The Grim Spectre (4 page)

“Joey DeLuca…,” a terrible voice called seemingly from the gates of hell itself.

Within the filthy apartment Joey DeLuca sat bolt upright out of his bed; his grimy t-shirt was soaked in sweat. His eyes shot back and forth around the room in stark terror when again he heard, “Joey DeLuca, you will answer the questions I now ask.”

DeLuca turned towards where the voice was coming from and froze in wide eyed terror.

Slowly, and more so deliberately the top of a glowing head rose out of the floor, wraith-like, followed by the shoulders, the chest, the complete torso, and finally the legs of the ghastly Grim Spectre.

The horrific skull faced visage, forever half hidden in shadow behind his hood seemed to grin, and it was a terrible sight.

Slowly, The Grim Spectre’s right arm rose up and his finger pointed directly at Joey DeLuca.

Then the Spectre said, “Who attempted to murder O’Malley and burned his pub out?”

“Wh-what? Whattayou nuts? I don’t know I ain’t, ain’t got no friggin’ idea! S-stay away from me, you monster!”

The Grim Spectre floated toward DeLuca as the man cowered behind his bedsheets.

“You will answer my questions, DeLuca. I can make this very unpleasant for you, if you defy my will on this,” the Spectre said.

He reached forward with a glowing, crackling hand toward DeLuca’s throat. Again the man recoiled, until now he was pressed up against the wall behind his headboard-less bed.

The crackling hand was mere inches from DeLuca’s throat when the man cried out, “Okay, all right, just stay away from me, please, I’m beggin’ ya!”

“The name, DeLuca, now,” the glowing ghoul reiterated.

“W-who do you think it was? DeLuca squirmed, “It was the mayor hisself, William Winston.”

Behind his mask, Bobby Terrano’s eyebrows rose in surprise; this was not the name he expected the terrified thug to utter.

“Mayor Winston destroyed an apartment building and almost killed almost a hundred people? What reason would the man have for instigating such a cruel and terrible act? Answer me quickly fool, lest I grasp your throat with the hand of a demon,” he growled.

Joey looked again at the terrible, sparking hand and gulped hard, then he answered, “Real estate. R-rumor has it that the block is owned by Winston under a shell company. He damaged it so the whole block could be leveled and high p-priced apartments could be built there for the r-rich new comers he’s tryin’ to entice inta movin’ here from M-manhattan.”

Slowly The Grim Spectre lowered his gloved hand and it stopped spitting and crackling. The ghostly figure then said, “If I find you were lying to me, Joey DeLuca, I shall return, and then my rage would be most foul. It would be a rage I would take out upon you, DeLuca. You would do well to remember that.”

“W-wait, don’t go yet,” DeLuca called as The Grim Spectre began to step through the wall.

The ghostly horror turned toward the smaller man and waited expectantly for him to continue.

DeLuca gulped again and said, “I-I can help you, you know. I-I can get you whatever information you need.”

The Grim Spectre laughed heartily, it was a terrible sound. A sound to chill the very blood. After a moment it turned toward DeLuca and said, “You already are, Joseph DeLuca, what else can you offer me that would be different than what I currently task you with?”

“N-no, you don’t get it, I wanna help you. I don’t wanna do it ‘cause yer forcin’ me to.”

The Grim Spectre continued to stare emotionlessly at the shivering man before him and after a moment finally said, “Why?”

“I-I think ta make amends fer all the bad stuff I done before. For the first time since I can remember there’s a hope fer somethin’ b-better in this city an’ it’s taken a freakin’ monster ta make that happen. But I finally feel like this place, this city could maybe be somethin’ better ‘an it is. But alla that hinges on you.”

The Grim Spectre nodded slowly and then replied, “I will…consider your words, DeLuca, all of them. If there is a spark of decency within you I will fan it into a flame and you will redeem yourself. But it is something you must want as well. Do not seek to deceive me, DeLuca, the price for that deception will be considerable.”

The Grim Spectre continued to look at DeLuca as he walked through the wall and disappeared. DeLuca threw his covers off and ran to the window, but The Grim Spectre was gone, disappeared between the wall and the outside world somehow.

“Freakin’ ghost. I must be outta my mind,” DeLuca said. He turned back toward his bed and climbed back under the covers, shivering despite the summer warmth.

Outside of a dingy bar on the west side of Riverburgh people ran into the street in fear. Guns fired repeatedly within the darkened bar, a Tommy gun’s roar punctuated the night, and was met by the repeated bark of twin .45’s.

A limp body shattered and flew through the window of the place, followed by the Tommy gun itself. The man landed hard on the pavement and groaned painfully before passing out.

Inside the bar pandemonium ruled, as The Grim Spectre snapped his whip once and wrapped it around a gunman’s neck. The man clawed at the whip frantically, but the terrible spirit snapped the whip back toward himself, pulling the man along and into his glowing and sparking hand.

