Superheroes Read online

  Meanwhile, back to the hotel, Aliss the nemesis has been lying in wait. Actually, it’s more like standing behind a flower arrangement, but never mind. Aliss pounces. Billie, mourning lost love, is easy prey.

  “Going to your boyfriend’s party?” Aliss hisses. There’s only one s in that particular sentence, but Aliss knows how to make an s count.

  She links arms with Billie. Pulls her into an elevator.

  “What party?” Billie says. “What boyfriend?” Aliss gives her a look. Hits the button marked Roof, then the emergency stop button, like she’s opening cargo doors, one, two. Goodbye, cruel, old world. That bomb is going to drop.

  “If you mean Conrad Linthor,” Billie says, “That was nothing. In the Starbucks. He just wanted to talk about you. In fact, he gave me this. Because he was afraid he was going to lose it. But he’s planning on giving it to you. Tomorrow, I think.”

  She takes out the ring that you left behind, Paul Zell.

  Surely you’ve checked the jeweler’s box by now. Seen the ring is gone. Billie found it in the bed sheets that morning when she woke up. Remember? I was wearing it on my big toe. All day long Billie carried it around in her pocket, just like the business card. It didn’t fit her ring finger.

  I slipped it on and off, on and off, all day long.

  Billie and Aliss both stare at the ring. Both of them seem to find it hard to speak.

  Finally: “It’s mine?” Aliss says. She puts her hand out, like the ring’s a cute dog. Not a ring. Like she wants to pet it. “That’s a two-carat diamond. At least. Antique setting. Just explain one thing, please. Why did Conrad give you my ring? You expect me to believe he let some girl carry my diamond ring around all day?”

  “Yeah, well, you know Conrad,” Billie says.

  “Yeah,” Aliss says. She’s silent for another long moment. “Can I?”

  She takes the ring, tries it on her ring finger. It fits. There’s an inappropriate ache in Billie’s throat. Aliss says, “Wow. Just wow. I guess I have to give it back. Okay. I can do that.” She holds up her hand. Drags the diamond along the glass elevator wall, then rubs at the scratch it’s left behind. Then checks the diamond, like she might have damaged it. But diamonds are like the superheroes of the mineral world. Diamonds cut glass. Not the other way around.

  Aliss presses the button. The elevator elevates.

  “Maybe you should go to the party and I should just go to bed,” Billie says. “I have to catch a bus in the morning.”

  “No,” Aliss says. “Wait. Now I’m nervous. I can’t go up there by myself. You have to come with me. Except we can’t act like we’re friends, because then Conrad will suspect something’s up. That I know. You can’t tell him I know.”

  “I won’t. I swear,” Billie says.

  “How’s my hair?” Aliss says. “Shit. Don’t tell him, but they fired me. Just like that. I’m not supposed to be here. I think management knew something was up with me and Conrad. I’m not the first girl he’s gotten fired. But I’m not going to say anything right now. I’ll tell him later.”

  Billie says, “That sucks.”

  “You have no idea,” Aliss says. “It’s such a crappy job. People are such assholes, and you still have to say have a nice day. And smile.”

  She gives the ring back. Smiles.?

  The elevator opens on sky. There’s a sign saying Private Party. Like the whole sky is a private party. It’s just after nine o’clock. The sky is orange. The pool is the color the sky ought to be. There are superheroes splashing around in it. That bubble of blood floating above it, like an oversized beach ball. Tango music plays.

  Conrad Linthor lounges on a lounge chair. He comes over when he sees Billie and Aliss. “Girls,” he says.

  “Hey, Conrad,” Aliss says. Her hip cocked like a gun hammer. Her hair is remarkable. The piercing is in. “Great party.”

  “Billie,” Conrad says. “I’m so glad you came. There are some people you ought to meet.” He takes Billie’s arm and drags her off. Maybe he’s going to throw her in the pool.

  “Is Ernesto here?” Billie looks back, but Aliss is having a conversation now with someone in a uniform.

  “This kind of party isn’t really for hotel staff,” Conrad says. “They get in trouble if they socialize with the guests.”

  “Don’t worry about Aliss,” Billie says. “Apparently she got fired. But you probably already know that.”

