The moment she showed up to his office, Ty Lecau clucked his tongue at her. “Tomorrow wear a skirt and a blouse that fits better. Get some heels too.”
“Yes, sir,” she mumbled. Other than her Apex Girl costume, Starla didn’t have any skirts; Ms. Cash had told Starla her legs were too muscular for skirts unless she wanted people to think she was a bodybuilder.
Mr. Lecau motioned her to a chair. He barely looked at her as he said, “You know how to take dictation, type, file, and all that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What about coffee? The last girl’s coffee tasted like burnt motor oil a dog had shit in.”
“I’ll do my best, sir.”
“Can that sir crap, honey. You can call me Ty. Or Daddy.” He looked up as he said the last sentence. The way his eyes studied her was like he had infrared vision of his own. She put a hand to her bosom, but it was already covered up. “Yeah, you’ll do just fine.”
“Thank you.”
For two hours things went well enough. She typed some letters and answered the phones. The last call she answered was from a girl named Monica. It was clear she wasn’t too happy with Ty from the way she said, “Don’t tell me he’s in a meeting. I know that shithead is there.”
“Let me put you on hold—”
“Listen, you tramp, you get him on the phone this instant!”
“Yes, ma’am.” Starla tapped gently on the door to Ty’s office. He waved her inside while he continued to talk to someone.
“You should have seen the tits on that one. Like a couple of water balloons. Hold on a sec, the new girl wants something. What? Oh, yeah, she’s pretty decent in a Xena Warrior Princess kind of way.” Starla’s face warmed as she knew Ty was talking about her. “Yeah, come by this afternoon and check it out.”
He finally put down the phone so she could say, “There’s a Monica on the other line. She says it’s urgent.”
He leaned forward in his chair. “Tell Monica she’s yesterday’s news. If she shows that rat face of hers here again, the guards are going to drop her from the roof. Got it?”
“Yes, Mr. Lecau,” she said, unable to bring herself to call him by his first name.
As expected, Monica was not pleased to hear this news. “Then you tell him I’ll have my lawyers show up with the paternity results!”
The phone slammed down in Starla’s ear. She sighed with relief for the crisis being resolved, at least for the moment. She had never imagined secretarial work could be so stressful. At the Star it seemed the secretaries were always cheerful and polite. But then despite all his faults, Larry Black had always been respectful to his employees.
The breaking point came when Lecau opened the door to his office. He stuck his head out and said, “Hey, sweetcheeks, get in here. I got a letter for you to take.”
Her infrared vision kicked on as rage coursed through her. She shook her head to clear it away so she could find a notepad. As she went into the office, she promised tonight she would see Major Dalton to discuss finding her a new civilian job that was less demeaning, garbage removal maybe.
She sat down across from his desk and waited for him to start. He got up from behind the desk and then began to dictate a letter to his lawyers about evicting some tenants from a building he owned. She knew the city well enough to know the building was in a slum; Lecau seemed like just the type to be a slum lord.
As he went on with the letter, he bent down over the back of her chair. He practically whispered into her ear, ‘“If those rat bastards won’t leave when the dozers get there then just run them down. Bunch of fucking illegal immigrants can’t be worth more than a hundred grand.’ You got that, sweetcheeks?”
“Yes, Mr. Lecau.”
He ran a hand along her hair and then whispered, “I got a suite at the Grand. How about we go over there, get a bottle of champagne, and then you let me bury my face in those melons of yours?”
“Excuse me?”
“Come on, darling, it’ll be fun.” His hand went down from her hair to her right thigh. “Those are some strong legs you got there. I bet you can stay on your knees for hours, can’t you?”
Her IR vision cut in again. She wanted to grab his hand and break it into tiny pieces. This anger was unusual for her. Enemies like Rad Geiger, Dr. Roboto, and even Clownface never made her want to hurt someone this badly. “Stop it,” she growled.
