Better to Die a Hero (18 page)

Steve snatched up the cap and goggles and propelled by fright leapt three stories. All guilt disappeared; terror took its place.

*          *          *

Warmth caressed the length of Bryan’s body, turning the corners of his mouth up in a comfortable grin. It was good to be snuggled in bed, far too good to get up and go to school. The young man stretched his legs outward and took in a deep breath then slowly exhaled. Something odd occurred. A dull ache pulsed deep in his ribs, an unfamiliar pain, not at all similar to the neck and back ailment that tended to center high on his spine. No problem a simple roll over would take care of it.

“Aaagh!”

Bryan griped his shoulder tightly as if squeezing it might push out the pain that resided there. He opened one eye, the pillow and Star Wars bedding faded to black.

Aren’t I in bed?

He opened his other eye and stared into the darkness. Not wishing the pain to increase, he lay stiff looking outward waiting for some object in the void to take shape, giving a clue to his whereabouts. He blinked hard several times expecting the guestroom at Steve’s house to materialize. The smell of rotten cabbage clung to the hurtful air. The spot where he lay was at the same time hard and soft.

Garbage?

He lay on top of, and was covered in, bagged rubbish. The brick wall of an alley emerged from the darkness, as did the memory of his encounter with Savini and gang. Disappointment flooded his being; he wished so much to be in his own bed.

He sat up. “Aaagh!”

Garbage rolled off as he pushed through the pain. He ran his fingers over the misshapen shoulder. An examination of the collarbone proved it long and straight; however, a bulbous knot lay on top indicating a dislocation. If this were a role-playing campaign, no doubt Steve’s character would be there ready to assist.

Time to call in the team.

Bryan dug into the inside coat pocket for his cell phone, more disappointment ensued as he retrieved the device to the sound of broken plastic. He held the small electronics together as best he could and repeatedly punched the power button; the phone failed to light up. He shifted his grip several times, moving the pieces slightly hoping to get just the right contact to bring the phone to life, but still the display failed to illuminate.

On to plan B.

Bryan swapped the broken electronics for the whisky flask and shook a generous dose of powder into his mouth. It didn’t take long to work up the saliva and swash the gritty substance about. The powder dissolved faster and went down easier than ever before. He sat for several minutes looking up at the night sky wondering what to do next.

Time to be a man.

He crawled on his knees to the nearby dumpster. Oddly enough, his shoulder hurt more than his chest. He thought it strange a bullet hole would hurt less. Inching up to the corner of the giant dumpster on hands and knees, he lined his body up so that when plowing forward, his head would miss it entirely, but the top of the shoulder would contact the flat surface. He relaxed back on his calves, softly bounced forward one, two and then slammed hard into the metal container.

Trash piled high toppled down on him and he rolled to the middle of the alley. He clutched his shoulder and fought to stay conscious. A few people still roamed the street at night in every neighborhood; he had seen that first hand. Not wanting to call attention to his location he held in the screams—the tears he could not. Barely able to see through the salty fluid covering his eyes, the entire world was a blur; he crawled back into the pile of sweet garbage, curled up and went to sleep.

*          *          *

“Get the hell out of here you stinking bum.”

Bryan welcomed the bags landing on top of him; it bottled in warmth. The comment he did not care for. This time consciousness brought no comforting delusions, the young man knew exactly where he slept, in an alley buried in a heap of stinky garbage. He summoned the energy to examine his shoulder; the more natural shape brought relief. He rolled his shoulder clockwise then counterclockwise. The crippling pain was gone. His chest still hurt when breathing deeply, so keeping his breaths shallow and steady became paramount. Even so, every few minutes as if by reflex his lungs inhaled fully and all he could do was brace for the burn. He propped himself up, retrieved the flask and shook it in an attempt to gauge how much he’d used the last twenty-four hours. Failing to do so, he dumped another large dose into his mouth. If ever an emergency called for heavy usage a bullet hole qualified. Over come with exhaustion, he eased himself down and fell back to sleep.

*          *          *

“Hey you,” a much kinder feminine voice called out as a gentle hand shook Bryan’s foot. “We made you a shelter out of boxes and put it over there. I know you’re alive,” She said. “You snore and make funny noises.”

Bryan lifted his head and peered through a crack in the layers that covered him. Across the alley stood a large group of boxes duck taped together. “Thank you,” he said then yawned.

“You’re welcome,” she said, ducking back in the entrance.

He fought his way out of the garbage and crawled to the large cardboard container. The shelter was over six feet in length and Bryan crawled through its open end and lay down on the blanket spread across its bottom. Hinged with tape, the brown wall near his face swung open as he tapped it. A doggy door, nice. Without thinking he cleared his throat and impersonated former President Clinton. “I have got… the best cardboard house… in the city.”

