E-Mail: Jens.Altmann@excite.de
The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else.
Umberto Eco, Travels in Hyperreality
* * *
Three against one was nowhere near Alexander Nichol's idea of a fair fight. Especially not if the three looked like brawlers, and the one was visibly out of shape. Alex figured it was a mugging, or maybe a thrillbeating.
Before the three knew what was happening, Alex was among them. The first was down and out before he had a chance to react. While Alex took the second one on, the third knocked their victim out and put his hand in a pocket. Alex ducked and rolled in anticipation of a shot, but when he came back to his feet the thug held a knife.
Alex he laughed. He took a defensive stance.
“Come on,” he said, waving invitingly at the thug. “Give it your best shot. Join your friends in the hospital.” He pointed his chin at the groaning men on the ground. “Or pick up your friends and get the hell outta here. Your choice.”
The thug looked at Alex, at his friends. He folded the blade back into the handle and put it away.
“Smart boy,” Alex said. He stepped back. “Now git.”
The thug helped his friends to his feet. Together, they stumbled off. When they'd reached a safe distance, the third thug turned around.
“This isn't over yet,” he snarled.
“It's your funeral,” Alex replied. He wished he were as confident as he sounded. These guys had seen his face, they could find him again if they really put their minds to it. He wasn't really afraid for himself. This trio was all hot air. But Imogen and Danny were a different story.
He went over and helped the victim back to his feet. The man was in his early forties. He wasn't very tall, and overweight. He looked beaten up.
“Are you all right?” Alex asked.
“I'm ...” The man took a deep breath that sounded like a sob. “I'm fine, thank ... I ...” The man plopped down again on the ground. “I can't ...”
This looked worse than just a reaction to the trauma of being mugged. Alex helped the man back up. He looked around.
“Look, there's a diner over there,” he said, pointing. “Why don't you go there and clean yourself up. Then we'll have a cup of coffee, and you can tell me all about it.”
“You don't want to know,” the man said.
“You look like you need to get something off your mind, and I'm a sucker for a good sob story. Hey, sometime it helps to talk about it.”
The man looked at the diner and sighed.
“Perhaps,” he said. “Thank you.”
* * *
“I'm Ed,” the man said. He looked better with the blood washed away from his face, but he would be black and blue all over in the morning. “Ed Coleman. I don't know what you think you saw there ...”
“A mugging, I'd thought.”
Ed shook his head.
“It was more than that. Those people were organized crime.”
“Excuse me?”
“Russian Mafia, as far as I can tell. I haven't gotten past the top layers yet.”
“You look like a nice enough guy. What'd you have to do with the Mafia, never mind which one?”
“A long story.”
Alex looked at his watch.
“I have time.”
“All right.” Ed sighed and stared into his coffee for long minutes. “You're right,” he said finally. “Perhaps it will help to talk about it.
“Those people kidnapped my wife.”
“Ransom payment gone wrong, then?”
“No. Worse than that. They don't want ransom. I don't know ...” Ed sighed. “Have you ever heard of mail order brides?”
“Sure. That's when women are so desperate to get out of a poor country and a bad situation that they sell themselves to the highest bidder. Sort of one-client prostitution.”
“I take it you don't approve.”
“I don't believe in slavery.”
“It's not slavery. It's really no different from answering a personal ad in the local newspaper. The only difference is, those women expect less of men. In the end, they get a better life, and the man gets the illusion of happiness. I suppose my view of this is a bit different from yours. I was lonely enough to give it a try. I sort of figured it's my last chance for happiness. I picked a woman from a catalog. We corresponded for a couple of months.” He shrugged. “That worked out well. I paid her fare to come over here so we could meet in person. We liked each other. At least I like to think we did. I liked her, at any rate. We got married.”
“And lived unhappily ever after?”
“No. After the reception, when we were finally alone, a couple of men broke into our apartment. They dragged my wife right out of my bed. They didn't even give her the time to get dressed. I tried to stop them, but ...” He shrugged. “Of course I went to the police, but they didn't do anything. A couple of days later, a detective came by to tell me they were dropping the case. He didn't tell me why.”
“So you decided to try it by yourself.”
“This may sound strange to you, but I love my wife. I want her back. I found out that she was kidnapped by one of the crime families. I don't know how much you know about these things. Does the name Varvarinski mean anything to you?” Alex shook his head no. Ed continued, “From what I learned, Vasya Varvarinski is the godfather, or whatever the Russians call them, of the families in New Harbor. They have a nice scam going on. They help women to seek husbands in the west. Not that they don't make a profit of that. When the women have found a husband, and they've married, they abduct the women and put them to work as prostitutes. Like Galina.”
