"The Land Beyond the Law"
May. 18th, 2022 05:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dochermes"The Land Beyond the Law"
10/1/2002
I.
There were two uniformed officers in the hall outside. Their image showed on the monitor mounted high on the wall of the tiny reception room. Coming to a halt on his way from the inner office, Jeremy Bane studied them warily. Every detail seemed authentic, from the shoes to the regulation haircuts. He couldn't spot anything that gave them away as imposters. Both men were about his own height of six feet even, both in their early thirties, both fairly fit-looking. The Dire Wolf watched as one pressed the buzzer again.
Now in his mid-forties, Bane still looked almost the same as he had at twenty-one. He was still gaunt and restless, still wearing all black, still regarding the world through cold grey eyes in a narrow feral face. He opened the door to the hallway casually enough, but he did stand back just out reach as he did so. "Yes, officers?"
"Are you Jeremy Bane?"
"I might be. Why do you ask?"
The nearer cop sighed. This close, it could be seen he had suffered a little acne as a youth, enough to help identify him. "Lt Montez sent us to come get you."
"Am I under arrest? Or being detained as a material witness?"
Nothing like that," the cop answered patiently. "The lieutenant didn't tell us why he wants to see you. We're bringing you to a crime scene uptown."
"All right," Bane said. He had read their name tags, spotted a few scars or moles on each of them in case he had to describe them. "Let me close up my office, I'll be right out." He closed the door, not hurriedly, and went back to his inner office. There was really nothing he needed to do there except turn off the lights. He was testing the officers to see how they would react. After a minute, he went back to the outer door and found them still standing there blandly.
As he closed the door behind him, it locked automatically. Bane said, "This is not helping my image. A private investigator being taken away from his own office by two policemen."
"Those are our orders. But, we're not holding your arms or anything."
The three of them walked across the lobby, past the EMERGENCY ONE clinic and out the double glass doors that slid open automatically. A black and white squad car waited at the curb, and Bane opened the back door himself and got in. It was a little gesture, but he thought anyone watching would realize he was going voluntarily. The two cops got in and the car eased out into traffic. There was no small talk as they headed north, then swung west and proceeded to Tenth Avenue, stopping at a drab red brick building which had another police car parked in front of it. Standing in the door was a bulky form that Bane came to recognize.
Lt Joseph Montez seemed to have been getting his weight down lately. If he lost another thirty pounds, he would actually be a good-looking man. He had thick black hair and regular features but the extra weight worked against him. Today he was wearing a dark grey suit with a bright blue tie that didn't match well. As the squad car pulled up, Montez walked briskly over and motioned to Bane to get out. The window in front slid down, and as the driver looked up, Montez said, "You two are dismissed. I've got Mullen here."
Bane stepped up onto the sidewalk and glanced over as the car drove away. "Morning, lieutenant."
"Bane. Got something you need to see. Follow me." They went in through a vestibule that smelled of fresh paint, down a short hallway and stopped at an open door where a big officer stood with folded arms. Bane recognized the man as Pete Mullen, a twenty-year veteran who had come to be Montez' regular choice to assist at crime scenes. Mullen stepped aside and Montez gestured for Bane to approach the doorway.
"You know not to touch anything," Montez said. "Forensics is on their way, they got held up at another site."
Standing in the doorway, the Dire Wolf glanced around. It was a good-sized apartment, with an open door that showed the foot of a bed and another door that would be the bathroom. A refrigerator and sink were in one corner but there was no stove. A big-screen TV was showing a sports channel with a bookcase beside it that took up much of one wall. Another had two curtained windows that looked out on 64th Street. There was a light tan couch with cushions, two comfortable-looking chairs facing it, and a coffee table littered with papers. By one arm of the couch was a stand with a lamp and a glass of water that held an upper plate. Sprawled on a green and brown oval rug was a body. From the doorway, Bane judged the dead man to have been about sixty, on the stocky side, no more than five feet seven. The body was lying on its back, a revolver clenched in the right hand and a gaping hole over the right ear.
"I've never seen him before," Bane said after a minute. "You have an ID?"
"Sure. Clement Woodbury, aged sixty-one, never married and no kids. I questioned him twice myself. He worked at a pawn shop down by Mulberry Street and he was suspected of handling stolen merchandise but nothing was ever pinned on him. We do know he had some friends who have done time."
Bane took two steps into the apartment and crouched down, studying the body. Woodbury had been wearing dark blue slacks, a white undershirt and white socks. The wound was consistent with a point-blank gunshot and the blood spray seemed right if the man had been standing when he shot himself. Standing up again, the Dire Wolf folded his arms, then turned around to face Montez in the doorway. "You know this wasn't a suicide, right?"
"I don't think it was. Let's hear your thoughts."
Glancing back at the apartment, Bane said, "The TV's on. He's in his socks and undershirt. His dentures are out in the open. Most suicides would have turned off the TV and been fully dressed. I don't know why, they just seem to do it. I haven't looked for a note, but if there is one, I bet it's bogus. But that's not the main reason."
Despite himself, Montez let a smile creep across his face. "Go on."
"The gun is still in his hand," Bane said quietly. "That's not unusual, many times a hand will lock up in a violent death. Your boys will have trouble prying it loose. But look. All four fingers are on the butt. How could he have pulled the trigger?"
"Good. Yeah, I thought at first you weren't a real detective, just a fighter, but you spotted that right away. Anything else?"
Bane turned back. "Those papers on the coffee table are newspaper clippings. I can't read them from here, but they're in a neat stack. No envelope, no folder. Obviously, I'm not going to go through them before forensics gets here but I think they were left as a clue for us."
Stepping closer, Montez looked past Bane at the coffee table. "I already took a peek. Wearing gloves. They are all about different serial killers and maniacs from the past twenty years. Samhain. El Pantera. Seneca. Dr Sabbath. Sepulchre. And they share one common characteristic."
"Me," Bane said.
"You got it. You either caught them or killed them, justifiable homicide of course, to stop them in the act of murder or in your own self-defense. Two of them disappeared without a trace while you were on their trail. You're the common link. But the clipping on top was for a real mastermind, not a srrial killer."
The Dire Wolf nodded. "Cobalt Jack."
II.
An hour later, Bane stepped out onto the sidewalk and started walking. The forensics team was finishing up, and Montez had dismissed him with a wave. The lieutenant had been sure to question Bane in front of everyone, putting just a little suspicion in his voice and ending with a warning not to leave the metropolitan area. Bane went along with it, just as he had with Inspector Klein for twelve years. Officially, the NYPD certainly did not use the infamous Dire Wolf as a sort of freelance vigilante when crimes of an inexplicable or supernatural nature occurred. Montez, like Klein before him, had come to expect Bane to jump at the chance the confront madmen and monsters, and with good reason.
Walking briskly south, Bane mulled the situation over. Despite the observations he made in the apartment and despite his record trapping maniacs, he realized he was not a first-class detective. Michael Hawk had instructed him years ago, but Hawk could have stepped into that apartment and rattled off two dozen more deductions that Bane would never have spotted. No, he realized he was in fact basically a warrior most valuable when the violence started. Reaching 50th Street, he turned left and headed across town. As always, he was hungry. The accelerated metabolism that gave him his enhanced reflexes also meant he was always restless and starving. At a deli, he stopped in and grabbed a roast beef sub and a bottle of apple juice and consumed it all as he walked.
