Superhero ... ish IX

IX

Mr. Westphal rubbed his cool forehead. Something much bigger was occupying his mind, burdening it, but he still took passing notice of how dry it was. He had expected to be sweating with stress, anxiety, even fear, which would have seemed more natural to him in his current state.

With a slight shudder that might have been imagined, he laid the folded newspaper down by the telephone on his desk. His secretary, Mrs. Kuhn, had browsed the paper for anything she deemed important or interesting enough for him to read, as she usually did when her own schedule allowed it, and had found something.

Yes, indeed she had.

Westphal eyed the offending neon post-it by the article.

The mutilated corpse of Martin Fitz had been found in a dumpster in the city. That was not what Westphal had intended when they had all agreed on 'silencing' him. Fitz had to be taken out of the way and rendered harmless. The drug-and-rape coup had seen to that. Killing him this gruesomely and allowing his body to turn up this soon, and in this manner, did their purpose a great disservice. The set up with his niece had been tasteless enough, and this murder was just so far beyond reason that it was plain stupid. He had already been discredited, so why go any further and torture Fitz to death, and risk everything by diverting the attention of the law away from him? They were going to look for his murderer now, and they would scrutinize the goings-on in the company that had only recently let him go.

This was very bad.

What to do?

Westphal stared at the abstract painting on the far wall of his office. The others would stay apprehensive, prepare for feigning ignorance and quietly cover their tracks wherever they could. Some would scramble and run. Some would attempt both – cover up sloppily and bow out more or less elegantly.

But they would all be investigated.

"But he didn't want to! He was forced -" The woman sobbed and sat back down, covering her face with her hands.

How cliché, thought Jimmy.

"It doesn't matter," she said coolly, "He still did it. He raped her. I really don't care why or how. He raped your daughter."

The rapist's suffering sister sobbed again.

"Look, it wasn't only his fault. But don't absolve him. He did it."

The crying woman did or said nothing more, so Jimmy, feeling out of place, decided it was about time for her to leave. She turned around to the terrace door.

"The others are not getting away," she promised on the way out.

This was so tedious. People were tedious. Intrigues and the plots of the powerful were tedious. Jimmy's sighs had become so frequent during the last few nights and days that her scarf was almost damp at times. It could all be so simple, she lamented inwardly. At least she could afford tending to this irritating tedium now. She was almost set to leave her original identity behind and let ordinary Jimmy fade into oblivion. Missing a few more lectures and seminars would only help the process along.

Now she had to do a different kind of homework. Which companies were involved and how, who were the people responsible, the leaders, who the lackeys, who had done what exactly... and all that without being an economist or computer expert.

By the time she returned home the prospect of weeks of tiresome footwork and poking around in strange papers had her so grim that she rued not stopping by the old foundry or the building site to exercise and blow off some steam.

Why don't I just kill everyone? Anyone that high up in global industries like that is bound to have skeletons in their closet. Or at least a superbly rotten character. But if she did that, she would never know all that really happened, and she could not be sure that she got to every last one of the shits who were involved. She would have to break into offices and snoop around carefully enough to – no... what if she could get a hold of just one of them... and make them crack? She would not even have to let on how little she knew about this matter. Just plant some fear into a dull but greedy mind that knew horror, and drop one single name.

Mr. Westphal was sweating now. Or rather, he had been. His hands and forehead were clammy and he shuddered frequently. His office was dark. It was just past eleven, the beautiful antique clock on his crystal coffeetable said. It had just chimed daintily eleven times. By now, no one but a handful of security guards would be left in the building. And they had no reason to patrol up here.

The cloaked figure on his leather sofa shifted and leaned forward.

Jimmy yawned.

She stood up and walked around the low table and towards the big, comfortable chair in the middle of the room, in which the nondescript suit sat. She walked past him, checking if his eyes were awake and aware, wandered around him and let a finger trail his collar while she did. It almost disgusted her, but unfortunately, tactile sensation was an important factor in inducing terror effectively. She let her hand rest on his shoulder and looked down at him.

"Mr. Westphal," she said quietly, "I love stories." Her eyes bore into him and he was made aware again of the unpleasant fact that he could not move. Not that squirming would have helped him in any way.

It was mildly unsettling that this young woman masked herself, but it was also reassuring. If she hid her face from him there was a good chance that he was not supposed to die in this encounter. Fitz had apparently fallen victim to a murdering psychopath, and he cared little for becoming one himself.

"Tell me one. About yourself... and Martin Fitz." She turned away and let go of his shoulder. Westphal swallowed. He found that he could move his head. Of course. He was supposed to speak now. But he would not. He had not even made up his mind about what to tell the police once they would come knocking, let alone... that. Whatever she was. She had telekinetic powers and had somehow got in here unseen, but this would not cow him into giving everything up to her.

Jimmy had not expected him to talk this soon, with no motivation. Without sparing him a glance, she levitated the large painting down from the wall and before her to look at it more closely. It was not covered by a glass pane and had only the original rough wooden beams at the back of the canvas for a frame. It was impossible to make out its colours and details in this gloom, but that hardly mattered. She wanted to make a point by letting the canvas hover in front of her in midair while keeping the suit enthralled without so much as looking at him.

"Take your time," she said, "I've got more than you can imagine."

Something cracked, and one side of the painting's wooden frame floated away to settle gently on the soft grey carpet.

"Of course, yours is considerably shorter."

TBC