He pulled the hand back. “Oh, I get it. You must be one of them rug munchers.” He buried his face in her hair to whisper, “Trust me, when we get done, I’ll have you begging for cock.”
The laugh that accompanied this statement finally did it. She elbowed him in the chest hard enough to send him crashing into the wall. Before he could recover, she seized him by the throat and held him in the air. Her eyes burned from the IR vision she couldn’t turn off. “How dare you!” she shrieked at him. “I’m not some…harlot from a strip club!”
“Harlot” was the strongest word she could force from her lips. Ma and Pa had taught her to be respectful of all women, no matter how disgusting their sexual proclivities might seem.
“You like the rough stuff, huh?” he asked. She noticed that like Rad Geiger when she apprehended him, Lecau had a bulge between his legs. She triggered a thin trickle of flame, just enough to warm the metal of his zipper.
That was enough to wipe the smug grin from his face. “You are the worst person I’ve ever met,” she said. She threw him through the door of his office to land in front of her desk. She raced forward to seize him by the collar of his shirt. “You’re a cruel, heartless, lying…pervert!”
The staff from the other offices on the floor emerged to watch as she threw Lecau across the office. He smashed into a wall, where he lay as limp as a rag doll. She stomped across the office, everyone having the sense to stay out of her way. “Apologize!”
“Fuck…you,” he said with a groan. “You’re…fired.”
Though this shouldn’t have been a surprise, Starla stood there, dumbfounded. She had never been fired from a job before, ever since her first job delivering newspapers for The Rockford Tribune. “What?”
“You’re fired!” Lecau managed to get unsteadily to his feet. “Now get lost, you dumb cunt.”
The expletive reignited her rage. She took him by the front of the shirt and then stomped over to the nearest window. She punched it open with one hand while with the other she shoved Lecau through the opening. He dangled sixty stories in the air, his limbs flailing around and eyes bulging. “What are you doing?” he screamed.
“I want you to apologize and promise from now on you’re going to treat your female employees with respect. Otherwise I’m going to drop you.”
“You maniac! You’ll end up in jail for this!”
“Maybe, but I think I’ll have enough character witnesses to vouch for the way you treat women. I’ll start with Monica.”
He looked down at where the sidewalk awaited him and then back up at her. “All right! All right, goddamn it! I’m sorry! I promise from now on I’ll treat women with respect. Are you happy now?”
She let him dangle for a few seconds before she nodded. She tossed him to the floor, safely inside the building. She didn’t need supersenses to smell the odor of urine on him. “Make sure you keep your word,” she said. “Next time I won’t be so gentle.”
On the way down the stairs she had felt good. She imagined it was how Rob had felt all those years as Midnight Spectre, to put the fear of God in someone. She had always been gentler with criminals, believing everyone had a kernel of goodness in their hearts—even people like Rad Geiger. But if Ty Lecau had a kernel of goodness it was very, very small.
It was only when she reached Expresso’s that the adrenaline died out and reality set in. She has no job now and unlike Rob she’s not a billionaire heiress. There’s probably a warrant out for her arrest, which means the identity Major Dalton and the CIA concocted will
have to be scrapped.
She’s made such a mess of things, all because she couldn’t get hold of her temper. The fact Lecau deserved what he got and worse is of no comfort to her. That’s Midnight Spectre’s way of thinking, not hers. She has always tried to show the best of humanity even though she isn’t human. She’s tried to be the apex not of physical power so much as moral fortitude. Now she’s lost all that and for what? To teach a womanizing jerk a lesson?
“Oh, shit,” she hears from the table across from her. She sees the back of another woman and a coffee cup turned on its side as its contents run onto the floor. Starla leans over with a handful of paper napkins; it’s a small gesture of atonement for what she’s done.
The woman turns and smiles. The napkins drop from Starla’s hand as she recognizes Kate King.
***
Once the coffee spill is contained, Kate turns to Starla. “Damn it, this was my favorite top,” she says as she dabs at a brown spot by the hem. It’s a plain white top Starla saw often enough when she worked with Kate. She never knew it had any special significance.