At Third Avenue, he turned right. He had never crossed paths with cobalt Jack and didn't really know much about the man. Heading south, he reached 44th Street and the four-story yellow brick building which held EMERGENCY ONE, a couple of doctors' offices, a posh spa and his office. Bane strode through the lobby and into a short hall made by the staircase going up. To his left at the end of the hall was a simple wooden door with a brass plaque that read DIRE WOLF AGENCY. He unlocked the door and entered the reception room. This was just big enough to hold two straightback chairs and a low table with a few newspapers on it. He realized the calendar next to the inner door still had the April page and he tore it off.
Once in his office, Bane went straight to his desk and dropped down in the chair behind it. That crime scene was the oddest trap he had seen in a while. It seemed clear that someone had killed that man, Clement Woodbury, and set it up to look like a suicide. But it had not been done well. There were so many hints that it had been faked. Maybe the killer was an amateur who hadn't known any better and had thought he was being clever, or maybe it was a pro who really WAS clever and had messed things up so that the police would catch on. That business with the newspaper clippings bothered him. They had been planted there, he was certain. And he HAD brought down all the killers in the clippings. Was that too subtle? Were he and Lt Montez reading something into those clippings that wasn't there? What was the point? Was someone trying to get him to go after Cobalt Jack or was that clue a challenge from Jack himself? Why? Was Bane a threat to the man somehow?
His head hurt. This had been so much simpler with the KDF, equipped with the rows of filing cabinets full of records and all the computer data instantly available. But that was over now. He had stepped down as chairman so that the new team could operate on their own without him. It was tempting to just go back to 38th Street and get Sable or Trom Girl to help him investigate with their special abilities. Bane scowled and picked up his phone to call Bleak. Over the years, he had turned down rewards from clients and people he had saved, asking instead that they keep him informed if they learned about any mysterious events going on. Some had become regular reporters for him, getting a small monthly retainer and sending him reports. Bleak was the best of these unofficial agents, but he wasn't answering his phone and Bane didn't leave a message. After a few more calls to his reporters were unhelpful, Bane called the police station on 20th Street and tried to reach Montez. He was talking to a sergeant on duty at the front desk when he heard screams outside.
In a blur, he was out of his chair and into the lobby, slamming the door to his office behind him. Bane moved so quickly that most people were confused about what they had seen. There was a crowd gathering on the street outside the building and he roughly shoved his way into the crowd. The dirty looks didn't bother him. There on the sidewalk was a tall thin black youth, no more than twenty years old. His head was bent too far over for him to be alive and there was a blossom of bright red blood beneath it. Some of the people were pointing up at the roof of the building Bane had just left. As soon as he saw this, the Dire Wolf spun around back into the lobby and raced up the stairs faster than most athletes could run on a level surface. At the fourth floor, he hurtled toward the far end where a door said NO ADMITTANCE. It was ajar, the lock broken. A piece of wood was chipped out just above the lock. Hardly breaking stride, he hurried up narrow metal stairs to the roof.
No one was there. The Wolf glared in all directions. The nearest building on the west side was two stories higher, which ruled out anyone jumping over the alley to it. Two sides of the roof looked down on the streets, the third side was over the small parking lot. He saw no signs of a rope or anything that someone could have used to lower themselves. Bane realized his fists were clenched so hard they began to hurt and he made them loosen. He circled the roof and, sure enough, on the spot where the young man had fallen off- or been pushed- there was a folded piece of red paper. Furious in a way he seldom allowed himself to be, he bent and opened it up. It was the dessert menu for a diner in New Jersey.
III.
Walking down the stairs much more slowly than he had gone up them, Bane saw office workers and clients at the windows facing the west side, staring down and discussing the sight in low voices. On the second floor, one of the beauticians at the spa glanced over and saw him. "Isn't it terrible?" she said just above a whisper.
He didn't recognize her but then he was never on this floor. "I can hardly believe it," he answered. "Someone said he was just a teenager."
"This city," she muttered, and turned back to the window. Bane descended the last flight of stairs and found the lobby had a dozen people standing just inside the doors. He could see the flashing lights of police cars outside and an ambulance. Bane listened to what the crowd was saying for a few minutes, then went to his office. Closing the door behind him, he began to pace and slowly the anger subsided to a cold determination. His phone sat on his desk where he had dropped it when he heard the screams. The police sergeant had hung up by now, of course. Five minutes passed as he sat there lost in thought, waiting for the inevitable buzz from the hallway door. When it sounded, he got up and went through the reception room to let Lt Montez and Officer Mullen in.
"Why aren't you outside watching?" Montez asked as soon as the door opened.
"I got a look. Nothing I can do out there." Bane went over to the desk and motioned for them to sit in the chairs before it. "Let me guess. The dead man out there was on the outskirts of the criminal life. Like Clement whatever his name was. Woodbury."
"Yeah. Marcus Goodwin, nineteen, unemployed. He sold a little pot to his friends, never enough to be worth prosecuting. Lost his drivers license for speeding tickets. Looks like he took a dive off the roof of your building the same day Woodbury got a bullet in the head," Montez said. "Where were you when he hit the sidewalk?"
Bane handed the lieutenant his phone. "Here. Look at the number and time of my last call."
Checking the screen, Montez snorted. "Who were you talking to at headquarters for six minutes?"
"Sergeant Crosby. The guy with the sideburns. He was asking about the death of Woodbury and I kept telling him to talk to you, I had no comment."
"Talk about an alibi. You might as well have been playing cards with the mayor." Turning to Mullen, he explained, "Mr Dire Wolf here called headquarters five minutes before Marcus Goodwin went off the roof. He was talking to Sergeant Crosby at the moment of impact. All right. What do you know about that poor guy out there?"
Bane shrugged and puts his hands flat on the desk in front of him. "Never heard of him. Marcus Goodwin? No. Could there be something on him that relates to Cobalt Jack, do you think?"
"Not as far as I could tell. Say, how come you never tackled Cobalt Jack yourself?"
"I was wondering that myself. We just never tangled. If we had crossed paths, I know I would have nailed him."
"You know, Bane, someday you're going to go up somebody better than you. Faster, tougher, smarter."
"I already have. Several times. Somehow I find a way to come out on top."
"So far," Montez said. "All right, I've got a lot of people to question. Sure you can't be of any help?"
Bane stood up. "I'm going to be making phone calls, checking with people I know. I think someone is trying to use me as a weapon against Cobalt Jack and that's the person behind these deaths."
"That thought crossed my mind. Okay. Check with me before you leave the building." Montez got up with just a little difficulty from the straightback chair. Bane went with them out into the lobby, where several officers were asking questions of people who worked in the building. There was a buzz of a dozen voice low voices talking at the same time.
"This is not something I'm any good for," Bane said. "I'm going to investigate my own way." He turned and went back into his office. The long window looking out on Third Avenue was always covered by opaque curtains. The Dire Wolf knelt by the waist-high bookcase, unlatched the hidden casters and swung the bookcase around to reveal a pit he had chiseled himself. He drew out an old-fashioned black trunk and opened it, taking out his field suit. Standing up again, Bane removed his street clothes and folded them on a chair. He was wearing what looked like a tight bodysuit of dark silk but which was actually flexible Trom armor that only exposed his head and his arms from the elbows. As always, the two silver daggers were already strapped to his forearms; he rarely went anywhere without them. Bane felt a distinct excitement as he got into the black pants and jersey, then tugged on the heavy boots. The waist-length jacket had its own inner layer of the Trom armor, and various gadgets and weapons were already in their specific pockets. Putting on the field suit brought back a wave of memories of days with both KDF teams. He hadn't needed the extra protection and weaponry since he had stepped down and re-opened his detective agency but against Cobalt Jack, he thought it was a good idea.
