Greetings dear readers. Wow, I guess the inspiration bug bit hard. I was able to do this whole chapter in one evening of writing. LOL. And believe it or not, I'm still trying to Makokam my chapters to make them a little shorter than normal. LOL
FYI, Wall-Kill is the name of an actual medium-security prison in New York State. I know the name sounds weird, but I didn't make it up.
BTW, are there any fans of Degrassi out there who might have picked up on my shout-out? :-D
Mindy's dialogue outside of Jacob B. Jeremiah's door is an homage to the 1986 movie Running Scared. For anyone who hasn't seen it, check it out. It's a really enjoyable buddy-cop film.
The name "Babe Ruthless" I got from the movie Whip-It. The name amused me greatly and I thought it was perfect for the character I assigned it to.
As everyone knows, I'm not too proud to plead for reviews. :-D Again, the more reviews I get, the more inspired I am to write and update sooner. :-D
And awayyyyyy we go. :-)
Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl: The War on Crime, Chapter III
The Mistmobile cruised smoothly over The Robert F. Kennedy Bridge, carrying Dave and Mindy over the East River and into New York City's northernmost borough.
"The Bronx" Mindy observed as they emerged onto the Bronx side of the River and Dave steered them towards Nelson Avenue in Highbridge, which was their quarry's address, according to Angela; "We don't seem to come up here too often."
"We don't." Dave agreed. The two of them rarely made general patrols in The Bronx. Queens and Brooklyn kept them busy enough, although they did go occasionally into Manhattan for patrols as well as chasing down leads. The Bronx was far out of their area, and it also had its own good number of costumed heroes who apparently lived there and were dedicated to cleaning it up. Staten Island was also an area they didn't visit too often. But that was primarily due to the fact that the smallest borough, with its general suburban feel simply didn't fit their approach to crimefighting. As well, like The Bronx, Staten Island had its own homegrown superhero population that fought the good fight there.
"I wonder if our visit here tonight will be brought up at the J.F. meeting next week." Mindy pondered, in reference to the upcoming meeting of Justice Forever.
"Maybe; I guess it'll depend on how cooperative this guy is. And, it'll also depend on how long it takes work out the details of the Christmas Party. I mean, remember last year? It took two hours for that." Dave responded as he made sure he was following the directions given by the GPS.
"Oh hell, I was ready to lay into them with my balisong. How long does it take to settle a menu anyways?"
"When everyone wants their favourites added, a long time apparently. That's why we're the ones arranging the caterer this year." Dave responded.
Mindy positively cackled with glee. "Aw dude…I can't wait to see Dan Malone's face when he sees just who he's catering it for." Mindy planned to pick up the catering order in full costume.
Dave suppressed a smile of his own. Mindy took an almost childish delight in the fear she still inspired in the last living member of the D'Amico gang, turned chef/caterer and reluctant ally. "Yeah, I'm sure it'll be fun. And as I'm sure you're about to ask, no we can't order purple frosting for the cake."
"That's not fucking fair." Mindy pretended to pout. "You're getting green icing." She pointed out with a grin.
"Green's a traditional Christmas colour. Purple is not." Dave said with a laugh.
"It's still not fair Dave!" Mindy retorted with a laugh. "You get St. Patrick's Day too."
"Yeah, but look at it this way: purple's usually the colour of royalty AND everyone seems to think you're the most awesome costumed hero in New York." Dave said with a smile.
"People think I'm awesome, huh?" Mindy said with an arched eyebrow and a grin. She well knew what was said about her.
"I think you're awesome." Dave said softly as Mindy flashed a shy but genuine smile at him. There were times –and this was one of them- where he wished some sort of road closure or traffic tie-up would prevent them from reaching their destination. Just spending time alone in the car with Mindy had become so…pleasant for him that he hated when that time ended. He wondered if, someday, they'd ever be able to go on a road trip together. Not as Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl, but as Dave and Mindy: best friends…and hopefully (he would love) far, far more. He purged the thought from his mind. Mindy would never go for that, he was certain. And ever suggesting it would just be painful and humiliating. He refocused his attention to the GPS.
