The Phantom - 7. Chapter 7

Mark and Gerry waited anxiously at the burger joint they'd found the previous night. Quiet in the early afternoon, the restaurant still smelled like stale beer and french fries, but it was somewhere they had ready access to and where they could be found relatively easily.

Courtesy of the coin changer at the laundromat and a pay phone, Mark had called in a few favors. Without saying why or doing more than laughing over being in the paper, Mark wheedled out the name of a cop that might be able (and willing) to help them, without first hauling his ass off to prison.

Or worse, back to Grey Matter.

Sergeant Bryce Martin-Lister actually seemed quite interested in why Mark was calling from a pay phone when he was listed as being in the big lock-up downtown. He glanced over to his partner, currently cutting out a series of giant robot pictures from recent news articles, and sighed. As the journalist refused to explain himself over the phone, Bryce reluctantly agreed to meet him.

The two men who walked into the the seedy, square-ish building were all too obviously cops, despite being in plain clothes. Both were tall and rugged looking, and Mark harumphed in irritation, slumping back in the booth as he realized he was going to be the shortest member of the party by several inches. He was average, damn it! Not short! Stupid, tall people.

"Shut up," he grumbled.

Gerry hid his smile behind a tepid mouthful of watery beer. Pushing the limp french fries more to the center of the table, he slid over to give the newcomers room.

"Bryce," said the first one, sitting down. He was blonde, with shoulders like a linebacker, a soul patch, and aggressive lean to his brown eyes. This was the kind of cop that was always an arrogant asshole in movies.

He gestured to the taller, younger cop, and said, "This is Irv." He had light brown hair and eyes and Mark automatically dubbed him the 'good cop' of this scenario. Built more like a basketball player than football, there was just something ... nicer about him.

Irv gave the two men a polite smile, then suddenly gawked, almost sliding back out of the booth. "Hey!" he exclaimed.

"Irv," Bryce warned.

"Oh, right. Sorry." He leaned over the table. "You got any extra footage of the Robot versus Post Office? I can --"

"Irv," said Bryce again. He sighed, watching from the corner of his eye as another handful of patrons made their escape. "So ..."

"Mark Marshall," he introduced himself.

"Gerry May. We're glad you could join us on such short notice, officer --"

"Sergeant."

"Sergeant," Gerry continued, unfazed. He glanced at Mark. "We're in a bit of a bind."

Bryce wasn't the only one watching the door. Mark was edgy as hell, especially being boxed into the back of a booth being guarded by two men almost Gerry's size.

"You're sure no one knows you're here?" he asked. "You weren't followed at all?"

"Look, Mr. Marshall," Bryce said at the same time, Irv cutting him off.

"Is this an interview? Because I've already said what happened."

"No one cares, Irv!" Bryce leaned in to whisper loudly, "So, you fucked some guy in a robot. Big deal. Just shut up about it."

The younger cop looked affronted. "Did not."

"Crazier shit happens around here. Haven't you learned that by now? Just, shut up." He rubbed his forehead tiredly. "No, we weren't followed."

"But, they're Mark and Bruce! Of the Supers-Watch!" He leaned towards them across the table. "You guys haven't been on in a couple days. What's up?"

"You're the guy," said Mark, trying to get his thoughts in order to explain his plan. He stared at Irv. "You went into the robot." He glanced sideways at Gerry, who gave him a nod.

Irv fidgeted. "Yeah." He didn't want to talk about that, but he did, but not to a reported, but, oh, he just wanted to tell somebody! But what would he say? He was insane. The Giarabaldis were criminals. Irv was a cop.

He wanted to see Viktor again.

"The robot was made by one of the Giarabaldis, yes?"

Irv and Bryce nodded.

"We," Mark explained, indicating himself and Gerry, "need to get in touch with the Vanzettis."

"Oh, no," said Bryce, leaning back in his seat as if to distance himself physically from the conversation. "We are not getting involved in this." He could see where this was going, and wanted no part in a feud between mobsters.

"You must have struck some kind of deal or Giarabaldi would be in jail," Gerry reasoned.

"Any deal was between the lawyers," Bryce retorted. Any lingering curiosity behind the reporter's circumstances vanished with concern regarding the hopeful, scheming look Irv turned on them.

He asked, "What do you want with the Giarabaldis?"

"We need them to contact the head of the Vanzetti family," Mark answered. "It's very important."

"Unless you two ...?" Gerry let the question trail off.