Picking up what looked like a motorcycle helmet with a visor that retracted internally, the Dire Wolf lowered it over his head and checked out its systems. Light amplifiers, directional sound enhancers, air filters.. all were working. Replacing the trunk into the pit and wheeling the bookcase over it again, he removed the helmet and tucked it under one arm. He decided on the anesthetic dart gun rather than the regular Smith & Wesson .38, and holstered it in the small of his back under his jacket for the moment. Bane glanced around the office once and headed out.
The lobby was even more crowded than before as more police had arrived and were taking statements. Bane located Montez and went over to him.
"Oh, I've seen that outfit before," Montez grumbled. "The morgue's gonna be busy tonight."
"I think I have a lead, but it's not promising. Maybe I'm wasting my time. It beats sitting in there waiting for a third fake suicide." Bane pointed a thumb at the other end of the hall. "I'm using the back door. Got anything from witnesses?"
"Nothing useful," the lieutenant admitted. "You know, I should detain you here until everything's settled. Could be another few hours and I didn't question you properly."
"Or you could let me do my job. Lieutenant, off the record and we never had this conversation and so on, but you know what I'm meant to be doing."
Montez hesitated. He had grudgingly accepted letting Bane get results. In the past few months, Montez had learned a little about the Midnight War and although it scared him and gave him a few sleepless nights, he had come to admit that there were times when a Dire Wolf was needed. "All right. Mullen! Escort Bane here for a block or two."
Without a word, the beefy officer led Bane to the smaller single exit door at the back of the lobby, going past two cops who returned his nod. At Forty-Third Street, Mullen said, "I'll be going back now."
"Thanks," Bane replied and took off at his usual pace down toward 40th Street. He swung over to Lexington Avenue and hurried down the concrete ramp of the Imperial Garage. His dark green Subaru Outback was in its designated spot. The tiny blue and green security lights on the visor over the driver's side winked reassuringly. He got in, placing the helmet on the seat next to him and started the car up, then rolled out into traffic and headed for the Lincoln Tunnel. He had nothing to work with except a clue that had been deliberately left for him, but Bane felt at least the hunt had begun again.
IV.
An hour later, Bane drove into Simmons, New Jersey. This was outside his usual area, and to him it seemed like just miles of highway with plazas on either side. Endless stores and supermarkets and restaurants. He pulled into a gas station to make sure he had a full tank, then checked the fluids and the tires and to clean the windows. This was so ingrained in him that he hardly realized he was doing it. As long as he was parked off to one side, he got his box of maps from the trunks and studied Northern New Jersey, making sure he had the nearby roads clear in his mind. Picking up a foil-wrapped hamburger and bottle of seltzer, the Dire Wolf pulled back out into traffic. Soon he was out of the city itself, there started to be stretches of trees and undeveloped land on either side. The hamburger was awful and he couldn't finish it.
It was getting near dusk. There to his right was a chrome and neon diner with a blinking sign that said MAJESTIC on its roof, with additional signs promising great food at low prices. Behind and to one side of the diner was a cinder block building that had DISCOUNT BEVERAGES - BEER WINE SODA across its picture window. It looked as if it had been closed for some time. Bane pulled over across the road and parked his car. Putting on his helmet, he fiddled with the controls in the left ear pod and activated the telescoping function in the visor. He hadn't used this in years and it took some adjustments. For a long twenty minutes, the Dire Wolf studied the area. As daylight faded, he turned up the light enhancers. The people going in and out of the diner seemed normal enough. Once a man in white pants with an apron over a white polo shirt stepped around from behind the diner and smoked half a cigarette before rushing back inside. Then, catching movement by the closed beverage store, Bane focused the visor. It was a man, looked pretty tall, dark clothing. He peeked around the left edge of the beverage store for just a few seconds.
A wicked predatory grin broke out on Bane's narrow face. Stepping out of his Mustang, he strode quickly across the road and into the diner parking lot, keeping an eye on both edges of the discount beverage store. In his all-black outfit and helmet, he was hard to spot in the gloom away from the diner lights and the one inadequate lamppost. Rushing up to the right side of the beverage store, he bent to pick up a small rock and toss it into the bushes near the diner. It was a very old trick but it usually worked. A second later, the watcher crept into sight and studied where the noise had come from. From twenty feet away, Bane extended his arm full length and fired the dart pistol. It made almost no sound, just a soft cough of expelled air. The man jumped and gasped, slapped at his shoulder where the dart had bit in, then dropped to his knees. Bane went around the back of the building, looking for anyone else but only finding a rusted-out air conditioning unit and a dumpster full of cardboard. Keeping the dart gun in his hand, the Dire Wolf knelt over the snoring man.
The anesthetic darts worked so well because they stung fiercely as they hit and injected the potent drug. For a second or two, the burning pain distracted the victim and by then the anesthetic was in the bloodstream. Within four or five seconds, the target was dazed enough that they were no threat. Since his semi-retirement from the Midnight War, Bane had been using the anesthetic darts less. They were ineffective when the victim was wearing heavy winter clothing, and the range was shorter than a regular firearm. More and more, he found a regular .38 revolver was more dependable and all he needed in most situations. But for stealth and taking prisoners unhurt, the darts were great.
Seizing the man under the arms, the Dire Wolf dragged him around behind the beverage store and propped him up against its back wall. Through his visor, he saw a young man, late twenties, maybe six foot three and lanky. Bright blonde hair long enough to cover his ears and spill over his collar. He was wearing a dark denim shirt, jeans and boots, with a Glock in a shoulder holster. Bane confiscated the gun, searched the man and found a six-inch knife sheathed under the shirt and a two-shot derringer tucked in his belt. Bane stowed all the items in his jacket, then regarded the man thoughtfully. There was no ID, nothing to identify him. Usually, a single dart would keep a normal-sized man unconscious for an hour or so, with a further period of weakness and nausea. That should be enough. He checked the man's pulse and listened to his breathing, then left him there.
Walking across the parking lot to the back of the diner, Bane searched with his eyes and ears but found nothing suspicious. He circled and walked up the ramp to the front door of the MAJESTIC, entering a small outer vestibule which held a public telephone and a video game. Removing his helmet and holding it in the crook of one arm, the Dire Wolf stepped into the diner. To his right was a counter with a cash register and stack of menus. An Italian man with quite the belly smiled pleasantly. "Good evening sir, welcome to the MAJESTIC. Would you like a menu?"
From a pocket of his field jacket, Bane drew out the folded dessert menu that had been left on the roof of his building. "No thanks," he said. "I brought my own." The Italian lost the smile and said nothing. Ahead of Bane was the long serving counter, with its stools and cake under glass and salt and pepper shakers. A blonde waitress with a tattoo of a rose on her wrist watched him with disinterest. Bane turned and went past the booths to the rear. To one side were two doors marked MEN and WOMEN, and beyond them was a substantial door with the word PRIVATE in iron letters. Bane glanced back but neither diner employee said anything.
