Blackjack Villain (62 page)

“So what are you worried about?”

She shook her head.

“I hope that all of this is worth something in the end,” Apogee said, her tone laced with a delicate edge

The elevator reached the floor and the doors slid open, revealing a finely decorated hall, with a large mirror before us. We both came out of the elevator and caught a good horrified look at ourselves.

All my clothes were a shade of dark gray or black. Everything was ripped, soaked and discolored. My face was haggard and gaunt, uneven patches of facial hair covering my cheeks and chin and my black hair was pasty and oily, like a skull cap of matted hair.

Apogee’s dress was shredded, no longer blue-white but some hollowed shade of grey, and far more revealing than she would normally care for. Her hair was a disaster, a tangled and hopeless mess; her face was laced with bruises and scratches. One eye was still red from burst blood vessels. No wonder the few people on the street had fled from us.

“Oh, look. It’s Mister and Mrs. Horrible,” she said, referring to our haggard reflections before grabbing my arm and leading me to the doors to her penthouse.

Inside we had sliver of moonlight filtering in from the large sliding glass door that led to a balcony beyond. It was enough to keep me from tripping over all her wares, which were a combination of Restoration Hardware and Pottery Barn, almost as if from a catalogue photo. The whole place was pristine and untouched, though it was a bit musty from having no circulation. She walked across the room and opened the sliding glass door, letting in a sea breeze that quickly cleared out the apartment.

“No power,” she said, fumbling through the bottom drawer in her china buffet to find some candles that she one by one set all over the room.

“Where’s the bathroom?” I asked.

“I only have one,” Apogee said. “Want to go first?”

“We can always share,” I chuckled.

“I’ll go first,” she replied, ignoring my nervous attempt at humor. “Don’t touch anything. And don’t sit on anything.”

She left me alone in the living room to shower, and I instinctively went out to the balcony. We were nine stories up, but the view was marvelous, as the building was a top a rocky bluff that overlooked the ocean. I thought of our swim across the entire Pacific with me attached like a remora on a hammerhead shark.

I walked around the apartment saw a few pictures, barely discernible in the faint light, but one drew my attention. It was of Madelyne and a man, standing close together, a large 8”x10” photo, with both dressed for a black tie event. She looked fantastic, in a long red a satin V-neck a-line gown with bow and ruffle underbust detail, that accented her figure while understating her ample bust line. I took the picture outside to get a better look in the night light.

Apogee had some wooden deck chairs with cushioned covers in her balcony, evidently to soak in the sun in the late California afternoon. I took off the cushion (to avoid staining it with my dirty form), and lay down on the reclining chair, studying the picture.

It was a casual shot, taken when they didn’t even realize they were being photographed. They were both standing at the edge of a dance floor, watching others, and in fact, the picture was partially shot through a crowd, with a few blurry figures in the foreground. The guy was tall but a bit skinny with a hipster mop of black hair and a pleasant face. He was in the middle of telling her a something, his face cracking with a smile, and Madelyne was in full laughter. She clutched his arm at the bicep and he leaned into her, too close to be mere friends. There was a familiarity to their pose and non-verbal behavior that gave him away as more than that. The picture was also too large to be for a casual acquaintance, and the frame too fancy, full weight sterling silver.

I wondered what it took to get that close to a woman like Madelyne. What it took to get her so interested in you. Seeing them together, with how comfortable she seemed with him only brought back memories of her facial expressions, and body postures during our exodus from New York City. Apogee was always defensive and protective, wary of me. How much that was Zundergrub’s work and how much it how uncomfortable I made her, I couldn’t tell. But there were so many clues that let me know how she really felt about me. Seeing her so comfortable in this picture, in essence the diametric opposite of how she behaved with me, only reminded me of the distance between us.

“Dale,” she yelled.

I shot up and saw her in a robe next to me, her hair rolled up in a towel.

“What is it?”

“What are you doing with that?” she said, ripping the picture out of my hands. I had forgotten I was even holding it.

“Nothing, I-“

“This is private,” she said, studying the picture a moment.

“I’m sorry-“

She looked at the picture for a moment, probably reliving that night, before she said, “Do you know who this is?”

I shook my head no.

“This is Barry Ashbourne. You knew him better as Pulsewave.”

That explained a lot.

“You and him.”

“Yeah,” she said, watching the picture.

“When you said he left a wife and kids...”

“That was after,” she said. “He met her a few months after we stopped seeing each other.”

“I’m never going to say ‘I’m sorry’ enough, am I?”

“No,” Apogee said, closing her eyes and feeling the evening breeze in her face. She unrolled the towel and let her wet hair fall.

“The things you do stay with you forever, Blackjack.”

I sighed, “And I guess I don’t have such a good track record.”

She turned back to me, “You’re still young.”

“Not if your boss gets a hold of me,” I snapped. “He wants to put me away for forty years.”

Apogee agreed, “You’ll probably get your own wing at Utopia Prison.”

“Why don’t you turn me in right now? I’m sure you have a way to contact them, here in this apartment. Instead of taking a shower you could have had a dozen supers show up here and beat my ass. Probably get yourself a nice bonus.”

“For me it’s not about the money either, Blackjack.”

“That’s easy to say,” I snapped, with a tone and force to my voice that harsher than what was warranted.

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Well you’re passing judgment on me, sitting in the lap of luxury. I had nothing when they tossed me from school. I didn’t have shit,” I snapped, pounding my fist on the railing and bending it. “Dammit, sorry,” I said, fixing it as best as I could. “I had no degree, no reputation, nothing. I couldn’t get a job cleaning floors. Your system fucked me, Madelyne. You want to know why I became a villain?” I gestured to her as if my argument was the reason.

