Chapter Four: I ♥ Spidey
"Hey, slow down!" Lamont shouted. His son completely ignored him, continuing to swoosh around the living room with his hands in the air. Shaking his head, Lamont dodged the legos scattered over the floor and sank down on the couch with his beer. As a detective, he didn't usually get Saturdays afternoons off. Noisy kid and all, he was enjoying every moment of it. Stretching his sore back (landing on the pavement had left some bruises) he sat back to watch the game.
"Bradley! Don't make me come in there!" Mindy Lamont shrieked from the other side of the house. Rolling his eyes, Brad leaped over a lego tower and hovered over his toy trucks saying, "Vroom! Crash!" under his breath and doing something with string.
"Bye, Dad, bye Mom!" Cheri hollered, moving suspiciously fast toward the door.
"Hang on, young lady," Lamont said. Cheri looked back with her best innocent expression, hand still on the doorknob. "Dad, I'm just heading to the Starbucks, Tasha and I are going to study for mid-terms, no big deal," she said, all in one breath.
Lamont eyed the length of her skirt. "If you think you're leaving this house dressed like that, you got another think coming," he said. Cheri sighed with irritation and turned around, hands on hips and coat open in front.
Lamont spit beer all down the front of his shirt. His fourteen-year-old daughter was wearing a tight white t-shirt with "I ♥ Spidey" straining across the front, over the picture of a red circle with two pointed white eyes. "Where the—heck—did you get that shirt?" he managed to stammer out.
"Cool, huh? They were selling them out on the pier last week," Cheri replied. "Totally hot."
"Cheri, hon," her mother said, carrying a laundry basket into the room, "you know that guy's just a publicity stunt they came up with to sell tabloids." She put the basket on the floor and started gathering towels out of the kitchen.
"No way, Mom, Tasha says her cousin was at the Unity Fair this summer and she saw him, honest to God," Cheri said. "She says her cousin says he's unbelievable."
Lamont opened his mouth and closed it again. There was no way he was going to say he'd met the wall-crawler, up close and personal. First, he hadn't told his wife about his near-death experience and wasn't going to now—and second, no way was he going to encourage his daughter to idolize some eight-legged freak.
Mindy picked up the basket and walked across the room again, looking harassed and pushing sweaty brown hair out of her eyes. "Cheri, sweetie, I don't think—"
"I'm the aaaamazing SPIDER-MAN!" Brad suddenly shouted at full volume, running across the room with string trailing from his hands and jumping on the couch. Cheri took advantage of her parents' distraction to make it out the door, her blond hair whipping behind her as she pulled the door shut. Mindy yelled at Brad to get off the furniture. Lamont got up, got himself another beer, and decided to stop thinking. This was his afternoon off.
Peter stood nervously in the foyer of the Osborn mansion, waiting for Harry. He looked around at the dark, luxurious furnishings. Harry had invited Peter to come live with him, after his father's death, but Peter had passed. Not only did he not want to become some kind of hanger-on, sponging off his rich best friend, but the whole idea of living in Norman Osborn's house was too much to take. Not to mention Harry's growing obsession with finding Spider-Man.
"Peter, you made it! Thought I was going to have to hunt you down," Harry called cheerfully, starting down the flight of stairs leading to the foyer. As usual these days, he was wearing a tailored suit and silk tie, shoulders thrown back and a wide grin on his face. Peter thought he was trying too hard, hoping to look like the sharp executive he wasn't.
"Well, you caught me at a good time," Peter said. "So, dinner at the mansion. I think I'm underdressed," he added sheepishly, rocking back and forth on his heels.
"Come on, I just wanted to spend some time with you for a change. I thought feeding you something other than cheap take-out might work—it gets you to visit your aunt." Harry's smile looked bitter. Peter sighed inwardly. He could be at home, getting his application filled out, writing that essay, but Harry had been insistent and Peter had felt guilty enough to give in. He hadn't seen much of his friend since the funeral. Even without the—spidery—complications, it was hard, these days, to be around Harry. He radiated need and insecurity, making everyone near feel helpless and uncomfortable. Peter followed him reluctantly into the giant rec room on the second floor.
Harry snapped on the big-screen television, turning it to the football game, and loosened up enough to take off his jacket and tie. Dinner was steak, on china plates, and Peter felt ridiculous. It was like Harry was playing dress up, parading all the signs of his tremendous wealth that had embarrassed him so much in high school. They talked some, Harry asking about school and nodding through the answers with such obviously faked interest that Peter wanted to shake him. Once Harry got started on his own news, it was worse. He bragged about how well he was handling OsCorp, how he was going to take the company places his father had never dreamed, while he worked his way through a six-pack. Peter started wondering if there was a tactful way he could suggest therapy.
The game fuzzed out, and was replaced by a live news bulletin. A tanned anchorman, trying to project intelligence while still showing off his perfect teeth, smiled seriously at the camera. "This just in. Councilor Chan Huey, of the Manhattan borough, was shot and killed this afternoon while exiting the capitol building. Details at this time are sketchy, but it appears he was shot in the back with a high-powered rifle. At this time, no suspects have been arrested. We turn now to Marisol Gutierrez at the capitol building. Marisol?"
Harry picked up the remote and shut the TV off. "Great, now they'll be talking about that hours. Forget about the game, man," he threw the remote at the coffee table and leaned his head on the back of the couch. "You wanna watch something else?"
