Seven Wonders (7 page)

CHAPTER FIVE

Joe spilled his coffee, swore under his breath, and said hello to Gillespie.

  The coffee station was mostly in darkness, the main overheads off but with just enough light leaking through from the open-plan precinct office to enable the safe preparation of hot beverages. Joe smiled weakly as Gillespie paused in the doorway, keeping outside of the mini-kitchen but fixing Joe with a look that wasn't entirely friendly.

  "How did I know you'd still be here?" Gillespie's eyes returned to his cell phone, the four-inch screen lighting his face from underneath like he was about to recite a campfire ghost story.

  Joe turned back to the sink, mind racing as he set about attempting a second cup of coffee. Not quite able to multitask to the required degree, he ended up tipping his own fresh cup down the sink. He paused, resisted a sigh, and peered at the faint, worn LEDs on the coffee robot on the countertop next to him. He cleared his throat and spoke to the wall.

  "Y'know, in some lines of work, a bit of unscheduled overtime is considered to be a good thing."

  He heard Gillespie chuckle to himself, and, confidence buoyed, turned to follow up his joke quickly – and
naturally
, he hoped – but the captain's attention was back on his phone.

  Joe sighed again. Gillespie's eyes flicked up to him, their whites green from the LCD light, then back to the phone. The captain began texting while talking. Now
there
was multitasking.

  "It's considered a good thing in this police department too, detective. Except when it's a Friday night and you're hiding in the dark, which means Sam's here using the taxpayers' electricity for work which isn't on her books." He paused and his phone bleeped as the mystery text message was sent. When he looked back at Joe, it was with
that
look. Head tilted down, Gillespie peered up at his detective through thick black eyebrows knitted together into a single featureless furry spacebar.

  "Uhh…"

  "She at her desk, or have you stalled me long enough for her to get to the ladies' while I go to my office, grab some paperwork, and get out? Is that how it works?" Gillespie waved his hand at the sink. "Is the coffeespilling something to do with it? You running interference, detective?"

  The captain took just a step into the coffee station, glanced around the perfectly serviceable − if simple − area and gave a snort of derision. Joe knew that it was nothing to do with the mini-kitchen and its amenities, or lack thereof. Gillespie made his coffee here just like anyone else during the day.

  This was establishing his seniority, his authority.

  "Uhh…"

  Joe wasn't good at this, but then he was a little surprised that Gillespie knew what the game was anyway. Fuck. Who was he kidding? A John Le Carré spy novel this was not.

  "I don't want to hear it." Gillespie abruptly turned and headed towards his enclosed office. "It's the weekend. I'm going to play golf. I'm only here to take some papers so I can pretend I'm important to my wife. If you guys are into some kind of kinky career-retardation fetish, I cease to give one shit. Goodnight, detective."

  Joe followed his boss out into the office; Sam was nowhere in sight, but her computer monitor cast a white spot of light on her empty chair, and her traditional green-shaded desk lamp was on.

  Shit.

  "Sir, I…"

  "You need to learn to quit while you're ahead, detective." Gillespie kept walking, shaking his head. "If I remember this on Monday morning I'll call you to the principal's office. But just make sure you get him. I don't care if it's for mass murder or tax evasion, bring me something to pin on the Cowl and then we'll take it to the Seven Wonders to handle. We're their guests next week, don't forget. You got that, detective?"

  Joe nodded, fresh cup of hot coffee in one hand and heart racing in his chest. Gillespie turned and looked his detective up and down, then sighed and walked out, banging the door to his office closed behind him. A second later the bubbled glass of his partition lit brightly as the captain began shuffling papers on his desk. Joe squinted and looked away.

  "Safe?"

  "Safe."

  Sam's blonde hair appeared around the edge of the short corridor leading to the bathrooms. She looked confused for a second, then her eyes widened as they traced the source of the light to the captain's office. "Fuck!" She pulled back around the corner a little. "I thought you said it was safe?"

  Joe sighed, and shook his head. "Chill, detective. He knows."

  The lights in the captain's office snapped off, and Gillespie strode out. He glanced at Joe as he passed and then at Sam, frozen in the doorway. He paused for a second, gave her a curt nod, then kept walking.

