Gods of Manhattan (6 page)

The Devil, according to Marcel, was a man of certain iron habits. He liked games of chance and chess, he liked a good trade and a better haggle and he liked to tell an incomplete truth, which is easier than a lie and a good deal more fun. He was easily reached, if you knew your way around a chalk circle, and always willing to let a fool bargain something precious away for a trinket he thought he wanted. Marcel was one such fool.

His tragedy had been a simple one. He would never be anything in the kitchen, not even a dishwasher. He could not use a knife without slicing open a finger or thumb, his palette could not distinguish a jalapeno pepper from a clump of mud, and his nose, constantly thick with cold, dripped regularly into any pan or open container he happened to lean over. He was
mal carne,
bad meat. And yet he wanted nothing more, in this life or any other, than to be one of the great chefs.

Of course, he could not sell his soul. What is a great chef without his soul?

Instead, he sold his reflection.

Nobody else could see it. Just him. But slowly, his deteriorating appearance, his lack of grooming and his hissed arguments with mirrors made him
persona non grata
in the restaurants of Paris. He was indeed a great chef, one of the greatest in the world. But when your best chef starts to have a blazing row with his own meat cleaver, he has to go, no matter how good the terrine is.

Marcel drifted, passing through the great culinary meccas of the world as he went, landing work as a line cook, or a pastry-chef, or a saucier, or any one of a hundred jobs far beneath his true talent. The cycle was always the same - he would come into a new kitchen and dazzle his fellow workers and the customers with his incredible culinary skills, and the bosses would look on him with favour. They would sample his fresh-baked bread or his reductions and state that they were never letting him go, that they would be fools to dismiss this wonderful man as so many others had. And then, one day, the Devil would say just the right thing from a mirror or a shiny piece of cookware or the back of a spoon, and Marcel would snap and rage against him at the top of his lungs, and it would all come out.

Who wants to employ an obvious madman in a place with knives? Marcel had to go.

Over time, his hair turned white, and the word spread, and even the smallest doors were closed to him. He ended up sprawled under a sheet of flat cardboard in a filthy alley, drinking bathtub gin and bursting into tears whenever the rain left enough of a puddle to see the Devil's face.

That was where Doc Thunder found him.

The circumstances were complicated.

Lars Lomax, the most dangerous man in the world, had attempted to use him as a guinea pig, understanding that he would not be missed. In the aftermath of the whole affair, as the emergency crews attempted to clear away the wreckage of Lomax's gigantic steam-powered Robo-Thunder, Doc had turned to him, laid one large hand on his shoulder, and asked what he could do to help.

"Let me cook for you," said Marcel. And Doc Thunder did. It was the best meal he had ever tasted.

Marcel had told Doc his story, and - rather than laughing or shaking his head in disgust or simply making a quiet call to the local sanatorium - Doc had done what he could. He'd had a new kitchen built, without reflective surfaces, and stocked it with cookware that would, likewise, not reflect, much of which he designed himself. And Marcel cooked, at first for the Doc, and then as time went by for Monk and Maya as well, and slowly he began to mend.

Occasionally, he would still catch sight of the Devil in a shop window or a puddle, and the Devil would only shrug. What was there to say? He had other games, and Marcel just wasn't that much fun anymore.

Maya had met the Devil herself, of course. You didn't get as old as she had without running into him sooner or later. She'd found him rather boring, and made her excuses. They'd not met since.

As she entered the kitchen, she breathed in the smell, as she did every morning; the powerful, sweet scent of the bacon fat, the subtle spice of cinnamon, the warm comforting aroma of the fresh bread, and under it all, as always, the dark, rich tint of her favourite coffee, waiting in a cup for her. "How do you always predict just when I'll want my coffee, Marcel?"

The Frenchman blushed and looked at his shoes. "I paid quite a price for the ability, Mademoiselle. But your smile is worth it all." He reached for the tray which he'd left on the side of the counter - a sumptuous Italian espresso, a perfectly cooked croissant and the morning paper. Even the paper was folded just so.

Maya cast her eye quickly over the paper, and frowned slightly. There was the headline Monk had spoken of: DEAD MAN FOUND MURDERED IN PENTHOUSE.

She could see Monk's point. It was a clumsy headline. If the man had been murdered, to say he was dead was a tautology. Still, something made her look more closely.

Heinrich Donner, the wealthy industrialist and German expatriate, had been found in a penthouse apartment across town, stabbed through the heart. The police believed a sword had been used. The title was referring to the fact that Donner had been missing for decades and was believed dead.

Maya frowned. A sword... had the masked man in her dream carried a sword? Or a gun?

She smiled sweetly at Marcel, finished her coffee and croissant, and then took the paper downstairs to the lab. Doc would want to know.

The man in the lab coat stood six foot seven, and his body seemed to be carved from bronze, a massive sculpture of hard muscle and sinew.

If he put his mind to it, the man could use that muscle to bend steel three inches thick, or jump an eighth of a mile. The bronze skin looked as tough as leather, and if put to the test it could shrug off bullets and leave only small bruises to mark their passing. An exploding shell might penetrate his skin, if applied directly, but it would not do much more than that.

The man needed to sleep no more than one hour out of every forty-eight, and during emergencies he had been known to stay awake a full week or more. He was more than seventy years old, but he barely looked half that age. If you shaved off the thick beard he wore, he could be mistaken for a man in his late twenties. His blue eyes could see further than an eagle, while his ears could hear frequencies normally reserved for the bat. He had bested three of the world's grandmasters at chess - he preferred speed chess to other varieties, as he often found himself predicting the exact move his opponent would make if they were left too long to think, which ruined the element of surprise.

He also painted, on occasion.

