Super Born: Seduction of Being (14 page)

“
One more thing, Emilia. I need you
to be brave. I hope you’re not afraid to fly.”

“
Fly?” questioned Emilia as I
wrapped my arm around her waist, walked her through the front door,
and we shot into the night sky. At first she screamed, but within a
few seconds she laughed with delight, and we were gone.

* * *

It was late when we reached Emilia’s house.
Madalena was reluctant to open the door until she heard her
daughter’s voice, then the door flew open. They combined in a
tearful hug that went on for a long time. Finally, Madalena became
aware of me.

“
Santa Maria!” she cried, “It is
you! I saw you in the papers. I prayed for you to save my daughter
and now you are here!”

Emilia joined in, clinging to her mother’s
legs. “She brought me home, Mama. She fought all those bad men that
took me away. She knocked them all down. Then we flew through the
sky all the way home!”

Madalena took my hand and kissed it. “You are
an angel from heaven. I can never repay you.”

I waited and tried to be gracious, but needed
to express my concern. “Mrs. Gonzalez, perhaps you should leave
town. The men that did this may come back again. You’re not safe
here.”

Madalena’s eyes pooled with tears. “We are safe
as long as you are here. These men think that I know where
Francisco has gone. They are afraid he will tell people what he
knows about them. I told them I don’t know where he has gone, so
they think if they take Emilia I will tell them, or that he will
come back to save her. With you here, they will not come back. You
are a gift from God, and I will tell everyone this.”

I knew there was no use debating the subject
with her. At any rate, it was a joy to see them back together, and
I was happy for that moment.

Still, that was the first time I began to feel
the descent of a yoke of responsibility that I hadn’t asked for or
wanted. I wasn’t a faceless mom anymore. This wasn’t a bake sale
where everything was warm and fuzzy. I wasn’t using my powers for
fun or profit. This was real life. I had chosen this course to make
the world a better place and it had made me responsible;
responsible for the lives of real people, responsible for all I
could do. Madalena thought I was her savior. Was I? Could I protect
her from tomorrow?

I thought about my little five foot five inch
frame and stacked it against all the evil in the world and sighed,
thinking of Paige, soon to be out in that world, no longer my
little girl riding a pony at a fair, eating macaroni and cheese, or
calling me Mommy. I now felt responsible not just for Paige but for
Madalena and Emilia and everyone else too. Tears began to flow.
“Some superhero, bawling like a schoolgirl,” I sniveled. I took
some deep breaths, then my natural sarcasm kicked in to help me.
“If it’s me and the good in people against an evil world, evil had
better watch its ass.

* * *

When I slipped back home that evening, I found
Paige exactly where I had left her, multitasking past her bedtime.
I changed back into my comfy clothes and moved over behind Paige,
enveloping her in a tight hug as she sat at the
computer.

Paige pulled her earbuds out, turned, and
protested, “Mom!”

I just hugged her tighter, not wanting to let
go.

* * *

The next morning, the foremost B.I.B. expert in
the galaxy (That’s me, Logan. Remember the guy telling you this
story?) and the other media people crowded Madalena’s tiny front
yard and porch. They stuck microphones in her face and shone camera
lights in her and her daughter’s face while I stood and soaked in
the glorious media event. “My” girl had done a wonderful thing, and
somehow I had attached myself to her success.

Madalena spoke happily of her daughter’s return
thanks to the B.I.B. She spoke in glowing terms of the angel that
had saved her daughter and was here to save the city from evildoers
and devils. Like someone in a single-minded trance, she told the
audience that the mayor and police needed to set up communication
with the B.I.B. and work with her for the good of the
city.

“
Mr. Mayor, Mr. Policeman, you call
this woman a
puta,
a puta who wears black. But I know that she is an angel, a
saint, sent from God!” Madalena shook her finger at the camera.
“Not every angel is white.”

She ended by saying that, with the B.I.B. to
protect her, she was no longer afraid.