Bryce shook his head. "The Vanzettis have been pretty scarce since their big blow-up last year. They were always slippery, but aside from a murder or two, they've all but vanished."

"You can't just ask a favor of the family of Short Fuse," said Irv.

Mark smirked. "That's where you come in."

Irv stopped his patrol car before the barred, wrought-iron gates of the Giarabaldi mansion and took a deep breath before rolling down the window and pressing the button for the intercom. He tried to look suave for the camera.

Why was he here again?

Right. A chance to see Viktor. Right. No need to be nervous, Irv, he only bites when he's horny. Oh, God! So not the time to be thinking about that! Offical business, official business, official --

"Yes?"

The authoritative bark through the intercom set into the brick and concrete gate post made Irv jump. Clearing his throat and straightening his tie self-consciously, he smiled for the camera. His heart, however, tried to get in the way of his voice when he spoke and he sat there for a second with his mouth open before he could collect himself and continue.

Surveillance was more his thing. Irv didn't like going undercover. Two reasons for that, both stemming from the fact that Irv was a terrible actor.

"This is Patrol Officer Irving Davison. I need to see Viktor Giarabaldi."

"Master Giarabaldi doesn't take visitors."

"W-wait!" cried Irv, thinking quickly and ignoring the inference that this was not a business call. Beyond this job for Mark and Bruce, he really wanted to see the tiny inventor again.

"Maybe he doesn't remember my name, but we, uh, we had a bit of a ... an altercation with a robot. I was just hoping ... that we, uh, could talk. I --"

"One moment."

The intercom flicked off and Irv fretted. He swallowed his disappointment, expecting to hear a negative response, but instead the gates swung open in invitation.

He waited impatiently for the drive to clear and then followed the winding road through the grounds up to the main house. Getting out of the car, Irv tucked his hat under his arm, brushed off his pants, and straightened his uniform.

Irv cut a dashing figure in his uniform. The form-fitting trousers with their stripe and fitted blouse with its cord and badges clung in all the right places. He only wore his uniform because Bryce had insisted (a way of avoiding suspicion over what they were attempting) and because Irv wasn't too humble to deny his uniformed sex appeal.

The butler (if indeed it was a butler, awaited on the front steps. He was probably the most disagreeable-looking person Irv had ever seen and, since he was a cop in the craziest city in the nation (if not the world), that was really saying something.

The butler bowed slightly and motioned for Irv to follow. Within a few steps, Irv was lost, and the cop in him wondered if he was being deliberately led astray.

He was left eventually before a rather plain door at the foot of a set of stairs and around a corner behind a second, very thick door. That door looked as if it were made of metal, like something from a bomb shelter, from way back when they still built those things. Scarier, the inner side was scored, dented, seared in places as if by fire, and scratched.

A voice, sending shivers along Irv's spine, calmly told him to come in and close the door. He did so, walking into a plain room with concrete walls half-hidden behind steel shelves overflowing with all manner of mechanical and electronic gadgets. Irv thought the place looked like a robot had vomited all over everywhere.

The inventor himself stood by a wide table almost as tall as he was. He turned a screwdriver over and over in his hands.

When Irv stopped, Viktor dared look up at him. "Why are you here?"

He held still, uncertain if his advances would be welcome, and spoke candidly. "I have a friend, who needs your help."

"My help?"

"And I wanted to see you again."

Viktor smiled that smile, the one so like a chesire cat grin. "My help, did you say?"

He was breathing too fast; Irv knew it, but couldn't stop. "Yes."

"Take off your shirt." For once, heedless of his project, Viktor swept clear a space on the table and climbed up to sit on the edge. "I said, 'Take off your shirt,' and come here."

Bryce, Mark, and Gerry waited and waited and waited. Every time the phone rang, tension filled Bryce's small apartment to overflowing before draining away again when the caller turned out to be anyone but Irv.

"Where have you been?" Bryce demanded, sending the stress levels oozing out under the eaves. "Negotiating? For ..." He glanced at his watch. "Four and a half hours?"

Gerry and Mark stood awkwardly by the television and glanced at each other. Mark smirked. Gerry rolled his eyes.

They had copied the security footage to Bryce's computer, but Gerry refused to give over the rest, or even to show the cop. He wondered if maybe that was how a super felt, day in and day out, paranoid about someone learning his real identity and how badly that would hurt, if his enemies found out. Gerry was more than willing to share information that would help Mark out, but he wasn't willing to risk the Phantom further. What if the cops couldn't be trusted?

