Ideas

It was all Stevie’s idea. Stevie had lots of ideas, he was full of them. This one seemed about as good as all his others, which meant it sucked. He kept talking about it, though.

“The dude’s rich, Bos, I’m telling you. And he’s real old.”

Yeah, my name is Bosley. My mom was a big Charlie’s Angels fan when I was born. She wanted a girl she could name Jill but she got stuck with me.

“Old maybe,” I said. “How do you know he’s rich?”

“He lives in goddamn West Hollywood,” Stevie replied.

I rolled my eyes. “That seals the deal.”

“The best part is he barely talks English, man. He won’t be able to tell the cops what happened.”

I should have told Stevie to shove it, like I did with most of his ideas. The trouble was, I didn’t know much about West Hollywood. I sure couldn’t afford to live there. Neither could Stevie. He got a job at a Freds store there, off of La Brea and Fountain, because he was hoping to see movie stars. The only one he ever saw was a midget who was a body double for a kid on a sitcom.

We grew up in the valley, where summer is hot and winter is not quite as hot. We dreamed of getting into show business but neither of us could act or sing or anything. Stevie said it didn’t matter, lots of stars had no talent. I couldn’t argue with him there.

A year after high school I was working at a chili dog place and my career prospects were non existent. Stevie got the job at Freds, meaning he had to drive over the hill through Laurel Canyon every day. It was amazing that his piece of crap Honda made it through all those steep twists and turns.

“All we gotta do is follow him home, and find out where he keeps his cash,” Stevie explained. “We’re not going to hurt him or nothing.”

“What makes you think he has a lot of cash?”

“He always pays in cash, doofus. Every Thursday like clockwork, he comes to the store in a Dial-A-Ride van. This fat chick driver opens the door for him and puts down a ramp, and the old guy totters down it and comes into the store.”

I thought I had Stevie then, so I said, “If he’s rich why doesn’t drive a car? Or have a limo?”

Stevie had an answer for everything. “He doesn’t want anyone to know he’s rich,” he said.

“Smart,” I said.

Thursday rolled around and I took the day off from dog-slinging and rode with Stevie into L.A. I had my own piece of crap car but Stevie wanted to discuss the plan while we drove.

Stevie went into work and I waited in the Honda watching for the Dial- A-Ride van.

I had to go to the bathroom in the store once and I was afraid I missed the van, but about twenty minutes later, when I was almost done with the bag of Doritos I bought while I was in there the bright colored van pulled up.

Sure enough a fat red haired chick got out and let a really old man out. He was dressed in a suit without a tie and had a nice gold watch on. Stevie’s plan was looking pretty good, I thought. The man took little old-man steps and after a while disappeared into the store.

I sent a text to Stevie and he sent back a “K - wait.” I waited.

A knock on the window woke me up. Stevie was opening the door of the Honda and climbing in.

“Idiot,” he said.

“Wha? ” I asked. Then I saw the Dial-A-Ride van turning onto the street from the store parking lot.

Stevie shot his Honda out of the lot faster than its old engine should have been able to go. He almost sideswiped a truck from a mattress store.

Pretty soon we were behind the Dial-A-Ride van on Fountain. It went a few miles and turned right on Harper.

As he drove, Stevie took off his Freds uniform shirt and pulled on a black t-shirt. I asked him what for.

“Don’t want the cops to CSI us,” he said.

Stevie pulled over to the curb a block behind the van when it stopped. He said, “Put these on.” He handed me some rubber doctor gloves.

My hands started to sweat uncomfortably as soon as I had the gloves on.

The fat chick let the old man out and carried his grocery bags to the steps of his building. Then she got in the van and drove away.

“This is it,” Stevie said.

“What about masks or something?” I asked, but Stevie was already out of the car and walking fast towards the old man. I followed him as fast as I could but I started to pant for air before I caught up.

“...help you with those?” Stevie was asking when I got within earshot. He picked up two of the grocery bags.

“Nyet,” the old man said, “No, please.”

“It’s all right. My cousin will help. Help with the man’s bags, Bos.”

I passed the man and grabbed his other two bags.

“No, no, don’t vant,” the man said, the jowls on his face quivering.

“It’s all right, gramps, we don’t want a tip. Do we, Bos?”

Why was he saying my name? Maybe the man couldn’t talk English, but he could tell the cops what he heard.

“Sure thing, Stevie,” I said, making sure his name was out there too. Stevie didn’t even flinch.

Seeing that we weren’t going to go away, the old man gave in and led the way to his apartment. I was puffing after we climbed two sets of stairs. There was a pool in the courtyard of the building, and it sure looked inviting.

The old man tried to get rid of us again. He opened his door with a key, then turned to us and said, “Thenk you, I take now.”

Stevie shoved the old man hard and the door into his apartment flew open. The man stumbled backwards but Stevie kept him from falling by gripping his suit jacket near the neck.

“Close the door,” Stevie told me. I did, and we were enclosed in a small living room darkened by heavy curtains.

