Spiderman 1 (24 page)

Savoring every syllable, Peter responded, "I missed the
part where this is
my
problem."

He stared at the promoter long enough to watch the guy's
face turn purple with rage, then he turned his back on him
and walked away, humming. It hadn't been such a bad
evening after all. Granted, he was out $2,900 dollars. But it
was almost worth it just to see payback occur that quickly.

Almost.

XI.

THE SHOOTER

Peter was running late, and that alone was enough to
make him nervous.

His original plan was to get back to the library early
enough that he could come trotting down the stairs to meet Uncle Ben, who was supposed to give him a ride home. He
didn't want Uncle Ben to see him emerging from the subway station down the street, having taken the subway over to the
arena.

Unfortunately he'd wasted so much time arguing with the
promoter that he was returning to the vicinity of the library
later than he'd intended. Well, why not? Every other thing in
his evening had gone wrong. Why not this? He just had to
hope and pray that Uncle Ben didn't spot him coming up
from the station or that Uncle Ben was running late himself.

Dressed in his street clothes, Peter trotted up to the cor
ner where his uncle was supposed to meet him. He let out a
sigh of relief. Uncle Ben was nowhere in sight. He looked
around, trying to see if perhaps he'd parked across the street,
but there was no sign of him. So he was running later. Or
maybe he'd gotten there early, and some cop had told him he
couldn't stand there, so he was circling the block. That also
made sense, particularly since Peter spotted a police car at a
far corner, its light blinking steadily. Yes, that was definitely it; the police had turned out to make sure no one blocked the front of the library. So Uncle Ben would likely be pulling up
any moment, Peter would jump in quickly, and off they'd go.

The only question in Peter's mind was whether to show
Uncle Ben the hundred dollars ... no. No, his new vocation
would only pass muster if Peter had some serious money in
hand. Maybe he—

Then another police car raced by, its siren blaring, stop
ping short to join the first one. There was an ambulance siren
in the distance, drawing closer.

That was when Peter started to get a gnawing, uneasy feeling in his stomach. Because there were two police cars
here, and an ambulance approaching, and Uncle Ben wasn't here. The calm, logical part of his mind told him that it was
pure coincidence. There couldn't possibly be any sort of
connection.

Even as he thought that, though, he started walking
toward the corner where the police cars were. Pedestrians, onlookers, rubberneckers were also starting to gather, and wasn't that a considerable number of people, and wouldn't Uncle Ben drive up at just about any moment and wonder what all the hubbub was about? And as Peter climbed into
the car, Uncle Ben would make some sort of comment about
how blasted nosy people could be, and what the hell was happening to people in this country, anyway, that they were
so obsessed with other people's misfortunes. Then Peter
would agree with him and, having found common ground,
Peter would apologize for earlier and this time he'd know
that Uncle Ben heard him, and maybe they'd go to Carvel for
a sundae, and Peter would tell him everything, be totally
straight and just take what came, because when it came
down to it they were family, and always would be family, and
they'd make everything better.

The entire rosy scenario, and a dozen variations on it,
played through his mind as he headed down the block, walk
ing first and then walk-running and then a flat-out run. He
got to the outer perimeter of the crowd and it was as if peo
ple weren't even there. He just started pushing them out of

the way as a pounding began to throb in his temple, and it
had to be that he was just imagining another worst case scenario.
Uncle Ben, you 're gonna laugh. I saw these cop cars
and heard an ambulance and I was thinking that something happened to you! Just me being paranoid, right?
And Uncle Ben would look at him solemnly, although with a twinkle in
his eye, and intone,
Just because you 're paranoid doesn't
mean they 're
not
out to get you, Peter.
And they would laugh
and laugh ...

He shoved through to the front of the crowd, ignoring the
shouts of "Hey!" and "Watch it!" and he stared, dumb
founded, at the body of some old man lying in the street. There was blood pooling on the pavement under his body,
and on his chest where he'd obviously been shot, and the old
man looked very small and very unimpressive, really. Peter
had never actually seen a dead body before, or someone
about to die—whichever this guy was—and he realized on
some level that he should be repulsed or horrified. Instead he
was just disconnected, as if he was in shock over seeing his
Uncle Ben lying in the street like leftover rubbish, except
this guy wasn't Uncle Ben. No, heck no, hell no, he didn't
look a thing like Uncle Ben. Yeah, okay, there was a faint, passing resemblance, and he
was
wearing the exact same
clothes that Uncle Ben had been wearing earlier, and his hair
was pretty much the same color as Uncle Ben's. And there
was some similarity around the eyes and nose, but this definitely was not Uncle Ben, no way, no how, because the big
difference was that Uncle Ben was safe and sound and alive, whereas this poor schmuck was lying in the street, and either
he was dead as a doornail or was going to be soon, and
therefore could not possibly, no way, no how, be
...
be
...