The Grim Spectre grabbed the man by the face, the thugs’ eyes went wide between the fingers of the gloved hand, Energy coruscated from the glove through the man’s face, before his eyes rolled up into his head and he dropped to the ground, insensate.

Behind the Grim Spectre another thug rose upward and fired his own gun again and again, until every bullet was spent. All of them hit their mark, The Grim Spectre’s back. Not one of them slowed him an instant. They merely passed through him as if he were a ghost, which is what every thug in the room thought he was anyway.

“One of you will tell me what I need to know, or all of you will feel my terrible touch,” he roared.

Men bolted for the doors, frightened beyond words at The Grim Spectre’s very appearance.

Out into the street the terrified patrons of the bar, a known hang out of felons and gangsters, ran in abject terror. Hard men, who considered themselves fearless and terrible. They learned this night that they knew not the meaning of the word.

Inside The Grim Spectre shook the man he held by the lapels and roared in his hollow, inhuman voice, “Who burned the building down that housed O’Malley’s bar? Who drove those poor souls out into the street? Was it Phylo Zeus?”

“N-no,” the man stammered. He was a big brute of a thug with a diagonal scar across his face, “D-don’t touch me with those hands, I-I’ll tell ya whatever I know. It was the mayor, it was William Winston.”

Now surprise no longer registered on Bobby Terrano’s hidden face.

‘
How can this be true? The Mayor?’
Bobby thought
,‘Can he be that corrupt?’

Then he looked about the room. Men lay sprawled about it some bleeding and moaning from the kiss of his sparking twin .45’s, most merely unconscious from his touch, or his bludgeoning fists.

Shaking his head silently, he grasped the face of the man in his grip and knocked him unconscious with his sparking touch. Then turning he floated upward, through the building, passing through apartments above and frightening those who saw him, But it was late, and most slept; never knowing that the Grim Spectre had visited their home.

A half dozen floors up, the Grim Spectre floated out of the wall, into the dark night.

‘Turn invisible,’
he thought. Instantly the belt he wore about his waist turned the glowing white suit night black, blending in with the all-pervading darkness and disappearing.

***

The next morning at Phylo Zeus’ home, a posh mansion down the hill from the ‘Olympus Room’ the master of the home sat at his kitchen table wearing an expensive robe. In his hands he held a newspaper and was cursing vehemently. Across the table from him stood five men, all with their fedora’s in hand. They all wore suits, some were cheap, some were very expensive. This alone denoted their position in Phylo Zeus’ organization. To a man they all fidgeted nervously.

After many moments of silence Zeus finally looked up at his men and snarled, “Five of you. This damned ghost hit five of you last night, and not one of you coulda stopped him? Did you idiots even try? What’s wrong with you mooks? Did I hire idiots? You five run five of my best money making gin mills, and you let this guy in a mask make fools out of all of you and through you, me. Get outta my sight, all a youse bums. An’ if he comes back, you better kill him, or kill yourselves if he gets away again, otherwise don’t ever show your faces in this town again, because I swear, if he doesn’t kill you bums I will.”

The five men fidgeted nervously, all of them looked at the floor.

“G’wan, get outta here, an’ remember what I said,” Zeus bellowed one more time.

All five turned and quickly exited the kitchen. A moment later a balding butler with gray temples and a pencil thin mustache walked in carrying a tray with a pot of steeping water and a single tea cup.

He placed the tray before Zeus and said in a voice tinged by a British accent, “You did not murder any of them? Not even one as a reminder to the others? I am genuinely surprised.”

“Stow it, Oscar, I ain’t in the mood,” Zeus replied angrily.

“Very good sir,” Oscar replied. He turned and left the room, then returned a moment later with a tray of scrambled eggs and ham; he placed them before Zeus and stepped back.

Zeus began eating in silence, but then Oscar continued, “You know what you must do, don’t you?”

Zeus fumed a moment then looked up at Oscar, “No Oscar, why don’t you friggin’ tell me?”

“Well sir, you must call in some outside help, as it were. Someone who has a history of dealing with interlopers who consider themselves above reproach.”

“What are you talking about, Oscar? This is a friggin’ ghost.”

“It is a man playing at being a ghost, sir. Not a true apparition, and if it is indeed a vengeful spirit of some sort then it should be sent back to whatever hell it escaped from. There are those who can do that very thing, as you well know.”

Zeus looked at his butler and confidant and slowly nodded his head in agreement, “I’ll take yer idea into consideration, Oscar, thanks.”

“As always, I am here merely to serve, Sir.”

Bowing deeply, Oscar turned and left the room through the double swinging doors behind the table, leaving Zeus to his paper, and his dark thoughts.