  Conrad smiles. They’re on the edge of a group of strangers who all look vaguely familiar, vaguely improbable. There are scales, feathers, ridiculous outfits designed to show off ridiculous physiques. Why does everything remind Billie of FarAway? Except for the smell. Why do superheroes smell weird? Paul Zell.

  The tango has become something dangerous. A woman is singing. There is nobody here that Billie wants to meet.

  Conrad Linthor is drunk. Or high. “This is Billie,” he says. “My sidekick for tonight. Billie, this is everyone.”

  “Hi, everyone,” Billie says. “Excuse me.” She rescues her arm from Conrad Linthor. She heads back for the elevator. Aliss has escaped the hotel employee and is crouched down by the pool, one finger in the water. Probably the deep end. You can tell by her slumped shoulder that she’s thinking about drowning herself. A good move: perhaps someone here will save her. Once someone has saved your life, they might as well fall in love with you, too. It’s just good economics.

  “Wait,” Conrad Linthor says. He’s not that old, Billie decides. He’s just a kid. He hasn’t even done anything all that bad, yet. And yet you can see how badness accumulates around him. Builds up like lightning on a lightning rod. If Billie sticks around, it will build up on her, too. That spider sense she doesn’t have is tingling. Paul Zell, Paul Zell.

  “Ernesto will be so disappointed,” Conrad Linthor says. They’re both jogging now. Billie sees the lit stair sign, decides not to wait for an elevator. She takes the stairs two at a time. Conrad Linthor bounds down behind her. “He really wanted you to see what he made. For the banquet. It’s too bad you can’t stay. I wanted to invite you to the banquet. You could meet Tyrannosaurus Hex. Get an autograph or two. Make some good contacts. Being a sidekick is all about making the contacts.”

  “I’m not a sidekick!” Billie yells up. “That was a dumb joke even before you made it the first time. Even if I were a sidekick, I wouldn’t be yours. Like you’re a superhero. Just because you know people. So what’s your secret name, superhero? What’s your superpower?”

  She stops on the stairs so suddenly that Conrad Linthor runs into her. They both stumble forward, smack into the wall on the twenty-second floor landing. But they don’t fall.

  Conrad Linthor says, “My superpower is money.” The wall props him up. “The only superpower that counts for anything. Better than invisibility. Better than being able to fly. Much better than telekinesis or teleportation or that other one. Telepathy. Knowing what other people are thinking. Why would you ever want to know what other people are thinking? Did you know everyone thinks that one day they might be a millionaire? Like that’s a lot of money. They have no idea. They don’t want to be a superhero. They just want to be like me. They want to be rich.”

  Billie has nothing to say to this.

  “You know what the difference is between a superhero and a supervillain?” Conrad Linthor asks her.

  Billie waits.

  “The superhero has a really good agent,” Conrad Linthor says. “Someone like my dad. You have no idea the kind of stuff they get away with. Fifteen-year-old girls is nothing.”

  “What about Lightswitch?” Billie says.

  “Who? Her? She’s no big deal,” Conrad Linthor says. “She’s okay. I don’t really know much about her. She’s kind of old school.”

  “I think I’m going to go to bed now,” Billie says.

  “No,” Conrad Linthor says. “Wait. You have to come with me and see what Ernesto did. It’s just so cool. Everything’s carved out of butter.”

  “If I go see, will you let
me go to bed?”

  “Sure,” Conrad Linthor says.

  “Will you be nice to Aliss? If she’s still up at the party when you get back?”

  “I’ll try,” Conrad Linthor says.

  “Okay,” Billie says. “I’ll go look at Ernesto’s butter. Are we going to go meet him?”

  Conrad Linthor levers himself off the wall. Pats it. “Ernesto? I don’t know where he is. How should I know?”

  They go into the forbidden maze. Back to the kitchen, and through it, now empty and dark and somehow like a morgue. A mausoleum.

  “Ernesto’s been doing the work in a freezer,” Conrad Linthor says. “You have to keep these guys cold. Wait. Let me get it unlocked. Cool tool, right? Borrowed it from The Empty Jar. He’s one of dad’s clients. They’re making a movie about him. I saw the script. It’s crap.”

