Used to Be: The Kid Rapscallion Story (5 page)

“How …?”

Becca folded her arms. “I’m brilliant and I’m bored,” she says, “and I want back into the life. Five of Clubs was an ass but I believed in him because he was family, you know? But I feel bad about some of it. I do. I want to make amends as long as it’s more fun than work. You want to know me, here it is: I like to snort coke and fuck dangerous guys, but I’m also the best researcher you can have on your side. So here is my offer. Right now, you’re either going to snort the coke off my leg, then get up here and fuck me like we’re in the kind of porn that doesn’t bother with plots, and then I’m going to help you protect this city, or you’re not going to snort this cocaine and you’re going to walk the fuck out of my office. Either way, your identity is safe. I wouldn’t betray the code and rat you out to the public. Understand?”

“Understood,” he says, and snorts the coke. “It’s called gonzo, by the way,” he adds, standing up, grabbing the back of her head and pushing her to her knees. “The kind of porn without a plot.”

12

This is how the relationship between Kid Rapscallion and Click Clack works:

Becca uses her research skills and uncovers a nefarious plot. Maybe it’s related to the actions of a super villain or maybe it’s just some genius whiz kid working a casino or maybe it’s a city councilman who’s taken to pocketing some of the city’s cash to pay for expensive trips to Hawaii. She takes this information and puts it in a folder for Kid, who then goes out and busts the bad guy.

Then he goes back to the library and fucks her on her desk.

Or in the stacks.

Or on a table.

Or in the stairwell, elevator, conference room, basement, front desk, roof top … anywhere and everywhere inside the library until the night janitor catches them one night, and reports Becca for staying late and screwing in the Special Collections room.

“She’s been watching us for weeks,” Becca says when she meets Jason for lunch at an MGM buffet. “Guess she didn’t get offended until we did it in the Elvis room. I told you not to put on that jumpsuit. Fatties love the Elvis.”

“Actually, I’m pretty sure you insisted I put on the jumpsuit,” Jason laughs, adding, “Fuck her.”

He is having the time of his life, beating up bad guys, doing great drugs, and hooking up with the smartest, hottest nerd girl he’s ever known. Sure, sex in the library isn’t the same as doing it in the Revolutionaries’ moon headquarters, and Becca isn’t as knock-out gorgeous as Jula, but he is getting everything he’s ever wanted out of being a hero and he both wishes and understands it will not last forever.

13

“Jason, it’s Francis. I haven’t called back because I know you’re mad at me and you want to make it on your own and, well, you have been doing really good things in Vegas. I’m not, you know, spying or anything, but the papers are saying good things about you. I can see that you haven’t established a firm relationship with a reporter, yet, but that’s probably a good thing at this point. You’re doing so much that you can use all these stories to help you figure out who you can trust and who you can’t and —

“Heck, listen to me. Still giving advice. I guess that’s why I’ve gone ahead and taken in a new ward. Her name is Colbie and I wish you would call her. She’s a smart girl and athletic. Very athletic. She even looks a bit like you. And you don’t even have to talk to me, but if you could just … well, she would appreciate it. Just call your old number and it will go to her cell phone.”

14

“Why don’t you want to talk to him?” Becca asks as she makes lines of cocaine on the coffee table of one of Jason’s modest apartments.

“What eighteen-year old wants to talk to their parents?” Jason asks, pulling off his red, white, and black uniform top. He keeps the pants on and doesn't bother to remove the sweaty, white t-shirt. It’s a Thursday afternoon and he’s already been out for a few hours in triple-digit heat and plans to go out later. Though he wouldn’t say this to Becca, he didn’t mean to come to the apartment which she had been using as a base since getting fired from the library. He wanted to eat and shower and sleep, not be interrogated.

“You’re avoiding the question,” Becca says, putting her hand on the back of his head and running a hand through his short, black hair. Gently but firmly, she pushes him forward and hands him a thin, silver tube, which he uses to snort one of the five lines of coke before him. She’s known almost since their first meeting that Jason was the kind of man that liked to pretend to be in charge but needed to be led forward.

