Chapter 9: The Kingpin

                "I hope you have good news for me." There was thunder in Fisk's voice as he heard one of his lieutenants approach his desk. He knew already that the man didn't, however; which was why he didn't turn around. His gaze was fixed on the view of the city spread out below him.

                The man swallowed hard. They hadn't found the girl yet; which meant that Mr. Fisk was going to be very angry indeed. And he was a man that everyone carefully tried to avoid getting angry. "I-I-I'm sorry, Mr. Fisk," he stuttered. "There's been no sign of her."

                The Kingpin looked out at the city spread out below his window. His city. And somewhere out there, his girl was out there, no doubt hiding with someone who dared to defy The Kingpin. He growled in his throat. "Bring in the club owner," he said, turning away from the window.

                Andover came stumbling in on the end of a shove. Fisk didn't offer him a chair. Instead, he glared at the club's owner. "You told me the girl had no friends," he said. "And here it is two weeks since she left here, and my people have seen nothing of her. They are either hopelessly inept, or you are lying to me to protect the girl. Which is it?"

                Andover quaked harder in his shoes. "I'm not lying, I swear! She don't got any friends that I know of! I never seen her with anyone!" He shivered with fear; he had been called here a number of times since the disastrous night Amy had vanished. Each time he had gone home with some kind of bodily injury, sustained while the Kingpin and his men questioned him as to the girl's whereabouts.

                "She must have someone," Fisk said angrily, advancing on the man. "Someone is hiding her, or she would have been found already. My people are not that inept; therefore, you must be lying to me." Fisk swung his cane.

                Andover screamed in shock and pain as the heavy silver head of the cane hit his kneecap and shattered the bone. He crumpled on the floor, screaming, clutching his leg. "I don't know. I swear. Don't kill me, please don't kill me, I swear…" he lapsed into hysterical blubbering.

                Fisk stared at the handle of his cane. It was smeared with blood. He sighed. "Crandall."

                His lieutenant came forward. "Have this cleaned, will you?" he handed the cane to him.

                "Yes Mr. Fisk," Crandall nodded, taking the cane.

                "And this," Fisk nudged the sobbing man on the floor in front of him with the toe of one shoe. "Take him back to his club. Mr. Andover. I want my thousand back, do you understand? You will give it to Crandall here." Andover nodded through his tears of misery, apparently thinking he had escaped the Kingpin's clutches alive. He got up and started to limp toward the door. He didn't see Fisk draw a finger across his own throat in a cutting motion, and Crandall nodded.

                They got into the black Rolls Royce, Andover still sniffling, Crandall silent. They remained that way for the remainder of the ride back to the Starlight. Andover got out first and led the way to the back employee entrance, which he unlocked with a key on his key ring. He led Crandall back to his office, where he opened the wall safe and extracted a thick wad of bills. He counted out a thousand with trembling, shaking hands, and handed them to Crandall. Crandall counted it out again, double-checking to make sure it was all there, then nodded curtly and put it in the inner pocket of his coat. Andover sighed with relief and sank down into his desk chair, then bent over to pull up the leg of his pants so he could inspect the damage.

                Crandall leaned over and yanked the man's head up by the hair. Andover gasped with surprise, then his face twisted into an expression of pleading as he saw Crandall's gun. Crandall rested the muzzle, with its silencer firmly screwed onto its barrel, against the forehead for a second before he pulled the trigger.

                Blood spattered all over the office.

                Crandall sighed, wiped the muzzle of the gun with the handkerchief in his pocket, then slipped the gun back to its hidden pocket. Going to the still-open wall safe, he took the thick wad of bills out, tucked that into his pocket too, and turned to leave. His hand was just on the doorknob when there came a quiet knock at the door. His heart rate picked up, and he stepped back, whipping his gun out and aiming it at the door, which slowly opened.