The muffled laughter of several people erupted from behind the alley door. Yeah, I still got it. He once again drifted into a comfortable sleep.

*          *          *

Bryan awoke to what must have been another illusion, maybe sitting down with his family in a pizza parlor or Italian restaurant judging from the smell. It was a nice sensation; he liked his dad when they went out in public together. Reluctantly, he lifted an eyelid taking a chance of destroying the wonderful imagery. The make shift door in front of his face was propped open with a foam container; the kind usually packed with food, beside it sat a fountain drink.

No restaurant, but this will do.

Another whiff of the spicy contents brought the young man and his stomach to life. Hunger pangs squeezed upward and he sat up and pulled the box and drink into the cardboard enclosure.

“Spaghetti and meatballs!” he said.

He lifted the box up, first looking under it and then all around it. “Crap! No fork.” Too hungry to care, he scooped up strands of noodles with his fingers. Laughing, he attempted to guide the dangling pasta into his mouth with mixed results. Spaghetti was best eaten in an environment that accommodated long food, still he was touched by the generosity of the people behind the door. These were the people he was put on the planet to protect—excluding the jerk that tossed garbage on him.

The deep erratic inhales that naturally accompany the consumption of a large meal at a fast pace let him know that although much improved, he still suffered a chest wound. His arm and shoulder, however, moved nicely in all directions with virtually no pain. He finished the meal, cleaned up as best he could using the donated blanket, then sat back to contemplate his predicament.

First on the agenda was an extraction out of the city performed by his long time friend and fellow superhero. Steve would not be happy about borrowing his uncle’s car and even unhappier about driving into the city, but this was an emergency. He reached past the powder to his cell phone, discouragement settled in as he fondled the broken parts.

“Damn it.”

There was no way to get out of the fit his father was going to have. He knew from experience, he could make up no story that would soften the yelling. The fact that insurance would cover the loss of the phone would make no difference.

“Hey you, hero,” a confident female voice called out from the front of the alley, “I know you’re in here, I can smell your blood and your stink.”

Bryan sat perfectly still.

“I’ve been tracking you all day hero, and now that I know your stench you’re not going to be able to get away from me.”

The woman’s heels click on the concrete; whether forward into the alley or to the side he could not tell.

“Had it been the night, you’d have been no match for my master.”

Master? Bryan snatched up his soda and sucked down the last of it until only the sound of empty straw remained.

“Sun down is only a few hours away hero. Don’t plan on living much past it.”

“Are you threatening the great Cornhole’eo?” Bryan mimicked. He crouched down and stuck his head out the doggy door opening. The woman was gone.

BETTER TO DIE A HERO

CHAPTER 13

“I didn’t know what to do.” Steve handed Nora a soda then sat down at his computer desk. “I should have stayed in the city and kept looking for him, but my mind was racing. I was thinking, if I don’t show up tomorrow in class someone will notice both me and Bryan gone and figure it out.”

“Manhattan is big,” Nora said, running her fingertips through her hair, “chances are you’d have never found him anyway.”

“Maybe not, all I know is I panicked, big time… any stubble?”

“Nope, smooth as a babies bottom,” she replied.

“Don’t worry, just give it some time.” He smiled. “The hair follicles are probably in a state of shock and will go through a dormant cycle and then start growing again.”

“You so, totally made that up.” She reached out with her foot and tapped his leg.

“No,” Steve said, “I got that from an infomercial about hair transplants.”

“Really, what are you doing watching a video about hair transplants?”

“You haven’t seen any of the pictures, but every male, and I’m talking every male, on both my mom’s and dad’s side of the family is bald.”

“Your uncle isn’t bald.”

“George is my uncle by marriage, we don’t share any genes.” Steve now ran fingers through his own hair. “I can’t begin to tell you how good George has been to me. He gave me everything I needed, been my father and my friend.” He reached out and held Nora’s hands. “We are in big trouble. My uncle only has a few years left and I want him to live every minute of them.”

“Do you think the mafia guy could have been bluffing?”

“Not a chance,” he answered, “I could tell just by the way he said it. Nora, if we get caught they are going to find our families and kill them.” His imagination flashed to the innocent faces of Nora’s younger siblings. “Oh man.” He raised her hands to his lips, “we can’t get caught, we just can’t.”

“Maybe we should go to the police and tell them the whole story.”

“I thought about that,” Steve replied, “but here’s what I see happening. We locate some captain or chief of police tell him and he brings in someone to listen to the story, then they call in a couple of FBI guys to listen to it and someone from the DA’s office.” He kissed her hand. “I think how it works is, a shit load of people find out fast and one of them calls the mafia to collect a big reward.”

