FOUR

Johnny Wraith's words were not the strangest things that have ever been uttered to me, but they were certainly the strangest for that day. Wraith seemed genuinely concerned about some sort of conspiracy involving shadowy, all-powerful entities chasing down little old me. Now, normally I would look over my shoulder as a general rule when I knew I was stepping on some toes. Might have a few thugs try and rough me up, and it had happened in the past. But the way Wraith was speaking, he thought these guys were seriously nasty pieces of work. Wraith looked as if he had been in a few scraps in the past, and he had come out the worst for wear. If Wraith was so scared, why was he so sketchy about the details? Either he was making it up as he went along or he was covering his own ass. Either way, I wasn't much impressed at him interrupting my lunch.

I trudged up the death trap like stairs with heavy feet, the dust rising up from their bare floorboards and assaulting my nostrils. The apartment building was quiet save for the shouts of a few kids on a floor above me. I tried creeping past Mrs. O'Halloran's apartment but it was no good. She was onto me.

"Mr. Logan, I was the wife of a military man and three grown boys," She said from behind me. I could feel her eyes boring into me. "Did you really think you had a chance in hell of sneaking past me?"

"No ma'am."

"In here right now."

I meekly stepped over the threshold and she ushered me in, then quickly shut the door. I was relieved that she didn't snap the locks home. "Now, take those pants off and give them to me," She commanded. I was too stunned to argue. I unsnapped my belt and took them off. She took them immediately and didn't bat an eyelid at me standing there in my shorts. "Sit down, Logan. This shouldn't take long."

She sat down in a huge velveteen chair that puffed out dust when she moved, and began to mend them. She had on a pair of spectacles, and she was staring that the hem of the things with fixed interest. She worked with nimble fingers and astonishing speed. "How did the account keeping go today?" She asked, breaking a silence that had dragged on too long.

"Fine. Better than I thought it would at least."

She picked up another spindle of thread. How I knew it was called a spindle is beyond me. She broke off the thread with her teeth and continued sewing. "So scuffed, these damnable trousers. You single men are all the same. So, has Joe been to see you about the back rent?"

"He saw me about it." I sat there, in my shorts, trying to act as if I wasn't embarrassed. She obviously didn't care. "He seemed pretty desperate. Has he been to see you?" Joe Greenson struck me as just the type of man who would show up and demand money from an old lady just so he could pay for his gambling debts. She looked up at me shrewdly.

"He has been to see me but he didn't see one red cent of that money. I actually informed him that I had paid up my rent three years in advance, as I always do, out of my husband's estate. He wasn't too happy about it but he had to go away eventually." She giggled. It came out like a little girl's laugh, which surprised me. "Logan, you know you can always borrow the money from me. I'm not a poor woman, not rich either, but I can help..."

I held up my hand and grinned at her. "I really can't ask you to do that. Even the thought of me asking is offensive. I'll get by. I always do."

She harrumphed and continued with her work. She didn't speak again until she was finished. She held the trousers up for my inspection and threw them back at me. "Buy some new trousers, Logan. Joe Greenson can wait."

I spent the rest of the night in my apartment, staring up at the ceiling, tracing the cracks spider webbing their way out of dry plaster corners. I thought about what Johnnie Wraith had told me, and how he seemed so compelled to say it. About Joe Greenson and his desperation and about Mrs. Peel, who seemed so satisfied with her subtle revenge. I thought of Marie with her tiny velveteen hands, scooping up the cash and looking playfully at me. Then all these thought dissolved as I remembered Warren Worthington I I I ordering me out of his club, watching as Ricky pounded into me like a gorilla with a new plaything. I wanted so much to hurt him, to make him suffer for what he'd done. To the outside world, he was just dealing with a quarrelsome drunken bum, which was his right as proprietor of the Volcano Club.

I turned onto my side and punched the pillow underneath my head, so it kept a lumpy shape. I couldn't think about the reason I was kicked out. I knew in my heart of hearts that it was because of the girl, but I couldn't admit it even to myself. Worthington had her and I needed to let it go. There was only so much that my ego could take.