  The lock comes off. The lights go on. Before I tell you what was inside the freezer, let me first tell you something about how big the freezer is. It will help you visualize, later on. The freezer is plenty big. Bigger than most New York apartments, Billie thinks, although this is just hearsay. She’s never been in a New York apartment.

  What’s inside the supersized freezer? Supervillains. Warm Gun, Glowworm, Radical!, Heatdeath, The Scribbler, The Ninjew, Cat Lady, Hellalujah, Shibboleth, The Shambler, Mandroid, Manplant, The Manticle, Patty Cakes. Lots of others. Name a famous supervillain and he or she is in the freezer. They’re life-size. They’re not real, although at first Billie’s heart slams. She thinks: who caught all these guys? Why are they so perfectly still? Maybe Conrad Linthor is a superhero after all.

  Conrad Linthor touches Hellalujah’s red, bunchy bicep. Presses just a little. The color smears. Lardy, yellow-white underneath. The supervillains are made out of butter. “Hand-tinted,” Conrad says.

  “Ernesto made these?” Billie says. She wants to touch one, too. She walks up to Patty Cakes. Breathes on the cold, outstretched palms. You can see Patty Cakes’s life line. Her love line. Billie realizes something else. The butter statues are all decorated to look like chess pieces. Their signature outfits have been changed to black and red. Cat Lady is wearing a butter crown.

  Conrad Linthor puts his hand on Hellalujah’s shoulder. Puts his arm around Hellalujah. Then he squeezes, hard. His arm goes through Hellalujah’s neck. Like an arm going through butter. The head pops off.

  “Be careful!” Billie says.

  “I can’t believe it’s butter,” Conrad says. He giggles. “Come on. Can you believe this? He made a whole chess set out of butter. And why? For some banquet for some guy who used to fight crime? That’s just crap. This is better. Us here, having some fun. This is spontaneous. Haven’t you always wanted to fight the bad guy and win? Now’s your chance.”

  “But Ernesto made these!” Billie’s fists are clenched.

  “You heard him,” Conrad says. “It’s no big deal. It’s not like it’s art. There’s no statement here. It’s just butter.”

  He has Hellalujah’s sad head in his arms. “Heavy,” he says. “Food fight. Catch.” He throws the head at Billie. It hits her in the chest and knocks her over.

  She lies on the ice-cold floor, looking at Hellalujah’s head. One side is flat. Half of Hellalujah’s broad nose is stuck like a slug to Billie’s chest. Her right arm is slimy with butter and food dye.

  Billie sits up. She cradles Hellalujah’s head, hurls it back at Conrad. She misses. Hellalujah’s head smacks into Mandroid’s shiny stomach. Hangs there, half embedded.

  “Funny,” Conrad Linthor says. He giggles.

  Billie shrieks. She leaps at him, her hands killing claws. They both go down on top of The Shambler. Billie brings her knee up between Conrad Linthor’s legs, drives it up into butter. She grabs Conrad Linthor by the hair, bangs his head on The Shambler’s head. “Ow,” Conrad Linthor says. “Ow, ow, ow.”

  He twists under her. Gets hold of her hands, pulls at them even as she tightens her grip on his hair. His hair is slick with butter, and she can’t hold on. She lets go. His head flops down. “Get off,” he says. “Get off.”

  Billie drives her elbow into his stomach. Her feet skid a little as she stands up. She grabs hold of Warm Gun’s gun for balance, and it breaks off. “Sorry,” she says, apologizing to butter. “I’m sorry. So sorry.”

  Conrad Linthor is trying to sit up. There’s spit at the corner of his mouth, or maybe it’s butter.

  Billie runs for the door. Gets there just as Conrad Linthor realizes what she’s doing. “Wait!” he says. “Don’t you dare! You bitch!”

  Too late. She’s got the door shut. She leans against it, smearing it with butter.

  Conrad Linthor pounds on the other side. “Billie!” It’s a faint yell. Barely audible. “Let me out, okay? It was just fun. I was just having fun. It was fun, wasn’t it?”

  Here’s the thing, Paul Zell. It was fun. That moment when I threw Hellalujah’s head at him? That felt good. It felt so good I’d pay a million bucks to do it again. I can admit that now. But I don’t like that it felt good. I don’t like that it felt fun. But I guess now I understand why supervillains do what they do. Why they run around and destroy things. Because it feels fantastic. Someday I’m going to buy a lot of butter and build something out of it, just so I can tear it all to pieces again.

