Epilogue

Molly-June came around the corner of the crowded mart, her arms loaded with bags of potato chips. “Why are you lurking near the beer, Mr. B?”

What was I doing? I looked at the notepad open in my hand. At the top of the page was a note written in all caps:

IF MJ ASKS YOU SOMETHING, COUNT TO FIFTEEN, THEN ANSWER.

Right, right. Of course.

I counted to fifteen and then remembered what she had asked. “I’m not lurking. I’m lounging.” I pointed to my coffee cup. “Just enjoying my daily treat.” Said treat, which would soon be free, thanks to the theory Harlan and I had come up with over the past month on why Mr. Park was correct.

“Okay.” She dropped her bag onto the floor with a lack of care that explained the bag of the sour cream and onion chip fragments I’d ended up with the other day. “Why are you and Mr. D. ‘lounging’ in the store?”

Why were we there? Oh, right. I counted again and remembered. “We’re conducting an experiment.”

We’d been there for half an hour already. Harlan waited at the door. Under the pretext of doing market research, he asked each customer what they were there to buy. A few people eyed him suspiciously, but he’d only smile and say something nice, and they’d fold.

I watched from the far corner to see which customers interacted with Molly-June for any length of time, from a quick greeting to a multi-sentence conversation. If they did, once they were free, I’d ask them again what they had come into the store for.

Whenever a person frowned in confusion and said they couldn’t remember, I gave a mental fist-bump and then wrote it down in my notebook. When they did remember, I made a note of how long it had taken them. More than one customer left without buying anything. All evidence pointed to our theory being correct.

“Cool. About what?” She sat back on her heels, a move I hadn’t been able to do easily since I’d turned thirty.

“About you, actually.”

She grinned. “Far out.”

That seemed to be all she was going to say. “Don’t you want to know what it is? Wait, don’t say anything else.” We could be here all day if she kept asking me questions. “Let’s go find Mr. Park. I want to tell you both together.”

“Cool.” She finished wedging the chip bags into the metal rack and stood up.

The four of us gathered around the back counter. Mr. Park sat on his customary stool, framed by hanging displays of lottery tickets, lighters, and small good luck charms.

Molly-June high-fived the waving paw of the Maneki-neko sitting near the register. “How come we don’t have a real cat, Mr. Park? You should get one for the store.”

He looked at her over the edge of his newspaper. It took fifteen seconds for him to answer. “One doesn’t get a cat, one acquires a cat when the universe decides the time is right. When one shows up, it will be welcome to stay.” Mr. Park folded the newspaper and laid it on the counter. “Have you finally figured out why I’m losing money, Dashiell?”

“We think so.” Mr. Park had no patience for theatricality, so I got to the point. “Turns out Molly-June has a very specific, very subtle power.”

Molly-June’s entire body perked up. “No way! Wh?—”

Harlan slapped a hand over her mouth before she could finish. “Wait. I’ll move my hand if you promise not to ask any questions until we’re done.”

“Maybe not even then, if we want to get through this,” I added.

“Good point. Got it, MJ? No questions.” He gave her his instructor stare.

Her eyes opened almost comically wide, but she nodded.

He dropped his hand. She opened her mouth, a question so obviously hovering on the tip of her tongue that I could almost see it. Harlan shook his head, and she closed her mouth with an audible snap of her teeth. “Keep going, Dash.”

“For the last month, we’ve been observing Molly-June’s interactions with the customers and with us. Whenever she asks someone a question, they forget about whatever she was asking them for fifteen seconds.”

“What?” Molly-June asked despite Harlan’s warning.

I looked at her. “What what?” I’d been telling her something, hadn’t I?

Mr. Park was nodding slowly as if something was coming clear to him. “That would explain a lot about our conversations.”

“What would?” I had obviously missed something.

“Molly-June’s power,” Harlan explained. “She asked you ‘what?’ after you told her about it.” He turned to Mr. Park and Molly-June. “It’s a type of temporary amnesia. As far as we’ve observed, it’s not a field effect. Her power only affects the person to whom she is speaking.”

“Oh, fuck.” She wrinkled her nose adorably. “Sorry, Mr. B. I didn’t know I was doing that!”

“It’s not your fault,” he assured her.

I had so many questions. “MJ, you must have noticed people not answering your questions before?” I couldn’t imagine the confusion she must have sown. How did she handle school?