The door was locked. Placing his feet one behind the other, Bane twisted from the hips and slammed the palm of his hand just above the doorknob and the lock snapped neatly. As the door swung inward, he was looking into an office with a desk behind which a black man in a light blue suit sat and regarded him with mocking eyes. Bane stepped inside, seeing the two gunmen who stood on opposite sides of the office and held automatics aimed at his head.
"You might have knocked," said the man behind the desk. He was an athletic specimen, wide-shouldered and lean-waisted, dressed in a pale blue suit with a Navy blue shirt and white tie. The man had a shaven head, his skin was medium brown and he grinned at Bane with perfect gleaming teeth.
The Dire Wolf took a step forward, ignoring the gunmen covering him. "Cobalt Jack. You wanted to see me?"
The notorious master criminal lost the smile for an instant. "What? No. I was glad to have never met you and I would have liked to keep it that way. Why do you think that I wanted to see you?"
"Then someone else wanted us to meet," Bane said. "Someone planted clues at two murders, murders clumsily arranged to seem like suicides, that indicated you. Do you know anyone who would want to see you captured by me?"
Now an instant unforced guffaw burst from the big man. "Oh my. You flatter yourself, Mr Bane! What makes you think the unknown did not you to be defeated by me?" Bane did not reply and the black mastermind went on, "I have many enemies. It's the name of my work. And you also have many who wish you harm, it's the nature of your work. Does anyone suitable come to mind?"
The Dire Wolf had gotten closer to the desk, prompting the gunmen to step in next to him. "No," he said. "My major enemies are dead or in realms they cannot leave. The last two years, I've been handling common criminals."
"Including several of my promising students," Cobalt Jack said.
There was a chair with a red cushion at the right hand side of the desk, and Bane dropped down on it without asking. The two gunmen looked as if they were about to have heart attacks at the affrontery but Cobalt Jack just smiled. "You know, just what IS your master plan, Jack?" Bane asked. "All the rumours and gossip in the underworld don't add up right."
The big black leaned back in his leather-cushioned swivel chair and considered. "You really don't know much about me, do you? I have a cause. For the past six years, I have been building a network of schools for crime. Experts in everything from lockpicking to interrogation to assassination are given promising apprentices to instruct. The logistics of meetings in rented cottages and hotel suites and boarded-up warehouses are immense but I keep the project rolling."
"And you get a cut of the profits when the apprentices go out on their own?"
"Of course. Not too heavy a burden, of course." Cobalt Jack watched Bane thoughtfully. "This is not about profit alone. I aim to create a second nation within the United States. An invisible empire. The Land Beyond the Law, where the strong and the bold take what they want."
"The Land Beyond the Law," Bane repeated sourly. "So. Do you have an apprentice of your own? And if so, do you know where he has been today?"
That hit home. Cobalt Jack's polished unreadable smile faded. "That is hardly your concern. I think your own survival should be on your mind right now?"
"From these two ducks?" Bane scoffed. "Be serious. Here's my theory. Your apprentice is being taught all the skills to run a badlands kingdom. And as always, the prince reaches a stage where he thinks the crown would look better on him than on the king. He plots a coup."
Jack was scowling openly. He did not interrupt.
"This morning a man named Clement Woodbury was shot in the head when some one grabbed his gunhand and shoved it to his head. That takes some training, skill and speed to do. A vague clue was left that made me think of you. And a few hours later, a young guy dove off the roof of my office building and hit his head on the sidewalk. On the roof I found a menu for this diner. It's clumsy, unless it's deliberately obvious. The killer might have well have just have left a note on my windshield that said, 'HEY Cobalt Jack is doing this'"
"Richard is a devious young man in a raw state," Cobalt Jack said. "Perhaps we should talk to him. He may have something to say about this." Rising to his feet, he reached for a white topcoat that hung behind him. "Steven, Lou, come with us, of course." The mastermind of a dozen cities clicked a button on something in his pocket and a wooden panel on the wall slid over to reveal a narrow door. Jack swung it open, motioning for one of the gunman to go first. A few seconds later, the thug waved that it was all clear. Cobalt Jack stepped outside, with Bane behind him still covered by the other goon. They went out into the chill October night and marched toward the vacant beverage store on the other side of the parking lot.
As they got nearer, Cobalt Jack moved to stand well off to one side. One gunman followed Bane at a discreet distance, holding the automatic steady. The other thug moved ahead and said softly, "Richard. Hey, Richard?" He went around the corner of the building and rushed back out a moment later. "He's drugged or something, sir. His gun is gone."
"Here it is," Bane said, tossing the Glock across the paved lot with a clatter. For that one instant, all eyes inevitably went to the gun and in that instant, the Dire Wolf spun and closed in like a fencer on the gunman behind him. His stiff open hand went up and cracked down like a hatchet where the thug's neck met shoulder. There was a dull snapping noise but, long before the body dropped, Bane had spun and lunging for the second gunman. The distance was too great. The .45 automatic exploded with flashes of white light in the gloom and four heavy slugs smashed into Bane's torso. The Trom armor was good but it wasn't perfect and some impact got through. Bane was knocked down. He rolled, got up on one knee and his arm blurred. A silver streak flashed in the air, catching light from the neon sign of the diner and the gunman fell over backwards with a slim throwing dagger sticking up from his chest.
Getting up to his feet, his chest aching from the impact of those bullets, Bane was unsteady for a second. He turned to confront Cobalt Jack, only to face an empty lot. He glared up at the highway to just see red taillights speeding off into the night. The Dire Wolf growled deep in his chest and started to run toward where his own car was parked but the sharp pain in his side slowed him. It felt like a rib was cracked. Taking a deep breath, Bane strode up to the road but stopped. Jack was too far away by that point for any successful pursuit. Going over to the diner, he sank down to the concrete steps and drew out his phone. Montez answered immediately and Bane filled him in on the situation. Cobalt Jack had last been seen heading south in a new silver Nissan, plates DBR2778. Two bodies, killed in self-defense. One assistant to Cobalt Jack captured and ready for interrogation.
"Only two bodies?" asked Montez. "Okay, the Jersey cops will be there in a few minutes."
"Fine." Bane hung up and, touching his ribs gingerly, went over to where the one gunman was sprawled with a dagger in the heart. The Dire Wolf knelt, slid his silver blade free and carefully inserted Richard's knife into the wound. The two weapons were the same general size and shape. Maybe the CSI experts would catch on that the wound had been initially caused by a different blade but they would have no reason to be looking for that. Bane cleaned his dagger carefully and replaced it to the sheath beneath his right sleeve. Those weapons had been given to him by Kenneth Dred and they were the only possessions he treasured in this world. This was a felony, falsifying evidence in a homicide, but he had no intention of allowing the silver daggers to sit in a police storeroom somewhere. On second thought, he returned Richard's Glock to its holster and shoved the derringer in the belt where it had been. A bit late, he realized he should have shot the two thugs with Richard's Glock and then covered Cobalt Jack, but he had thought he could take all three alive.
Two Jersey squad cars squealed into the parking lot, red and blue lights flashing but no sirens. Bane faced them, arms raised and with his leather wallet open to show his PI license. He would not know any of these cops, they might not have even heard of him and he might have to get Montez to clear things up. What a mess. He had botched this one. The Dire Wolf sagged, his ribs hurt, and suddenly he felt tired.
