This writing forum has prompts, so I wrote this.
Day Off
I hid the leash (the dog’s not allowed), fed the dog and refilled the water dish, shut him in the office with his bed, and then flopped onto my bed — a futon I hadn’t re-set as a couch. I was supposed to be a supervillain, dammit, or at least I was trying to be, but in the last week I’d dealt with an alien invasion, a misplaced attempt to resurrect the dead, and a graduation test for superheroes.
Whatever happened to just stealing things?
There was a knock at the door.
Nope, I thought. Not gonna get it. Gonna lie here in my sweaty running clothes and ignore it.
I knew it wasn’t someone important. Betsy and Shelley had keys and would walk in. The rent wasn’t due for a week, and the landlord communicated with notes under the door. Business used email. So it was someone going through the building selling something or offering salvation, and I wasn’t interested.
I lay there, sweating. My heart rate came back to normal. The dog was silent. (I have trained him not to make sounds when someone comes to the door.) So the apartment appeared empty.
The door creaked open. (There’s a way to open it silently, which my friends and I use. But why not know someone has opened your door?)
I rolled off the bed and landed silently because this had just gotten real. Quick layout of my hideously expensive apartment: Enter through the kitchen/dining room; the bedroom-turned-office is straight ahead and is where the dog eats; the washroom is behind the kitchen (shower, no bath), and the living room which I have as a bedroom fills out the square. There’s a lock on the office door but I hadn’t used it; I was home, right?
In violation of fire codes, there is no fire escape. It’s only the second floor; better than even odds I survive the jump.
For those of you saying, “Use your super powers” I remind you that (a) I don’t use them out of costume and (b) they’re actually Crappy Sonic Powers™. Strictly by powers, I’m not much of a supervillain.
I mean, seriously. Back when I was trying to find a nemesis, the guy I approached thought it was actually a date and then a former co-worker in an android body tried to attack. I’ve had a few successes but a lot of stuff has been side quests just to stay alive.
But hey, at least I don’t work at Faceless Corporation any more. You work with what you got.
There was a sound of disgust that sounded male. At a guess, he’d seen the dishes in the sink. (I’d been busy, okay?)
If he went into the office, he was going to have to deal with the dog. Slobberkin is an eight-month-old St. Bernard puppy and he’s getting kind of large.
With luck, Slobberkin would lick the burglar to death. Of course, then I’d have to figure out a way to dispose of the body.
Best move was to attack him from behind as he went into the office and hope that the two attacks (one licking, one hitting) would give me the edge.
The fight, quote-unquote, was over in three seconds. While Slobberkin was sitting on him, licking, I got the leather leash and tied his hands and feet.
He was a young guy in a polo shirt with a proselytizing look and a briefcase. No gun, no knife, not even a utility tool in his pocket. He had a burner phone and a screwdriver for bumping locks (so he was never going to get into my office if it was locked). I popped the briefcase open and found Shelley’s grandmother’s silver (Shelley lives down the hall) and a couple of other items that looked fence-able and probably came from this building.
He had come to steal from me.
I mean, he didn’t know who I was — that is the whole point behind the secret identity thing — but I found it terribly funny.
And I couldn’t even explain to him why, which made it funnier.
Shelley was working, Betsy was working, so I had to deal with this on my own.
The straight citizen thing to do would have been to call the cops, but I didn’t want them poking around my place. The less they knew about me, the better.
Also, I didn’t want them mentioning Slobberkin.
This guy knew where I lived, so showing up as the Mynah wasn’t going to work — see earlier re: secret identities.
So I lied. It’s getting to be second nature to me now.
“Anyone take vig off you?” I asked him. This was old movie mob talk; goodness knows what real mobsters say. I did know the names of three criminal groups in the city, because that’s the kind of info you have to know if you’re planning to be a thief-slash-supervillain.
“What?”
“Independent?”
“What?”
“Just trying to save you some trouble.” I tried to be nonchalant.
“What?” he asked for the third time. This whole situation seemed to be beyond him. I don’t think he’d ever make it as a supervillain.