“I just figured they thought I was annoying.” She looked at the floor and pulled one of her long pigtails across her face, holding it over the space below her nose and above her lip like a mustache.

“No,” Mr. Park said sternly. “You are not annoying. You are a delight.”

You would have thought he’d given her a million dollars. “Really?”

Mr. Park stared at her serenely until the fifteen seconds had passed. “Really.” He leaned forward on his elbows. “I think I can figure it out, but tell me anyway. How is this affecting my sales?”

Harlan fielded that question. “Fifteen seconds may not sound like a long time, but it’s long enough for a customer to walk out without what they came in for.”

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Park! I’ll quit. It’s okay.” Tears filled her brown eyes, hovering there as if they were afraid to spill and ruin the thick black eyeliner she wore.

“You will not.” He reached a hand over the counter and waited patiently for her to take it. Then he covered her small hand with both of his and looked her right in the eye. “Besides being a lovely person, you are the most reliable and hardest-working employee I’ve had in years. You’re not going anywhere.” He patted her hand and gave her a small smile. “Maybe just keep the customer interactions to a minimum until we get a handle on this.” Mr. Park released her hand and looked at me and Harlan. “We will get a handle on this, right?”

That was more words than I’d heard him speak in the last six months.

“Right?” he repeated when I didn’t answer.

I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I was distracted. It’s just I thought I saw you smile. I didn’t know you could make that expression.”

He glowered at me, an expression I was much more familiar with. “I can. I choose not to with you.”

Harlan laughed and I thought I saw a hint of a laugh in Mr. Park’s eyes as well. “I can help Molly-June figure out more about how her power works. And we can brainstorm ways for her to get the information she needs from people without making them forget. Right off the bat, I’d say she should carry a small notebook and write down any questions she has for you. And, MJ, if you do accidentally ask someone a question, remember to count to fifteen to give them time to remember what you asked.”

MJ beamed at him. “That is so smart, Mr. D! Mr. B. is so lucky to have you. You’re so handsome and smart and nice.”

Harlan met my eyes and winked. I laughed. “You’re right. I am lucky. But, MJ, how did you get through school like this?”

She sighed heavily. “I didn’t. I dropped out. I’m gonna get my GED. I promised Mr. Park and my mom.”

Harlan pulled out his wallet and handed her his card. “I have to go to work now but give me a call in a day or so. In the meantime, I’ll pull together some resources for you. If you want to go back to high school or to community college after you get your GED, we can make that work, too. By law, schools have to make accommodations for supe kids with powers that interfere with normal praxis. With how they normally do things.”

“Really?”

Harlan’s brow furrowed.

MJ slapped her hand over her mouth and gave a muffled, “Sorry.”

I smiled at her. “Don’t be too concerned. It’ll take you a while to get used to not asking questions. It’s what humans do. And to answer your question, yes, really. One of Harlan’s main roles at SPAM is helping people who have just discovered their powers figure out how to live with him.” I leaned over and motioned to come closer. We huddle into each other like conspirators. “Don’t tell him I think so, but he’s one of the best in the country at it.”

“Re—” Her mouth snapped shut. “Okay.”

I turned back to our little group, and shoved my hands in my pockets, practically rocking on my feet with the feeling of another case successfully solved. “So, have I earned my free coffee?”

He sniffed, then picked up his paper and snapped it open with a flick of his wrists.

I waited while he pretended to read. Molly-June’s eyes went from him to me and back.

“Fine,” he finally said without taking his eyes off the paper. “Free coffee for one year. One cup a day, only.”

“That sounds fair,” Harlan said with a grin.

Mr. Park gave Harlan a quick glance. “You sticking around this time?”

“Yes, sir,” Harlan answered so promptly I expected to see him saluting.

Mr. Park nodded, harrumphed, and went back to his. “Coffee for him, too. One.”

Molly-June’s eyebrows rose so high they were hidden behind her bangs.

Not one to push my luck, I tugged Harlan away from the counter by his elbow. We didn’t speak until we were outside.

“But my coffee.” He sounded bereft.

“You can get some later. I didn’t want to do anything to make him change his mind.”

Harlan nodded. “Fair enough. Want to have dinner at my place tonight?”