  "Milano can fill you in. Have a good weekend."

  And then the captain was gone; Joe and Sam had the office to themselves once more.

  Sam slowly made her way back to her desk and sank into the chair.

  "Fill me in?"

  Joe rolled a nearby chair over, sat heavily and leaned back, stretching his legs out. Arms behind his head, he whistled without a sound and looked at the ceiling.

  "He says we can get him if we take our investigation to the Seven Wonders."

  Sam's jaw worked up and down for a second or two as she processed the information.

  "Since when are the Seven Wonders interested in what goes on in this city?" She paused. "And since when is the chief interested in cooperating with them?"

  "Hey," said Joe, his arms collapsing onto his lap. "Don't you get it? Gillespie just gave us the go. We're attending that civic thing next week. They'll all be there, so let's gather the case up and make sure we have something to present."

  Sam looked at him blankly. Joe sighed.

  "Come on, Sam, we have a chance here. For the first time in months. This might be the so-called SuperCrime department, but we're redundant, our services mostly farmed out to Homicide or other places that actually need good detective work when we're not just pulling yellow tape around another of the Cowl's battlegrounds. And it might be our last chance. If we blow this, Gillespie isn't going to let it slide any longer. The Seven Wonders may be ineffectual but they're the city's official guardians. And they were good once, remember? Hell, they were great – the best."

  Sam nodded, slowly. Joe watched her for a moment. Finally, she got it. Sink or swim, do or die. Joe quite liked his SVPD pay check and wasn't too keen to lose it. And if that meant taking everything to the city's resident superteam, then so be it.

  "OK."

  Sam shifted her monitor around a little, waving Joe in.

  "Look at this."

  Joe swung forward, the rollers of the office chair banging loudly on the floor. It was late. It was Friday. Tomorrow was Saturday. He wanted a drink. And something to eat. And some sleep. And to watch ESPN. And to generally have a life. Then he looked at Sam's face, alive with concentration, focus, passion. Another all-nighter digging into the SVPD files on the Cowl, filling Sam's own private file on the supervillain. A private file that now had possibilities.

  On their own, he really wondered what Sam thought she would be able to do. Locate his lair, reveal his true identity, present the case without Gillespie's knowledge, and force the Seven Wonders into action? The captain had been right there, at least. The city's superteam may have been a mostly invisible, idle presence for years, but there was no way in hell the SVPD could do anything about the Cowl. The supervillain was untouchable. It'd be like handcuffing God.

  As much as he hated to admit it – as much as he knew Sam refused to believe it – they needed the Seven Wonders on their side. They had no choice.

  "So, we got something we can run with? Something new?"

  Sam nodded, and smiled. The shock of Gillespie's visit forgotten, the old excitement was returning. The Cowl really was her reason for being a cop. Joe glanced at the tiny portrait frame on Sam's desk. She never mentioned him when they were working, but David was an invisible presence, always at Sam's shoulder. Joe felt it – he and Sam had a partnership, an understanding about not just the job, but about
life
. Sam didn't talk about David because she didn't need to. Not even on the anniversary of his death, which…
Fuck
it, it was the day of the bank job. Joe sighed and pulled back a little out of Sam's light, but his partner didn't notice. Or if she did – she was a mighty fine detective, after all – she didn't show a damn thing.

  "I've pulled the CCTV from the bank. Here's our mystery man."

  Joe squinted at the monitor. Like all CCTV recordings, it seemed, the tape from the bank was black and white and fuzzy. Sam tapped the screen over a young man with dark hair kneeling beside another hostage. The man was glancing left and right, shifting slightly on his knees.

  "There's no match on our system for our new speedster."

  Joe frowned. "Are you going to ask them about this guy?"

  "Leverage. They'll want to see this, and maybe we can use it to get some cooperation out of them."

  "Do you think he is Linear?"

  Sam leaned back. "If he is, knowing his face is a card in the hand for us. If he isn't, they'll be spitting tacks. Either way, they might start taking us seriously."

  Joe whistled again. "Blackmailing the superteam. Nice plan, detective."

