Big Superhero Action (13 page)

The Halo said, “What?”

“You a dude, right? You’re almost cute enough but the voice is all dude.”

“Look…there’s no need for trouble here.”

The man said, “What’s your name?”

“What?”

“What’s your fucking name?”

“The Halo.”

“Know who I am, ‘the Halo?’”

“Not by name.”

“Know who the fuck I am?”

“No.”

“I’m Murder Mouse.”

The Halo said nothing.

“You a super, the Halo? Or amateur super? You look amateur.”

The Halo said nothing.

Murder Mouse pulled up his top to bare hard abs and the handle of a nine-millimeter handgun under the waistband.

He said, “What are you now, ‘the Halo?’”

The Halo stepped back. Fuck Remy. Fuck Remy and her problems. Now this superhero shit could get her killed. The Halo looked for someone who looked like a bouncer. Saw no one around who looked like a bouncer. Saw hardly anyone around.

Murder Mouse took the gun out, set it on the table.

“Don’t need a gun for you, the Halo.”

The Halo took another step back, the plan to turn and run.

“Don’t try to run, the Halo.”

The Halo didn’t know what to do. The Halo was paralyzed. This was only one guy, a guy calling himself “Murder Mouse.” The Halo didn’t think she could take him even with the gun. The Halo did not trust her self-defense skills. So the Halo backed away.

“Stand the fuck still.”

“Look, I don’t want trouble.”

The Halo stood still. She looked for the sight of a bouncer. She even looked for JKM. Everything else was a blur. She felt like she was trapped inside a bad movie.

Murder Mouse said, “You want to get hurt?”

The Halo said nothing. Her heart was pounding.

“Answer me.”

The Halo shook her head.

“Speak.”

“No.”

“No what?”

“No to your question.”

“You don’t want to get hurt.”

“No.”

“You’re gonna get hurt unless you do what I say. You understand that?”

The Halo said nothing.

“Answer me.”

The Halo nodded.

“I can do anything to you I want, she-male. I can hurt you or not. That’s up to me. Feel me?”

The Halo’s heart hammered her chest.

“We need to talk about shit, the Halo. We’ll go into the men’s room where we can have some privacy and work this out.”

“I don’t want trouble.”

“No trouble. We talk.”

“We talk?”

“Right. Just talk.”

Murder Mouse took the Halo by the sleeve, started walking, the Halo towed along like a little girl. By now JKM would’ve hurled Murder Mouse head-first through a wall. The Halo thought about breaking into a run for the exit. But she knew it would be like running underwater. She’d never make it.

He took her into the men’s room. The Halo hoped it was occupied. It was empty, emptier than anywhere in the city. Dim lighting, exposed brick walls, yellow stink versus green stink.

They stood there between the row of urinals and the row of sinks.

“Now we can talk,” Murder Mouse said.

The Halo stood there. Her lips were drying up, about to crack. Her heart still pounded.

“Halo, I’m almost insulted by this.”

Murder Mouse stuck out a hand, gave the Halo a light tap across the face. Just like that, the Halo was a child again taking slaps to the face. Murder Mouse smiled. His other hand slapped the Halo’s other cheek a light tap.

“There’s one way you can get out of getting hurt. You gotta get on your knees. Do it. Get on your knees. Then I won’t hurt you.”

The Halo was drowning, knew any punch she would throw would be like she was underwater. The Halo didn’t want to get hurt. The Halo didn’t want to get on her knees. The Halo didn’t want to get hurt.

To stall, she said, “What?”

“‘What?’” Murder Mouse mocked her. “Get on your fucking knees.”

A flash of rage hit the Halo. The moment passed. She started thinking about getting on her knees. No one else was around to see it. Maybe getting on her knees was worth it if she wouldn’t get hurt. Except she knew what would come next.

“Do it.”

“No.”

“I know what you’re thinking, Halo. Faggots like you think too much in these situations. Maybe let me throw the first punch, force you to fight back. Then maybe run for it. Except when I get started, I don’t know when to fucking stop. I will rip out one of your eyeballs. I will ruin your pre-op face, Halo. You’re pre-op, right? You don’t want that. You have a chance to avoid that, Halo. So get on your fucking knees.”

The Halo got on her knees on the sticky floor.