I sat up and the bed protested with a series of alarmed squeaks. I rubbed my face with my hands and decided to take a walk. I wasn't going to get much sleep because my brain just wouldn't just up. I snatched my jacket from the pile of clothes draped over a nearby chair, and shook it for good measure. I noticed a little white card fluttering to the ground as I thrust an arm into the jacket and stooped down to pick it up. It was the card the big Russian had given me. It read:

XAVIER'S SCHOOL FOR GIFTED YOUNGSTERS

A Division of the Xavier Institute

An address appeared below. I turned the card over. There was something written in a fine, spidery hand.

Mr. Logan—

Perhaps we can help each other.

I would very much like to meet with you

regarding a matter of grave importance.

--Sincerely

C. F Xavier,

Headmaster

I held the card in front of me for a few moments, wondering why the big Russian didn't just drag me into a waiting car and speed off to meet his master if the matter was of grave importance. I turned the card over in my fingers before sliding it back into my pocket. Xavier was clearly a man who did not like to force an issue. Still, I didn't do business with "phantoms", those rich guys who let their hired goons act as a go between so their hands don't get dirty. And since Xavier seemed to need my services, I could afford to make him sweat before I paid him a visit. I may have been flat broke, but I have my principles.

The night had settled on the city like a snug velvet blanket, and the sounds that roared during the day were now set to a constant purr. The city was sleeping, and good people didn't bother venturing out. The air was always heavy with menace where the shadows grow longer, and everyone feels it in this city as night approaches. People quicken their steps to get home before nightfall. Predators are everywhere. They prey on those stupid enough to venture out, they prey on each other and they are territorial. They think they own the night. They think that it's an original idea.

But my destination was the New York Public Library. Most of the self styled predators I had the misfortune to encounter wouldn't know how to get there with a map. It was a place of refuge for me when I was up to my armpits in a case, and I needed to get a new perspective on things. Very few of my cases required any sort of complex research. I would often just come to the library to think, and in doing so I managed to establish a few friendships. One of the longest serving employees at the library was Edmund Lock, an archivist who knew the library back to front, up and down and all over. He was well past his retirement years but the library board could not bring themselves to force him to retire, or to fire him. He was part of the institution and he was a survivor.

He was a quick wit and possessed a freakish ability to remember facts and figures, dates and times, and serial numbers. I suspect he remembers everything he read. Every word, every phrase, every verse. He was always reading and as a consequence he never left the library. I knew, even at this hour, that he would be there.

Sure enough, Edmund was there to unlock the double doors when I pressed the Night Buzzer. He was short and thin, and was always clad obsessively in a black overcoat that looked like one a monk or a man of the cloth might wear. I had never seen him out of it, even in the summer months. As he let me in, Edmund appraised my shabby attire.

"Do you even own an iron, Logan?" He asked as he shuffled ahead of me. His croaky voice barely rang off the marble walls. His white shock of hair stuck up at wild angles as he turned and approached a small elevator behind the night guard's booth.

"Do you even own any other clothes than what's on your back, Edmund?"

He snorted a laugh and this sent him into a coughing spasm. "Touché. Now, to what do I owe the unexpected honor of your visit?"

We entered the elevator and he pressed the button for the basement level. "I need to find out some back history on a man who has approached me for a job."

He nodded. "He must be well known if you're coming to me to check up on him."

"Well, as far as I know he's not a public figure, but I've heard of him before. His name is Charles Xavier."

The name registered with Edmund straight away. I could see it in his eyes. The elevator had reached the Basement level and Edmund shuffled forward and opened the door. "I haven't heard that name in years. You say he approached you about a job?"

"Not personally. He sent a Russian thug to make an offer on his behalf."

We were walking to his desk in the archive, which was a maze-like sprawl of shelves, displays and vaults. Edmund was responsible for the cataloguing of most of it. His desk sat in the back, covered with papers, folders and fat volumes. He sat down in his ragged leather chair, dwarfed by its size, and he laced his fingers over his belly. "Charles Xavier is a name I am quite familiar with. In fact, it might surprise you to learn we knew each other as young men in Cairo." He sat back and closed his eyes for half a second. "But that was a world away, literally. I was working as a research assistant for the British archaeologists who were uncovering those glorious relics from ancient times. I met some truly great men, including Howard Carter himself."