Just like with the coke. He didn't just want it, he needed it, and not because he was an addict. She thinks the coke somehow balances out the drugs he takes to be a superhero. It’s just a theory, though the more coke they do together, the closer her theory moves to fact.

Sitting back, letting his eyes roll up into his head, and letting out a long sigh, Jason tells her the truth. “Francis is too controlling,” he says, pinching his nose and snorting in order to suck up stray powder. “I get that he’s been doing this for twenty years or whatever and I’ve been doing it for only a few, but the guy has controlled every facet of my life since I was fifteen.”

Becca licks her finger and uses it to scoop up some stray powder, which she rubs into his gums. “You still have a relationship with him, though,” she says.

“No, I don’t,” he insists.

“You forget, sometimes, that I worked for Five of Clubs,” she says with a slight edge in her voice. If he’s gonna share, then she’ll share something, too. “First time he saw that Rapscallion had himself a teenage sidekick, he said to me that you had to be juicing, somehow.” She runs a hand down his arm. “This isn’t a totally clean body,” she says. Tapping the coffee table, she adds, “You’re going to put five lines of the best cocaine in Vegas into your system and it will, at best, give you a nice buzz, but the effects will be worn off by the time you head out tonight. Whatever Francis was giving you two months ago, he’s still supplying you now.”

“I …”

“Do another line,” she orders, and he hesitates for only a second before he does, and then he tells her what she already knew, that billionaire venture capitalist Francis Flack has been dosing him with proprietary steroids for three years.

After another line that he does without hesitating, Becca knows Jason will tell her anything she wants, and so she asks the question she anticipates he doesn’t want to answer:

“Why is Rapscallion still giving expensive drugs to a kid who turned his back on him?”

Jason squeezes her breast through her light blue UCLA t-shirt. “It’s because he wants me back,” he laughs.

“So what happens when he realizes you’re not going back?”

“My guess? I’m fucked.”

15

I WILL WATCH LAS VEGAS BURN FROM THE TOP OF THIS CITY. NO ONE CAN STOP ME.

16

“Detective,” Kid Rapscallion says, offering a hand. “We haven’t officially met, but I’m —”

“Yeah, yeah, everyone knows who you are,” Lonnie Mur grumbles as he shakes the young hero’s hand. “Been here just over a month and already wracked up forty-something collars. And not all superheroes, though I heard you got Rat Face last night.”

“Ratness, yeah,” Kid nods. “He’s like the cold I can’t get rid of.”

“Well, my two daughters have posters of you on the wall and my son wants to be you for Halloween, so please don’t turn out to be a dick bag.”

“I will try,” Kid says, looking down at the threat spray-painted onto the strip. “What do we have here?”

“Tell me what you know about The Penthouse Man,” Detective Mur says, “and then I’ll fill in the gaps.”

17

“This is serious,” Becca says, pulling down her vintage Nirvana t-shirt as Jason’s hands try to push it up to get at her breasts.

“Sure,” Jason says. “Street paint. Very dangerous.”

“You’re so fucking stupid sometimes,” she says, pushing him away. They’re in the apartment he owns and she uses as a base to do her research for him. Increasingly, she has taken to sleeping here, whether Jason is staying here or in another of his apartments around the city.

“Oh, come on.”

“That message is from The Penthouse Man!” she snaps. “He’s not someone to take lightly!”

“The Penthouse Man is locked away in the Stockade,” Jason insists, pulling off his uniform top. “And yes, I called the Revolutionaries. I talked to Duplication Girl right before I stopped in.”

“Which one?”

“It doesn’t matter. They all share the same — oh fuck it, you know exactly where he is,” Jason says. “What the hell’s wrong with you? It’s not The Penthouse Man because they don’t let him make calls from the Stockade and he hasn’t had a visitor in months. It’s not him! It’s just some kid playing a prank.”