  Sam laughed, then closed the CCTV and brought up the SVPD's CRIMESCENE database. A saved search displayed a series of mugshots, arranged in a tiled display. Sam had stacked files on a dozen recorded criminals. Joe couldn't see any connection in the collection of faces − black, white, Asian, all male, some young, most old.

  "I ran a new keyword search," she said. "Check it out."

  "You think one of these could be the Cowl?"

  Sam smiled. "You bet. Here, listen."

  Joe leaned forward, eyes on the screen. It was going to be a long night.

CHAPTER SIX

Tony remembered the night he met her.

  He remembered looking around the bar, and saying to Bill: "This was a bad idea." Bill was sitting on his left, his smile a mile wide. Clearly he wasn't letting Tony's negativity ruin a night on the tiles, and Tony watched as Bill's head bounced a little to the music even as he shook it in despair at his friend's attitude. Bill swigged his beer then breathed malt-toned bubble-air into Tony's face. Tony tried not to react, but moved his own glass a little farther away from his chin, which was practically on the bar anyway. He knew he was being a killjoy in a club full of happy people, but part of him liked the fact that he was being contrary. The other half of him felt bad for Bill, who was making a superheroic effort to cheer him up.

  "Lighten up, bro," Bill said. "And drink up. You've been nursing that glass for an hour. What the hell is it, anyway?"

  Tony pulled the glass in and sniffed it, reminding himself but also making a show that this really wasn't his scene.

  "Gin and tonic. Too much gin."

  Another disbelieving shake of the head, another swig of beer. Bill drained the bottle and waggled it between two fingers in Tony's face.

  "Gin and tonic? Who the hell drinks gin and tonic?"

  "I drink gin and tonic, Bill."

  "Yeah except you're not tonight, are you? Or do you wait for it to evaporate from the glass and breathe it in?"

  This Tony smiled at, and in defeat he took a sip. He didn't go out much – didn't go out at
all,
truth be told – and he'd forgotten that bar staff sometimes didn't quite understand the complexities of alcohol beyond beer, Southern Comfort, and whatever cocktail with sexually explicit moniker was popular among the underage drinkers this month.

  "Screw you," said Bill, slapping the bar and sending his empty bottle rocking. "I see ladies of a female persuasion. See you in a bit." Bill's fourth/fifth/sixth beer arrived in his hand, ice-cold beads running into his fingers. He patted Tony slightly too hard on the shoulder, and casually sauntered away, taking an elliptical course that looked natural but would eventually lead him to the other side of the dance floor where two girls were doing their best to look like high school jailbait. Tony's eyes followed his friend's progress, and he craned his neck around as he refused to shift his quite comfortable arm from where it was supporting him on the black glass of the bar top.

  "Huh," came the voice from behind Tony's back, to his right. "Bill is such a dick."

  Tony laughed and dragged himself upright. He swallowed some more G 'n' T, clacked the glass down onto the bar and turned to his other work colleague, Nate.

  "Ain't that the truth."

  Actually, Nate was more than just a nine-to-five work colleague. Tony had been at the Big Deal for four years and had been avoiding making friends there from almost day one. Work wasn't a place for friends, work was work, it just "was". But four years in shit-pay retail is practically a lifetime, and Tony, Bill and Nate had accidentally found themselves the most senior floor staff in the local store's history. But while Tony and Nate
tolerated
Bill, there was still a slight, almost uncomfortable distance between them and him, as apart from their shared experience of selling computer junk to soccer moms, they had very little in common.

  Tony and Nate, on the other hand, were firm friends. Kindred spirits, battling the oppressive corporate world, talking about music and books and gaming strategies while they stalked the almost endless shelves of cheap, shiny plastic laptops and the towering pyramids of free, shiny, printer/scanner/fax combos.

  Tony and Nate both watched Bill for several minutes. Neither of them could understand it. Bill was fine in small doses, but not the kind of person you'd ever really choose to be around. Nate called him the Neanderthal. Tony didn't bother with a name. True, Bill annoyed him, but Tony really couldn't muster enough energy to think about him much. It seemed better that way.

  Nate sniffed. "Sooo…?"