“Next step. You get a choice. You blow me. Then I won’t hurt you.”

The Halo said, “What?”

“You heard me.”

Looking at Murder Mouse’s white sneakers, the Halo said, “Can’t do that.”

“You’re on your knees. You can do it. Or you get hurt.”

Murder Mouse’s sneakers stepped forward. It was going on too long and the fear was running out, leaving her with a slow-cooking rage over catching this much shit. It was only a matter of jumping off the edge.

Murder Mouse flipped a hand, tapped the Halo across the face. “I’m giving you a chance, Halo, but you’re starting to piss me off. You got four seconds.”

Fuck.

“One.”

Murder Mouse made a kissing sound. Murder Mouse’s hand slapped the Halo’s face again, harder. “Two.”

The Halo lunged, grabbed Murder Mouse’s right leg, held on. From her heart ripped a long scream. A fist popped her left eye, exploded her brain. A knee banged the other side of her head. She held on to the leg like it would save her.

Murder Mouse stumbled, fell over, knocked over the trash can. From the trash can an empty beer bottle rolled out. The Halo grabbed it by the neck. Beer soaked her glove, trickled into her sleeve. The Halo stumbled atop Murder Mouse, clubbed his face with the bottle. The blows jolted up her thin arm as below the bottle cracked bones and teeth. She saw the face below her changing shape. She felt primal, connected to the Dawn of Man.

The Halo stopped. Murder Mouse: cherry syrup smearing his face, pooling on the floor around his head. The Halo pawed her way up one of the sinks, pulled off her bloody gloves. She stared at her face. Just then the tiara lit up.

She came out of the club with Remy. Remy wobbled atop clear heels, bent over, puked on the sidewalk.

Remy turned to the Halo, said, “Take out your cock. Wanna fuck?”

“Then I’d puke.”

“Fuuuuck you.”

JKM crossed the street to her, his jaw dropped. “Halo, what went down? Who hit you?”

“Nothing happened,” she told him. “Fuck off.”

Alone, she took Remy to the apartment, dumped her on the couch for the night. She uncorked a bottle of Rhine, too it out to the fire escape, brooded over her situation. She had committed homicide. But it was obvious self-defense. Look at him. Then look at her. She’d never get hard time for that. And they wouldn’t give a fuck about a dead thug pimp anyway. She could afford to take her chances.

X
oir had raised sunken mines that surfaced and exploded in Dr. Playground’s brain at odd moments. Like the night his stepmother took young Simon Stranko to a strip club.

She picked the music for her set. The song was “White Rabbit.” That song belonged to her. It made her shimmer. It set her off her darkness with larger-than-life flashes of bold Moscow red. Red latex mini dress, matching thigh-high latex boots. Red candy-red hair, black-eyelinered eyes, a large nose. Black leather gloved hands, one pulling the zipper ring down her 42DD implants baring candy red painted aureoles.

Then he was next to her as she drove a lipstick-red ‘67 Chevelle. It was one of his father’s cars. She started talking in the Russian he did not speak. Palm trees rolled past. Close up, she was more striking than beautiful. The dark red surrounding her set off pale white skin until it glowed like moon surface. The face a bit too round, too circular, the nose thrusting from it, the mouth small and cruel. Her eyes were too wide and round and intense and unnatural, like they were staring from a cracked mind. But she was beautiful. Simon felt deep love for the night city lined with palm trees and places darkly-lit with mystery-colored female wonders.

Simon figured she was telling him her whole story. Anyway, something more than just being a Russian babbling at him. He wanted his ears to somehow strain meaning from her babbling like he was dreaming in a dream where he could do that.

She lit another cigarette, started speaking in English.

“You killed him tonight,” she said through the smoke.

“Yes.”

“You killed your father for me.”

“Yes.”

“Then you are my angel,” she said. “Right?”

Said in a way that told Simon she might kill him if he disagreed.

“Yes.”

She drove them home, to the large old brownstone surrounded by tall razor-sharp hedges. She took him to the master bedroom. It was his first time seeing it. The bedroom had the burned wax smell of candles mixed with cigarettes. The decor consisted of pictures of angels, Christ in some of them, but mostly angels. Illustrations of angels that had to be from past centuries, so beatifically archaic they’d have frightened the Amish.