. . .
be
. . .

"Uncle Ben!"
screamed Peter as his world collapsed
around him, and he lunged toward the corpse, but the police

held him back. In truth Peter could have picked them up and juggled them, but he was too unfocused in his confusion and
shock. As a result the policemen were able to restrain him,
but just barely. They exchanged silent, surprised looks with
one another that such an unassuming-looking teenager could
give them such a tussle.

"Hang on, hang on!" shouted one of the cops, who was
wearing a name tag that said,
lieber.
The cop next to him,
Ditko, was almost knocked on his ass by Peter's struggles.

"My uncle! That's my uncle!"

"That's not gonna help him!" Ditko said, trying to brace
himself against Peter's onslaught.

"What happened?!"

"Carjacker," Lieber told him. "He's been shot."

Peter tried to shove past to get to him. He nearly suc
ceeded, lifting Lieber clear off his feet and slamming him
back down again with such force that Lieber almost col
lapsed from the impact. Ditko, standing behind him, his
arms wrapped around Peter's waist, nodded for other cops to
help them as he shouted in Peter's ear, "Hold on, kid! You
can't help the guy!"

"The guy?! He's not 'the guy!' He's my uncle!"

And then they couldn't hold him anymore, because Peter
yanked his arms clear of them and ran over to Ben. He
dropped down onto the street, cradling his head in his lap,
and cried out, "Uncle Ben! Uncle Ben, it's me! Peter!"

He can't be dead he can't be dead,
the words kept going
through his mind, as if he could bring Uncle Ben back
through sheer force of will. And then, slowly, Uncle Ben opened his eyes, his mouth forming a smile that seemed to
be coming from very far away. He mouthed, "Peter," and that
was when Peter knew beyond any doubt that Uncle Ben was
going to make it.

Then Uncle Ben's head slumped back, and there was that

rattle, that awful rattle that Peter would remember every
minute of every day for the rest of his life. And Ben was off to be with his brother.

Peter let out a howl like the damned, and the people in the
crowd who had been babbling to one another lapsed into si
lence, not so much out of respect but out of shocked fasci
nation for this naked display. The ambulance siren continued
to wail in the distance, like a banshee announcing a dead
soul on its way to the hereafter.

The world blurred out for a moment, threatening to go
away entirely, and then Peter heard another cop call out,
"They've got the shooter! He's headed south on Fifth Av
enue!" And that brought his surroundings snapping sharply
back into focus around him.

No . . . "they" aren't going to get the shooter . . .

I am.

In a dark alleyway, Peter pulled on his wrestling sweats and, without hesitation, leapt into the air and onto the nearest wall. He skittered up the building, higher and higher, no
longer caring about the heights he was scaling, or the danger
he was facing, or anything except getting his hands on the
bastard who had ripped his uncle away from him.

He leapt onto a flagpole, swung around it by using it as
an anchor to build up speed, and then released it, his mo
mentum carrying him to the next building, which he as
cended as rapidly as he had the first one.

Achieving the rooftop, he looked far ahead to the cluster
of police lights, the cop cars screaming down Fifth Av
enue in pursuit of the shooter. Peter fired a webline—a sil
ver strand twinkling in the moonlight, adhering to a
building two blocks down. It was the longest swing he had ever attempted. He didn't hesitate. He wasn't even thinking
about it.

Everything now was a means to an end, and even as he

swooped down, down toward the street, and then snapped
upward on the arc ... even as he fired another web line in
midswing, caught another building, and continued his jour
ney, never slowing, moving with an ease and defiance of
gravity that would have turned the most experienced of ac
robats green ... even as all that was happening, all he could think of was Uncle Ben.

Worse, all he could think about was that last conversa
tion. Except it hadn't been a conversation. It had been
...
a
fight, a temper tantrum, a horror show. The petulant words of a brat and an ingrate, and Peter was sure that was what
Ben Parker had carried with him in departing this life. It was
horrible and unfair and it fueled his rage all the more as his
swings overtook the police pursuit.

Then he saw it.

For a moment he felt as if he was seeing a ghost. There
was Uncle Ben's Oldsmobile, barreling down Fifth Avenue,
the driver himself hidden by the long shadows of the night.
In short order, Fifth Avenue was going to effectively dead
end into Washington Square Park, and they'd probably have roadblocks set up there. The shooter obviously knew it. He
cut hard at Eighth Street, misjudging the angle, his speed
carrying him too far. He slammed through a row of newspa
per boxes, sending the unsold papers flying. Three police
cars also cut hard, continuing the pursuit.