“Where did you find her?” I asked.
“On Bowery,” Moleka replied shortly. Ever since she’d found out that my dad had been the captain of the 5th she’d gotten pretty short with me. Competition was a terrible thing—and I was planning on burying her.
And while I was daydreaming about my future victories something suddenly clicked. Frantically I rummaged through my desk and pulled out my notes on the other flashers. I tried to bring up MapQuest on the old desktop on Bill’s desk, but it hummed, clicked, and gave me the blue screen of death.
I went over to James McTate’s desk. He was new to the 5th, a detective and a joker/ace. If you just saw his face you would think he was normal, but his body was anorexic thin, and his bones seemed to be covered with skin and nothing else. He had immediately been dubbed Slim Jim. He was from Arizona, but for some inexplicable reason had decided to move to New York. When I thought about being a joker/ace in a place like Arizona, I started to understand why he’d moved.
McTate was a detective, but friendly, so I wasn’t too shy about approaching him. His partner, Tenry Fong, one of the older guys on the force, gave me a cold glance and went back to his report. Bill kept telling me that the detectives were no better than those of us in uniform, but I couldn’t shake the feeling they got the best cases, and I craved one of those shiny gold badges. Slim Jim looked up at my approach.
“Uh … could I use your computer? Just for a second,” I hastened to add. “Ours is…” I made a helpless gesture.
“Sure.” He pushed off with a foot and went wheeling out of the way. I brought up MapQuest, printed out the page, and highlighted the bus route. It ran along Park Row, then straight up the Bowery to Cooper Union and then continued up Third Avenue. Next I marked the location of the flashers in a different colored ink. Most were along the Bowery, but there had been a number of Cooper Union college girls among them.
I jumped out of my (new) chair, and yelled, “He’s riding the 103 bus. It’s somebody on the bus!”
“What are you yapping about, Franny?” Bugeye growled.
“Frank,” I said wearily, knowing it would have no effect.
I found Bill in the bathroom, and poured out my theory. He listened while finishing up. He shook off, zipped up, washed up, and said, “Let’s go talk to the sarge.”
We found Sergeant Choy down in the basement constructing a tiny machine out of paper clips and tin foil. I had been around long enough to learn her ace power. She could control any machine she had built or heavily modified.
“The rook here has a theory about the naked chicks. I think he may be on to something.”
I went through it all again to an impassive Choy. “I don’t have a car here, ma’am. I ride the bus, a lot, ma’am, and I realized all these flashing events are happening along one particular bus line. And it’s all pretty girls in their late teens and twenties, ma’am. It’s some guy on the bus, ma’am. I’m sure of it.”
Choy ran a hand through her silver-flecked black hair. “One ma’am is sufficient. It’s a good theory. Let’s test it out. Bill, you and the rook wear civvies tomorrow. We’ll put you both on the bus. I’ll contact the other precincts where that bus runs, and tell them we’re running a sting that will cross their territory. Now we just need a tasty temptation.”
“Apsara would be perfect,” I heard myself saying.
Bill and Choy exchanged amused looks. “Yes, I expect a lot of men would like to see that.” She tapped thoughtfully on the table with a bent paper clip. “If this perv is on the bus she would be hard to resist.”
“And I hear she’s not too much in the resistance department,” Bill said, then hastened to add, “Though she is a civilian … technically.”
Choy pushed back her chair. “Let’s ask her.”
♠
So, the next morning I found myself riding the bus pretending to read the New York Times while I watched my fellow commuters. Apsara was happy to help, so she was set up to parade down the Bowery as the bus passed. All around her were various other officers ready to act, and Choy overseeing the operation.
I was seated at the back of the bus while Bill grooved on his iPod at the front. I focused on men seated in the window seats on the sidewalk side of the bus. I glanced ahead and saw Apsara prancing down the street carrying a shopping bag. Her long hair swayed with each swing of her hips. I forced myself back to watching the commuters instead of the girl. Good move. I saw a skinny teenage boy of maybe sixteen come slightly out of his seat. As I watched, his tongue licked nervously at his lips, and he raised his hand, brought his fingers to his lips, and blew a kiss. Apsara’s clothes vanished, and the kid leaned forward watching avidly as the bus went farting past.
I was out of my seat, grabbing the cuffs out of my pocket. “Got you!” A look of almost comical alarm crossed the kid’s face. “You are under arrest.”
Bill pulled the cord and the bus rolled to a stop.
The kid started yelling. “Don’t you touch me! I can fuck you up bad! I can make anything disappear. I could disappear your dick … or … or your eyeballs.”
Bill and I exchanged a glance. Clearly he was an ace. Clearly we didn’t know the limit of his powers. The heavyset African-American woman in the seat next to the kid handled the situation for us. She swung her incredibly large, and apparently incredibly heavy, purse into his belly. The air whoofed out of the kid, and he folded up like an origami figure. “You took the clothes off that girl? You’re a damn pervert,” she yelled. She slid out of her seat to make room for me. “You arrest his ass.”
I spun the still gasping kid around, pulled his arms behind his back, and slapped on the cuffs. Maybe he had to blow a kiss to use his power. I sure hoped so. In case he really could remove my dick. By now Bill had pushed through the rubbernecking commuters and was at my side.
Unfortunately, Apsara was already wrapped in a coat provided by Choy by the time we got off the bus with our prisoner. I felt a little guilty over my sexist and lascivious thoughts, so to make up for them I called to her as we headed toward a waiting squad car with the prisoner. “Thank you. I’m sure that can’t have been pleasant.”
“No problem, Franny.”
I winced. “Actually, it’s Frank.”
But she ignored me, swept the crowd with a dazzling smile, and added, “It was fun.”
♦
The kid was in an interrogation room. The handcuffs had been removed and he was nervously rubbing at his wrists. On the other side of the one-way glass a crowd had gathered—Sergeant Choy, Tabby, Puff, Slim Jim, Rikki, K-10, Angel, Moleka, and Razor Joan Lonnegan. The female cops were all demanding blood, the males tended to be amused, and there I was saying over and over in ever more plaintive tones, “He’s a minor. We’ve got to call his parents.”
The gender bickering abruptly ended. Of course I had my back to the door so I didn’t get the hint to stop talking. “… call his parents!” My voice rang out.
A hand fell on my shoulder. I choked on the final word, turned, and looked up into the square-jawed face of Captain Maseryk. With his iron-gray crew cut and perfectly pressed uniform he looked more military than cop.
“Nice work, Black. I hear from Choy this was your idea.” I mumbled something. His pale eyes scanned the rest of the crowd. “And Black is right. Call his parents.”
“Can we talk to him before they do?” Bill asked.
“But gently,” said the captain in an equally gentle tone.
Bill and I headed toward the door to the interrogation room. I had an itch between my shoulder blades as if invisible daggers were scratching at my skin.
The kid looked up at our entrance. He had a prominent Adam’s apple that was bouncing up and down. His black T-shirt had Ge N I U S with a word beneath each letter—Germanium, Nitrogen, Iodine, Uranium, Sulfur, and some numbers above them. His backpack, which we’d searched, had a number of science texts in them. It seemed he was a nerd with power—never a good thing.