“Please, no,” the old man said. His eyes swam in fear behind thick black-rimmed glasses.

“Look,” I said, “we’re not going to hurt you if...”

Stevie threw the old man to the ground. Then he straddled him with his knees on the floor.

“Stevie!” This was not going the way I was told. Stevie had a look on his face like he was enjoying himself.

“Where’s the cash old man?” Stevie asked.

The old man said something in his foreign language.

“WHERE IS IT?” Stevie shouted and hit the man, hard.

“Maybe he doesn’t have any,” I said. “Look at this place, it’s a one bedroom apartment.”

Stevie wasn’t listening. He hit the old man again.

And again.

I sat on the couch and tried not to watch. Stevie always had a mean streak, but I never thought he would do this. He was having fun, and wasn’t going to stop.

After the old man stopped moving, we took the gold watch, and a radio, and some other small stuff. It wasn’t enough to make it worth it. There was a little cash, less than two hundred bucks.

I was pretty sure that Stevie got what he came for, though. He was smiling and acted like someone who just took his first snort of coke as we went back to his Honda.

He changed his shirt again and went back to work. I took a bus back to the valley. My cousin Stevie was suddenly someone that I wished I didn’t know.

*****

“How’s the ankle?” Randall asked.

Marcus stepped carefully over the scattered pieces of a Lego play set on the floor of Randall’s office. He watched where he was placing his cane.

“They say I can stop using this cane next week.” Marcus settled into a chair in front of Randall’s desk.

They were in Randall’s private office in the warehouse, a place piled with papers, magazines and newspapers in stacks, and several computers on which Randall could test and debug Mossoft games. It was Randall’s real office, not the sleek, gleaming and spotless one in the Mossoft building that he used when posing for publicity photos.

Now in addition to the usual clutter, the floor was covered with the many toys that an indulgent Randall had given to his adopted son. Truth be told, a few were from Uncle Marcus too.

“How’s Jerard doing at that private school?” Marcus asked.

“He’s having some trouble catching up,” Randall said. “His old school was pretty bad. That No Child Left Behind program doesn’t teach, it just programs them for the tests, like little robots.”

“I talked to my contacts.” Marcus said. “Things on the streets have changed since I was out there.”

“I thought things were getting better, with the gang treaty.”

“They were, but something’s happening. Something big is moving in. No one knows what it is yet.”

Randall waited, letting his old friend organize his thoughts.

“For one thing, street gangs and supers never used to mix.”

“They do now?”

“All the gangs - ALL of them, as far as I can tell, have a deal with a group of supers. If they are hassled by any heroes, they can call and get a villain on site within minutes.”

Randall frowned. “I never heard of all the gangs working together.”

“They’re not. Each gang made the deal separately. Since they don’t talk to each other, a lot of them think they are the only one that has it.”

“So that explains the buzzing guy going after you so fast.”

“You won’t believe what that character calls himself. Buzz Kill. His real name is Andy Parver. He has a sealed juvie record in Alabama so that’s all I could get.”

“The cops didn’t hold him long. A fancy lawyer got him out the next morning,” Randall said.

“I thought he would get out fast. You said you left him tied up in front of the police station, but if he didn’t have any warrants they wouldn’t have any reason to hold him.”

“Yeah, but the fact that a suit was sent to get him means that he’s connected to money. Well, file that away for now. I want to talk about Knighthawk.”

“I said I was sorry I borrowed the suit.”

Randall waved that away. “I’m glad you did. You gave me an idea.”

Marcus’ expression told Randall what he was thinking.

“No, no, I’m not going to be a dark avenger or anything. I have a kid to think about now, he doesn’t need to lose his new dad.”

“Then what?”

“In addition to the Moss Foundation and the training school for game programmers I’m opening in our old neighborhood, I think there is a role for the superhero. Or more accurately, the image of a superhero.”

“You’re losing me.”

“We have two Knighthawk suits. So we have two Knighthawks.”

“Naw, I am not wearing that thing again. Besides, that flying car ain’t going nowhere the shape its in.”

“That’s true,” Randall said. “I’ve ordered a couple of unmarked black vans for this.”

Randall picked up a copy of the L.A. Times from his desk. He flipped through the paper until he got to a page buried deep inside. He pointed to a story.

The headline read: HOME RANSACKED, ELDERLY MAN BEATEN.

“You’ve met Elena Rishkoff, she works in marketing,” Randall said. “This is her grandfather. The cops don’t have any leads. They’re not really trying.”

“So what can we do?” Marcus asked.

“Elena gave her grandfather a nice gold watch. The perp or perps took it.”

“So?”

“There’s something that the perps don’t know about that watch.”

*****

Stevie said we couldn’t sell the watch for a while, until the heat was off. The news about the old man was on TV for a couple of days. They said he was Russian, and that there was a large Russian community in West Hollywood. Who knew.

I put the watch in a zip lock bag and then wrapped it in several Freds grocery bags and stashed it in a hiding place that I had been using since I was a kid. Stevie said not to keep it in my house because if the cops found it there they would know who took it.