(12/20/2013)
10/1/2002
I.
There were two uniformed officers in the hall outside. Their image showed on the monitor mounted high on the wall of the tiny reception room. Coming to a halt on his way from the inner office, Jeremy Bane studied them warily. Every detail seemed authentic, from the shoes to the regulation haircuts. He couldn't spot anything that gave them away as imposters. Both men were about his own height of six feet even, both in their early thirties, both fairly fit-looking. The Dire Wolf watched as one pressed the buzzer again.
Now in his mid-forties, Bane still looked almost the same as he had at twenty-one. He was still gaunt and restless, still wearing all black, still regarding the world through cold grey eyes in a narrow feral face. He opened the door to the hallway casually enough, but he did stand back just out reach as he did so. "Yes, officers?"
"Are you Jeremy Bane?"
"I might be. Why do you ask?"
The nearer cop sighed. This close, it could be seen he had suffered a little acne as a youth, enough to help identify him. "Lt Montez sent us to come get you."
"Am I under arrest? Or being detained as a material witness?"
Nothing like that," the cop answered patiently. "The lieutenant didn't tell us why he wants to see you. We're bringing you to a crime scene uptown."
"All right," Bane said. He had read their name tags, spotted a few scars or moles on each of them in case he had to describe them. "Let me close up my office, I'll be right out." He closed the door, not hurriedly, and went back to his inner office. There was really nothing he needed to do there except turn off the lights. He was testing the officers to see how they would react. After a minute, he went back to the outer door and found them still standing there blandly.
As he closed the door behind him, it locked automatically. Bane said, "This is not helping my image. A private investigator being taken away from his own office by two policemen."
"Those are our orders. But, we're not holding your arms or anything."
The three of them walked across the lobby, past the EMERGENCY ONE clinic and out the double glass doors that slid open automatically. A black and white squad car waited at the curb, and Bane opened the back door himself and got in. It was a little gesture, but he thought anyone watching would realize he was going voluntarily. The two cops got in and the car eased out into traffic. There was no small talk as they headed north, then swung west and proceeded to Tenth Avenue, stopping at a drab red brick building which had another police car parked in front of it. Standing in the door was a bulky form that Bane came to recognize.
Lt Joseph Montez seemed to have been getting his weight down lately. If he lost another thirty pounds, he would actually be a good-looking man. He had thick black hair and regular features but the extra weight worked against him. Today he was wearing a dark grey suit with a bright blue tie that didn't match well. As the squad car pulled up, Montez walked briskly over and motioned to Bane to get out. The window in front slid down, and as the driver looked up, Montez said, "You two are dismissed. I've got Mullen here."
Bane stepped up onto the sidewalk and glanced over as the car drove away. "Morning, lieutenant."
"Bane. Got something you need to see. Follow me." They went in through a vestibule that smelled of fresh paint, down a short hallway and stopped at an open door where a big officer stood with folded arms. Bane recognized the man as Pete Mullen, a twenty-year veteran who had come to be Montez' regular choice to assist at crime scenes. Mullen stepped aside and Montez gestured for Bane to approach the doorway.
"You know not to touch anything," Montez said. "Forensics is on their way, they got held up at another site."
Standing in the doorway, the Dire Wolf glanced around. It was a good-sized apartment, with an open door that showed the foot of a bed and another door that would be the bathroom. A refrigerator and sink were in one corner but there was no stove. A big-screen TV was showing a sports channel with a bookcase beside it that took up much of one wall. Another had two curtained windows that looked out on 64th Street. There was a light tan couch with cushions, two comfortable-looking chairs facing it, and a coffee table littered with papers. By one arm of the couch was a stand with a lamp and a glass of water that held an upper plate. Sprawled on a green and brown oval rug was a body. From the doorway, Bane judged the dead man to have been about sixty, on the stocky side, no more than five feet seven. The body was lying on its back, a revolver clenched in the right hand and a gaping hole over the right ear.
"I've never seen him before," Bane said after a minute. "You have an ID?"
"Sure. Clement Woodbury, aged sixty-one, never married and no kids. I questioned him twice myself. He worked at a pawn shop down by Mulberry Street and he was suspected of handling stolen merchandise but nothing was ever pinned on him. We do know he had some friends who have done time."
Bane took two steps into the apartment and crouched down, studying the body. Woodbury had been wearing dark blue slacks, a white undershirt and white socks. The wound was consistent with a point-blank gunshot and the blood spray seemed right if the man had been standing when he shot himself. Standing up again, the Dire Wolf folded his arms, then turned around to face Montez in the doorway. "You know this wasn't a suicide, right?"
"I don't think it was. Let's hear your thoughts."
Glancing back at the apartment, Bane said, "The TV's on. He's in his socks and undershirt. His dentures are out in the open. Most suicides would have turned off the TV and been fully dressed. I don't know why, they just seem to do it. I haven't looked for a note, but if there is one, I bet it's bogus. But that's not the main reason."
Despite himself, Montez let a smile creep across his face. "Go on."
"The gun is still in his hand," Bane said quietly. "That's not unusual, many times a hand will lock up in a violent death. Your boys will have trouble prying it loose. But look. All four fingers are on the butt. How could he have pulled the trigger?"
"Good. Yeah, I thought at first you weren't a real detective, just a fighter, but you spotted that right away. Anything else?"
Bane turned back. "Those papers on the coffee table are newspaper clippings. I can't read them from here, but they're in a neat stack. No envelope, no folder. Obviously, I'm not going to go through them before forensics gets here but I think they were left as a clue for us."
Stepping closer, Montez looked past Bane at the coffee table. "I already took a peek. Wearing gloves. They are all about different serial killers and maniacs from the past twenty years. Samhain. El Pantera. Seneca. Dr Sabbath. Sepulchre. And they share one common characteristic."
"Me," Bane said.
"You got it. You either caught them or killed them, justifiable homicide of course, to stop them in the act of murder or in your own self-defense. Two of them disappeared without a trace while you were on their trail. You're the common link. But the clipping on top was for a real mastermind, not a srrial killer."
The Dire Wolf nodded. "Cobalt Jack."
II.
An hour later, Bane stepped out onto the sidewalk and started walking. The forensics team was finishing up, and Montez had dismissed him with a wave. The lieutenant had been sure to question Bane in front of everyone, putting just a little suspicion in his voice and ending with a warning not to leave the metropolitan area. Bane went along with it, just as he had with Inspector Klein for twelve years. Officially, the NYPD certainly did not use the infamous Dire Wolf as a sort of freelance vigilante when crimes of an inexplicable or supernatural nature occurred. Montez, like Klein before him, had come to expect Bane to jump at the chance the confront madmen and monsters, and with good reason.
Walking briskly south, Bane mulled the situation over. Despite the observations he made in the apartment and despite his record trapping maniacs, he realized he was not a first-class detective. Michael Hawk had instructed him years ago, but Hawk could have stepped into that apartment and rattled off two dozen more deductions that Bane would never have spotted. No, he realized he was in fact basically a warrior most valuable when the violence started. Reaching 50th Street, he turned left and headed across town. As always, he was hungry. The accelerated metabolism that gave him his enhanced reflexes also meant he was always restless and starving. At a deli, he stopped in and grabbed a roast beef sub and a bottle of apple juice and consumed it all as he walked.