Mindy was glad of the darkness in the car. It was the only thing hiding the fact that she was blushing so hard her face now looked almost as red as Angela's hair. Her mind replayed what she just heard with glee: Dave thought she was awesome! Of course, over the years they'd known each other and worked together, Dave had expressed such thought numerous times. But, now such sentiments had a far deeper effect on her. Naturally, she knew Dave didn't think she was awesome in the way he would think of a girl he was interested in. But, it was, she figured, about the best she'd ever receive from him and she accepted it. Mindy bit down on her lower-lip to keep herself from giggling. (She, as a rule, only descended into such idiotic giggling fits when she hung out with Angela and they discussed issues far removed from her Hit-Girl persona. She couldn't allow Dave to see her giggling like some giddy schoolgirl on her way to a Justin Bieber concert.)
"I think we're coming up on the Jeremiah's place." Dave said, breaking the not-uncomfortable silence in the car. "Better check in with Angela and see if she has anything else for us."
"I'm on it like Ernie on Bert…or vice versa." Mindy said with a smirk as she activated her iPhone (one that was reserved for "work" only). "We're here now. Do you have anything new?"
"Yeah, I have." Came Angela's reply. "Jacob B. Jeremiah. He graduated from Millard Fillmore High School six years ago. I'm looking at his transcripts, and he wasn't exactly valedictorian material. I suspect he was graduated because the faculty didn't want him around any longer."
"He's that dumb?"
"What he lacks in intelligence he made up for in bad behaviour. Oh, and he's had more than a few run-ins with the law. He's had about eight arrests, at least. He's had three separate stretches in Riker's Island, and a stay up at Wall-Kill too"
"What was he in for?" Mindy asked. She heard Angela working her keyboard over the speaker.
"Wow, what a surprise…Not. He's been picked up for all types of stuff. But he was given three years at Wall-Kill on a narcotics rap. He did about eighteen months and got paroled about six months ago."
"He was paroled in June?" Dave spoke up from the driver's seat after pulling the Mistmobile into a parking spot.
"That's right."
"That'd be enough time for the Fillmore Fighters to have started on juice to really pump up over the summer." Dave mused as he did mental calculations.
"That works out." Angela said.
"Can you send us a recent picture?"
"Sure can. I'm sending one from his yearbook picture and one from his most recent picture from when he was released." Angela said. "Ok, they've been sent. Do you see them?"
Mindy opened up the image on the iPod and looked at their quarry. His yearbook photo was a cocky looking teenager in a Hawaiian shirt, fedora hat and a smirk. The updated picture showed him looking a lot older –far more than the six years of chronological time that had passed- but still had the cocky smirk and fedora hat. "We've got them. He looks like a real mastermind doesn't he?"
Dave looked over at the picture. "It's like Keyser Soze come to life." He said sarcastically. Jeremiah didn't look that much different than any of the common lowlifes he and Mindy took off the streets on a nightly basis. He suppressed a sigh of disappointment. This case was on track to be wrapped up in one night and would be slam-dunk. "What's listed as his place of employment?" He asked, knowing that staying employed was a regular condition of parole.
"I'm looking at that right now. Let me see...OK, he's working at a carwash. At least that's what his parole report says. Oh, I'm at headquarters now."
"Ok. Let us know when you have the information. Why'd you go to headquarters anyways?" Mindy asked.
"Crosshairs is working on some equipment, and I thought I'd keep him company." Angela replied. (She was careful to never use real names when on the "work" phone. There was always a slim chance their encryption had been broken.
"Gotcha; we're going to see what our favourite hat-wearer knows. Hit-Girl out." Mindy said, disconnecting the call.
In Queens, in a former garage that now served as Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl's headquarters and garage for the Mistmobile (Years earlier, Dave and Mindy had saved the owner's teenage daughters from a mugger who was also known for raping and often killing his victims. Their grateful father, having no use for the building, rented it out to Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl for one dollar a month plus utilities.), Angela swiveled around in her chair and looked at her companion for the evening.
"Mindy said the guy doesn't look too serious."
"They won't need any help?" Crosshairs asked as he looked up from his work.
"It doesn't look like it." The redhead responded. "Sorry Todd. I guess you're stuck here with me."
