The New Adventures of Foster Fade, The Crime Spectacularist Read online

  Now, that dark little voice said. It was time and the man listened.

  He raced forward and pressed Pomatto’s own gun against the crook of his back.

  “Johnny ‘Wits’ Pomatto,” he whispered excitedly. He was so tall, he realized. He might have to shoot him in the spine; his head was so far away. “I know your crimes and you are guilty. Guilty of theft, of racketeering, of bootlegging, of violence, of murder. You are guilty and you will have your judgment.”

  Pomatto instinctually held up his arms. “Who are you?”

  The man sniggered. “Names, names, names. They gave me a name in the paper, first, middle and last. But that’s not my name, not really. It’s just an alias, a way to protect me so I may complete my mission. Now get down to your knees.”

  “Mission?” Pomatto said curiously, as though there was no fear in his heart. “Is that what you call it?”

  “Don’t question me, worm,” the Post Box Killer barked. “Get down to your knees!”

  But Pomatto simply laughed, a proud, powerful laugh.

  “You… You don’t get to laugh!” he shouted shoving the gun hard into Pomatto’s back. “Do you know who I am?!”

  “Go ahead and fire, won’t do you much good, I’m covered head to toe in lead lined protection. It’s my own design. Snazzy stuff, really. Weighs a ton, but then again, we’re all the victims of fashion aren’t we?”

  “What—I—You…” the Killer stammered.

  “And even if you did kill me—which you won’t—it wouldn’t do you much good. There are cops surrounding the whole place, and probably a bit further beyond that. The whole place is staked out; we’ve been watching you this whole time. I’m sure Din’s transcribing everything we say, I’ve got this neat little wireless microphone hooked up to my lapel. Her headphones sit inside her ears. Like I said, snazzy stuff.”

  “But… but… how?”

  “Box number one-twenty-four,” Pomatto said as he slowly turned around.

  The Killer’s eyes went wide and almost fell over in shock. “You’re… you’re not…” he stammered, the gun shaking in his hands as he fell back a step. “You’re Him!”

  “Yup,” Foster Fade said with a grim smile. A small pistol ejected from the inside of his sleeve into his hand. He pressed the barrel into the Post Box Killer’s chest. “One of the benefits of knowing a near seven-foot tall gangster is you can fit into his clothing. Now, who are you?”

  The Post Box Killer smiled and tugged at his scarf. “Oh, you know quite well, Mr. Fade.”

  Fade squinted, unable to ignore the trepidation forming in his chest. Though the scarf only covered the lower half of the Killer’s face, he could tell without a doubt that it wasn’t Anthony Lee standing before him.

  The Killer let out a soft, nervous laugh as he slowly shook his head. “Good. So good.” He flipped the gun around in his hand and struck Fade in the jaw. The blow was enough to knock Fade back, but only just; the Killer had pulled his punch. Fade’s hat flew from his head, his finger squeezed down on the trigger and the bullet went wild. The Killer spun around on his heel and raced out of the alleyway into the streets.

  Stern and the other officers ran out from the shadows, their pistols already drawn. “You! Stay here in case he doubles back. You two! Get a squad car and see if you can cut him off.”

  “Hell,” Fade cursed, holding his jaw. “Was not expecting that.”

  “You were supposed to hold onto him!” Stern shouted, grabbing at Fade’s sleeve.

  “He socked me in the jaw!” Fade snapped back as they ran into the street, dodging an angry flurry of cars.

  “So? I’ve been wanting to do that for months.”

  “He’s a strong little bugger.” Fade commented, as the Post Box Killer ducked into an alleyway across the street.

  “Everyone’s little to you. Come on, you’re with me.”

  “Partners in crime, eh?” Fade said with a crooked grin.

  “Shut up.”

  Stern and Fade ran up to the edge of the alleyway and pinned themselves against either wall. There was a trickle of rain pattering against the pavement with a discordant rhythm as the clouds decided to open themselves up to the world.

  “How many bullets you have left in that pop gun?” Stern asked, gesturing with his chin.

