Hostile Takeover (15 page)

Deep down, Billy didn't want to be Evil. He just wanted to be his own man. He wanted to have fun doing it. And deep, deep down, he wanted to prove to Edwin Windsor that he could be a smart, successful man without him. That prick. How insufferably arrogant he had been.

When he got back to his tiny little hotel room, he changed into the costume of tight-fitting black. He opened the window and let himself fall from the 37th floor. As the street below rushed up to meet him, he felt the wrenching sensation in his belly that he always felt when he flew. He tore along the wide avenue 30 feet off the ground. In the past, he had always been careful about not breaking the sound barrier when he was in the city, or around people of any kind. It made Gus mad. Edwin would have told him that destruction of any kind was senseless. That evil, properly wrought, created value. But Billy had left that all behind. He wasn't a good guy anymore. He wasn't a good bad guy either. He was just a bad guy. Or maybe just a confused guy. But definitely not any kind of good.

He yelled at the top of his lungs and then accelerated. Sheets of ice came off the buildings as he passed them. They were sucked into his wake and sliced perilously through the air. When he broke the sound barrier, the glass shattered in buildings for a full five blocks. The boom knocked pedestrians from their feet.

Still accelerating, he arced upward and turned south. If he had just floated in the dense mass of cold polar air that had descended on the city he would have become chilled. But at this speed the friction of the very molecules of air against his suit warmed him. He did not feel the temperature rise as he flew west and south as much as he felt the air become less dense. Flying became less of an effort.

As short time later, Billy began his descent. If he had judged it correctly, those would be the lights of Cincinnati off to his right. He dipped lower and followed Highway 71 to Louisville, Kentucky. He hugged the earth, not wanting to show up on radar. Then he realized, it didn't matter. It wasn't like they had anything that could stop him.

At the control tower at Goodman Air Force base, an alarm went off. Specialist 1st class Radley Jones jerked up from the eyes-open nap that characterized his entire career as a military air-traffic controller. A bogey, out of nowhere? But before his hand could reach the button to silence the alarm, the blip disappeared. The green phosphorescent screen in front of him went dark again. Ah well, must have been some kind of error in the system. Airman Jones slipped back into his waking nap.

Outside, Billy had arced high into the night sky. Beneath him, his target was lit up like a Christmas jewel. Billy pulled over into a graceful loop and slammed, fists first, into the top of the United States Bullion depository at Fort Knox. There was a thunderous crash as he blasted through five levels of reinforced concrete flooring.

The sentry at the front gate turned just in time to see the bottom windows explode outward in a cloud of concrete dust. The moment after was quiet and still. The sentry couldn't process what had just happened. All he heard was the soft hiss of the lightly falling snow and the hush of a countryside draped in winter. Then the alarms blared. Now his orders made things nice and simple. He shouldered his weapon and ran towards the depository.

Inside, Billy was faced with a vault door. Normally, he would have melted it or shouldered his way through it, or something equally physical or dramatic. But he took a moment to admire the door. It was magnificent. It was a creation of a more innocent age, when men like Billy had been unknown. All of the heavy bolts and wheels and reinforced plates conveyed an impression of utter impregnability. It was a door that said, "Don't even think of coming in here. There's no way you can get this open."

Billy ripped it off its hinges and threw it out through the roof.

On the lawn, the vault door sailed over the sentry and flattened the guard post where he had been standing just minutes before. The sentry cursed, cocked his rifle and charged into the dust. A few minutes later, rifle at the ready, he arrived at the entrance to the vault. As a figure dressed in black emerged, he held the rifle on him and commanded, "Halt!"

"There's nothing in there," said Billy.

"What?" asked the sentry, trying to figure out why this figure in black was not upset at having a weapon pointed at him.

"You're a guard?"

"Yeah," said the sentry, still trying to get a handle on the moment.

"I'm saying here's nothing in there to guard."

"What?"

"There's no gold in the vault. It's empty."

"What?" asked the sentry again, unable to comprehend that he had been guarding nothing.

Even Billy could recognize that this conversation was going nowhere. So he said, "See for yourself," and flew out through the hole he had come in. As he left, he slowed down long enough to give an approaching helicopter pilot the finger, and then tore off into the night, leaving a smoking hole where the nation's gold reserve was supposed to be.

As he made his way back to the city, he realized it all made a perfect kind of sense—it certainly wasn't the first time the government had lied to him. But now what was he going to do?

"Your guys suck." said Topper. "I've been kidnapped by some of the best and I want you to know, your guys suck."