"That's alright." Todd Haynes, aka Crosshairs, said with shy grin. "Oh, I put some coffee on if you want some."
"You're the best." Angela said with a smile as she turned back to her computer console.
Todd looked at Angela for a few more seconds and smiled to himself as her words repeated in his head. Then, still smiling, he resumed his maintenance work on Dave's Plumett AL-52 grappling hook launcher. He hoped to have his prototype miniaturized version ready by springtime. He cast a glance at Angela again then refocused on his work.
Back in the Bronx, Dave and Mindy were perched on a rooftop overlooking the courtyard on the housing project that Jeremiah lived in. They were keeping an eye on his building, after ascertaining he wasn't home yet. In the courtyard below, a gang of very tough looking locals were playing basketball. Earlier, Dave and Mindy had watched them intimidate some innocent looking younger kids into going home and leaving them the court. Ordinarily Dave and Mindy would have stepped in and taught them a lesson, but Jeremiah was their priority and they couldn't afford to reveal their presence yet.
"I hope he gets home soon." Mindy grumbled. "It's fucking freezing up here."
"It could be worse." Dave said mildly. "It could be raining." Just then, there was a gust of wind that marked the start of snow flurries. Mindy affixed Dave with a glare.
"Oh, you just had to say it, Ass-Kick!" She said with drama.
"Sorry" Dave laughed. He looked and saw, despite the poor lighting atop their perch, snow starting to settle on Mindy's purple wig. One snowflake fell gently and landed right on the tip of Mindy's nose. Dave smiled and reached over to gently lift the snowflake off.
Mindy felt her whole body shudder as Dave gently lifted the snowflake off of her nose. Dave smiled at her goofily –made even more goofy by the fact that all she could see of him was his mouth and eyes beneath his mask. Something broke in her just then. She made a decision. She was going to do it. She was going to grab him, kiss him and tell him how she felt about him. She took a breath to focus herself.
"Dave..." She began…
"Mindy, look!" Dave suddenly said, pointing to the ground. Mindy mentally cursed as the moment had been shattered. She was so close…She sighed and looked down and saw what Dave had noticed.
It was Jacob B. Jeremiah –there was no mistaking him with that fedora- and he was getting out of a car. And it wasn't just any car, but a Mercedes S-600.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Mindy asked as they made their way to where there ropes were fastened.
"You bet. How does a low-level, low-life street dealer end up being driven around in a Mercedes?"
"I'm guessing it's his bosses' car."
"That sounds right to me." Dave said as he fastened himself to his rope while Mindy secured her bo-staff behind her back and then did the same with hers. "And unless he's working at a really successful car wash, I'd bet five bucks it's not whoever he reports to at his day job."
"Yeah, that Benz was way too filthy for that."
"In more ways than one." Dave deadpanned as he stepped off the roof for a rapid descent to the ground along his rope.
"Damn straight." Mindy replied as she followed on her own rope.
Once on the ground, the two crimefighters dashed through the shadows to where Jacob B. Jeremiah was approaching his building entrance. Dave kept an eye on their suspect while Mindy studied the Mercedes Benz. It was black, with tinted windows that prevented her from seeing inside. She did, however, memorize the license plate. This would definitely warrant some investigation afterwards.
The car then pulled away, which was what Dave and Mindy were waiting for. They wanted to take down their quarry quickly and quietly. There was no telling who was in the car and what they were armed with. Although the duo had no worries about their ability to handle any contingency, they didn't want to create a scene outside if they could avoid it.
Jacob B. Jeremiah, a backpack slung over his shoulder, was apparently oblivious to the masked manhunters who were now on his scent. He was chuckling to himself and stroking his pencil thin mustache and soul patch as he walked. Gold chains that were in view from his half-opened leather jacket gleamed in the building's security lights as he walked along. He reached into his pocket and pulled out what appeared to be a switchblade comb. As he removed his fedora to give his –heavily gelled- hair a onceover, he dropped his comb. It fell behind him. Turning around, he caught side of what had become the ultimate bad dream of every criminal who plied their evil trade within New York City: Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl standing behind him.
