Dead Matter

7

“Hell’s Kitchen,” Jane said, checking up and down the darkened street for the hundredth time. “It’s not so bad, you know, given the name and all.”

Jane and I were in surveillance mode. We stood on Fifty-ninth Street pretending to hang out, leaning against a wall where we could keep an eye on most of Connor’s building. The streets were relatively quiet for this time of night. Even the cars were few and far between.

“You should have seen this neighborhood a decade ago,” I said. “It was pretty grizzly. I haven’t checked with Godfrey Candella down in the Gauntlet, but I bet if I asked our resident archivist, he’d tell us there used to be a demonic vortex here.”

Jane looked up at the building standing across the street from us. “Which one is Connor’s apartment again? It’s hard to tell from the outside.”

I pulled her closer to me and pointed up to a window just in view along the left side of the building. I counted up three floors. “There,” I said.

“I don’t suppose that’s Connor, then.”

“What?” I asked. “Where?” It was dark inside Connor’s apartment.

Jane grabbed my face and forced my eyes to the side of Connor’s window. She held out her finger in front of me so I could follow it. “There.”

“I don’t see anything…” I said, but stopped myself. One of the shadows outside Connor’s window moved. I hadn’t noticed it before, but now I could make out what looked like a human figure inching along the brickwork. It stopped at Connor’s window and rested its arms along his window ledge.

“What is that?” Jane asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But I’m curious enough to find out.”

I pulled off the lid of a nearby garbage can as slowly and quietly as I could. I was thrilled to see it full of recyclables. I pulled an old Snapple bottle out of it, took aim, and threw it across the street toward the figure, hoping to miss accidentally putting it through Connor’s window. Some of my extracurricular training for the Fraternal Order of Goodness must have paid off, because I hit the shadowy figure square between its shoulders.

“Hey, dick,” I shouted up to it. “You wanna come down here the easy way or the hard way? I got a trash can full of options right here.”

Like a nimble monkey, the figure descended the three stories in seconds, dropping the last ten feet or so to the sidewalk. He took off down the street.

“Either that dude has been spending a lot of time at Chelsea Piers on the rock-climbing walls,” I said, “or we’re dealing with Spider-Man.” I turned to Jane. “That might be cool.”

Jane grabbed my face, and pointed off. The figure was already halfway down the block.

“Focus, hon,” she said.

“Right,” I said, taking off after the figure. “Sorry.”

The guy was damn fast, darting in and out of traffic as he sprinted away. Already my legs were burning, but we were gaining on him. Not that I could make out much about him save that he was dressed for stealth much the same way we were.

After the first two city blocks, my body started giving out. My back still ached like hell, but I focused on our pursuit and pushed past the pain. I was closing the distance. The figure turned again and darted off across traffic, heading along the length of a sleek steel building on the other side of the street.

“Watch the traffic!” I shouted back to Jane and, ignoring my own advice, dove between two cabs that both laid on the horn for a solid ten seconds. By the time they stopped, I was almost caught up to the figure when he turned the corner at the end of the block.

I rounded it seconds later, recognizing in an instant where we were-the west side of Columbus Circle. As I tried to close the distance once again, I couldn’t help but notice the single building straight ahead that took up the entire city block. The front of it was an enormous glass pyramid like the one at the Louvre in France, and it dwarfed the buildings to either side of it. A dozen massive towers shot out of the top of the pyramid, rising high into the night, the entire structure looking like a city unto itself.

The figure dashed for a set of ten-foot-high steel doors off to the far left from the main entrance of the building proper. He flung them open and ran through, stopping only long enough to pull them shut behind him.

I beat Jane to them by a couple seconds and I pulled at the doors, but they were locked, as I suspected. When Jane arrived, she looked as winded as I felt.

“Remind me to leave a pair of cross-trainers at your apartment,” she said, gasping for air. “The shoes I’m wearing are so not made for long-distance running.”

She pointed toward a faceplate set into the wall that blended in with a subtlety that spoke of craftsmanship.

“Can you open it?”

I looked at it for a moment before shaking my head. “I can’t use my psychometry on it. It’s a pad for a keycard like we have on the door to the offices. It’s not like a numeric lock where I can use my power to see the code of the last person who entered. It also means I can’t pick it.”

“Crap,” she said, then looked around. She pointed off to a set of doors set into the tinted glass of the main pyramid area. Two men in identical suits stood sentry there like they were bouncers at a nightclub.

As we approached the doors, I looked the two of them over. They were both huge with black hair, though the larger one had his in a military cut and the other wore his a little longer, though still neat. Both of them looked straight out of a casting call for Men in Black 3.

I walked up to the doors with as much authority as my status in a secret paranormal investigative office held. In response, the two men stepped in front of the doors that led into what looked like a deserted shopping atrium. Neither of them looked very impressed.

“Can we help you?” the longer-haired one said. I held my ID out to him.

“We’re with the Department of Extraordinary Affairs,” I said, “in pursuit of a suspect.”

He took it from me and examined it. Jane was fishing around in the messenger bag she wore strapped across her body and pulled out a folded sheet of paper.

“My bad,” she said. She handed the paper to the larger of the two guards. “Mine’s only provisional for now until I get my honest-to-goodness badge. But it’s legit, I swear.”

The larger gentleman smiled at her, looked it over, and then took mine from the other guy. He folded them neatly closed and handed them back to us.

“Sorry,” the bigger guy said. “I’m afraid those won’t work here.”

“I’m sorry?” I said. That took me aback. I was suddenly pissed. “Weren’t you listening? We’re in the middle of an investigation.”

“This building here?” he said, gesturing behind him, a bit of rental-cop authority in his voice. “This entire area falls outside of your jurisdiction.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. I pointed to the emblem of the City of New York on my ID. “All of New York City is part of my jurisdiction. I may need a warrant to search private property, but I am getting in here.”

The big guy shook his head. His partner cleared his throat. “You’re familiar with that whole section of the city over by the United Nations, yes? Where all the embassies are?”

I nodded.

“Well, then,” he continued, “think of this area like one of those embassies. They’re off-limits to local police and such. They’re considered to be the sovereign land of the actual countries they represent. The Gibson-Case Center is kind of like that. Other than the public shopping areas, which are closed right now. Either way, you can’t enter. We’re under special permit from the Mayor’s Office.”

I stood there, silently fuming at their rebuke.

“Let’s just go,” Jane said, taking me by the arm.

“Fine,” I said, hissing the words out between clenched teeth. I gave the guards a final stare as Jane led us away down the sidewalk.

“Get a grip, will you?” she whispered. “You’re so riled.”

“I want to know who’s messing with my partner,” I said, rationalizing my behavior.

“That’s all well and good, sweetie, but you’re not getting answers from those brutes.”

“Who the hell am I supposed to get them from, then?”

Jane stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, spun in front of me, and suddenly kissed me, deep. After a long and blissful moment, she pulled away and looked at me.

“Calm now?”

I nodded.

“Good,” she said. “Now, as I was saying, those guys aren’t going to give you the answers you’re seeking, but they did say something promising.”

My mind was swimming from everything, including the kiss. “Do tell.”

“Now, what did they say?” she asked. “They said the Gibson-Case Center was under special permit with the Mayor’s Office, which means…?”

“Dave Davidson at the Mayor’s Office of Plausible Deniability,” I said, feeling a momentary jolt of joy. Finally there would be someone I could yell at to get results.