Topper turned to look at the man who had just removed his blindfold. "Yeah, I said it: ya SUCK! Now get out." He looked back to Smiles, "I mean seriously, if you're gonna let me see your face, why blindfold me in the first place?"

"They said you asked for it," explained Smiles.

"Oh, yeah, well, I guess I did. But I didn't ask for these handcuffs," he said, rattling his wrists together. "Whattaya, afraid of little ol' me?"

"Do you know who I am?" Smiles asked.

"Other than a rude bastard who won't take off my handcuffs so we can talk like civilized people, no, I don't."

"My name is Smiles," he said with an eponymous constriction of his face.

"Well that ain't my fault. Now whattaya want with me?”

"Just to talk."

"You must really be some kind of asshole if the only way you can have a conversation is to kidnap somebody and chain them to table so they can't run away. Ever try a phone call? An appointment? Jesus, buy a fella lunch, at least."

"We are concerned with the company you keep."

"Yeah, I also have bad manners. But seriously folks, am I under arrest?"

"Not exactly," said Director Smiles.

"Then why am I here?"

"We don't want you, we want Windsor."

"Hmm lemme see, Windsor? Windsor? Hmm, do you mean Edwin Windsor?"

Smiles just stared at him.

"You know, I do know an Edwin Windsor. Having a little bit of trouble with him, are you?"

Smiles pressed his lips together before he spoke. "Mr. Windsor is about to get in quite a lot of trouble. The only question is, how much of that trouble do you want to avoid?"

"You think you can take down Edwin Windsor? Lemme tell you something, pencil neck, you can't touch Windsor. He's got the Cromoglodon. He's on the boards of half the Fortune 50. And what's worse, he's got Billy. You know who Billy is?"

"I'm afraid, I don't know a..." There was a flicker of memory in Smiles' brain.

"Excelsior? You remember him? He's back. Back from the grave, so to speak. And now, he's working for Windsor." Sure, it was a lie, but what was Topper, some kind of Boy Scout? Besides, Topper needed leverage and disinformation. And he enjoyed watching Smiles deflate right before his eyes. He could actually see the worry and fear ripple across the bureaucrat's fleshy face.

Of course, Topper thought it was just the prospect of Excelsior being a villain, but for Smiles it was worse than that. All the memories and fear of not being able to control Excelsior flooded back. Gus laughing at him and belittling him. The clawing, desperate, powerless man that he had been. For a moment he felt like the room was falling apart.

"So ya got me in handcuffs. Big deal. You want Edwin Windsor? I can give him to you. The only question is, what can you give me in return? Do you have the power to make a deal?"

Smiles nodded, "What do you want?"

"All of it," Topper said.

"You mean…?"

"I mean I want it all. Purple mountains’ majesty, sea-to-shining sea, fat broads, thin broads, trailer parks, mansions, to never have to pay taxes again, to be able to take a crap on the White House lawn—all of it, everything, the brass ring, the key to this city, the whole Magilla, I want the street cars from San Francisco, Maine Lobster, Florida Real Estate—wait, no, you can keep that—but everything else. EVERYTHING ELSE! I got big appetites and I want it ALL!" As he ranted Topper gestured so violently that he dragged the table around by the chains attached to his arms. When he caught his breath he continued, "The only question is, what are you gonna give me?"

"Well..." began Smiles.

"Oh, no. You get these handcuffs off me and bring me a root-beer float. And THEN we'll talk."

"A root-beer float?"

"Yeah, asshole, a root-beer float. 'Cause I want one. It's probably a pain in your ass to get me one. I figure I don't have much longer to live, so I better enjoy myself while I'm alive."

"We can protect you."

"Protect me? From Edwin Windsor? You can't even protect yourself. You know, it wouldn't surprise me if I was dead already. I mean, if I blew up right now, into a thousand little pieces, killing you and your pack of goons under glass there," Topper said, jerking his head towards the one-way mirror, "I think the last thought in my last particle of brain would be, 'Well, that makes sense.' See, that's how far ahead of everybody else Windsor is. He's the kinda guy who'd plant a bomb in the nearest thing to his best friend on the off-chance that he might need him as an involuntary suicide bomber one day. He covers every angle."

Smiles looked uncomfortable and glanced towards the glass room as if help was to be had there. Topper smelled his fear. "And you, do you cover every angle? Did you scan me to see if I was a human bomb? No, you did not. So the question is, if you didn't think of that? What else didn't you think of?

"I appreciate what you are trying to do here, but it won't work. You can't protect me, I'm a dead man. A thirsty dead man who could really go for a root beer float with a little nutmeg sprinkled on the vanilla ice cream." Topper smacked his lips together, enjoying his imaginary beverage.