“You’re welcome,” Starla mumbles. She starts to get up, but Kate grabs her sleeve.
“Hold on. You’re the girl that roughed up Ty Lecau, aren’t you?”
“No. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sure you do. I got it right here.” Kate holds up her phone. To her horror, Starla watches herself as she holds Lecau by the throat. “That is pretty damned impressive. You must really work out.”
“I grew up on a farm,” Starla says before she can think better of it.
“Really? I knew a guy who lived on a farm. You look like you could be his sister.”
Starla blushes at this. She really should get out of here before Kate can put everything together. Yet she doesn’t have the heart to shake Kate’s hand away. “Thank you. I really have to go.”
“Don’t worry about Lecau. Everyone knows what a shit he is.” Kate gestures to the seat opposite her. Starla makes sure there isn’t coffee on it before she sits down. She looks down at her hands folded in her lap, unsure why she’s still here. Kate goes on, “I had to interview that creep once. Five minutes in he calls in his secretary and suggests the three of us go to the Grand to hook up. I’m surprised it took this long for him to get what he had coming.”
“The police might see it differently,” Starla says.
“You really think Lecau wants this to go to a trial? He’s got a lot of skeletons in that closet of his that might come out.”
Starla recalls she had pretty much told Lecau that when she dangled him out the window. In a way it’s good to know her instincts weren’t wrong. “I still shouldn’t have done it. He was my boss—”
“Don’t give me that. Just because you’re a woman doesn’t mean every man can treat you like a piece of meat. You think I haven’t had to knee a few guys in the crotch in my day?”
“You have?”
“Sometimes more than once. It’s the only language most men understand.”
“Not all men, though.”
“Well, no. There are a few nice ones.” Kate’s eyes have a faraway look for a moment that Starla imagines is because she’s thinking of Stan Shaw, the earnest farmboy who worked beside her for a decade.
Tears come to Starla’s eyes. Kate presses one of the leftover napkins to her eyes. “Come on, don’t cry. It’ll all be fine.”
“No it won’t!” Starla shouts loud enough that every head in Expresso’s turns to her. In a lower voice she says, “I don’t have a job now. Who’s going to hire me after they see that?”
“I would.”
“Thank you, Miss King, but I don’t think you can help me.”
“You know me?”
“From the newspaper. I used to be a reporter myself, but there aren’t many jobs in that now. That’s why I had to take that job with Mr. Lecau,” Starla says, her mind generating the lie as she speaks.
“Actually, there is a job at the paper.”
“Really?” Starla asks, wondering if they’ve filled Stan Shaw’s position yet.
“It’s not for a reporter, I’m afraid. We need a copy editor. It’s a step down, but—”
“No, I don’t care. Anything to pay the bills,” Starla says with a laugh. “I mean, anything legal of course.”
“Right. Why don’t you stop by tomorrow and I’ll introduce you to my boss?”
“That would be wonderful,” Starla says without hesitation. A chance to work with Kate again; how could she possibly turn that down? Even if it’s as a copy editor, she doesn’t care. If nothing else, it will be better than working for Ty Lecau.
Kate reaches into her purse and then hands Starla a business card. “When you get to the lobby tomorrow, give me a call. I’ll make sure they clear you to go upstairs.” After Starla nods, Kate shakes her hand. “It was good meeting you—”
“Starla. Starla Marsh.”
“That’s an interesting name. Kind of exotic for a farmgirl, isn’t it?”
“It’s an old family name.”
“I’m just teasing. You better get used to it if you’re going to work at the Star, Starla.”
Starla laughs at the connection between her name and the name of the newspaper. “Thank you so much for this, Ms. King—”
“Kate.”
“Kate. Thank you so much. I won’t let you down.”
Kate nods to her. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Right now I have to haul ass over to the dry cleaner. They might still be able to save the old girl.”