When he opened his eyes and saw the blank expression on my face, his tone shifted to one of annoyance.

"I won't stoop to asking you if you know who Howard Carter is," He said rapidly, his brow furrowed. "I came into contact with Xavier through some friends in the world of academia. He was involved in a groundbreaking anthropological study at that time, and I must say some of his findings were remarkable. His essays are widely published and hotly debated even to this day."

"So how does a man like Charles Xavier come to be the headmaster at a private school?"

Edmund took off his wire rimmed glasses and polished them with a linen handkerchief. "He ran into a lot of opposition from sectors within the scientific community. His theories expanded upon what Darwin had put forward, but in a way that some people were not comfortable with. He theorized that mankind was evolving much more rapidly than anyone could have imagined, and he cited evidence he uncovered in Egypt, Syria and even right here in the United States. Most of the examples he had given were too fantastic for died in the wool scientists to believe. A boy in Massachusetts who grew tufts of blue fur all over his body, for example. Or a man who can swim under the water for prolonged periods of time, just like a fish. All of it documented, but what were people to make of it? This was fodder for the circus sideshows and not for the pages of serious scientific periodicals!"

He stood up and gestured for me to follow him. We started down a long, narrow space with shelves reaching to the ceiling on both sides. He stopped and plucked a huge folder from one of the shelves and handed it to me.

"That is a collection of periodicals that Xavier published in. Not complete, but with the library's limited resources, I have not been able to track down the ones that have been published in Britain." He sighed. "Xavier stopped publishing his findings after the controversies they seemed to develop threatened to overshadow the work. He is independently wealthy, you see, so he must have just decided to teach others in a more constructive way." He shrugged and shuffled back to his desk. "He's an extraordinary man and a great thinker. Very perceptive and canny."

I opened the volume in my lap and began to read. I heard Edmund stand again and looked up. "You're going to be here for a while," He said. "I may as well make some coffee." He was grateful for the company but too in love with the idea of being a cranky old man.

It was sunrise before I left those dusty old archives. Edmund was dozing when I finished reading. His chin had dropped to his chest and his glasses half slipping off his nose.

Weak sunlight was already burning away the curtain of clouds hanging over the city, and I was unprepared for it. Sunlight has a way of shocking you when you've been exposed to nothing but enclosed spaces and darkness. I began to realize why Edmund preferred the relative comfort of his archives: It was an unchanging environment that he could use to avoid the rest of the world. The harsher elements were kept out and only what he allowed in would flourish. Unfortunately this left Edmund with very limited people skills, but he was a shrewd judge of character nonetheless. Having immersed myself in the details of the life of Charles Xavier, I saw the instant comparisons between Edmund and the elusive head of Xavier's school for gifted youngsters. Both were gifted men, both highly intelligent. In later years, it would seem, both men removed themselves from the rest of the world. Xavier's reasons for slipping into obscurity were practical and professional, but Edmunds was because of a complete inability to understand the human condition anymore.

I had decided to meet Xavier to at least find out what it was he wanted with me. I had no desire to be dealing with that Russian thug of his if he wanted me to take on this case. I slipped the business card out of my breast pocket and strode over to the nearest phone booth. The morning was coming to life slowly, and few people were out on the street. Soon the city would be awake and these streets would be teeming with people. I dialed the number and waited for someone to pick up. Surprisingly someone promptly did.

"Xavier's school for gifted youngsters."

"Yeah, hi, this is Mr. Logan. I hope I could speak to Professor Xavier."

"Ah, Mister Logan! I was beginning to think you were not going to call."

"I wasn't going to. I didn't like the way you delivered your message."

There was a brief silence. There was amusement in his voice when he responded. "My apologies."

"Look, professor, I'd like to arrange a meeting to talk about your…problem."

"Of course. Would it be too much of an imposition to ask you to come to the school? I'm afraid I will not be able to leave during a school day."