“Galina's your wife?”
Ed nodded. He felt his pockets, smiled when he found what he was looking for and took his wallet out. He took a picture from the wallet. It was the picture of a young woman. Alex's eyes were drawn to her eyes and her smile. She was beautiful.
“She has the face of an angel,” Ed said. “I fell in love with her the moment I saw that picture.”
“How old is she?”
“22. I know your next question. I'm 43. She could've said no, though. She didn't.” Ed took the picture and looked at it. His expression softened. “When I answered her ad, I half expected her to write back, 'No, thanks, I'm not that desperate.' I know I'm not exactly the first prize in the lottery of life. But she didn't. Out of all the proposals she must've gotten, she chose me. And now she's gone.”
Alex watched Ed closely. The look on his face as the older man looked at his wife's picture touched him. Ed at least believed he loved the woman.
And no woman deserved what she had gotten.
“Perhaps I can help,” Alex said. He held his hand out. “May I have that?”
“Why?” Ed brought the photo closer to his chest.
“I ... know some cops. Perhaps I can get them to look into it. I'll need that picture to show them.”
Ed looked at the photo again. He held it out. Alex took it, looked at it and put it in his shirt pocked.
“Do me a favor,” he said. “Don't do anything stupid.”
* * *
“She's pretty,” Imogen Templeton said. Alex looked up to see her look over his shoulder. “Who's she?”
“Have you ever heard of mail order brides?” Alex asked.
“Hmm. Some men are so sick and perverted, they think they can buy a woman and she'll love them for it. The lowest of the low.” She hugged him and pressed her cheek against his. “Are you looking to trade me in for a newer model?” She took the photo from his hand. “How old is she, anyway? 19?”
“22.”
“Is this one of those mail order brides? How'd you get that picture?”
“Long story. Yes, she is. She's missing.”
“Probably ran away from the personality disorder on two feet she was forced to marry. Good for her.”
“Or something's happened to her,” Alex said. He frowned. Why was he doing this? Why had he offered his help? Why was he telling Imogen all this? Why wasn't he telling her all of it?
What am I doing anyway?
“I don't know,” he muttered and put the picture away. “I don't know what I was thinking.”
They didn't discuss the matter any further, but Alex couldn't get it out of his mind. Ed had been right about one thing, the girl had the face of an angel. Innocent and sweet. He shuddered to think what was being done to her. She had already lost some of her innocence by marrying Ed.
But what could he do about it?
When he heard Imogen's steady breathing beside him, he got up out of bed and dressed. He went down into the cellar. He and Imogen shared an apartment since last month. Neither his nor hers, but a new place they were making their home. They'd agreed that it was better this way, instead of one of them moving into the other's apartment. A lot of Alex's stuff had been put into the cellar.
Including a very special box he had kept in his closet. A box that Imogen should never get the chance to look inside.
Alex unlocked the box and sat down beside it. He looked at the contents. It was a black and blue bodysuit, with a full-face mask, gloves and boots. A silver crescent moon was on the chest.
It had been months since he had last put this suit on. Danny had been in danger then, Imogen's son. He had seen no alternative but to resurrect the Midnight Sentinel to help the boy.
The police wouldn't help, Ed had said. Alex's sense of justice demanded that someone should get Galina out of the mess she was in. The police wouldn't do it, apparently. Ed was in no shape to do anything. Alex couldn't take the chance that his involvement endangered his own new family.
Like it or not, he thought, the Midnight Sentinel's the only one who can help. His face was grim as he changed into the costume. I keep having to put this on again, he reflected. Almost as if it were meant to be.
* * *
Considering who lived here, the patio door was ridiculously easy to open. It took the Sentinel only a couple of seconds to jimmy the lock. He slipped into the living room. Everything was dark and silent. He considered turning the lights on.
“Don't move a muscle,” he heard a moderately familiar voice say. At the same time, he felt something round and hard press against the side of his head.
He was glad the mask hid his surprise.
“Hi, Detective Hammer,” he said as cool as he could manage, in his superhero voice. He thought he brought it off, to sound as if he had expected Hammer to be there. “Nice place you've got here.”
“That's breaking and entering,” Hammer said. “Hands on your back. I'm taking you in.” He snorted. “I should run you in for wearing that dumb outfit, but I don't know if there's a law against it. There should be.”
“I wouldn't do that,” Sentinel said. “Every time we met, you ended up earning a commendation. That time when I saved your butt from Slash, for example.”
“You're the real thing?”