Kate winks before she leaves. After the door closes, Starla leans back in her chair to sigh. She knows Major Dalton isn’t going to be happy about these new developments, but too bad. Let them try to stop her.
Chapter 17
The old alma mater really hasn’t changed, Midnight thinks as she enters the cafeteria. There are girl cliques now, but it’s all the same general categories immortalized in all those John Hughes movies in the ‘80s and countless other movies and TV shows. There are the jocks, the preppies, the nerds, and the bad apples. She could probably hang out with the latter group, the girls who have their hair dyed black like hers and probably smoke in the bathroom or under the bleachers.
She eschews all the groups to sit at a table by herself. Jasper packed a lunch for her, the first time he’d done so in almost twenty years. She shakes her head at going from martini and caviar lunches at Redoubt City’s best restaurants to squished peanut butter and jelly and a bruised apple.
While she attempts to stomach the food, she takes out her tablet to connect to the computer in the bunker. The tablet uses an encryption program of her own design, one only the foremost computer hacker in the world can crack. Since she’s that foremost hacker, she doesn’t worry anyone will intercept her classified data.
She studies her files on Dr. Roboto again. Allison had a good idea about searching for some clue to the weapon in those old files. At the very least it gives Midnight something to do other than focus on the unrelenting horror of being back in high school.
Of course there are a lot of people who would kill for the same chance. For those jocks and beauty queens in the corner of the cafeteria this is the height of their existence. There will still be some glory in college, but it’s a bigger pool in Ivy League schools; they won’t have the same kind of prominence they have at Swearingen. Twenty years from now, they’ll be begging for a ray like Dr. Roboto’s to make them young again.
For the nerds, this is their stay in Purgatory or Hell depending on their level of fatalism. The first time Midnight was seventeen she had been a pimple-faced nerd, the kind jocks had liked to stuff into a locker. The third time this happened, Midnight had decided not to be a victim anymore. Having already lost his parents, he wasn’t going to let anyone else terrorize him again. He had begun a workout regimen, which in time led him to study from some of the best.
She hears
snickers from the table next to her. Some of the bad girls glance her way and snicker again. They won’t admit it, but they’re pissed she’s shunned them. As if because she has neon red streaks in her hair and black lipstick she should instantly want to buddy up to them. They don’t realize if she did that, she’d be conforming instead of rebelling. A true rebel doesn’t join any social circles.
“Hey kid,” one says. Midnight looks over at them. “Nice PB&J. Did your mommy make it for you?”
“I don’t know, why don’t you ask her the next time you’re over there borrowing her perfume?” It’s a weak verbal jab, but Midnight hasn’t done this schoolyard trash talking for a while and never as a woman.
The other girl gets up from her chair. She’s probably got six inches in height on Midnight and twenty pounds, but she won’t know how to fight. She’s a poser; it’s obvious from the designer bag she keeps all her shit in. A year ago she was probably sitting with the girls with straight light brown hair and glasses. Then her parents or a boy broke her heart, she got listening to emo, and transformed herself. At best she’ll pull Midnight’s hair and give her a few scratches.
Before the fireworks can get underway, another fight draws the attention of the kids in the cafeteria. The bad girl glares at Midnight. “Later, pipsqueak,” she says and then leads her cronies out to watch the show.
Midnight follows them after she’s finished her sandwich, apple, and milk. When she gets into the hall it’s hard to see with all the bodies in front of her. Even standing on her toes she can’t see anything until she ducks between a couple of girls.
The scene is straight out of her memories of high school. A scrawny, pimple-faced boy lies on the floor while a jock with a crewcut pounds on him. When the nerd looks up, there’s blood staining his nose and his glasses are askew. She sees tears in his eyes before the jock punches him in the face, sending him sprawling again.
Midnight’s fists clench. She remembers what it’s like to be the one on the floor, the one being victimized. She remembers the pain and the helpless feeling that comes from not being able to save yourself and knowing no one else will save you. That was why she’d become Midnight Spectre in the first place, to save those who faced the suffering she’d endured.