In fact, there was very little the man could not do. Except fully understand what it was to be a normal human being.

Occasionally, that troubled him.

His name was Doc Thunder, and he was widely recognised to be America's Greatest Hero. Occasionally, that troubled him more.

He'd talked to John about it, once, late at night, after that ugly business with Professor Zeppelin and his terror gas attack on Washington DC. He'd sat in the darkness of the Oval Office, nursing a scotch that he knew couldn't do a damned thing to him, letting the words tumble out of him one by one.

"Bullets bounce off my skin. I can stop a traction engine with my hands. I can be killed, but I honestly don't know if I'm going to die, John." There'd been something close to dread in his voice, as if the gas had affected him after all. "There are people who fought just as hard as I did against the Hidden Empire, and they died doing it. They knew they'd die and they fought anyway, because it was right. There are firemen and police officers and soldiers who risk their lives every day, without any of my advantages. Because it's the right thing to do. And I wonder if I'd do the same, if I wasn't... this." He'd sighed, shaking his head. "And I wonder what'll happen if I ever make the wrong decision. What the consequences would be."

John had just laughed and poured him another whisky. "You're a symbol, Doc. It's not an easy job."

Doc had smiled, then made his excuses and got up to leave. John had given him a strong handshake on the way out, and a last piece of advice: "Keep wearing that shirt, Doc. People like the shirt."

It was the last time they'd spoken. Two months later, in November, John had gone to Dallas and N.I.G.H.T.M.A.R.E. had shot him in the head to announce themselves on the world stage. Forty years later, Doc had only just managed to put them down for good, breaking their organisation until no stone was left on another stone. Even Silken Dragon, still beautiful, still deadly, still quite mad, had died in those final moments in Milan, despite all Doc Thunder's efforts to save her and bring her, at last, to trial - although they never did find the body, as so often happened with so many of these people, and a part of Doc knew that nothing ever stayed buried.

Still, John could sleep a little sounder now.

Doc was still wearing the shirt. It peeked out from the open lab coat - a light blue t-shirt with a yellow lightning bolt pointing down and to the left. The symbol of the Resistance against McCarthy, back in '54. It still meant something, even now. A lot of people flew it from office buildings instead of the old flag, although the stars and stripes still got wheeled out on state occasions.

John had been right. Doc's job wasn't exploring lost continents or fighting insane scientists. It was just standing up and doing the right thing, and being seen to do it. Because there were a lot of folks who didn't, and the more of those there were, the more the average Joe might start thinking he didn't have a chance, that the only way to play the game and win was to play it with no rules at all, golden or otherwise. Screw the little guy, stamp him down. Hate the different ones. Why not? They're Them and you're Us and spitting on them might make you more Us, might win you some power. Tell any lie that'll serve your purpose, print them and distribute them to the people while swearing you only speak truth. Believe what you're told without question, or shrug, because what can you do? What can anybody do? The bastards run the world, we just have to live in it. What can you do?

Keep thinking that way and soon you're looking in the paper at an article that says they're building a camp on the edge of town for all the people who are bad for the country, or bad for the company, there's no real difference anyway, and just keep looking the other way a little longer, friends, just keep nodding along, just keep shrugging, whatever, you're not in danger, you're one of Us and nobody's ever going to come for you, pal. Promise.

It couldn't happen here, is what we're saying.

Would we lie to you?

Doc knew where that road ended. He'd seen it with his own eyes.

So he wore his beliefs on his chest, and he always tried to do the right thing, and when he needed to stand up, he stood up. And because he was who he was, everybody saw it. And maybe someone took a look at him and realised that they could question what they heard, or they could step in when they saw something bad happening, or they could just try and treat people just a little better. Maybe just one person that day looked at him and thought:
I should start trying.

That was Doc Thunder's job.

Right now, part of that job was to help the police solve a murder.

"The shooting in Japantown?"

Maya's voice. Entering the lab unusually early. Doc nodded, flashing her a brief, tight smile.

"A gang member, executed in the street. There was a Blood-Spider card left on the body. Inspector West wanted me to check if the forensics matched his pattern." He sighed. "And they do."

Maya nodded, frowning. "Shooting children." She shuddered. "Are they any closer to catching him?"

Doc shook his head. "Unfortunately, a lot of the police don't want him caught. A lot of the citizenry feels the same. They see him as being on their side - cutting through the red tape, even. You know he shot a rabbi last night?"

Maya gasped. "That's monstrous."

"They found pictures of naked children in his home. A lot of the police are saying the Blood-Spider should get a medal." He rubbed his temples. "That's the problem, Maya. The people whose job it is to arrest him don't want to arrest him. The only reason Easton wants him off the streets is because... well, you know his foster father was a vigilante?"

Maya nodded. "The Blue Ghost. You worked with him occasionally. I remember you telling me."

"He never took a life. He was shot up more times than I can remember because he refused to. The man had an almost inhuman capacity for taking punishment, but eventually he had to retire." Doc looked into the microscope, double-checking the scratches on the shell cases. "He was murdered three years ago, just before Lars Lomax died. Someone strangled him and dropped him off a pier. By the time the body was found, it had been underwater for weeks. They only identified it as Danny Coltrane with dental records. Any clues had been wiped out." Doc shook his head. "Not pretty. The Blood-Spider popped up soon after that, and, well, I think Easton feels as if he lost his father only to have him replaced by someone who defiled his father's memory." He shook his head again, sadly. "I can't really disagree with him. I don't see killing as ever being necessary."

Maya raised an eyebrow. "Even for a child molester?"

"The man deserved a day in court." He sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose as if to stave off a headache. "You didn't get up this early to debate moral philosophy, though, did you?"