At Third Avenue, he turned right. He had never crossed paths with cobalt Jack and didn't really know much about the man. Heading south, he reached 44th Street and the four-story yellow brick building which held EMERGENCY ONE, a couple of doctors' offices, a posh spa and his office. Bane strode through the lobby and into a short hall made by the staircase going up. To his left at the end of the hall was a simple wooden door with a brass plaque that read DIRE WOLF AGENCY. He unlocked the door and entered the reception room. This was just big enough to hold two straightback chairs and a low table with a few newspapers on it. He realized the calendar next to the inner door still had the April page and he tore it off.
Once in his office, Bane went straight to his desk and dropped down in the chair behind it. That crime scene was the oddest trap he had seen in a while. It seemed clear that someone had killed that man, Clement Woodbury, and set it up to look like a suicide. But it had not been done well. There were so many hints that it had been faked. Maybe the killer was an amateur who hadn't known any better and had thought he was being clever, or maybe it was a pro who really WAS clever and had messed things up so that the police would catch on. That business with the newspaper clippings bothered him. They had been planted there, he was certain. And he HAD brought down all the killers in the clippings. Was that too subtle? Were he and Lt Montez reading something into those clippings that wasn't there? What was the point? Was someone trying to get him to go after Cobalt Jack or was that clue a challenge from Jack himself? Why? Was Bane a threat to the man somehow?
His head hurt. This had been so much simpler with the KDF, equipped with the rows of filing cabinets full of records and all the computer data instantly available. But that was over now. He had stepped down as chairman so that the new team could operate on their own without him. It was tempting to just go back to 38th Street and get Sable or Trom Girl to help him investigate with their special abilities. Bane scowled and picked up his phone to call Bleak. Over the years, he had turned down rewards from clients and people he had saved, asking instead that they keep him informed if they learned about any mysterious events going on. Some had become regular reporters for him, getting a small monthly retainer and sending him reports. Bleak was the best of these unofficial agents, but he wasn't answering his phone and Bane didn't leave a message. After a few more calls to his reporters were unhelpful, Bane called the police station on 20th Street and tried to reach Montez. He was talking to a sergeant on duty at the front desk when he heard screams outside.
In a blur, he was out of his chair and into the lobby, slamming the door to his office behind him. Bane moved so quickly that most people were confused about what they had seen. There was a crowd gathering on the street outside the building and he roughly shoved his way into the crowd. The dirty looks didn't bother him. There on the sidewalk was a tall thin black youth, no more than twenty years old. His head was bent too far over for him to be alive and there was a blossom of bright red blood beneath it. Some of the people were pointing up at the roof of the building Bane had just left. As soon as he saw this, the Dire Wolf spun around back into the lobby and raced up the stairs faster than most athletes could run on a level surface. At the fourth floor, he hurtled toward the far end where a door said NO ADMITTANCE. It was ajar, the lock broken. A piece of wood was chipped out just above the lock. Hardly breaking stride, he hurried up narrow metal stairs to the roof.
No one was there. The Wolf glared in all directions. The nearest building on the west side was two stories higher, which ruled out anyone jumping over the alley to it. Two sides of the roof looked down on the streets, the third side was over the small parking lot. He saw no signs of a rope or anything that someone could have used to lower themselves. Bane realized his fists were clenched so hard they began to hurt and he made them loosen. He circled the roof and, sure enough, on the spot where the young man had fallen off- or been pushed- there was a folded piece of red paper. Furious in a way he seldom allowed himself to be, he bent and opened it up. It was the dessert menu for a diner in New Jersey.
III.
Walking down the stairs much more slowly than he had gone up them, Bane saw office workers and clients at the windows facing the west side, staring down and discussing the sight in low voices. On the second floor, one of the beauticians at the spa glanced over and saw him. "Isn't it terrible?" she said just above a whisper.
He didn't recognize her but then he was never on this floor. "I can hardly believe it," he answered. "Someone said he was just a teenager."
"This city," she muttered, and turned back to the window. Bane descended the last flight of stairs and found the lobby had a dozen people standing just inside the doors. He could see the flashing lights of police cars outside and an ambulance. Bane listened to what the crowd was saying for a few minutes, then went to his office. Closing the door behind him, he began to pace and slowly the anger subsided to a cold determination. His phone sat on his desk where he had dropped it when he heard the screams. The police sergeant had hung up by now, of course. Five minutes passed as he sat there lost in thought, waiting for the inevitable buzz from the hallway door. When it sounded, he got up and went through the reception room to let Lt Montez and Officer Mullen in.
"Why aren't you outside watching?" Montez asked as soon as the door opened.
"I got a look. Nothing I can do out there." Bane went over to the desk and motioned for them to sit in the chairs before it. "Let me guess. The dead man out there was on the outskirts of the criminal life. Like Clement whatever his name was. Woodbury."
"Yeah. Marcus Goodwin, nineteen, unemployed. He sold a little pot to his friends, never enough to be worth prosecuting. Lost his drivers license for speeding tickets. Looks like he took a dive off the roof of your building the same day Woodbury got a bullet in the head," Montez said. "Where were you when he hit the sidewalk?"
Bane handed the lieutenant his phone. "Here. Look at the number and time of my last call."
Checking the screen, Montez snorted. "Who were you talking to at headquarters for six minutes?"
"Sergeant Crosby. The guy with the sideburns. He was asking about the death of Woodbury and I kept telling him to talk to you, I had no comment."
"Talk about an alibi. You might as well have been playing cards with the mayor." Turning to Mullen, he explained, "Mr Dire Wolf here called headquarters five minutes before Marcus Goodwin went off the roof. He was talking to Sergeant Crosby at the moment of impact. All right. What do you know about that poor guy out there?"
Bane shrugged and puts his hands flat on the desk in front of him. "Never heard of him. Marcus Goodwin? No. Could there be something on him that relates to Cobalt Jack, do you think?"
"Not as far as I could tell. Say, how come you never tackled Cobalt Jack yourself?"
"I was wondering that myself. We just never tangled. If we had crossed paths, I know I would have nailed him."
"You know, Bane, someday you're going to go up somebody better than you. Faster, tougher, smarter."
"I already have. Several times. Somehow I find a way to come out on top."
"So far," Montez said. "All right, I've got a lot of people to question. Sure you can't be of any help?"
Bane stood up. "I'm going to be making phone calls, checking with people I know. I think someone is trying to use me as a weapon against Cobalt Jack and that's the person behind these deaths."
"That thought crossed my mind. Okay. Check with me before you leave the building." Montez got up with just a little difficulty from the straightback chair. Bane went with them out into the lobby, where several officers were asking questions of people who worked in the building. There was a buzz of a dozen voice low voices talking at the same time.
"This is not something I'm any good for," Bane said. "I'm going to investigate my own way." He turned and went back into his office. The long window looking out on Third Avenue was always covered by opaque curtains. The Dire Wolf knelt by the waist-high bookcase, unlatched the hidden casters and swung the bookcase around to reveal a pit he had chiseled himself. He drew out an old-fashioned black trunk and opened it, taking out his field suit. Standing up again, Bane removed his street clothes and folded them on a chair. He was wearing what looked like a tight bodysuit of dark silk but which was actually flexible Trom armor that only exposed his head and his arms from the elbows. As always, the two silver daggers were already strapped to his forearms; he rarely went anywhere without them. Bane felt a distinct excitement as he got into the black pants and jersey, then tugged on the heavy boots. The waist-length jacket had its own inner layer of the Trom armor, and various gadgets and weapons were already in their specific pockets. Putting on the field suit brought back a wave of memories of days with both KDF teams. He hadn't needed the extra protection and weaponry since he had stepped down and re-opened his detective agency but against Cobalt Jack, he thought it was a good idea.
