Chapter 12

"Go away! This is private property. Begone!" The man emerging from the small wooden house at the end of the overgrown drive reminded Perry of Gandalf. After his imprisonment— white hair, scrawny, and baggy clothes. Even the long walking stick he was waving fit the character.

Perry jumped out of the passenger side of Deckard's car. "You invited me. I'm Perry Crawford. David's son? We spoke on the phone."

"Oh?" The old man lowered the staff and used it as a support, shuffling toward Deckard's car. "Okay, yeah, you look like Davey. Prettier than he was, but then his wife was a looker. Total supefucker, but a beautiful woman."

Perry blinked. He hadn't heard the term supefucker but he could extrapolate from starfucker as well as anyone. He wondered if he should defend his mother's honor, but then, she'd never defended his. "You said you might be able to answer some questions for me."

"Maybe. A man gets bored laying about in retirement. Come on inside, though. My knees don't like to stand."

Deckard got out, coming around to Perry's side. The old man, who was presumably Boomerang, squinted up at Deckard. "This your boyfriend?"

Perry choked on the lie— I wish—but Deckard had no such qualms. "Yes, I am." He wrapped an arm around Perry's shoulders and snugged him in close. "Deckard." He held out a hand to the old man.

Boomerang clutched his staff with both hands and ignored the gesture, his fingers gnarled against the dark wood. "It's a good thing you came to me, young Perry. Some of the heroes of my generation would be less than amused by the two of you. ManMovesMountains, for example. Strong as an ox, but a total bigot. Doesn't have two brain cells to rub together." He turned back toward his house, muttering to himself.

Perry exchanged looks with Deckard, not sure if they were both supposed to follow.

Boomerang twisted to peer over his shoulder. "Well? You coming? I might die before you make it into the house."

Deckard let go of Perry. "My dog's in the backseat. Can she come too?"

"Dog?" Boomerang stopped. "Is she housetrained?"

"Yes, sir. Completely."

"Well, I guess it's okay. My cat might kill her, but I don't mind."

Perry wasn't sure if that was a real warning, but Deckard clearly decided not, since he opened the car to let Nix jump out. Deckard had wanted Nix along, his innate suspicious nature needing to check the old hero's place for explosives. Perry had thought that was overkill, but he didn't object to Nix enlivening the long drive.

They followed Boomerang in the front door, and he led them left toward a dark front room, flipping a light switch as he passed. "Close the door. Take a seat."

The old man dropped into a recliner, which left the short couch for the two of them. Perry sat cautiously, and Deckard, as befitting a boyfriend, took his place with their knees touching. Perry found himself more grateful for the reassurance than the situation should've warranted.

Nix wandered the room, and for a moment they all watched her. At a tall bookcase, she stopped, staring up. Perry tensed, wondering if he'd been wrong about the overkill and she was signaling explosives, but then he spotted the black cat perched on top.

"Lucifer," Boomerang said. "If she drops on your head, you'll know why I call her that."

Luckily, the cat showed no sign of leaping down. Nix completed her circuit and sat at Deckard's feet. He passed her a kibble from one pocket, then gave her a soft toy to chew on from the other.

Boomerang leaned back in his chair and folded his hands on his stomach. "You have the look of your father when he was puzzled, young Perry. Ask your questions."

Perry knew he should ask about the case, about SPAM, but for the first time as an adult he was in a room with someone who'd known his father, other than his mother. The temptation was overwhelming. "What was my father's superpower?"

"Your mother didn't tell you?" Boomerang shook his head sadly. "Figures. He could elevate himself off the ground. When he was first coming into his powers, late-blooming in his early twenties, he hoped he might one day fly, like your grandfather, Marvelous Mike. Have you heard of him?"

"Yes." Way too often.

"Gradually, Davey began to go higher and higher, but only in a straight line. Up and down. Up and down." Boomerang coughed a rusty laugh. "His wife wanted us to call him Highflyer. She even wrote a Digipedia article later, using that name. Full of nonsense. I think the Digi folks took it down."

"I haven't seen it." And Perry had looked.

"Try the Wayback machine, if you want a laugh. Davey was gone by then, and unable to self-edit."

Perry flinched, and Deckard laid a hand on his knee. The old man seemed oblivious.