The door opened and Gus rolled in in his wheelchair. Topper's eyes grew wide. "You! I thought you were dead!" he lied.

Gus snorted, "Hopin' don't make a thing so. You think you gonna be able to hope your way outta the mess you're in?"

Topper was confused by the old man's cowboy proverbs, "No. I don't think there's any way out of this mess. No matter what I do, the end has already been written."

Smiles jumped in. "What are you doing? Haven't you done enough harm already? You're here as an observer!"

"Yeah, I've done enough harm," Gus rasped. "And now I'm here to undo some. So what about it little man, you gonna go down without a fight? You just gonna roll over and let the bigger and better man get the best of you?"

Topper knew what Gus was doing, but he still couldn't resist the bait. "I'm not rollin' over, you old leather-faced bastard. I've done all I can."

"Not the way I see it."

"It's Edwin WINDSOR! Don't you get it? I tried. I couldn't get through to him. He's not a bad man. He's the guy who does his homework on Saturday night. He's the guy who can't let up on himself. And we're in his way. We don't stand a chance."

"If you say it, it must be so," Gus said, and then spit on the floor.

"Hey, this is my interrogation room," protested Smiles.

"It's not like you clean it, Softhands," growled Gus, never taking his eyes off Topper.

"Yeah, take it easy on Grandpa, he's old, he can't help it if he drools," said Topper. "Okay, so what do you think I should do?"

"Keep fightin'. If he's coming after you that means you gotta go after him. He's just a man."

"Are you sure we're talking about the same guy here, Geritol?"

"Yeah. As smart as he is, he's just a man. And without his powerful friends, he's easy to hurt. And that's what he overlooks. His hands are too clean. He doesn't know nothing about the hurtin' business."

"You mean like those early morning aches and pains that are so debilitating at your age?"

"Say what you want, but there's one thing you can know about somebody my age—he's a survivor."

"Yeah, so you get three more years at the end. Well, you can keep 'em. Those are the drooling on the floor, shittin' in a bag years."

"You're just chickenshit."

"I ain't chickenshit!"

"That's right," said Gus, "you ain't tall enough to be chickenshit!" With this height-based insult, Topper disintegrated into incoherent fury. He lashed the chains from side to side and flooded the room with spit and profanity.

"ENOUGH!" yelled Director Smiles, who surprised even himself with the note of command in his voice. "I think your chances are better than you realize. We know that Excelsior isn't helping him anymore."

"So?"

"Well that only leaves the Cromoglodon. If the Cromoglodon were to be neutralized, all of Windsor's enemies could capitalize on his weakness at once. His corporate "friends" would turn on him. We could make a case against the extortion racket. I think we could put him away forever."

Topper was still not convinced. He shook his head, "Ehh, I don't think so. He's thought of something for this."

Gus leaned forward in his chair, "Maybe he has, maybe he hasn't. That ain't the question. The only question is, what are you gonna do?"

Topper took a deep breath and let it out slow. He had thought it through a million different ways. No matter how he sliced it, no matter what cocktail of chemicals he put in his body when he searched for the answer. It was a clear cut case of him or me. And in the case of Him v. Me, Topper knew there was only one way to decide.

Topper said, "Okay, on two conditions. Number one: I get immunity. Not that bullshit immunity that you pedal to drug dealers and mafia guys, I mean a complete clean slate. You can't touch me for anything I've ever done. With Edwin or even before that."

Smiles leaned back in his chair. "And what's number two? A root beer float?"

"You kill Edwin Windsor."

Silence hung in the air so long that even it became uncomfortable.

Smiles finally said, "We're from the government, we're not assassins."

Topper laughed. "Then ya got no deal."

"What he means to say," Gus drawled, “is he's from the government, and he's not an assassin."

"You gotta know what we're talking about here. Goin' the other way on Edwin Windsor? Lemme tell ya. We gotta make him dead. 'Cause if he survives? If he, thinks, even for a minute, that we were in on this, we don't stand a chance."

Smiles waved dismissively, "I don't see how he could possibly—"

"Yeah, yeah. That's just it. You don't see how. But Edwin Windsor? He does. He always sees a way. A way other people don't. If we don't do this right…" Topper shook his head and looked as serious as he ever had. "Time will pass, you'll think that things are wrapped up, that there's no way—no possible way. Then," he slapped his hands together sharply, "BANG! The trap will spring. You'll realize that you were a pawn in Edwin's game all along. I've watched him do this for years."

Gus looked to the side and spit on the floor again. "I think we can agree to number two." Smiles gave him a look that wanted to be a knife. Gus ignored the threat of a soft-handed man.