  “Well,” Fade said thoughtfully as he unhooked the gun from his wrist. “Considering it’s only big enough to carry one…”

  Stern rolled his eyes. “Fantastic.”

  “But not to worry.” Fade dropped the gun to the ground. “I brought a spare,” he said, drawing a massive double-barreled gun from his side holster as a rejoinder.

  Stern gave the half-pistol, half-shotgun a suspicious look. “Maybe letting you come armed wasn't such a great idea.”

  Fade smiled. “It’s my own design.”

  Stern rolled his eyes. “Well, la-dee-da. Listen up, Mr. Post Box, you’re surrounded!” he shouted into the alleyway. “You might try to run, you might even try using the fire escapes to get up to the roof, but it won’t do you any good. No matter how fast you can run we’ll catch you. So, you might want to drop Mr. Pomatto’s gun, put up your hands and get ready for the end of your little bout of celebrity. You don’t… Well, let’s just say there’s a bit more than seven guns aimed your way. How’s that sound?”

  “Sounds like an interesting proposition, Captain,” the Post Box Killer called back after a moment, his singsong voice bouncing around the alleyway. “Why don’t you come in here and discuss it?”

  “Drop the gun and I will.”

  Several moments passed before the clatter of metal against pavement. “There you are, Captain,” the Killer shouted.

  Stern glanced over, his face matching his name, and gave Fade a subtle nod.

  “All yours,” Fade said, living up to his promise.

  A grim smile curled on Stern’s lips. He held up a hand, telling Fade to stay put. He rounded the corner, his sidearm raised, and stepped into the alleyway when there was a sudden crack of gunfire. He fell to the ground without so much as a grunt of pain. His head rolled to the side, his eyes staring up at Fade as if waiting for a response that would never come. A coldness settled over Fade and the gun in his hand suddenly felt ready to explode. All it needed was a target.

  “Just you and me now, Mr. Fade,” the Post Box Killer called. “Well, us and everyone else watching. But that’s how it always was, wasn’t it?”

  Fade grimaced, unable to look away from Stern’s dead eyes. A pool of blood had begun to form beneath the police captain’s body, glistening black in the night. “What makes you think I’m that stupid?” he shouted back without emotion.

  “Never said you were Mr. Fade. In fact, I think quite the opposite.”

  “And how do I know you won’t shoot me the moment I walk in?” The other officers were moving in closer, waiting for the right time to strike. But that wasn’t the story, not the one that would make it to print. This was Fade’s story, had been since the very beginning.

  “By your own admission, you have bulletproof protection.”

  “Maybe I was just lying so you wouldn’t shoot me.”

  “Come now, Mr. Fade, you would never lie to me.”

  Fade chewed the inside of his cheek, disturbed by the Killer’s tone. It wasn’t threatening or goading, it was… benevolent, as if they were old friends reuniting after years apart. Fade closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The lead-lined suit should work, in theory, but he had never had the chance to properly test it; nor did it cover his head. One clean shot and his photo would run alongside his obituary on the front page. He ran his free hand through his long hair and adjusted his tie. Well, if he was going to die, he might as well look good.

  “All right, I’m here,” Fade called out as he stepped, cocking back both hammers of his gun.

  The Post Box Killer nonchalantly strolled out of the shadows, his arms raised, hands empty. A small piece of scrap metal lay between them, the Killer’s bluff. Fade raised his gun
and aimed for the Killer’s head.

  “Are you going to kill me, Mr. Fade?” he asked evenly, as if they were discussing game results.

  “Not really my style. I’m more the catch and carry sort,” Fade admitted, fighting back the urge to fire. It was only then that he noticed that Pomatto’s gun was missing. “Let the law sort out the rest.”

  The Killer chuckled. “Come now, Mr. Fade, we both know the law doesn’t work. It’s why we’re here!”

  “Where’s Pomatto’s gun?” Fade asked, taking a half step back as the Killer approached.

  “Ah, how careless of me,” the Killer slowly reached into his pocket, pulled out the pistol and dropped it to the ground. “I haven’t drilled it yet like I did the others. I usually wait until I get home. Very powerful, cost quite a bit. But I’m sure the bullet in Captain Stern will match the weapon nicely.”