“Did you see this?” Tammy Thomas asked Bobby Terrano. She handed him a newspaper and within it on the tenth page was a small headline about a housepainter in Germany who had taken over in the past few years and was now fully in command of that nation, but according to the article, his sights had not stopped there. He was beginning to look beyond Germany’s borders.

Bobby put the newspaper down on the table and shook his head grimly, “That’s bad. This is going to lead to trouble, big trouble.”

The two of them sat at another outdoor café, one far away from Boss Zeus’s newest plaything.

Tammy sighed and said, “Too bad they don’t have this ghost guy over there. He could take out this Nazi before he caused any more trouble.”

“The Grim Spectre? I don’t know if he’s that kinda ghost. I mean I-I don’t think he’s that proactive.” Bobby stammered.

“What? You don’t think he should just go over there and kill this guy? He’s already stirring up trouble. The next thing we know the whole world could be at war again and it could all be this creeps fault,” she said.

“Tammy,” Bobby sighed in exasperation, “All’s I’m sayin’ is that this guy really hasn’t done anything yet. You can’t just aim a weapon at someone who hasn’t committed a crime and kill him because he might. I don’t think that’s the way the Grim Spectre works anyway.”

“Oh, so now you’re the expert on how the ghost guy works?  You’re a musician, Bobby; leave the thinking to the educated people.”

Bobby looked at her angrily, then quickly calmed down. Finally he said, “Ya know Tammy, you’ve got a sharp tongue on you that your brain doesn’t do too good a job of controllin’. You should learn ta get that in check before you mouth off at the wrong people, instead of someone who cares about you.”

She looked at him and touched his hand before saying, “I-I’m sorry Bobby. I know I got a hot head an’ a big mouth.”

He nodded slowly then said, “I’m not kidding, Tammy. You’re gonna say the wrong thing to the wrong people an’ you’re gonna end up disappearing, especially in this town.” He watched warily as a beat cop exited the inside of the café and walked by, eyeing them with a smile.

She saw his gaze and matched it, then turned back to him, “What’s the matter? You’re not trustin’ cops now?”

“Red, in this town I’m not trustin’ anyone, anymore. C’mon, let’s get outta here.”

He rose to his feet and left a few dollars on the table. Tammy stood as well, her mop of red hair bounced as she did. She turned and followed him out of the café and back onto the sidewalk.

The two of them walked in the opposite direction the cop had taken with Bobby’s arm locked within hers, guiding her.

“What’s the matter?” she repeated.

“Nothin, cutie-pie; I just got a bad feelin’ is all.”

She swiveled her head back toward the direction the cop had taken, but he was long gone within the milling crowd.

He picked up the pace as he walked, guiding her down the block. An instant later the sidewalk rumbled around them and a loud explosion rent the air with enough force to throw them and everyone else around them to the hard concrete ground. Immediately Bobby was on his feet, and at Tammy’s side, grasping her by the arms and helping her to sit up, “Are you all right? Tammy, answer me!”

“Y-yes Bobby, I’m g-good,” she whispered.

Both of them looked up the street in the direction the earth shattering explosion had come from. The direction of the café they had just left.

Tammy turned toward him, her flaming curly red hair falling across her forehead as she did, “T-that cop, he was no cop was he?” she asked nervously.

“No, I don’t think so. He had just walked out of the café when I noticed him. But something about him seemed wrong somehow.”

By now police-real police were arriving in cars as well as ambulances. As soon as several of the officers exited their cars Bobby knew what had set him off to the fake he had just seen.

“His shoes,” he murmured to Tammy, “He wasn’t wearing cop shoes. That’s what it was.”

She followed his gaze and noticed the shining black shoes all the officers wore.

“He had on a dull pair of old black boots. I knew something wasn’t right.”

“That was your tell?” she asked incredulously.

“Yeah, it was, an’ it was right. Let’s get outta here before someone starts askin’ us questions.”

“But shouldn’t we be givin’ the cops-the
real
cops a description of that guy?” she asked.

“Would you believe anyone who told you that story? Or would you think maybe they were the guys who did it, considerin’ they just hustled out of that restaurant themselves?”

“B-but what do we do? We can’t let that guy get away with it,” she stuttered.

He grasped her by both arms and said, “We won’t. You’re going to report it; that’s your job, you report. Let the press do its work like it should, got it?”

Tammy nodded slowly and then said, “A-all right, but what are you going to do?”

“Me? I’m going to see if I can help. I want you outta here and nowhere near this mess. Go and be a reporter. You go directly to George and tell no one else but him what we saw. Got it?”

Tammy nodded nervously and swallowed hard, tears beginning to well up in her eyes.

Bobby hugged her and kissed her, hard. Then he ruffled her mop of red hair and pushed her along toward the building that housed her newspaper.

After watching her disappear into the crowd he turned in the direction the fake cop had walked and began running down the street.