“You might be right,” Nora said, “even if they don’t call the mafia, a cop might let it slip to the press, we’ve been the biggest story in the country for a couple of weeks.”

“I would just love for Bryan to walk into his house tonight with some bogus all-night-rave story and we could put this all behind us.” He examined Nora’s well-maintained nails. “There’s something else we should do, or not do, actually. I think we should stop seeing each other.”

“Why?”

“If Bryan is dead, they’ll find his body soon in that dumb costume, and then they’ve got me. It’ll be obvious I’m one of the new heroes, but no one has to know about you.”

“We could be care—”

“No we can’t,” he said, throwing her hands way. “Look, we’re just too different anyway. This was never going to work. After today, I never want to talk to you again.” He stood and paced the room. “And that means I don’t want you e-mailing me, and I don’t want you coming up to me in school and stop coming over to do that annoying change of clothes you do.” Steve paused at Nora’s sniffles. “My house is not your personal dressing room.”

George’s voice barely carried up the stairs. “The police are here.”

“I’ll be right down,” he called out his bedroom door. “I’ll go take care of this and after they’re gone you should take off.”

George must have been watching out the window for their arrival, the two uniformed officers were only half way up the steps when Steve opened the door.

“Please come in,” George said, then turned toward the kitchen.

“Excuse me sir,” one of the officers said stepping in, “sir, we’re going to have to ask you to stay. We have questions for both of you.”

“You’re both aware that the parents of Bryan Sahbiny have filed a missing persons report?” the second officer asked.

“Yes we are,” George said. Steve merely nodded.

“It is our understanding that he left his house Saturday afternoon, drove here and was supposed to stay the night.” The first officer looked at his notes and then at George for the answer.

“Yes, he showed up Saturday but didn’t stay long.” George gulped air. “It was a bit unusual.”

“Did he say where he was going? Did he seem upset?” All eyes looked to Steve for the answer.

“He was a little upset that I wouldn’t sneak out of the house and go to a rave. That’s not something we do. He didn’t tell me where it was.”

“Right,” the second officer said. “I figured you and Bryan had to be close. Doctor Sahbiny sounded like he didn’t approve of the amount of time his son spent with you. When he and his wife estimated how many nights a month their son spent over here it struck us a little queer, you know, odd.”

George covered his trachea hole and shouted, “What the hell are you trying to insinuate?”

The office raised his voice. “I’m not insinuating a thing, sir.”

Steve wanted badly to throw a punch into the man’s gut just as he had done to the hood a day earlier in the alley. Some of the enhanced strength still coursed through his body, how much he could not be sure. Enough to send the jerk flying out the door he knew that much.

“You better tell them son,” George said, placing a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “This is for Bryan’s own good. You need to tell them about Bryan’s father.”

Steve cleared his throat. He was about to betray his best friend by speaking of the unspeakable. “Bryan’s dad yells at him. He yells at him a lot, from the time that he was little.”

“All fathers yell at their sons,” the first officer replied.

“Not like this.” Steve bit down on his lip. “Crazy mad yelling, constant and harsh.”

“Sir,” the officers asked George, “do you believe this yelling was excessive?”

“Yes I do,” the old man said, “bad enough to give the kid a facial tic back in junior high school.”

“Bryan’s mom,” Steve said, “bought him a car and made sure he got his license early so that he could get out of the house as much as possible. Before that she drove him over here.” He started feeling a little better. “She sent both of us to computer camp and does everything she can to make sure Bryan’s out of the house when his dad gets home.”

“That surprises me,” the offensive officer said. “Doctor Sahbiny has been our family practitioner for years, that’s why I’m on this case. I’ve never met a smarter, more charming man.”

“He is charming, until he gets home.” George spoke up. “And then he takes all his frustration and anger out on that boy. Bryan is a good kid and he’s always welcome at our house, any time.” He drilled a harsh look at the offending cop.

“I see,” the first officer said. “Well, our best lead is the rave you mentioned and since we can’t interview every kid in your high school, you’re going to have to find out where it was and who was there.” He handed George a business card. “If Bryan makes contact you’ll need to call this number right away and as soon as you find out anything about that party, like who attended you need to call. If you give us names without phone numbers you won’t be doing your friend any favors.”

“We understand officers,” George said, “and thank you. Steve will start asking around tomorrow at school.”

Steve hopped up the stairs almost forgetting the harsh tone he had taken with

Nora. He hated doing it but it was for her safety and the safety of her family. He practiced scowling a few times before turning the doorknob.