She crossed her arms and shook her head, “Because the system made me that way? Are you kidding me?”

“No, that’s not what I mean,” I fired back defensively but she wasn’t going to hear it.

“That’s a cop out and you know it.”

“It’s true.”

Apogee crossed her arms and shook her head.

“I messed up in school, ok? I messed up bad and I had nothing else I could do. Nowhere to turn.”

“I call bullshit.”

“What the fuck do you know?”

“Bullshit!” she snapped again. “You were left with few choices. But you chose the easiest, the coward’s way. You chose to hurt others for your benefit, steal from others hard work. You chose, Dale. And while I understand that you had it hard, a lot of people have it harder, and they don’t commit crimes. They don’t hurt innocents. They don’t kill people.”

I looked down the nine stories, wondering when, if ever, I would make amends for that one horrible mistake. I guess she was right. It would stay with me forever. I had chosen sides, and it had cost a man his life. The worst thing Zundergrub had ever done was tie a noose around Apogee and I, for there was no greater torture than her presence as a permanent reminder of my failure.

“The truth is,” I started, swallowing hard, “I’ve fucked up at everything I’ve ever tried.”

I could feel her looking at me, standing behind me.

“You think I should turn myself in?”

She shifted, but said nothing.

“I was ready to go down for all of it back in New York. Before Zundergrub came and did his thing. You had me.”

“I remember,” she admitted.

I turned around, gazing at her alluring face, framed by her wet hair. Apogee had never been lovelier, yet more inaccessible to me.

“I’ll go,” I said finally. “Call your people.”

She placed her hand on my chest. “Is that what you want?”

“No,” I admitted. “If I turn myself in, Dr. Retcon will come after me. But I don’t see another way out of this.”

She looked down at the picture of her and Pulsewave.

“You could tell me what Retcon has planned.”

I shook my head, “If I knew, I’d tell you. Trust me.”

She smiled.

“I’m starting to.” Her hand flattened on my heart and she closed her eyes, mumbling something under her breath. Was it a prayer? She moved beside me, leaning on the railing.

“Do you want to know why I haven’t turned you in?”

“Because of Zundergrub, because of-“

“Yes, in part. It’s this God-awful need to keep you from trouble. Like someone walking their dog, keeping it from shitting in the neighbor’s yard.”

“I’m a dog now?”

“Putting it mildly,” she chuckled. “But it’s more Dale. Whatever mess you’ve gotten yourself into, all this craziness. I really think you’ve got to get yourself out. Call me crazy, but I think that’s your only way out of this.”

I nodded, looking away, not wanting to make eye contact.

“I guess Braxton and his boys can wait a few more days, huh?”

“It’s not over yet,” she said.

Apogee was looking beyond me, towards the ocean and I tried to determine at what. I could see a light from the sea, as something approached at high velocity. It reached the shoreline and slowed, sauntering toward us down the San Diego streets. It was a large ambulating structure, with two long spring-like legs. Atop the legs was Dr. Retcon’s building, like some robot from a 50s Japanese movie featuring Godzilla or Ultraman. Watching it near, I laughed, at last understanding how the thing moved.

“You should go,” I said. “Really,” I continued. “This is your chance to get away.”

“You want me to leave?”

“Apogee, you don’t want to be around for what comes next.”

“You big idiot,” she said, looking at Retcon’s building, now only a few blocks away.

“Madelyne, I don’t want you to get hurt.”

She smiled.

“You remember when we were being chased?” she began, “back in the Shard World. You grabbed your bow, and you ran up on that hill? You were trying to save us, right?”

I shook my head, “it wasn’t like that.”

“I know it wasn’t. I know.”

Apogee took my hand in hers and turned to me. She stared into my eyes, but I glanced over at the building, now more visible. On one of the balconies of the many floors, Cool Hand was doing some weird dance. It was a mixture of ‘the robot’ and the ‘sprinkler’ with a little bit of MC Hammer thrown in for good measure. It was insane, but hilarious. I couldn’t help but smile.

“You sacrificed yourself for me, Dale”

I looked back at her, but was afraid to say something I would regret later, especially with what we were facing.

“What about you? Why did you come after me? There was no way you were going to grab me and get away. They wanted me, not you guys. You could have gotten away.”

“I’m a superhero. I had to try,” she admitted.

“And that’s it?”

“I don’t know about the rest,” she said, again her face wincing, and in an instant it had all come back, the chasm that stood between us had returned. I put my other hand on her shoulder and felt her come closer so we were almost embracing. I was a dirty mess, but she didn’t care, and I was intoxicated by her fragrance, her flawless skin. I was lost in her candle-lit eyes.

“I’ll do anything to keep you from getting hurt,” I said.

“I know.”

Retcon’s building came right up to ours, so close I could see his bouncing iPod earphone cables, and his new t-shirt, a black one that read, “ORGASM DONOR” in white letters. Apogee was tight against me and I let go in fear Cool Hand or the others would see. They had stood against me, against her, before, and if they saw Zundergrub’s last spell falter, they might do something more drastic.

“I’m sticking with you until the end,” she said, also releasing our embrace as the Retcon building came to a final stop a few dozen yards away.

* * *

“They’re not going to take you back,” I told her as we watched the snakelike legs retract, and the Retcon building slowly land.

We stood in front of her apartment complex, with Francisco and the other guards calling the police, half-hidden from in the doorway inside.

The Retcon mobile base took a long time to find a flat spot to park, and took even longer to retract the lanky legs, giving Madelyne enough time to dry herself and throw on a clean Apogee uniform.