“Some kid who managed to shut off every security camera in the city,” Becca reminds him.

Jason realizes sex isn’t going to happen, so he pulls his uniform top back on. “Tell me what you want me to do,” he sighs, and a dark cloud descends on him. He understands now that Becca has been telling him what to do since the start.

“I want you to get out of town,” she says, then realizes he could misunderstand what she means, so she quickly adds. “Go to the Stockade. Visit Vincent. Talk to him. See what you can find out. If he’s behind this, he won’t be able to stop himself from bragging about it. But Jason,” she says, reaching for him, “do not let him know I am helping you.”

“Why?”

“I’m his niece, remember?” she asks. “If he finds out I’m helping you, he will get involved in this if he’s not already. And we do not want that.”

“I’m not afraid of him.”

“Fine,” she says softly, leaning into him. “I don’t want him involved because I am afraid of him.”

Jason wraps his arms around her and holds her close. “I’ll go talk to him,” he promises, not knowing if Becca is playing him right now or letting him in, but knowing she’s just become a lot less fun.

“Thank you.”

“I suppose you want me to leave now.”

“I do,” she smiles, stepping back, “but there’s something you have to do first.”

“I like the sound of that,” he says, his hands moving to the bottom of her t-shirt.

Becca slaps his hands. “Not that,” she says, pulling his cell phone out of her back pocket and handing it to him. “This. Listen to it.”

18

“Um, hello, Jason? This is your … this is Colbie. Francis said you’d know who I was. I … uh … I was hoping we could talk. This is all a bit overwhelming. Please. Just one talk.”

19

“Mr. Flack wanted me to tell you he says ‘hi’ and that he’s in New York tonight, helping Killer Dolphin on a case, so you don’t have to worry about him showing up.”

Colbie Cross is a fifteen-year old girl wearing a Pearl Jam t-shirt and jeans. She is short and powerful. Becca’s notes on Colbie reveal that she was a gymnast before tearing up a knee at a meet last winter. Francis had said she looked like him, and Jason can see how she would remind the old man of the kid Jason used to be: raw, athletic, hurting at a world that had done her a bad turn, and now ready to Make A Difference.

Jason offers a forced smile as he looks around the large mansion just outside of San Francisco. There is history here, his history, and he cannot look anywhere in the large sitting room without seeing a ghost of himself: the sofa, the chairs, the fireplace, the bar … all of it helped, in some small way, to make him who he is. He does his best to push these spirits aside and concentrate on the young woman sitting in the big chair opposite him.

“How’s the knee?” he asks.

“Much better,” she says, brightening. She is unsure of this meeting but glad to have Jason ask her something about herself instead of about Francis.

“So he’s already got you on the juice,” he says, and Colbie’s eyes go wide, thinking she has revealed something she should have kept to herself.

Jason holds up his hands. “Relax,” he smiles. “I’m not mad or anything. I was just curious if he’d started you on the program. He made me do a lot more training before I got the enhancing.”

“Well, I am a gymnast,” she offers somewhat defensively.

“You are,” Jason nods, seeing that same spark in her that he knew he had. Knowing how impossible he was at that age, he becomes agitated. This is his replacement.

His
.

Replacement
.

What if Francis takes to her to a point where he does cut off him from his steroids? The hard truth is that without being Kid Rapscallion, no one wants anything to do with Jason Kitmore, and he knows this, and knows Francis knows this.

“Look,” he smiles, deciding he needs to get Colbie to like him so she’ll be on his side when the inevitable day comes when Francis wants to cut him off, “this can’t help but be a bit weird, yeah? I’m the original, you’re my replacement. It’s not normal, yeah? So let me say this: you don't ever have to prove anything to anyone but yourself. Francis is … a good teacher, but he’s overprotective and controlling. Make sure you set boundaries and develop a strong backbone. If you do that, you can make it. I’m sure of it.”