                Amy paused as she pushed open the door. Something hadn't felt right since she walked in, and once or twice she had almost turned back to the car waiting outside, with Bobby at the wheel. But she had to pick up her paycheck, and the four hundred Mr. Andover had promised her for her day with the Kingpin. Bobby had tried to convince her not to go back; He had pleaded, in fact, with her not to go there. But she had been firm; she had earned that money, and she wasn't going to let him walk off with it. Charles had resisted, strenuously, but when he saw that she was resolved on going, he had told Bobby to drive her downtown to get her paycheck. Amy had figured that should be protection enough; she didn't think Andover would try anything with Bobby there to protect her. Bobby didn't think so either.

                The stench of blood hit her almost as soon as she opened the door. She gagged on the smell, momentarily nauseated. And that one single second was long enough.

                Strong hands grabbed her from behind, and an arm across her throat cut off her air. She choked and gasped, trying to get air into her lungs to scream. The arm across her throat made that impossible, and she whimpered as blackness claimed her mind.

                Crandall kept his arm tight across her throat, dragging her backward out of the office with him. He never noticed when the dark glasses and cane fell out of her hand. This was the girl Mr. Fisk was looking for; he would be well rewarded if he could bring her back with him. Still dragging her he made his way back down the dimly-lit hallway to the back employees' lot outside. The Rolls was here, the chauffeur waiting for him. He opened up the trunk, grabbing a coil of rope form it; he used it to tie the girl's hands together behind her back, and then threw her across the back seat. "Drive!" he ordered the chauffeur, and the long black car pulled out of the tiny back lot into traffic.

                Bobby's car was parked along the curb in front of the club. He watched the alley Amy had disappeared down, waiting for her to come back out, but saw nothing. He was about to get out and go check when a long, sleek black Rolls Royce pulled out of the alley and turned into traffic ahead of him. "No," he said to himself, "no, don't tell me…" he sprang out of the car and ran for the back door.

                It was open. Full of misgiving now, he raced into the building, following the dim hall until he got to the door at the end, which was ajar. He smelled the blood before he saw it; all over the wall behind the desk, and in it was a man with a bullet hole drilled precisely in the middle of his forehead.

                Bobby gasped. "Amy!" he shouted, hoping that maybe she was still in the building somewhere, hiding from the person or persons who had done this. He listened carefully, but only the echo of his own shout met his ears. He took a step toward the door, and his foot stepped on something that crunched under his foot. He looked down.

                It was Amy's glasses.

*                                                              *                                                              *

                Fisk heard the quick patter of Crandall's shoes coming down the hall. He frowned. Beside his lieutenant's steps there was the almost, but not quite silent sound of rubber-soled sneakers slapping the cool floor of the hall. He turned as both sets of steps stopped in front of his office door, and then there was a knock at the door. "Come in," he said.

                And who should walk in but his lieutenant and his quarry! Crandall gave Amy a hard shove that sent her sprawling on the floor. She gathered her body together, trying to scramble up, but even as she regained her feet Fisk grabbed a handful of her hair and yanked her head back to meet his gaze.

                Amy sucked in a breath. The scent of the cologne drifting around this man was quite distinctive, as was the smell of the tobacco in the expensive cigars he smoked. Fisk. Oh, God. She should have listened to Bobby and Charles. She wanted to scream at him to leave her alone, to let her go, but she couldn't make a sound for the tape slapped over her lips. Nor would pleading have done her any good.

                "So." The voice was calm but malevolent. "My prodigal returns. Where did you find her, Crandall?"

                "I was doing what you asked me to do with Andover when she walked in. Wanted to get her paycheck from Andover, apparently."

                Fisk raised an eyebrow, and Crandall opened his jacket pocket, taking out the wad of bills and the thousand from Andover. He handed them both to his employer, who raised an eyebrow. "He doesn't need the money anymore, Mr. Fisk," Crandall shrugged. "If I left it there someone else would steal it. I'd rather it go to you." Fisk took the two wads of bills, then pocketed the thousand and handed the rest to Crandall. "Consider it your reward for binging back my errant piece of property," he said. "As for you, my dear…" he grabbed a handful of Amy's hair and dragged her across the main office into the smaller one he conducted his most private business in. "Crandall. Leave a message with the secretary that I'm not to be disturbed," he called just before the office door closed. Crandall nodded to empty air, and turned to leave the office. Just as he closed the door he thought he heard a scream of pain coming from the inner office.