  There was no denying the man was insane, but to offhandedly confess to not one, but eight murders took a special kind of crazy. “Move and I’ll fire, you understand?” Fade said aloud. “This thing packs quite a punch so there wouldn’t be a lot of you left to scrape off the floor.”

  The Killer gave him a slow nod, the corners of his thin smile peaked out from beneath the scarf, sending shivers down Fade’s spine. He walked over to Pomatto’s gun and kicked it away; careful to never let his eyes, or his gun, off the Killer, who simply watched Fade with an eerie sense of awe. Fade stepped over and knocked the Killer’s black fedora off with the end of his double-barreled gun.

  “Close your damn eyes,” Fade commanded and the Killer instantly complied, the smile threatening to rip his face in half. Fade reached over to pull off the scarf when he hesitated, suddenly feeling as if he hadn’t showered in weeks. His fingers unconsciously curled inward, but Fade forced himself forward and ripped the scarf off the Killer’s face.

  Fade’s mouth open and closed in shock, tears welling up in his eyes from anger and shock.

  “Tipton?” he whispered.

  “Good job, sir,” Sergeant Scott Tipton said with a watermelon grin. “Damn good job.”

  Chapter 6

  THE MISSION

  Fade and Din sat silently in the hallway facing one another, though their eyes drilled through the floor. Fade leaned his elbows heavily on his knees, his clothes still soaked from the rain, his long hair dripping onto his collar. Din was bone dry, her chromium hair glowing in the warm incandesce of the police department lights. A cigarette smoldered between her fingers, untouched since she lit it. They had yet to speak a word to one another, unsure what they would say even if they did.

  “Sir?” a voice growled through the haze a minute, an hour, a day later.

  Fade glanced up to find a scruffy looking lieutenant standing over him. He recognized the face but couldn’t place the name.

  “Any word?” Fade asked, his own voice hollow to his ears.

  The lieutenant shook his head. “No good ones at least.”

  “Dammit.” Fade put his head in his hands. Stern had never been a friend, but he was still an ally. “Don’t even know if he had a family.”

  “Two daughters,” the lieutenant replied. “Six and eight. But that’s… That’s not why I’m here.”

  Fade looked back up at the lieutenant.

  “He’s asking—” the lieutenant cleared his throat. “He’s asking to see you, sir.”

  “Why?”

  The lieutenant shook his head. “Not my place to ask what crazy wants.”

  Fade stood up from his chair, an effort that felt like it took millennia to achieve. He tugged at the bottom his suit jacket and smoothed out the wrinkles of his tie before he gave the lieutenant a terse nod and began following him down the hallway.

  “What’re you going to say to him, Foster?” Din called after him.

  Fade paused and shook his head.

  “Those were my words too, you know,” she said mournfully. “Those were my words too.”

  Fade met her gaze and frowned, understanding all too well.

  ***

  A bare bulb sent a harsh cone of illumination over the table in the center of the room, the walls hidden in darkness. There was a vacant seat across from Tipton; the leather cushions worn down, thick black hairs sticking out at the edges. Tipton’s hands were shackled to his chair while his eyes followed Fade like a child watching a firefly.

  “Hello, Mr. Fade,” Tipton said warmly as Fade sat down. “Thank you for coming to see me.”

  “You know me,” Fade replied. “I’m always eager to meet my fans. If I had known earlier I definitely would have signed something for you.”

  Tipton leaned his head slightly forward. “We did have a bit of fun, didn’t we?”

  “We did,” Fade said, expressionless.

  “It took some planning, of course. Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

  Fade nodded. “Of course.”

  “It was a godsend when I found the box,” Tipton began excitedly. “Like it had been left there just for me to find, filled with the guns of guilty men, men who had escaped the law. I found it and I knew what I had to do. ‘For all the ways that the laws of our city fail, Foster Fade acts as a counterbalance… He protects the innocence of our citizens at the expense of his own.’ I understood,” he said as if quoting scripture. “I took the guns home one by one, it isn’t easy to steal from the police, you must understand. And then of course, I had to track down these… these… vile men,” he said through gritted teeth, spittle flecking his lips, his eyes going wide. “I had to find them and wait. So many nights. Waiting. Watching. And when I had them alone, I followed them, chased them down and told them of their crimes. I let them know what they had done to this city, to our city. I told them of our judgment, their sentence. I killed them with their own guns so they knew, so that they understood.”