Peter stood up. "Actually, I'd better take off," he said. Councilor Huey—Peter had seen him on the news before. His most recent crusade was against Wilson Fisk and the corporate-sponsored curriculum that was being offered to New York's public schools. About all Peter had been able to get out of that grey-haired detective—what's-his-name, Lamont—after the explosion was that the victims in that horrible room had been a PTA meeting, protesting the new curriculum. It was paper thin, but it was two violent incidents connected to one subject in two days. And it was a reason to leave that didn't make him feel guilty, well, too guilty about ducking out on Harry. "This is fun, but you know, I've got a ton of homework." That was true enough, even if he didn't intend to do it.
"Yeah, whatever. Be seeing you." Harry waved it off like it didn't matter to him. With a sullen pout on his face, he picked up the remote and started flipping through channels, ignoring Peter as he left. Peter sighed.
Detective Lamont strolled back to the unmarked car he had left parked near the coffee bar, cup in hand, and reached for the sandwich he'd left sitting on the roof. He nearly lost his balance as the sandwich, wrapped in white paper, stayed firmly in place. Frowning, Lamont reached out again, closed his hand around the stubborn food and tugged. The sandwich refused to move. Lifting one end of the paper, Lamont looked underneath, trying to pull it up. Then he heard sniggering, coming from somewhere over his head.
"Oh, man, you should see your face," Spider-Man laughed, hanging head-down and holding onto a web with his hands and the soles of his feet. "That was priceless."
"You know, buddy, my third-grader has a more mature sense of humor," Lamont growled, opening the paper and removing the sandwich. Wonderful. The paper was going to stay stuck on the roof of his car, flapping around wherever he went. Spider-Man was snorting again. Lamont bit into the sandwich more savagely than necessary.
"And now that I have your attention," the wall-crawler continued, "I'd like to know if you saw the news about Councilor Huey last night."
"Yes, I did. And you know what, bug? The police are capable of making connections, too," Lamont growled around a mouthful.
"Why does everyone get that wrong? Spiders aren't bugs. They're arachnids. Say it with me, boys and girls—a-rach-nid."
"Arach-noid is more like it. Look, buddy, I don't mean to sound ungrateful for you hauling my butt out of the fire the other night—"
"Cops can make connections, but can they search councilor's houses without a warrant? Play nice and I'll tell you what I found," Spider-Man swung gently back and forth as Lamont glared at him.
"OK, first that's unethical, and second—"
"Huey had gathered a lot of information on Fisk's new program. I didn't take anything, no one even knows I was there, but I skimmed through enough to figure out that Huey suspected Fisk of criminal dealings. Not just underhanded stuff, you know, but actual prison-term-here-I-come lawbreaking. And he was in contact with several concerned education organizations, including the PTA at P.S. 134. Mrs. Reed was invited to a strategy meeting next week."
Lamont sipped his coffee for a moment, thinking furiously. "Still unethical. And I can't get the information legally unless the investigation uncovers probable cause—"
"Oh, come on, just call it a tip off. Or ask the family for permission."
"Do you ever let anyone finish a sentence, bug?" Lamont glared. "And can't you talk right-side up like a normal person?"
Spider-Man flipped his legs over his head and landed on the pavement. Lamont was surprised to find that the vigilante barely reached his chin—it was hard to tell he was on the small side when you were always craning your neck to look at him.
Spider-Man strolled casually over to the coffee bar down the sidewalk, where a gaping cashier had been leaning over the counter, trying to hear what they were saying. "One coffee," he ordered.
Mouth hanging open, the cashier moved automatically to fill a Styrofoam cup and handed it to Spider-Man, who dug at his waist—there were pockets in that outfit?—and paid. Popping her gum and giggling, the multi-pierced blond leaned her elbows back on the counter and watched him return to perch on the hood of the detective's car. Pulling his mask up to his nose, Spider-Man sipped and turned expectantly to Lamont. "So, what next?"
"Think I can crawl up walls if I drink enough caffeine?" Lamont wondered out loud. "What's the use of a mask if you're going to pull it up like that?"
"Right, I can see the poster now. 'Suspect described as a Caucasian male with a chin'," Spider-Man sighed. "Look, I'm going to check out Fisk. I just want to know, if I find something, that there's someone I can take it to."
Lamont frowned again. Like it or not, the web-head had just saved him a bunch of time by confirming what had only been a vague possibility. Sure, they'd have to back it up officially, but with fourteen people dead in two days, the speed that the bug—arachnid—could unofficially use to move the investigation along might save lives.
"I'm not saying anything, buddy. Wilson Fisk is a respectable businessman with a lot of pull in this city. You get caught spying on him, there's no one going to back you up. But—" he paused, looking out at the street, "I don't turn down helpful information from anonymous sources."
"Yes!" Spider-Man crumpled the cup and tossed it at the trash can 15 feet away by the coffee bar, yelled "two points!" as the cashier clapped, and then bounded up the wall. Lamont ate the last bite of his sandwich without watching him go.
Spidey headed uptown, toward Fisk's main offices on 83rd Street. As he leaped over rooftops and danced past streets he did a couple of extra flips, showing off. The air felt good in his face, it a beautiful day, and it looked like he was on to something big. Thoughts of Harry and an essay waiting to get done crossed his mind but there was plenty of time yet. When he slid the mask over his face, sometimes it felt like the weight of the world dropped from his shoulders.
Of course, the Green Goblin hadn't been fun. And he needed to stay focused, if he didn't want to run into another bullet because he wasn't paying enough attention. But after all, Fisk wasn't the Goblin. How bad could this get?