Gerry and Mark knew who the Phantom was and Grey Matter was already after them. Perhaps they thought he'd known already, before all this? Was that why they wanted to kidnap him so badly as to threaten Mark's life? Did they think they could control the Phantom that way? But why? What was he to the Phantom?

"We got it," said Bryce, breaking into Gerry's thoughts. He lifted his cell. "We're to meet Irv downtown. Sure you won't change your minds? If we don't walk back out of there ...."

"No offense," said Mark, "but we don't exactly have the best track record with cops."

"Right." Bryce frowned, but even he had to admit the recording he'd seen of Mark's arrest did not paint the city's police force in a particularly good light.

"Well, apparently, the Vanzettis are holed up somewhere, but they're going to send someone to meet us."

"Scope us out."

"Yes. They'll take you to the family if everything checks out." He glanced at Gerry. "I wish you would reconsider. I will have nothing to go on if this goes bad."

"We understand the risks all too well," Mark replied after a glance at his silent partner. He could see Gerry was worried. Hell, Mark was worried, too! He'd almost been killed, for crying out loud. Somehow, however, the thought of walking into a den of mobsters did not terrify him so much as it used to.

"The more people who know what's going on," Bryce insisted, "the safer you'll be." If they wouldn't wear wires, he wanted a copy of those other files that Bruce was guarding.

"No," said Gerry. "There'll just be more people that will wind up dead. No."

"We've already put you and your partner at risk," Mark said into the silence that met Gerry's proclammation. "If something happens to us, that security tape is enough to get you started. Should investigate those cops, anyway."

"If you're sure I can't change your minds ...."

Gerry's head snapped towards the radio, previously playing light jazz to help calm frayed nerves, and then he was at the door with a couple long strides.

"We have to go."

"Well, yes, that's what I just --"

"No. They're coming." he checked his pocket, briefly curling his fingers around the flash drive. "The radio," he said, all he was willing to take the time to say.

Mark's face blanched as he registered the change from jazz to pop. "Shit. How'd they find us?"

"Not a step until you tell me what's going on!" Bryce demanded, palm flat against the door to prevent its opening.

Gerry grabbed him, shoving him backwards. They didn't have time for arguing. Whether or not the cops had betrayed them was moot. They needed to leave. Now.

He jerked the door open, running for the back stairwell, with Mark hard on his heels. They crashed through the emergency exit as the alarm went off and made a dash for the closest alley.

Bryce took over the second the three were out of sight of the apartment. "You'll only draw attention to us if you keep running!" he told Gerry irritably.

Gerry glared, but he slowed down to a walk, much to the relief of the shorter Mark. "What are you doing here?"

"I agreed to help you, didn't I?" he retorted. "Besides, I haven't told you where we're going yet."

"Oh, yeah," said Mark with a snort. "Like we're really going to trust you now."

"I admit, we've hit a couple of snags, but life's not a Law and Order re-run. And you guys still haven't told me what's really going on." He led the way down a side street, heading for the metro station. "Besides a pyschopathic desire for suicide," he muttered under his breath.

Mark sighed. "Do you know what Grey Matter is?" By silent agreement, he and Gerry followed the cop. Not like they had too many choices at the moment.

"No."

"Well, they make the mob look like fuzzy bunnies in comparison." He scowled at the disbelieving look he received. "They did try to kill me yesterday."

"Why didn't you go to the police? We could've put you in a safe house or something. No need going to the mob."

"Tried that, remember?" Mark snapped. "Didn't work out so well. Besides, they're everywhere."

"Conspiracy theories are not my thing."

"It's not a theory! Those crazy fuckers are trying to bring back Madam Grey!"

Bryce had to put a steadying hand against a wall to hold himself up while he laughed. He chose to ignore the slightly hysterical edge.

Flinging up his arms, Mark turned to glare at Gerry, lifting his brows suggestively.

"This may be Necropolis," gasped Bryce when he got control over his sudden fit of the giggles. "But even supers can't bring back the dead." That was not a question. No, definitely not a question. Bryce didn't even want to have to consider that!

"I told you they were crazy," said Mark darkly, crossing his arms over his chest. When this was all over, he promised himself a nice, long, stress-induced break-down on some sunny beach far, far away.

"It's true," Gerry said simply when the cop looked to him. "Grey Matter has a member of the mob held captive."

"The Vanzettis," Bryce guessed.

"Yes. We have a message to deliver to them." He hesitated. "From Nicholas Vanzetti."

