets old,” he said sourly.

Xander leaned forward and growled in his husky voice, “She’s got a little thing for you, y’know.”

“Oh, like I’m supposed to rely on you now. Don’t ever tell me anything again.”

Xander put up his hands defensively. “Just saying. You don’t have to be so cranky.”

“I’m cranky because I lost two hundred bucks thanks to you.”

“That and because you never get laid. Which brings me back to Selkie. . .”

“Shut up.”

“Just sayin’. . .”

Xander shrugged and leaned back. He stroked the bong absently. “You’ll be in a better mood when Vikki gets here.”

“Vikki’s not coming around today.”

“Yeah, she is. First Ari’s going to come in and mention her except it won’t be by name, and then she’ll come in.”

“She never comes around during the week. Only on weekends. During the week”—Simon’s hirsute face twisted in derision—“she’s too busy in her perfect little superhero wife world.”

“Not so perfect.”

Simon stared at him, his eyes narrowing. “What’s that supposed to mean? What do you know, Xander?”

Xander shrugged. “I thought you didn’t want me to tell you anything again. Make up your mind.”