"Highflyer. Hah. We called him The Elevator. Was a good guy, though. Could've done some useful things with his power one day, but he volunteered to help the Whirlwind against Black Widower. They battled on the rooftops. Davey kept popping up over the edge of the roof, here, there, throwing rocks and distracting Black Widower. The Whirlwind never cared much about collateral damage, though." Boomerang sighed. "I told him. ‘Davey,' I said, because we both hated our hero names. ‘That woman will let you die to avoid breaking a nail in this fight. Let them deal with each other.' But he wanted to be useful." The old man shook his head.

"Oh." Perry twisted his fingers together, his mind a jumble. His mother hadn't lied to him, and yet her truth had been very incomplete.

"He was a good man, young Crawford. You can hold onto that."

"Yes. Thank you." Perry's voice shook.

Deckard edged close to him on the couch and asked, "You don't like your hero name, sir? What did you want to be called?"

"The Shield." The old man pointed at Nix's chew toy. "Throw that at me."

"What?"

"Try to hit me with it. Go on." He sat up straighter.

Deckard hesitated, then traded Nix a kibble for her toy. In a soft, underhand throw, he lobbed the stuffed elephant at Boomerang, aiming for the old man's lap.

The toy stopped in midair, a foot from Boomerang's knees, then zipped back at Deckard twice as fast. Perry admired the reflexes that let Deckard snatch the elephant as it flashed toward his shoulder. Nix barked as if she wanted to join in the game.

"Try again," Boomerang said.

Without hesitating, Deckard whipped the toy at the old man's head. It reversed at a speed that whacked it into Deckard's raised palm.

"You coulda played pro baseball," Boomerang noted.

"That's impressive, sir," Deckard told him. "Does it work when you don't see an object coming?"

"Yep." The old man locked his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. "Try it."

This time, Deckard missed his catch on the speeding rebound and the toy splatted on his shoulder, dropping to the floor in front of Nix, who grabbed it, her tail wagging.

Boomerang opened his eyes and turned a gleeful grin on Deckard. "If that'd been a rock, or a bullet aimed at me, you'd be messed up good."

"I sure wouldn't mind having that talent," Deckard agreed.

Perry almost commented it would make disarming bombs a lot safer, and pressed a fist to his lips. Boyfriend, not cop. Boyfriend. He leaned his shoulder against Deckard's, telling himself it was all part of the act. I wonder if he's ever been shot at with a real bullet. Perry shivered and leaned harder.

"Not bad, huh?" Then Boomerang frowned. "Except I had to mask it down. The army spotted me, wanted me to walk around a battlefield shielding their top soldiers. I pretended I could only shield myself, made my power look useless as fuck for anyone else, even when they shot a guy next to me in the thigh as a stress test. Fuckers. They nicknamed me ‘Boomerang' and cut me loose. I didn't dare work with another hero for a long time, in case they figured out the lie. No way in hell was I cut out to be a soldier. I like my luxuries." He turned to Perry. "Let that be a lesson to you, young Peregrine. Never trust the government or the pigs. They couldn't care less about you. Big oil, big money, that's all they want to protect. Surprised they didn't chain me to an oil well and ask me to protect that."

"Right." Perry swallowed, dismayed to have his own nebulous fears about being drafted validated, even if the old man's experiences were decades out of date. "What would you like us to call you?"

"Call me Leo. That's what I've gone by the last thirty years."

"Thank you for trusting us," Deckard said.

"Heh. I'm finally too old to be useful to them. Gonna kick the bucket any minute now."

Perry thought Leo seemed a long way from the grave, but he wasn't going to argue. He tried to force his milling thoughts back to the reason they'd come. "You said on the phone you could tell me something about SPAM and April."

"They contacted you?"

"Yes. With a couple of notes. Which vanished." Perry felt Deckard stiffen at his side as he said that, and wondered if it was meant to be a secret. He wasn't good at keeping secrets, except the single vital one. He told Leo, "But those notes were pretty useless info. One said I could call on the usual resources of SPAM. But I don't even know what those are."

Leo raised a bushy white brow. "Well, Spam's good for lunch, if you're hungry. Makes a decent sandwich."

Perry blinked. Does he really not know anything?

The old man barked a laugh. "Your face, boy! I'm kidding. SPAM." He tilted his head, gazing off into space. "That takes me back. Haven't had contact with them in a couple of decades. April's not the boss, but she's the one you'll hear from."