Jeremiah's eyes went wide with terror. He uttered a curse and took off towards his building. Dave and Mindy broke into a run and took off in pursuit. They'd not planned on a chase. They'd planned to grab their quarry before he even knew they were there. But, as the last four years had taught them, a crimefighter always had to be ready to improvise.
Jacob B. Jeremiah burst through the security door of his building. He tried to slam it shut to that Dave and Mindy would be locked out. But, he quickly realized it was too heavy to move fast and that staying to try and close it guaranteed they would get their hands on him before he could get it shut. He bolted for the stairwell.
Dave and Mindy vaulted up the building steps and crashed through the security door. Mindy saw Jeremiah dashing for the stairwell. Dave put on a burst of speed and broke away from Mindy. They both knew that with Dave's longer legs –that allowed him a far greater stride- he had the best chance of catching Jeremiah.
Jeremiah led Dave up five flights in the stairwells. His breathing was coming in ragged gasps from the exertion. He cast a glance downward and saw –like a bad dream- the green-clad figure of Kick-Ass charging up the stairs at him. His scream was stopped by the fact that he was so exhausted he was close to vomiting. The drug dealer tore through a landing door and bolted for his apartment.
Dave was charging up the stairs, hot on Jeremiah's heels. Despite the hard effort, he wasn't even breathing that hard. He did have to be wary as he took each corner of the stairwell that Jeremiah hadn't stopped to try and draw a gun on him from an upper landing, and that slowed him down slightly. He didn't think it was likely, as the hoodlum would have probably tried to shoot at them before now. But, Dave and Mindy hadn't gotten to where they were by being careless. He could hear his prey's ragged breathing. The guy must not be into jogging, or anything, Dave thought to himself with a smile. Dave was hot on Jeremiah's heels as he burst through the landing door and dashed down the hallway, frantically unlocking his apartment door as Dave was upon him.
Jacob B. Jeremiah frantically ran into his apartment and then slammed the door shut…or tried to. To his dismay, Kick-Ass had gotten there in time and had, almost like the stereotypical door-to-door salesman, stuck his foot in the door, keeping it from being shut and engaging the lock. Dave pushed against the door as hard as he could, but Jeremiah had braced his legs against the narrow hallway wall and was pushing back against him.
For a moment it was a standoff. Ordinarily, Dave could easily have forced his way in as he was far stronger than Jeremiah. However, with his foot in the door to keep it from being locked, Dave couldn't get any leverage to really push; especially with Jeremiah bracing himself against the wall. Jeremiah, on the flip side, despite the fear-induced adrenalin aiding his muscles, simply couldn't push enough on the door to stop Kick-Ass or –as he was hoping- squeeze his foot enough to force him to back out. (Jeremiah was completely ignorant of the fact that Kick-Ass only felt a small fraction of the pain inflicted on him, as well as the fact that he was wearing steel-toed boots that effectively shielded his foot no matter what.) It would be a short-lived standoff as Kick-Ass, Jeremiah then remembered, didn't work alone.
Dave looked down the hallway and saw a purple blur emerge from the stairwell and charge down the hallway. Mindy in action, as always, was a majestic sight. Her purple cape billowing behind her as she ran, her wig fluttering as she moved, and her wondrous blue eyes piercing out from behind her mask. Dave's heart raced as he watched her and admired her beauty.
"Why can't these fucktards ever live on the ground floor?" Mindy sighed as she came to a halt.
"Let's ask him." Dave said in a low growl.
"If there's anything left of him, we can." Mindy said in a voice that was meant for their quarry to hear. "Where is he?"
"He's directly on the other side of this door."
"That's not going to be a problem, Kick-Ass." Mindy yelled out. "Jeremiah!" She called out loudly. "I know you're behind the door! Now, I…" she said as she pulled the blades of her bo-staff apart "Have these two very sharp swords. In three seconds I'm going to drive them through the door. If you happen to still be standing in front of said door...Well, what can I say? The swords are going to go through you as well. Is that scenario I've just described giving you a definitive courses of action to undertake?"
There was a resigned whimper from inside the apartment and Jacob B. Jeremiah stepped out of the way and allowed the two crimefighters in. Dave and Mindy looked around the squalid apartment. They'd seen some pretty nasty looking places in their years of carrying out The Mission. But, this was definitely in the Bottom Five.