The dress was a glossy darkness clinging to an eclipse ending at the moon glow of her thighs. She took off the boots then the dress. Moon glow, red landing strip, one tattoo: a red hammer & sickle below the pierced navel. The thickening curves held dense bottomless skin that never exposed past her surface, like she was made from opaque moonlight.

He looked around at the angels.

He said, “You’ve been praying for me to come to you.”

She said, “Yes.”

“Here I am.”

“How old are you?” she asked her stepson.

“Sixteen.”

“You have to be my man now.”

She kept the gun to Simon’s head while he gave her oral sex.

She kicked him until he was a wheel of pain.

The taped-up angels watched as slowly she took him apart. Then she put him back together with some parts moved around.

Afterwards she slept with the .38 revolver to his groin. If Simon tried to move out from under the barrel, she pressed it into his scrotum in her sleep. Simon had no idea how she could do that.

Dr. Playground tried to feel what the boy felt, find his kink. There was no turn-on there. Even then the boy was faking it.

“T
he Doctor looks pissed.”

Dr. Playground wore the exoframe full time now. He had Man Mafia One wear his full time too. He should have been contrite. Instead the henchman was making the first strike:
The Doctor looks pissed.

“I am way pissed. You had a bad last week, Vincent.”

Shuffling three mug shots with blank stares, Man Mafia One stared blankly. He had the quality of not giving a fuck. He seemed never to give a fuck. Dr. Playground admired his work on the Man Mafia exoframe, one with a built-in disintegrator that could micro-manage Man Mafia with one click. The asshole kept shuffling mug shot faces.

“Stop that.”

The faces stopped shuffling.

“Tell you how bad your week was. The Siren Syndicate is back and signed with AXIS. Two of you dead in one day: Number Four and Number Nine. One dead
gumare
, Tori Lynn Electra. Apple Gotti found nude with a bullet in her head. The Customizers down in flames faster than the Twin Towers. AXIS had a strong week. We had a weak one.”

“No denial.”

“You’re down to few clones.”

“We’re good.”

“Your mafia got decimated.”

“We’re good. As long as there’s one guy.”

“What’s your cloning limit?”

“Never found out. There may not be one.”

He turned to Xoir. She had no answer.

He turned back. “Give me a number, Vincent.”

“My max was thirty.”

“But you’re stingy with it.”

“Fewer is a better guy,” Man Mafia said. “You want a better guy. Nine and Twelve are not as choice as Six and Seven. I could fill a bus with guys but they wouldn’t be choice guys. Guys like that don’t last long or they’re mostly good for doing time. Don’t forget my name uses the word
man
in the singular. I am a one-man organization.”

“Mine isn’t.”

“Understood.”

“Know who your leader is.”

“Understood.”

“Say it.”

“Dr. Playground is my leader.”

“You had a shitty week, Vincent.”

“I had a shitty week.”

“Know what I say to that?”

“What do you say to that?”

“I say fuck it. AXIS is sucking its own dick tonight. Let them.”

Dr. Playground turned to the floating screen. He gazed at the boy’s face. He wondered if he had had so innocent and androgynous a face at the boy’s age. He could hear the music of pedophile attraction even if it rang with a hollowness. Was he tone deaf to it?

As Man Mafia had emotional coldness for his equalizer, Dr. Playground had his own, turning it up, slide-showed YouTube shots of the skinny boy cross-dressing topless wearing only a tiny white skirt, until MM made a face. That said fuck you, Man Mafia. He changed photos to a different boy, said, “Brief him.”

Xoir briefed Man Mafia: “Kieran Aspen. Former Chase Juniper schoolmate. Sexual relationship. Relocated to Quebec. His parents have kept him from making contact. No phone, no texting. For his part, the boy goes along with the ban. We texted him as Chase. Contact made.”

Man Mafia: “So you gotta be queer to get the key?”

Dr. Playground said, “Who do I have to suck to get out of this town?”

He turned to the light globe marked with translucent yellow-orange arrowed lines.

“The Unidentified Flying Behemoth flies outside the Limit, follows the sun as it crosses the globe.”

With one forefinger he drew a vertical ellipse. With the other he drew an intersecting ellipse.

“What is the common denominator of the two?”