“Know anybody else dumb enough to run around dressed like this in the summer?” Sentinel countered, turning to face Hammer. The Detective put the revolver away.
“I thought you were retired,” the police officer said. “Again.”
“Things change. I need your help.”
“Give me one good reason why I should.” Hammer holstered his pistol. The Sentinel told him.
* * *
The men were careless. Then again, they felt safe here. They were the baddest cats in town, and the cops couldn't touch them, couldn't even legally search the premises. Two of them watched TV. One at least stripped and cleaned his pistol. One of them came out of the next room, tightening his belt. That room wasn't the bathroom. The Midnight Sentinel knew it wasn't. He had studied the blueprints. It had been amazing how well some of the cons he had learned from TV shows worked.
He had gotten this address from Hammer, after they had identified the three thugs who had tried to beat up Ed Coleman. A single phone call had brought the fact that they worked for Vasya Varvarinski. Varvarinski was the biggest player in the local chapter of the Russian mafia, and the law couldn't touch him. For some obscure reason, Varvarinski had diplomatic immunity, which he abused with impunity.
When he found that out, Hammer threw an empty cup at a wall.
“The law can't touch him,” Hammer had said. “As a diplomat, he's above the law.”
”I can touch him,” the Midnight Sentinel had said. “He may have immunity. I have a mask.” The police detective had looked at his costumed ally for a moment.
“What do you need?” he had asked. The Sentinel had told him.
“All right,” Hammer had replied. “But don't expect me to put a giant searchlight with a bat on it on my roof.”
“Wouldn't dream of it,” the Sentinel had said. “I wear a different shield.”
Now the Midnight Sentinel sat right on top of the criminals's hideout, waiting for the moment to strike.
He wouldn't get a better chance.
A small charge, courtesy of the New Harbor PD by way of David Hammer, blew out a couple of glass panels of the skylight. The shards came tumbling down. The Midnight Sentinel leapt after them.
He landed relatively soft on the couch, right next to one of the crooks. He was lucky, their surprise lasted longer than he needed to recover from the fall. He knocked the one he had landed next to out. Pulling the nightstick, another toy he owed Hammer for, out of the holster he had strapped to his right leg, he bashed in the nose of the nearest other man. A short leap brought him close to the man with the pants. He ducked and straightened, bringing the nightstick up between the man's legs as he did. The man made a sound Pavarotti would have envied.
That left the one with the disassembled gun. By now that thug had figured out that he was unarmed. He threw the parts at the Sentinel, who had to duck to avoid them. Fists flying, the thug followed the parts, putting the Midnight Sentinel on the defensive. He took two blows to his head and one to the ribs before he managed to counterstrike. He had the thug down and out with three strikes.
Midnight Sentinel looked around at the helpless thugs, making sure they were all down for the count. When he felt safe, he entered the room the man with the pants had come out of.
Inside the room was a bed. On the bed was a naked woman, somewhere in her early 20's, curled up in a fetal position. She whimpered as the Sentinel approached her. He picked up a blanket from the floor and covered her with it.
“It's all right,” he whispered, stroking her hair. He looked at her face. He couldn't see it clearly, she covered most of it with her hands. She reached for the blanket and pulled it up to her nose. The Sentinel sighed. This was Galina Coleman, all right. And yet she wasn't. The picture her husband had shown him had been of an angel, innocent and sweet. This woman was no longer innocent.
The Sentinel wished he had been rougher with the perpetrators.
“It's all right,” he repeated. “Ed sent me. You're safe now. Everything's gonna be all right.”
He knew that was a lie. But it would do for the moment. He stroked her hair again, then left the room. He took several pairs of handcuffs from his belt and used them to secure the thugs. On the table was a pitcher, with some liquid inside. He sniffed it. It smelled of alcohol. He picked one of the thugs at random and poured the liquid over his head. The man woke up sputtering.
“What ... Who ...?”
“The cops'll be here any moment now,” the Midnight Sentinel whispered. “So I'll make this quick. I know who you are. I know who you work for.”
“Then you know you're dead meat, meat,” the thug hissed. The Midnight Sentinel belted him with the pitcher.
“Ooh, I'm so scared,” he hissed. “I want you to remember this, buster. I want you to tell your boss that I know why the law can't hurt him. But I'm not the law. I can hurt him. And I will. Before I'm through with him, he'll wish he'd never even heard of this country.”
“You are so dead,” the thug said. The Sentinel laughed his best Shadow laugh.
“Tell Vasya the Midnight Sentinel's coming for him. Tell him to be afraid of the dark.”
TO BE CONTINUED