My hiding place was a hole in the ground in the park, a hole with a broken metal cover and wires inside. It was put there by the power company for some reason, but the cover had been broken for ten years that I knew of, so anyone could pull it up.

That was the problem. All day at work I worried that someone would find the watch and take it. Nothing else I ever stashed there had been taken, but with my luck this would be the first thing.

So every day, as soon as I was able to hang up my greasy apron and go to my car and get off my aching feet, I drove to the park to check on the watch.

It was always there, so I would stuff it back into the hole and close the cover. It wasn’t until the fourth day that the watch started talking to me.

I was kneeling next to the hole and I was just about to put the watch back into the zip lock bag when it said, “Take me back!”

I dropped it and scooted back a few feet. My heart was beating fast and I couldn’t figure out what had just happened.

There was no one around, some runners on the other side of the park, that’s all. No one could have said that. I was sure it came from the watch, anyway.

When I calmed down a bit I looked at the hole again. The watch lay face down in the dirt at the bottom. I couldn’t leave it like that, Stevie would get mad if it was damaged. I carefully picked it up and it shouted at me, “Take me back to where I belong!”

I didn’t drop it this time. I thought I had figured out what was going on. “Stevie, is that you?” I asked. “Is there a phone built into this thing or something? Is it the iWatch?”

The watch was silent for second. Then it came back with “The night is watching you!”

What the hell was THAT? Some kind of poem? The night was watching me? I spun around, looking for anyone in the dark park.

There was no one, except the shape of one person...a really tall guy with a flat head...

He stepped closer, away from the cars parked on the closest street, and pulled something like a, like a sword that glowed.

A KNIGHT, a goddamn KNIGHT was watching me. He waved that sword, and it left a trail of blue light behind it.

I grabbed the watch and ran, which for me is not a normal activity. It wasn’t long before I had a stitch in my side and I was breathing really hard.

I got to my car and got in, fumbling with the key.

As I pulled out, the knight stepped out from behind a black van and faced me.

Come on, he couldn’t have run all the way across the park with that suit of armor on, could he? I thought of hitting him with my car, but that would probably hurt the car more than him. I swerved and went by and I swear I cold hear that sword make a crackling sound.

I didn’t know where to go. I had a talking watch and some loony going medieval on my ass. I texted a message to Stevie with one hand while I drove with the other. After a minute my phone beeped and Stevie sent back: NOT NOW BZ.

“I’ll show you busy,” I thought. Stevie was the one with the great idea to rob the old man, and he was the one who beat him to death. Whatever was going down now, he was going to be part of it. I headed for Stevie’s house.

At this point the watch decided to chime in. I had thrown it on the passenger seat and it was face down, but I could still hear it.

“This is the knight. Bring me the watch!” it said.

“Screw you!” I told it. I ran a red light on Burbank Avenue at Hollywood Way, and a BMW honked at me. Screw you too, I thought, rich bastard.

I turned onto Stevie’s street and stopped with a scream of brakes in front of his house. His mom’s house really, but Stevie never admitted he lived with her. Having his own place above the garage was far enough away that he could say he didn’t live at home.

I looked back as I ran down the driveway and saw a black van stop behind my car. The side door opened and the goddamn knight got out.

Screw Stevie, I decided to leave the watch on the steps to his apartment and run out the back. Maybe the knight would be happy just getting the watch.

I opened the tall wooden gate to the alley and the knight was standing there! I just saw him behind me! I swore and turned around.

The watch was still on the steps as I ran up them, so I grabbed it and when I got to the top I pounded on the door.

“WHAT?!” Stevie shouted at me as he opened the door. “I’m playing Halo 3 online! There’s guys depending on me!”

I shoved the watch into his hand. “There’s some freaking superhero knight after us,” I said. “I think he can teleport.”

“You’ve lost it,” he said. “What’d you give me this for?”

There was a loud knock on the door. We could see the shape of a man, blurred by the curtain, through the window.

“It’s the knight!” I said, backing away from the door.

“You’re nuts, Bos,” Stevie said. He pulled the door open. Then he dropped the watch. “Damn.”

It was a cop. In fact, it was a whole bunch of cops. Before I knew it I was in cuffs, which really hurt, and I was being pulled down the stairs.

At the bottom was more cops, plus a blonde lady and a big bald black guy.

It took two cops to get a struggling Stevie down the stairs. When they got to the driveway, one of them showed the watch, now in a plastic bag, to the woman.

“Is this your grandfather’s watch, Ms. Rishkoff?” he asked her.

“Yes, officer. It was designed by my employer, Mr. Moss. ” She nodded at the black guy.

“It has global positioning, and I could talk to my grandfather through it and monitor his pulse rate. That way I could tell where he was and if he was...all right.” She started to cry.

“I’ll take you home,” Moss said.

A cop shoved Stevie into me. “Looks like you boys are going away for murder.”

“It was all Bosley’s idea!” Stevie shouted.



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