“Hey you,” Nora said from beneath the covers of Steve’s bed, her naked shoulders protruding above the burgundy sheets. “You said I should take off so I did.” She pointed to the pile of clothes on the chair and giggled.

His scowl melted and he shut the door in the unlikely case George should venture up the second floor. “Uh… I…”

“Nice try at being mean to me, but everyone knows that’s how you get rid of a pet or person you love when you want to save their life. Shut off the light and come sit by me,” she softly commanded.

“So you saw through the mean bit.” He sat down on the bed, leaned in and kissed her softly on the lips. “I can’t take a chance on you or your family getting hurt, so after tonight we have to stay away from each other, just for a little while.”

“I know,” she said, pulling him back to her lips.

*          *          *

Bryan yawned as he jumped from the fire escape onto the roof. “Where the hell am I and where the hell am I parked.” Rejuvenation empowered him like the first twenty-four hours after shaking off the flu, when a person appreciates his health the most. Only the deepest of breaths brought any discomfort and not enough to be considered pain at that. He walked to the far side of the rooftop and gazed down several stories into the neon confusion that resembled every other Manhattan street after dark.

“Crap, I should have looked around before I came up here.” He headed for the fire escape knowing the answer to his location waited below spelled out in twisted neon, Soho Diner, Greenwich Grocery or something similar. He chided himself for not checking the location of the alley that had served so well in his recuperation. With his cap and goggles lost, it was best to move to the street anyway. Walking the streets at night would draw no attention. Scaling one side of a building and dropping down the other, without a mask, would invite discovery. He rolled up the red legs of his costume, buttoned his raincoat and stuck out a leg to see how it looked. Disappointed at the flasher-esque appearance he rolled the leg material down. No one would notice anyway. The people behind the alley door had not noticed.

“Hello hero,” a familiar female voice said.

Bryan startled to attention then looked the short buxom woman over as she hopped down from the ledge. The orange halter-top, knee high boots and leopard skin shirt reminded him of the stereotypic prostitute, but her face and long curly hair were straight out of a fashion magazine. The ample bounce of her landing reminded him of the not so fashionable magazines he kept hidden at Steve’s house. Although friends, including Steve, had e-mailed him links to the best free porno on the web, he still preferred seeing naked women on glossy paper and this woman had most of them beat in the looks department. She stood hand on hips posing until he’d had his fill.

“You’re the lady from the alley,” he said, “and here I thought I was dreaming.”

“I may be a dream honey, but you’re not dreaming.” She stepped toward Bryan. “I’d suggest you make an appointment with your dermatologist, but you’re not going to live that long.”

“Hey,” Bryan responded, genuinely hurt by the first half of her comment. He touched his forehead, chin, and couldn’t believe the magnitude of bumps. It was as if dozens of bone-hard peas lay under his skin. “Holy crap, I do need a dermatologist, but you may be a little off about me not living long.”

The woman stepped laterally, circling Bryan; her eyes narrowed as if she where sizing him up.

Bryan matched pace, pivoting, keeping her in front of him. He scanned for a bulge that might represent a concealed gun, but saw nothing except taut clothing across an hourglass figure. She had to be armed, he was sure of that. After the show he had put on, taking out Savini and crew, only a crazy person would throw down with him hand-to-hand, especially a girl. The gun had to be of small caliber strapped to her inner thigh just above the seam of her skirt or behind her back tucked in at the waistband. Neither location posed a serious threat. If she made a move in either direction, he’d traverse the fifteen feet between them and flatten her. He didn’t plan to hurt her, just knock her down and maybe fall forward and land on top of those large cushiony breasts.

“You hurt my master and for that I’m going to tear you apart.” The woman sneered, continuing to circle, inching ever closer.

“That fat man was your master? That is just sick. What kind of pervert are you?”

“Grrrruuuu!” The women growled. She held out her hands, faint snaps and crackles emitted as her fingers grew bending and shaping into bony claws. Two loud pops followed as her jaw unhinged and dropped forward. Her mouth opened wider than humanly possible revealing sharp canine like teeth.

“Holy crap.” Bryan rapidly discarded his long coat. “You’re not attractive at all.”

The woman bared her teeth. “Sheeeaaa!” Her scream was only half human and not the good half.

Bryan flinched and did a frightened double hop. He recovered immediately, smoothly transitioning into a makeshift karate stance as if he’d meant to do it all along.

She charged leading with her face. Her gaping mouth looked intent on devouring his entire head. Her hideous orifice only inches away, Bryan arched explosively backward, cleaving his arm upward. Catching the woman’s armpit, he catapulted her voluptuous body over his own. The loud clang of her body slamming into the sheet metal air conditioner was testament of the impact, as was the rebound that sent her rolling across the tar surface.