Apartment hunting had been, well, awful. Even with the cost of living adjustment SPAM gave all the employees, the price of rent had given Harlan heart palpitations. I tried to convince him to stay in the SPAM corporate building, but he was vehemently against that idea. He wanted a place that would feel like home. With a little help from my Aunt Agrippina who had connections all over the city and half the state, we’d finally found a place with a monthly rent of less than half his salary.

Though admittedly we spent most of our nights together, I still felt better knowing that it was by choice, rather than necessity. DT told me I still didn’t trust him not to leave. Maybe he was right. Maybe one day I’d take the leap and talk about getting a place together. One day. But not today.

“Dinner sounds great. I’ll call if I get stuck in something.”

“Same.” He gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. “See you later.” I watched him leave. He got about half a block away, then he stopped, turned around, and headed back to me.

“Forget something?”

“I did. Come here.” He reeled me in by the lapels of my trenchcoat. “I forgot to tell you I love you.”

Technically, he hadn’t. He’d told me earlier when he met me at the Cornor Mart, but I never got tired of hearing it. “I love you, too.”

The kiss he gave me had me clutching his shoulders for support and went on long enough to earn us some wolf whistles from a passing bike messenger. Eventually, we came up for air.

“That’s a much better goodbye,” I admitted. “But I think that’s your bus.”

He looked down the block at the approaching bus. “Shit. It is.” He gave me another quick kiss. “Bye. See you tonight!”

“Bye again.” I smiled as he made it to the stop just as the bus doors opened.

“Where’s my coffee?” DT asked as soon as I stepped through the door.

After I hung up my coat and hat, I sat at his desk and told him how the morning went. We were going over the details on our separate current cases when the door opened and a woman walked in.

Everything about her screamed money, from her designer pumps and dress to her hair. The flawless highlights and lowlights in her honey-colored hair could only have come from the brushes and dyes of a master. The edge of her red lipstick was as sharp as a knife. I put her age in the late forties, possibly early fifties depending on how she felt about cosmetic surgery.

“Dashiell Bucur?” she asked as if I wasn’t quite what she had been expecting.

I stood up. “That’s what they tell me.”

Her eyes narrowed briefly. She had no time for my nonsense, I could tell. “I need your help. I’ve heard you are very good at what you do, and, more importantly, very discreet.”

“I try to be both.”

DT stood up and walked around the desk. “Please come in. Can I get you some coffee or tea, Ms… ?”

She came further into the room, then took off her coat and held it out for DT to take.

He did, but not without sending me an amused look from behind her back.

“And it’s Missus. Mrs. Deborah Rutledge.” She looked at us as if the name should be something to us. It almost did.

“Rutledge,” I repeated, looking at DT to see if he knew the name. “Rutledge.”

She stepped briskly over to the loveseat and sat down as if she were a queen about to address her court. She crossed one leg delicately over the other and rested her hands on her knee while she waited for us to place the name.

It hit us simultaneously, and DT’s eyebrows rose. Could it be? I walked over to her. “Rutledge. As in Sherman Rutledge, the Specter? The World’s Greatest Spy? The Invisible Man?”

She sighed so gently that her shoulders barely moved. “It’s just Specter, no the. And he hated being called the invisible man. He is so much more than that. But, yes. That Sherman Rutledge is my father-in-law.”

“I didn’t know he was still alive.” Spectre had disappeared from public view about twenty years ago. There were always rumors that he was still around. Of course, given his powers and the fact that he was an active intelligence agent for decades, few people knew what he actually looked like. He would be about seventy-five years old now. For all I knew, I’d sat next to him on the Muni.

As a kid, I’d been obsessed with his biographies and exploits. If I could be of any service to his family, I would leap at the chance.

Despite my inner fanboy squealing excitedly, I tried to play it cool as I sat in the chair across from her. DT hurried over with a notebook and the voice recorder we used for all our client interviews. I wouldn’t turn it on until we agreed I would be working with her. “How can I help you, Mrs. Rutledge?”

For the first time, I caught a glimpse of fear in the narrowing of her eyes and the tension around her mouth. “It’s Sherman. He’s, well, he’s missing.”

Fin

How do you find someone who has spent a lifetime learning how to disappear? Read about Harlan and Dash’s search for Specter (no the) in Behind the 8-Ball book #2, coming Fall 2024.