"Who is the boss?" Perry asked.

Leo put a finger beside his nose. "Trade secret. Only April knows and she's not telling. Anyhow, SPAM's mission is to help us heroes leverage our power by banding together to defeat villains. They aim the right hero at the right job, find them a sidekick if they need one." He looked Deckard up and down. "Does your boyfriend have a power? He'd make a good sidekick."

Deckard coughed.

Perry said, "No, he doesn't. And if he did, I'd be his sidekick."

"Don't sell yourself short, boy. I know a hero when I see one."

"I'm really not," Perry hurried to insist. The word felt wrong. Anyway, the last thing he wanted was for word to get around he had some kind of real power. "Not even as much as my father."

"You think?" Leo shook his head. "We'll find out, I suppose."

Deckard asked, "How can Perry find April, if he wants to ask for help? What does she look like?"

"What does water look like?" Leo smirked. "That's what you're asking. April can be an ocean or a cup of tea."

"She's made of water?" Perry was confused.

"We're all made of water, boy. Don't be obtuse. It's a metaphor. April looks the way she wants to. And you don't find her, she finds you."

Perry's head hurt. "But then how do I call on resources? Is there, like, a hotline?"

"You stand on one foot and chant April's name twenty-seven times."

Perry stared at the old man. Seriously?

Leo scoffed. "Jesus, you're gullible. You, Mr. Boyfriend, you look older. See if you can teach this kid not to believe everything he hears." He shook his head. "I don't know the process. Hydroman said there were regional offices and everything, but I never found one. The last time I got a boost from SPAM, I was in the middle of a fight with the Quake. He was shaking the whole building, dropping heavy debris on me, and while my shield-power sent the stuff back up, it all came back down again, and nothing seemed to be hitting the bastard. I said, ‘I think I'm fucked,' and next thing, Hydroman showed up. He ran a torrent from the nearest water main into the soil beneath the Quake's feet, heaved the ground and tipped him off-balance, and I smacked the villain with a large brick. Hydroman said SPAM sent him. He got the message before I realized I was in over my head. So who knows? Maybe ‘I'm fucked' is a secret time-reversing password. Maybe not."

Perry said, "The notes suggested I'm supposed to be some kind of SPAM agent. Does that mean April might send me off to battle some villain?" What kind of use would I be?

"Maybe. I got sent a time or two. I figured it was payback for Hydroman, so I went."

Deckard asked, "Did you get vanishing notes too?"

"Cassette tapes in my car. You're probably too young to even know what those are. They did vanish, though. That's April for you."

Perry exchanged looks with Deckard. Finding out Leo had no clue how to contact SPAM either was disappointing.

Deckard added, "What about someone called the Lithomancer? Does that name ring any bells?"

"Wow, blast from the past." Leo grinned. "She was hot stuff, back when I still kept track of the community."

"What's her real name?" Deckard demanded.

"Ah, ah, ah. We don't share that info with ordinaries."

"Your name's online," Perry pointed out. "My grandfather is in Digipedia, along with a bunch of others."

"I should say, we don't share it if people don't want it to be shared. The Lithomancer used to come to events in a clingy gray catsuit with a mask over her face. She was never public."

"But you know who she is?" Deckard pushed.

"Wouldn't tell you if I did. But as a matter of fact, I only encountered her a few times and never unmasked, so no, I don't know."

Perry asked, "Is she a villain or a hero?" Beware in the note had suggested villain.

"Gray zone," Leo said, tilting a hand back and forth. "Like more of us than you'd think. Or she was then. She might've turned light or dark in the last twenty years."

"What was her power? The word means telling the future with stones. Could she really tell the future?" Wouldn't that be impossible to fight against?

"So she said. She'd toss a few rocks like dice, make some cryptic pronouncement, call them back to her hand, and strut off." Leo snorted. "Not sure I believe anyone can tell the future. If they could, they'd be living in a mansion and eating off gold plates. Just saying."

"Maybe she does," Perry suggested. "Since we don't know who she really is."

Leo blinked. "Hell, you could be right at that. You're not as brainless as you look. If that was true, you could check out the fifty richest women in America, select for the ones who didn't inherit their wealth, and maybe find her. On the other hand, her predictions never seemed to include the Derby winner, so you'll excuse me if I'm skeptical."