                He left the message with the secretary, as ordered, then, having no other orders for the day, decided that he'd go spend some of that money he'd just gotten.

*                                                              *                                                              *

                "I should have gone with her!" Bobby paced Charles's study floor restlessly. "I shouldn't have let her go in alone, I should have gone in with her. We'd have had a chance to fight Fisk's thugs, if I had…"

                "We must find out where she has been taken. Fisk has so many places all over the city that it would be impossible to search them all…" Charles picked up the phone and dialed a number.

                Matt picked up the phone on the second ring. "Murdock and associates." God, he hated being a secretary.

                "Matt," came an even, smooth voice with an undercurrent of worry to it. It took a moment for Matt to recognize the voice, and when he did his feet, resting casually on the top of his desk, hit the floor. "Charles. What can I do for you?"

                "Amy is missing," and Matt's heart skipped a beat. "She went to the Starlight to collect her paycheck from her boss; Bobby went with her. He stayed in the car waiting when she went in. She never came out. Bobby went in to find her and found Amy's boss dead from a gunshot wound and the safe riffled. And Amy's dark glasses and cane were in the office too, dropped on the floor. Matt, where would the Kingpin take Amy?"

                Matt smiled grimly. "So your team can go in and get her out? Forgive me, Charles, but they won't get within ten feet of her. Fisk will see that big knot of yellow and blue spandex coming from a mile away. Let me scout around, see what I can do." He hung up before the older man could protest, and got his cane as he rose from his chair. It had been an extremely slow day; it wouldn't hurt to close up a little early.

                As he walked down the pavement toward home, the sound of his cane tapping gently against the concrete, he thought. Where would Fisk be likely to take Amy? His home, like he had before? Maybe not. His lieutenant would have brought her to Fisk's office, first, but Fisk wouldn't have kept her there long. Long enough to rough her up, certainly (and Matt shuddered at the thought of what Fisk might do to Amy; her absence would have made him more furious, and he was more likely to hurt her badly.) But he'd save the heavy work for later when he got to…where? Matt frowned as he climbed the steps to his apartment.

                He felt his clock's face. Almost six. Hmm. Several hours of daylight left…but he couldn't afford to wait. He sat down and ate a light dinner, moving around his apartment with an ease borne of long familiarity with its contents, and then went to his bedroom. His hand found the catch that opened the secret compartment in the back of his armoire, and felt for the butter-soft, flexible red leather of his costume as Daredevil.

                It only took a few minutes to slip into the costume and smooth out the wrinkles. He reached for the compartment again, pulled out his modified cane, and checked it to see that everything still worked. Then he opened his window, wincing at the assault of street sound against his sensitive ears, and slipped out onto the fire escape. He got up onto the roof with little difficulty, then paused while he got his bearings and decided where he was going to go. He honestly couldn't figure out where Fisk might take Amy. Somewhere close to Central Park, maybe; it would be easy to dump her body there. Or possibly the docks; The Kingpin owned a couple of warehouses on Canal Street. It would be so easy to dump Amy's body into the river when he was done with her.

                Matt thought that one over. Probably not. The entire underworld knew that a blind girl had evaded Fisk for two weeks, and Fisk might think that regular shopkeepers would mean he was weak. He would rough her up himself, maybe, then let his chief hired thug Bullseye have a turn with her. Then they'd kill her, mark her somehow, and drop her body conspicuously somewhere in the middle of the city as an example to everyone.

                He headed for Fisk's office. Fisk's lieutenants would likely be talking among themselves, and he could maybe glean some information from listening to the talk.