When I uploaded that TV footage to
the website, the response was a groundswell of support for bringing
the B.I.B. out into the open and embracing her as a hero. “We are
no longer afraid!” became the new slogan of B.I.B. fans everywhere.
So when I wrote my latest article for the
Times Tribune
, I continued with
that theme and used Madalena Gonzalez’s words to call for open
communications between the B.I.B. and public authorities. In
actuality, I thought making her more public would help me find her.
I couldn’t have guessed where that would ultimately lead. It wasn’t
like I had a plan. I just thought as long as there was a paycheck
in it and it brought me closer to her,
what the hell
…Hey, “we’re no
longer afraid” would make a great T-shirt.

Chapter 10

The Mob Takes Note of the Black
Angel

My name is Carmine Camino. For today at least,
I work for Gregorio Gambrelli, crime chief of Scranton. Gregorio’s
an old fart, too set in the old ways of doin’ business, if you ask
me. I’m one of the boy’s who gets things done for him, if you know
what I mean. Today he wants me to lean on the mayor, bring him to a
meeting with Gregorio, now. The mayor’s in Gambrelli’s pocket, who
owns him for the union support that got him elected. I guess today
Gambrelli wants to cash in one of those chips.

When I walked into his office, the mayor was
leaning back in his chair with his shiny Italian shoes on the desk,
admiring the view outside his large window. He was a dignified,
well-dressed, sack of shit with neatly cut silver hair. When I
appeared, his feet slipped off the desk, and he almost fell out of
his chair. “Yes?” he said in a blank tone.

“
Giovanni’s, now,” I said, throwing
him his coat.

We walked into Giovanni’s restaurant precisely
at 2:00 p.m., and I escorted the mayor back to a private booth in
the corner, where Gregorio Gambrelli waited, eating a plate of
linguine marinara with sausage. (They have the best sauce at
Giovanni’s. It’s to die for.) Gregorio was long past his prime.
Stress had whitened his hair and left his skin a blotchy
gray.

Two of the boys stood on each side of the booth
in suits with their arms folded. Another large man—Vito the
asshole, with fingers the size of saplings—sat across from
Gregorio. When the mayor arrived, Gregorio gestured to Vito, and he
left the booth and stood with the others. I joined them but kept my
ears open.

The mayor sat down anxiously looking at the
old-framed black-and-white photos of Gambrelli’s ancestors,
generations of crime bosses, which looked down at him from the
walls encirlcing the booth and then turned his attention to
Gambrelli.

“
You know about this…this…B.I.B.
woman in the papers?” Gregorio asked.

The mayor nodded.

“
She’s not good for business. She’s
cost me some good men. She sent a busload of our girls one way to
Vegas. Kinda hard for us to make money with no girls! And have you
ever heard of anyone winning at the numbers? It happened last week.
Now, in the paper I read today, they want you to ‘communicate,
coordinate,’ with her,” he said, picking up the paper and dropping
it on the table.

“
Don’t worry,” began the mayor
nervously, “I won’t let that happen.”

Gregorio raised his hands in the
air. “You see? This is why I have to do all the thinking for you
politicians,” he said, pounding his head. “You don’t think. You
don’t get it…Get this straight,” he said, looking the mayor deeply
in the eye. “I
want
you to communicate with her. I want you to bring her out. I
can’t kill what I can’t find, capisce?”

The mayor stared, blanking in surprise, and
then nodded.

“
You and your boys downtown come up
with some way to make her show up, and my boys will take care of
the rest. We’ll communicate with her real good. You got
it?”

“
I can do that,” the mayor
said.

“
Good, I’d hate to think I got you
elected for nothing. My boy Carmine here will stick with you till
it’s done.”

“
You can trust me.”

“
I hope so. For your sake, I hope
so. Now, if you will excuse me, I have other business,” Gambrelli
concluded, as two of the boys pulled an unwilling man toward the
table and a waiter refilled the chief’s water glass without
blinking an eye.