Bryce thought hard. It paid, sometimes quite literally, though he wasn't on the take, to know who the key members of the mob were. He didn't recognize a Nicholas Vanzetti. Unless, wait ...

"Is he the kid from that accident?"

Horrible mess that was, from before Bryce was on the force, almost -- no, more than -- ten years ago. He remembered it because the kid was his age, a little less maybe, and it had been a terrible accident, the car wrapped around one of those concrete telephone poles. The details were a little foggy, something about a chase, and a couple of deaths, but the son of the then mob-boss (who was now the boss, though that was in dispute at the moment) had walked away with little more than a few stitches. The kid --

"Nico. That was his name." Bryce opened his eyes, not even realizing they'd fallen shut, to see the other two staring at him. "Is it the same kid? Huh, not so much a kid now, then, must be twenty-eight, at least. He was in the hospital for months, then kind of just ... disappeared."

He let out his breath with a whoosh. "Anyway, old story."

"No," said Gerry softly and a trifle uncertainly. "I think we're talking about the same person. What happened to him?"

"Don't know." Bryce shrugged. "Nico's grandfather was the last mob boss. When he died last year from an apparently sudden and unexpected heart attack, his two sons, that would be Nico's father and his uncle, went for each other's throats. Still fighting. They've gone to ground, like I told you. Funny that they're the ones getting mixed up in all this."

Mark spoke up. "Not really. It makes perfect sense." He looked at Gerry. "They said that they were paying the Vanzettis, and the -- and Nico said that his father basically sold him out. They help the Greys and --" He lifted his palms as if to balance a scale -- "and the Greys help them."

"I thought they were in it for the money," said Gerry. "Aren't they getting paid?"

"Wait, wait, who's doing what?"

"It's Nico's father," Mark explained with a touch of exasperation. "The Greys shot him last night. Dead." He could still see the man's startled face, blood-trails down the door -- He swallowed and shook his head to get his thoughts back on track. "He was arguing over payment. They're dealing with his son now."

"That would be Vincent Vanzetti," said Bryce, rubbing his chin as he thought. "Most of the family went to support his brother Francis. You're right," he added, nodding at Mark. "That does make sense. Vincent brings in this other criminal element to bring down his brother and take control. But why ransom his oldest son?"

Mark looked at Gerry, who frowned and shifted his feet.

"He's a hacker," he said reluctantly. He bit his lip, looking away. "We think he's behind the recent bank scare."

"No one person can do all that." Bryce dismissed the allegation out of hand. "But," he continued, "it was Nico in that car with his uncle. Maybe he's trying to draw him out? Get him to come rescue the kid." It was hard not to think of Nico as a kid. Bryce scarcely wanted to admit his own age, but he felt worlds older than these other two.

He pinned them with his 'bad cop,' 'I mean business' stare. "And how did you two get involved in this?"

"It would appear," said Mark with a shrug and sheepish smile, "that we --" he glanced at Gerry again -- "have some fans among the mob."

"So it would seem," mused Bryce, letting himself think out loud. "And these Grey Matter people want to stop you. That doesn't seem right. And they found out where you were. Which, if I didn't say anything ...."

What about Irv? Was he okay? He'd walked off alone, into the Giarabaldi residence. While Bryce knew that he and Irv had been in worse situations before, he also knew that a man was liable to ignore his common sense when his libido got involved. Bryce liked his partner. A little naive, sometimes, but Irv was a good man. Almost too good to be a cop in this town.

Mark asked the question: "Did your partner, did Irv sell us out?"

"No! No," he repeated, more calmly. "Not intentionally, I'm sure of it." He shook his head. "Irv holds the door, helps little, old ladies with their groceries. He wouldn't sell out."

"Then how?"

"Giarabaldi," Mark answered. He sighed. "It was a risk, but, now what?"

"We can't go to the meeting ...."

Bryce held up his hand. "Not so fast. If Grey Matter comes after you, assuming you're going to this meeting, would they take Vanzetti along? And would they wait until you got taken to the Vanzettis? Or would they just take you out right away? Hm."

"Um." Mark looked at Gerry, who shook his head. "No, most likely not." No body, anyway. "They'd go alone."w

"I think they'd wait," Gerry added. "They'd get everything." He looked at Mark. "And then they wouldn't need m -- us anymore."

Mark winced. "I was afraid you'd say that." He'd been thinking the same thing.

Bryce looked up, his evil grin almost causing the other two to take a step back. He held up a finger. "I have an idea."