  Billie could leave Conrad Linthor in the freezer. Walk away. Somebody would probably find him. Right?

  But then she thinks about what he’ll do in there. He’ll kick apart all of the other buttervillains. Stomp them into greasy pieces. She knows he’ll do it, because she can imagine doing the same thing.

  She lets him out.

  “Not funny,” Conrad Linthor says. He looks very funny.

  Picture him, all decked out in red and black butter. His lips are purplish-bluish. He’s shivering with cold. So is Billie.

  “Not funny at all,” Billie agrees. “What the hell was that? What were you doing in there? What about your friend? Ernesto? How could you do that to him?”

  “He’s not really a friend,” Conrad Linthor says. “Not like you and me. He’s just some guy I hang out with sometimes. Friends are boring. I get bored.”

  “We’re not friends,” Billie says.

  “Sure,” Conrad Linthor says. “I know that. But I thought if I said we were, you might fall for it. You have no idea how stupid some people are. Besides, I was doing it for you. No, really. I was. Sometimes when a superhero is in a really bad situation, that’s when they finally discover their ability. What they can do. With some people it’s an amulet, or a ring, but mostly it’s just environmental. Your adrenaline kicks in. My father is always trying stuff on me, just in case I’ve got something that we haven’t figured out yet.”

  Maybe some of this is true, and maybe all of it is true, and maybe Conrad Linthor is just testing Billie again. Is she that stupid? He’s watching her right now, to see if she’s falling for any of this.

  “I’m out of here,” Billie says. She checks her pocket, just to make sure Paul Zell’s ring is still there. She’s been doing that all day.

  “Wait,” Conrad Linthor says. “You don’t know how to get back. You need help.”

  “I made a trail,” Billie says. All the way through the corridors, this time, she pressed the diamond along the wall. Left a thin little mark. Nothing anyone else would even know to look for.

  “Fine,” Conrad Linthor says. “I’m going to stay down here and make some scrambled eggs. Sure you don’t want any?”

  “I’m not hungry,” Billie says.

  Even as she’s leaving, Conrad Linthor is explaining to her that they’ll meet again. This is like their origin story. Maybe they’re each other’s nemesis, or maybe they’re destined to team up and save the world and make lots of— Eventually Billie can’t hear him anymore. She leaves a trail of butter all the way back to the lobby. Gets onto an elevator before anyone has noticed the state she’s in, or maybe by this point in the weekend the hotel staff are used to stranger things.

 
She takes a shower and goes to bed still smelling faintly of butter. She wakes up early. The bubble of blood is down in the lobby again, floating over the fountain.

  Billie thinks about going over to ask for an autograph. Pretending to be a fan. Could you pop that bubble with a ballpoint pen? This is the kind of thought Conrad Linthor goes around thinking, she’s pretty sure.

  Billie catches her bus. And that’s the end of the story, Paul Zell. Dear Paul Zell.

  Except for the ring. Here’s the thing about the ring. Billie wrapped it in tissue paper and sealed it up in a hotel envelope. She wrote “Ernesto in the kitchen” on the outside of the envelope. She wrote a note. The note says: “This ring belongs to Paul Zell. If he comes looking for it, maybe he’ll give you a reward. A couple hundred bucks seems fair. Tell him I’ll pay him back. But if he doesn’t get in touch, you should keep the ring. Or sell it. I’m sorry about Hellalujah and Mandroid and The Shambler. I didn’t know what Conrad Linthor was going to do.”

  So, Paul Zell. That’s the whole story. Except for the part where I got home and found the e-mail from you, the one where you explained what had happened to you. That you had an emergency appendectomy, and never made it to New York at all, and what happened to me? Did I make it to the hotel? Did I wonder where you were? You say you can’t imagine how worried and/or angry I must have been. Etc.

  I’ll be honest with you, Paul Zell. I read your e-mail and part of me thought, I’m saved. We’ll both pretend none of this ever happened. I’ll go on being Melinda, and Melinda will go on being the Enchantress Magic Eightball, and Paul Zell, whoever Paul Zell is, will go on being Boggle the Master Thief. We’ll play chess and chat online, and everything will be exactly the way that it was before.