I took hold of the mayor’s arm and escorted him
back to his office. The sleeve of his suit felt slimy to the touch.
I hate those friggin’ politicians.

* * *

I stayed with the mayor in his conference room
that night. I watched the little weasel while he paced and spoke
with his advisers. “Somebody’s got to have some idea how we can
contact this woman!”

The room was full of blank stares from the six
people surrounding the big table at the center of the room,
including me. If that were Carmine’s meeting, I’d be busting some
heads.

The mayor asked, “Edwards, what did you find
out about the B.I.B. website? There has to be some contact info
there. Something?”

Edwards was the mayor’s assistant, a real
worm—you know, the young Ivy League type with glasses. He shook his
head. “We had no trouble getting into the server, but it looks like
there is nothing more there than you see on the site. We tracked
the email of that picture they printed in the paper back to some
guy’s laptop. We leaned on him pretty heavy, but all he could tell
us was where he was that night. He didn’t know who she was or where
to find her again…The site’s a mess, by the way; it’s like
somebody’s attic.”

The mayor threw up his hands, “Anybody, anybody
got an idea?”

Edwards added, “The site is already offering
rewards. I don’t think that will work.”

“
How about a full-page ad in the
paper?” offered Elizabeth, a young woman who worked with
Edwards.

The mayor thought about it. “Yeah, but if she’s
under cover, why would she respond? Any other
ideas…anybody?”

There was quiet in the room, until one of these
young hipster-type geekwads, a guy, who called himself “megabyte”
sitting away from the others against the back wall chimed in. He
was the mayor’s IT communications guru who, unlike the formal suits
and ties of his co-workers, always dressed in a rock ’n’ roll
T-shirt and jeans. “She’s, like, a superhero, dudes. You have to
treat her with honor and respect. You have to acknowledge
her”.

“
So, so?” asked the mayor, circling
a finger for the geek to speed up and get to the point.

“
You gotta do somethin’ like Batman.
They had this searchlight thing that they turned on whenever he was
needed. It was a special thing. You know, like we need you, man. We
need you right now. How could a superhero ignore that?” Megabyte
asked.

The mayor thought about it. “Dramatic, yes, but
it might work.”

Then Edwards chimed in. “You know, Mr. Mayor,
the new Batman movie—Batman twenty-five or whatever it is—is
opening next week. If we could time it with the release of the
movie, perhaps my contacts at the movie distributor could comp us
some air play and maybe even get us the searchlight prop they used
at the world premiere. With the free publicity, we could make a big
event out of it. How could she ignore Hollywood?”

The mayor thought about it as he paced. “Yeah,
women love Hollywood, the red carpet and all that. Can we get a red
carpet? We’ll invite every body who’s anybody in town. We’ll walk
them down the red carpet like the Oscars; evening gowns the whole
nine yards! I’m a genius. Why can’t you lumps think outside the box
like me? After all these years, you would think something would rub
off on you. Okay, full media blitz! Take out the ads in the paper,
use the radio, and get the TV guys to cover it. We have to make
sure she knows about it and what kind of event it’s going to be.
We’ll offer her overnight celebrity status…Get the art department
to turn that picture in the paper into a silhouette that we can put
on the searchlight.”

“
What kind of silhouette do you
want?” asked Edwards.

“
God, do I have to think of
everything? I don’t know something…sexy. You know, her, but better.
What woman could refuse?”

To my way of thinking, a lot of women could
refuse that. This B.I.B. seemed to be doing just fine without
dealing with a turd like the mayor. What’d she need him for,
anyway? Some women have to be the center of attention, some women
don’t. Edwards didn’t seem to like the plan either. When he saw me
shaking my head, he leaned over and whispered to me, “I don’t think
the mayor’s three divorces qualify him as an expert on women, but
if that what he wants, that’s what we’ll do.” The little fairy was
separating himself from the Mayor should this not go down as
planned. He didn’t want Gambrelli as an enemy and he wanted me to
know it. Smart boy.