Picking up what looked like a motorcycle helmet with a visor that retracted internally, the Dire Wolf lowered it over his head and checked out its systems. Light amplifiers, directional sound enhancers, air filters.. all were working. Replacing the trunk into the pit and wheeling the bookcase over it again, he removed the helmet and tucked it under one arm. He decided on the anesthetic dart gun rather than the regular Smith & Wesson .38, and holstered it in the small of his back under his jacket for the moment. Bane glanced around the office once and headed out.
The lobby was even more crowded than before as more police had arrived and were taking statements. Bane located Montez and went over to him.
"Oh, I've seen that outfit before," Montez grumbled. "The morgue's gonna be busy tonight."
"I think I have a lead, but it's not promising. Maybe I'm wasting my time. It beats sitting in there waiting for a third fake suicide." Bane pointed a thumb at the other end of the hall. "I'm using the back door. Got anything from witnesses?"
"Nothing useful," the lieutenant admitted. "You know, I should detain you here until everything's settled. Could be another few hours and I didn't question you properly."
"Or you could let me do my job. Lieutenant, off the record and we never had this conversation and so on, but you know what I'm meant to be doing."
Montez hesitated. He had grudgingly accepted letting Bane get results. In the past few months, Montez had learned a little about the Midnight War and although it scared him and gave him a few sleepless nights, he had come to admit that there were times when a Dire Wolf was needed. "All right. Mullen! Escort Bane here for a block or two."
Without a word, the beefy officer led Bane to the smaller single exit door at the back of the lobby, going past two cops who returned his nod. At Forty-Third Street, Mullen said, "I'll be going back now."
"Thanks," Bane replied and took off at his usual pace down toward 40th Street. He swung over to Lexington Avenue and hurried down the concrete ramp of the Imperial Garage. His dark green Subaru Outback was in its designated spot. The tiny blue and green security lights on the visor over the driver's side winked reassuringly. He got in, placing the helmet on the seat next to him and started the car up, then rolled out into traffic and headed for the Lincoln Tunnel. He had nothing to work with except a clue that had been deliberately left for him, but Bane felt at least the hunt had begun again.
IV.
An hour later, Bane drove into Simmons, New Jersey. This was outside his usual area, and to him it seemed like just miles of highway with plazas on either side. Endless stores and supermarkets and restaurants. He pulled into a gas station to make sure he had a full tank, then checked the fluids and the tires and to clean the windows. This was so ingrained in him that he hardly realized he was doing it. As long as he was parked off to one side, he got his box of maps from the trunks and studied Northern New Jersey, making sure he had the nearby roads clear in his mind. Picking up a foil-wrapped hamburger and bottle of seltzer, the Dire Wolf pulled back out into traffic. Soon he was out of the city itself, there started to be stretches of trees and undeveloped land on either side. The hamburger was awful and he couldn't finish it.
It was getting near dusk. There to his right was a chrome and neon diner with a blinking sign that said MAJESTIC on its roof, with additional signs promising great food at low prices. Behind and to one side of the diner was a cinder block building that had DISCOUNT BEVERAGES - BEER WINE SODA across its picture window. It looked as if it had been closed for some time. Bane pulled over across the road and parked his car. Putting on his helmet, he fiddled with the controls in the left ear pod and activated the telescoping function in the visor. He hadn't used this in years and it took some adjustments. For a long twenty minutes, the Dire Wolf studied the area. As daylight faded, he turned up the light enhancers. The people going in and out of the diner seemed normal enough. Once a man in white pants with an apron over a white polo shirt stepped around from behind the diner and smoked half a cigarette before rushing back inside. Then, catching movement by the closed beverage store, Bane focused the visor. It was a man, looked pretty tall, dark clothing. He peeked around the left edge of the beverage store for just a few seconds.
A wicked predatory grin broke out on Bane's narrow face. Stepping out of his Mustang, he strode quickly across the road and into the diner parking lot, keeping an eye on both edges of the discount beverage store. In his all-black outfit and helmet, he was hard to spot in the gloom away from the diner lights and the one inadequate lamppost. Rushing up to the right side of the beverage store, he bent to pick up a small rock and toss it into the bushes near the diner. It was a very old trick but it usually worked. A second later, the watcher crept into sight and studied where the noise had come from. From twenty feet away, Bane extended his arm full length and fired the dart pistol. It made almost no sound, just a soft cough of expelled air. The man jumped and gasped, slapped at his shoulder where the dart had bit in, then dropped to his knees. Bane went around the back of the building, looking for anyone else but only finding a rusted-out air conditioning unit and a dumpster full of cardboard. Keeping the dart gun in his hand, the Dire Wolf knelt over the snoring man.
The anesthetic darts worked so well because they stung fiercely as they hit and injected the potent drug. For a second or two, the burning pain distracted the victim and by then the anesthetic was in the bloodstream. Within four or five seconds, the target was dazed enough that they were no threat. Since his semi-retirement from the Midnight War, Bane had been using the anesthetic darts less. They were ineffective when the victim was wearing heavy winter clothing, and the range was shorter than a regular firearm. More and more, he found a regular .38 revolver was more dependable and all he needed in most situations. But for stealth and taking prisoners unhurt, the darts were great.
Seizing the man under the arms, the Dire Wolf dragged him around behind the beverage store and propped him up against its back wall. Through his visor, he saw a young man, late twenties, maybe six foot three and lanky. Bright blonde hair long enough to cover his ears and spill over his collar. He was wearing a dark denim shirt, jeans and boots, with a Glock in a shoulder holster. Bane confiscated the gun, searched the man and found a six-inch knife sheathed under the shirt and a two-shot derringer tucked in his belt. Bane stowed all the items in his jacket, then regarded the man thoughtfully. There was no ID, nothing to identify him. Usually, a single dart would keep a normal-sized man unconscious for an hour or so, with a further period of weakness and nausea. That should be enough. He checked the man's pulse and listened to his breathing, then left him there.
Walking across the parking lot to the back of the diner, Bane searched with his eyes and ears but found nothing suspicious. He circled and walked up the ramp to the front door of the MAJESTIC, entering a small outer vestibule which held a public telephone and a video game. Removing his helmet and holding it in the crook of one arm, the Dire Wolf stepped into the diner. To his right was a counter with a cash register and stack of menus. An Italian man with quite the belly smiled pleasantly. "Good evening sir, welcome to the MAJESTIC. Would you like a menu?"
From a pocket of his field jacket, Bane drew out the folded dessert menu that had been left on the roof of his building. "No thanks," he said. "I brought my own." The Italian lost the smile and said nothing. Ahead of Bane was the long serving counter, with its stools and cake under glass and salt and pepper shakers. A blonde waitress with a tattoo of a rose on her wrist watched him with disinterest. Bane turned and went past the booths to the rear. To one side were two doors marked MEN and WOMEN, and beyond them was a substantial door with the word PRIVATE in iron letters. Bane glanced back but neither diner employee said anything.