While his mouth was open, Slobberkin licked inside it. He’s an affectionate dog. I pulled him back a bit.
“I’m an accountant,” I told the man. Which was true; that was my pre-supervillainy occupation.
“Whoopee,” he said.
“For an organization that feels that robbing from their employees is…disrespectful.” I had his attention, if not his comprehension. I took my phone out of its running sleeve. “Is there any reason I shouldn’t call them and and have someone encourage respect in a direct and forceful way?” Please let there be a reason. I actually had no one to call.
Well, I suppose I could call Faceless Corporation, my former employer, but they didn’t know they’d given me powers, and probably wouldn’t care that this guy had stolen from me.
“You’ve got my loot.”
Well, at least “loot” was current slang. “I mean, are you giving vig to someone for protection? Because calling uses up a certain amount of my capital.”
He looked at me sullenly. It was like he was too stupid to scare.
“Okay.” I hauled him into the kitchen, locked the office door with Slobberkin inside, and checked the knots so he could escape, and I carried his “loot” with me into the bathroom to make my “phone call.” The bathroom, you see, had a door that I could shut and lock.
I made up a long conversation, about fifteen minutes’ worth. Given his smarts, I figured he wouldn’t be able to get into the office and it’s not like I had any weapons in there. Maybe he could try to brain me with the paperweight, but he knew the dog was in there.
There were three possibilities:
- He escaped and left; that was the outcome I was counting on.
- Or, he escaped but was lurking by the bathroom door when I exited. (My plan was to leave the bathroom as if that were true, because some men get so angry when beaten by a woman.)
- He was too stupid to escape. But nobody was so dumb that they’d pick that.
When I left the bathroom, he was still lying there on the kitchen floor.
Aw, hell.
#
I carefully approached him and checked the knots. No, he hadn’t even tried to get out. I re-fastened them securely.
“I was thinking,” he said. “Paying—what did you call it? Vig?—to somebody for protection would help me. I mean, I don’t make a lot—” I stared at him in disbelief.
He took it as doubt. “I mean, I do okay ‘cause more people than you’d think forget to lock their doors, and sometimes I really score, but a neighbourhood like this, I mean, who knew?”
“I plan on moving,” I lied to him. I might have to move if he knew where I lived. “I need a bit more seniority.”
“Lotta crooks in this area,” he said, apparently without irony. “So I’m thinking, I could ask your boss for protection.”
“Now?” I said. “Now that I’ve called him you want to change the terms?”
“Is now not a good time? I mean, it’s a better time than when the guy comes to break my knees.”
I swore internally. I didn’t have anybody coming to break his knees, but it looked like a good option.
I wished Slobberkin had licked him to death. At least I could figure out how to dispose of a dead body.
“I gotta call him,” I said. Already I was talking like I was in Wise Guys or something.
In the bathroom, I was furiously trying to think of big men I could call to come over. It had to be someone in the supers life, because how was I going to explain this to anyone else?
#
“I dunno if he’ll say yes,” I told the burglar. “Here’s the address.” I gave him the address, then made him repeat it, because I had no faith in this guy’s memory. “Tell them Jane sent you.”
I was prepared to tell him it was a sublet if he asked about the different name on the mailbox, but he never asked; he had the curiosity of a park bench. I kept Shelley’s silver out of the briefcase but gave the rest back to him. “You’ll need to be able to prove you have income.”
I was ready for him to attack me when I untied him, but he didn’t. He shook my hand and headed off, sure that he had made the best deal of his life.
#
You remember the guy who thought I was dating him? Not the one with the android body, the other one. We had deleted each other’s address, but—
I knew he had set up a SendMeCash account to become a superhero, because he was worried about said android body co-worker. (Why, I don’t know. It was me the co-worker had come for.)
He goes by Tangent now, and he was a beginner, so an easy target was good. At the least, the guy would get beat up, and possibly he’d be arrested. I mean, he did have stolen property on him.
It was possible Tangent would get my address from him, so I’d have to move anyway.
Maybe I’ll find a place that allows dogs.
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