"Fair enough. This afternoon?"

"I'd like that."

"5 o'clock."

"That would be perfect. See you then, Mr. Logan."

I put the receiver back in its cradle and stepped out of the booth. It was still too early for much pedestrian traffic. In fact I was the only one on the street as far as I could tell. I began to walk back to my apartment building with my hands in my pockets. My mind was allocating a spot for the new information I had gained on Xavier, and I was so distracted I didn't notice that someone was tailing me. I should have paid attention to the hairs on the back of my neck bristling, but hindsight is always twenty-twenty, as they say.

I had rounded a corner and entered a narrow one way street when I heard a movement behind me. I turned around to seek out its source, when the narrow tip of a silver blade came down inches in front of my face. I realized that the swing was intentionally sloppy. Had I have reacted slower I would have lost my face.

There was no one behind me. I saw their body when I turned, but they moved real fast and now they were gone again. My body was tensed, my senses primed by the first attack. I was cursing myself for not being more vigilant. The second attack happened from the side, and this time I was ready. I felt the tip of the blade nick my left side and as it did, I grabbed the hand that held the weapon, and used my entire body weight to full effect, swinging the assailant into the wall behind us. I heard a woman yelp and a metal sword clattered to the ground. This time I didn't allow her the time to outfox me. I grabbed the sword and placed my boot on her throat, so even the slightest move would choke her. She looked up at me with violet eyes which were the same colour as her hair. "Let me up," She growled, her voice spiked with an accent. "Or I swear to God, Logan…"

"How do you know my name?" I demanded. I pressed the boot harder and she gagged. Her hands were clutching the sole and I could tell letting her up now would be the equivalent of releasing a wounded animal from a bear trap. They were most likely going to attack the first thing they saw. She knew I was willing to let her suffer for just a little longer and annoyance flared in her eyes.

"What's the purpose of this?" I asked her. "Your style is too sophisticated for a robbery. You're skilled. You wanted to kill me."

She grunted. "That's what they paid me for. Nothing personal, you understand."

"Why shouldn't I just hand you over to the police and continue on my merry way?"

"Because, you don't like cops for one, Logan. And secondly, you know it won't do any good. I failed so they will send someone after me now."

"Who?"

She laughed but it came out as a series of splutters. There seemed to be no genuine malice in her eyes. She had simply been hired to kill me, and she failed. If I wasn't so pissed I would have laughed too. "They didn't give me names. I very rarely know their names. All I know is, a man approached me and provided me with a photo of you and twenty grand. That was my motivation. I didn't need to know anything else."

I pulled my boot off her throat and grabbed her roughly by the arm. I held the sword level with her eyes so she knew what would happen if she so much as breathed the wrong way. She got the picture and allowed herself to be guided into the shadows of the alley. I could smell her. She wore no perfume but her hair emitted the distinct smell of jasmine. "I was approached by a man who told me someone wanted me captured alive, that I was an important man. Now someone sends you to kill me. What should I believe?"

She looked away and her long hair fell over her face. "I know nothing more than what I have told you. Do what you will to me."

"I ain't gonna kill you. I'm guessing the men who hired you will try to track you down anyway."

"What makes you think I won't redouble my efforts?" She held my gaze intently. She was not afraid of the sword but she was cautious of it.

"Because," I replied. "I've seen your face and I've managed to live. I'm going to keep this little pig sticker right here as a souvenir. You should have enough honour to give up and leave me alone."

She nodded. "Very well, Logan. You've shown me more mercy than I deserve."

I held her a little while longer, and bore down on her. "Tell me your name."

She lifted her chin defiantly. It seemed for a second that she was not going to tell me, but then she sighed. "Kwannon."

"What sort of a name is that?"

"It's the only one you're going to get. Are you going to let me go now?"

I smiled and released her. "I'm going to walk away and the minute I turn my back you are going to be gone. I suggest you start running because your employers paid you up front and I'm guessing you're not in the habit of giving refunds."

She nodded and I slowly turned away, hands in my pockets. I heard the whispers of her feet on the pavement, and when I looked over my shoulder, sure enough she was gone.