  “And then you drilled out the guns.”

  “To keep the mission going,” Tipton added matter-of-factly, “for as long as we could. I was able to retrieve most of the bullets—the ones that went through the skulls—but I knew if they found the bullets they would be able to match the bullets to the guns so I had to be careful. You wrote about that in your twenty-eighth article, how guns leave fingerprints. So I drilled.”

  Fade’s teeth began to chatter. “Then why did you send them to me?”

  Tipton’s eyes blinking rapidly as he considered Fade, bemused. “Why—Why wouldn’t I?”

  Gooseflesh covered Fade’s neck. His gaze briefly dropped to his hands as he tried to process what Tipton was telling him. There was so much dirt caked beneath his fingernails, how had they gotten so filthy?

  Tipton took a long, deep satisfactory breath, his eyes watering. “I’m very proud of you. So very proud.”

  Fade met Tipton’s gaze. “Excuse me?” he said, feeling as if his head was in a fog.

  Tipton leaned forward. “I knew you’d be the one to catch me,” he said, a father proud of his son. “Never a doubt in my mind.”

  “You…” Fade shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “You wanted to be caught?”

  “Oh, of course, Mr. Fade,” Tipton said. “I’m a monster. You said so yourself. But it couldn’t be just anyone. No, no, no. Stern wasn’t worthy. It had to be you,” he said, pointing a finger at Fade.

  Fade ran a hand over his cheek, finding it grizzled. When was the last time he had shaven? Last week? Two weeks ago? How long had this been going on, how long since the first gun?

  “What about your wife?” he heard himself ask.

  Tipton’s lip snarled and he looked away. “Worthless harlot.” he spat under his breath. “Worthless, worthless, whore.”

  He licked his lips, his throat painfully dry. “Mr. Tipton—”

  “I told you, Mr. Fade. It’s Scott.”

  “Mister Tipton,” Fade said pointedly. “I need you to explain to me why.”

  Tipton’s eyes fluttered. “I… I don’t understand, Mr. Fade…”

  “Why have you been taunting me?!” Fade shouted, slamming his h
ands down on the table. “The guns, the quotes! To what end, dammit! What were you trying to prove?!”

  Tipton’s lips pursed and flattened, his fingernails tapped against the metal of his chair. “You know why I did this. I was doing what you told me to do. ‘Fade faces criminals head on and never looks back, not for himself, but for all of us, because this is as much Fade’s battle as it is our own.’ That was in your first article, Mr. Fade. You told me to. I did it for you,” he said, pleasantly. “I did this all for you.”

  Fade jumped out of his chair and rushed to the door, suddenly feeling dizzy, as if he was suffocating and the walls inching closer. He put his hand on the doorknob and hesitated. “You misunderstood, Mr. Tipton,” he managed, his voice shaking. “This was never a mission, never a calling. It’s a job, simple as that. Entertainment for the masses.”

  Tipton shook his head slowly and smiled. “This was all for you, Mr. Fade. All for you.”

  Fade fled out of the room, slamming the door behind him. It was all he could do not to scream. He wanted to fall to his hands and knees, to break down into tears, but the mugs were watching and the show as still going on. So he kept his eyes on the floor, his fists clenched and let the mugs see the man they wanted to see.

  A pair of red stilettos appeared under his nose. “You’re a terrible liar, Foster,” Din said, tilting up his face by his chin.

  “Am I?” Fade croaked with a hollow smile.

  She tapped the headphone tucked in her ear and the small microphone on his lapel; he had forgotten to turn it off. “You might be able to fool yourself that this is all just a job for you, a way to pay the bills and sit in the spotlight.” She took a drag of her cigarette and looked him in the eye. “But I know you better than that.”

  “Do you now?” he said, fixing his tie.