"We know one person we're looking for is a man," Deckard said. "Would she work with someone else?"

"Remember, I ain't seen the woman in twenty years," Leo told him. "She was a loner back then, but she did come around a lot, liked to egg people on to fight each other. I could see her helping from the sidelines if it amused her."

"Someone getting blown up is amusing?" Perry regretted the question when Leo's gaze sharpened.

The old man's eyes flicked to Deckard, then down to Nix. "Wait, you're the bomb guy and his dog. I saw you on TV." He glared at Perry. "How dare you bring a pig into my house?"

"He's not a pig." Who even says that anymore? "He is my boyfriend. He wouldn't let me come alone."

"Get out." Leo pointed a wavering finger at the door. "Let an old man die in peace. Go away."

Perry stood and Deckard followed his lead with Nix at heel. At the door, Perry had to turn and ask, "Are you really dying? Is there anything I can do for you?"

Leo barked, "We're all dying, boy. Some of us sooner." His tone softened. "You can stop by again sometime. Alone. And bring chocolate. The good stuff. My doc tells me to eat right but I say, if a dying man can't have chocolate, it's a cruel world." The old man eyed Nix. "You can bring the dog if you want. She's cute. It does Lucifer good to be reminded she's not the queen of the world." At the sound of her name, the cat meowed and launched herself at the recliner, landing neatly on the arm beside Leo. He stroked her fur with a gnarled hand. "Go! Git! Out!"

Perry got. Deckard closed the front door behind them, making sure it latched securely.

"Well, that was pretty useless." Perry sighed.

Deckard strode to the car and opened the passenger side for him. "Not entirely. We found out the Lithomancer is a woman, and she must be at least forty, if Leo hasn't seen her for twenty years. We found out it's probably useless to try to track down April, if even heroes who've worked for her don't know how to contact her. Although that ‘regional offices' thing suggests we might need to search for SPAM again."

"True." Perry got in.

Deckard secured Nix in back with her tether, then swung into his seat and headed them down the narrow drive. As they hit the main road, he said quietly, "And we learned more about your dad."

"Yeah." Perry wasn't sure how he felt about any of that. His chest hurt. On the one hand, hearing someone who wasn't his mother praise his father warmed him. On the other… "The Elevator."

"It's not a useless power."

"Yeah, he could've rescued cats out of trees."

"Kids from the windows of burning buildings, or climbers stranded on a cliff."

"I suppose."

"I do have a question, though." Deckard sounded tentative.

"Yeah?"

"When your dad was popping up to the top of a building and throwing rocks at the villain… why not a gun? Scoot up there, aim, pull the trigger. Boom." Deckard mimed a finger gun at the windshield. "No more bad guy. A hundred lives saved."

"I don't know." Something inside Perry crawled queasily at the idea of guns and powers together. "It feels wrong."

"There are superheroes who use weapons, though. Like, Bolt uses lightning. How's that different from a Taser? Or Silver Arrow shoots a bow. How's that different from a gun?"

"I don't know," Perry repeated. "It just is." He thought back. "Remember when Dr. Dread teleported into a nuclear missile silo and tried to blackmail the planet ten years back? Every superhero around combined to take him down, instantly. Superpowers and ordinary weapons shouldn't mix."

"Seems hard to enforce. I wonder if that's what SPAM does."

That squirmy nausea in Perry's stomach made him say, "Maybe they don't need to. Although I sure wouldn't assume no bad guy could overcome their aversion."

"Do you think our bomber could still be a supe? I mean, a supervillain?"

Perry shrugged. "I think more likely he's a human henchman, but then, a week ago I thought SPAM was a lunchmeat. Don't trust my judgement."

Deckard squeezed Perry's knee. "Your judgement's fine. You're just short on information."

Desperate to lighten the conversation, Perry quipped, "That's not what you said about my choices when I jumped into your squad car chasing Fox-face."

Deckard snorted. "Maybe your judgement does leave a bit to be desired." His tone softened. "Are you okay with all that family stuff that came up?"

Perry raised his chin. "Sure." I have to be, don't I? The old man might be biased, but Perry was pretty sure he was telling the truth.

"Sounds like he liked your dad a lot. He invited you back even after the sin of bringing a cop into his home."

"True." Yeah, that helped some. His image of his superhero dad might be revised, but Leo's reactions suggested at least one of his parents had been a good guy through and through.