The door was locked. Placing his feet one behind the other, Bane twisted from the hips and slammed the palm of his hand just above the doorknob and the lock snapped neatly. As the door swung inward, he was looking into an office with a desk behind which a black man in a light blue suit sat and regarded him with mocking eyes. Bane stepped inside, seeing the two gunmen who stood on opposite sides of the office and held automatics aimed at his head.
"You might have knocked," said the man behind the desk. He was an athletic specimen, wide-shouldered and lean-waisted, dressed in a pale blue suit with a Navy blue shirt and white tie. The man had a shaven head, his skin was medium brown and he grinned at Bane with perfect gleaming teeth.
The Dire Wolf took a step forward, ignoring the gunmen covering him. "Cobalt Jack. You wanted to see me?"
The notorious master criminal lost the smile for an instant. "What? No. I was glad to have never met you and I would have liked to keep it that way. Why do you think that I wanted to see you?"
"Then someone else wanted us to meet," Bane said. "Someone planted clues at two murders, murders clumsily arranged to seem like suicides, that indicated you. Do you know anyone who would want to see you captured by me?"
Now an instant unforced guffaw burst from the big man. "Oh my. You flatter yourself, Mr Bane! What makes you think the unknown did not you to be defeated by me?" Bane did not reply and the black mastermind went on, "I have many enemies. It's the name of my work. And you also have many who wish you harm, it's the nature of your work. Does anyone suitable come to mind?"
The Dire Wolf had gotten closer to the desk, prompting the gunmen to step in next to him. "No," he said. "My major enemies are dead or in realms they cannot leave. The last two years, I've been handling common criminals."
"Including several of my promising students," Cobalt Jack said.
There was a chair with a red cushion at the right hand side of the desk, and Bane dropped down on it without asking. The two gunmen looked as if they were about to have heart attacks at the affrontery but Cobalt Jack just smiled. "You know, just what IS your master plan, Jack?" Bane asked. "All the rumours and gossip in the underworld don't add up right."
The big black leaned back in his leather-cushioned swivel chair and considered. "You really don't know much about me, do you? I have a cause. For the past six years, I have been building a network of schools for crime. Experts in everything from lockpicking to interrogation to assassination are given promising apprentices to instruct. The logistics of meetings in rented cottages and hotel suites and boarded-up warehouses are immense but I keep the project rolling."
"And you get a cut of the profits when the apprentices go out on their own?"
"Of course. Not too heavy a burden, of course." Cobalt Jack watched Bane thoughtfully. "This is not about profit alone. I aim to create a second nation within the United States. An invisible empire. The Land Beyond the Law, where the strong and the bold take what they want."
"The Land Beyond the Law," Bane repeated sourly. "So. Do you have an apprentice of your own? And if so, do you know where he has been today?"
That hit home. Cobalt Jack's polished unreadable smile faded. "That is hardly your concern. I think your own survival should be on your mind right now?"
"From these two ducks?" Bane scoffed. "Be serious. Here's my theory. Your apprentice is being taught all the skills to run a badlands kingdom. And as always, the prince reaches a stage where he thinks the crown would look better on him than on the king. He plots a coup."
Jack was scowling openly. He did not interrupt.
"This morning a man named Clement Woodbury was shot in the head when some one grabbed his gunhand and shoved it to his head. That takes some training, skill and speed to do. A vague clue was left that made me think of you. And a few hours later, a young guy dove off the roof of my office building and hit his head on the sidewalk. On the roof I found a menu for this diner. It's clumsy, unless it's deliberately obvious. The killer might have well have just have left a note on my windshield that said, 'HEY Cobalt Jack is doing this'"
"Richard is a devious young man in a raw state," Cobalt Jack said. "Perhaps we should talk to him. He may have something to say about this." Rising to his feet, he reached for a white topcoat that hung behind him. "Steven, Lou, come with us, of course." The mastermind of a dozen cities clicked a button on something in his pocket and a wooden panel on the wall slid over to reveal a narrow door. Jack swung it open, motioning for one of the gunman to go first. A few seconds later, the thug waved that it was all clear. Cobalt Jack stepped outside, with Bane behind him still covered by the other goon. They went out into the chill October night and marched toward the vacant beverage store on the other side of the parking lot.
As they got nearer, Cobalt Jack moved to stand well off to one side. One gunman followed Bane at a discreet distance, holding the automatic steady. The other thug moved ahead and said softly, "Richard. Hey, Richard?" He went around the corner of the building and rushed back out a moment later. "He's drugged or something, sir. His gun is gone."
"Here it is," Bane said, tossing the Glock across the paved lot with a clatter. For that one instant, all eyes inevitably went to the gun and in that instant, the Dire Wolf spun and closed in like a fencer on the gunman behind him. His stiff open hand went up and cracked down like a hatchet where the thug's neck met shoulder. There was a dull snapping noise but, long before the body dropped, Bane had spun and lunging for the second gunman. The distance was too great. The .45 automatic exploded with flashes of white light in the gloom and four heavy slugs smashed into Bane's torso. The Trom armor was good but it wasn't perfect and some impact got through. Bane was knocked down. He rolled, got up on one knee and his arm blurred. A silver streak flashed in the air, catching light from the neon sign of the diner and the gunman fell over backwards with a slim throwing dagger sticking up from his chest.
Getting up to his feet, his chest aching from the impact of those bullets, Bane was unsteady for a second. He turned to confront Cobalt Jack, only to face an empty lot. He glared up at the highway to just see red taillights speeding off into the night. The Dire Wolf growled deep in his chest and started to run toward where his own car was parked but the sharp pain in his side slowed him. It felt like a rib was cracked. Taking a deep breath, Bane strode up to the road but stopped. Jack was too far away by that point for any successful pursuit. Going over to the diner, he sank down to the concrete steps and drew out his phone. Montez answered immediately and Bane filled him in on the situation. Cobalt Jack had last been seen heading south in a new silver Nissan, plates DBR2778. Two bodies, killed in self-defense. One assistant to Cobalt Jack captured and ready for interrogation.
"Only two bodies?" asked Montez. "Okay, the Jersey cops will be there in a few minutes."
"Fine." Bane hung up and, touching his ribs gingerly, went over to where the one gunman was sprawled with a dagger in the heart. The Dire Wolf knelt, slid his silver blade free and carefully inserted Richard's knife into the wound. The two weapons were the same general size and shape. Maybe the CSI experts would catch on that the wound had been initially caused by a different blade but they would have no reason to be looking for that. Bane cleaned his dagger carefully and replaced it to the sheath beneath his right sleeve. Those weapons had been given to him by Kenneth Dred and they were the only possessions he treasured in this world. This was a felony, falsifying evidence in a homicide, but he had no intention of allowing the silver daggers to sit in a police storeroom somewhere. On second thought, he returned Richard's Glock to its holster and shoved the derringer in the belt where it had been. A bit late, he realized he should have shot the two thugs with Richard's Glock and then covered Cobalt Jack, but he had thought he could take all three alive.
Two Jersey squad cars squealed into the parking lot, red and blue lights flashing but no sirens. Bane faced them, arms raised and with his leather wallet open to show his PI license. He would not know any of these cops, they might not have even heard of him and he might have to get Montez to clear things up. What a mess. He had botched this one. The Dire Wolf sagged, his ribs hurt, and suddenly he felt tired.
(12/20/2013)
no subject
Date: 2024-12-22 02:07 am (UTC)