Dave grabbed Jeremiah, threw him against the wall and proceeded to do a quick search of him.
"I hear you're dealing again." Dave growled at him.
"Where the fuck did you hear that?" Jeremiah said in a most unwise attempt to be a tough guy. Dave slammed his head into the cheap plaster wall that crumbled slightly under the impact.
"Don't play games with us! This is our city. You so much as sneeze and we know it. You sell drugs to high school students and we're going to know about it and we're going to come for you!" Dave said with a positively animalistic snarl as he pushed Jeremiah's face into the plaster with enough force that his nose was being mashed back and tears were coming to his eyes.
Mindy shivered inwardly as she watched the interrogation. Dave being so…forceful…always turned her on in a big way. She pushed her own thoughts down and undertook a quick search of the apartment. She started with the knapsack Jeremiah had dropped. She unzipped it and stared inside as many faces of Benjamin Franklin stared back up at her. She did an inspection of the money. There stacks were all of hundred dollar bills and a lot of them. By Mindy's estimate there had to be over $250,000 dollars here.
"Well, I guess working at a car-wash pays well if you say you're not dealing again; and in cash too." Mindy said with a smirk. She dug deeper and pulled out a dozen small baggies of what looked like large crystals. Mindy recognized it instantly: methamphetamine. "How fitting that it's starting to snow outside, as you have some Ice in your bag." She said with a feigned tone of sadness. On cue, Dave slammed Jeremiah into the wall again, cracking the plaster more and causing a small cloud of dust to fly out of the wall.
"Not dealing, huh? Do you think we're as stupid as you are? Fuck it, I'm not going to clog up the system with filth like you any longer!" Dave roared at him.
"What?" Jeremiah screamed in fright.
"Haven't you heard? Meth makes you do crazy shit! You're going to overdose on this and try to fly out of your window."
"We're five stories up!"
"That's the idea! It's time you learned a lesson from Sir Isaac Newton. You'll go like that Armenian douche who tried to fly off a building with wings."
"You can't!"
"Oh, we can." Mindy interjected pleasantly as Dave effortlessly hoisted Jeremiah up in the air until his feet were a foot off the floor and began to walk over to the window. "Can you give us any reason why we shouldn't?"
"I'll talk!"
"You've been talking since we got here. But you haven't told us anything we want to know…so far."
"What do you want to know?" Jeremiah pleaded through tears. A wet spot appeared on his pants and yellowish liquid trickled down his pant cuffs. Mindy suppressed an approving smile. Dave had never been able to scare anyone enough that they'd wet themselves before. God, he was turning her on tonight.
"Who're you working for? Who's supplying you?" Dave snarled as she slammed Jeremiah's head –this time, the back of it- into the cheap plaster wall again. From out of the cloud of plaster dust, Jacob Jeremiah choked out an answer.
"I don't know his name." The humbled hoodlum pleaded.
"That's not even original! Start flapping your arms pal, maybe all that hair gel will break your fall and let you bounce!" Dave growled.
"I swear to God!" Jeremiah pleaded. Dave suppressed a smile and –barely- restrained himself from screaming out 'Swear to me!', as he thought that would be overdoing it, plus he knew he could never do that as well as Christian Bale could.
"Who do you report to?" He barked.
"The guy I answer to is called Mike the Mooch!"
"Mike the Mooch? Seriously?" Mindy asked.
"I swear. He has a corner of his own over in Queens!"
"Where in Queens?"
"Over by Citi Field." Jeremiah pleaded. "He's got another one in Brooklyn, in Crown Heights, close to where Ebbets Field was, but he's mainly by Citi Field! I swear to God!"
Dave brought the thug's quivering face close to his own and growled under his breath. "What does this 'Mike the Mooch' look like?"
"He's a big guy; he's a little taller than me but has to weigh three hundred pounds! He's Italian-Samoan! He always wears a New York Mets jacket; he's got a goatee and a mullet!"
"When's he on his corner?"
"He usually starts out there around four in the afternoon!"
"Whose car was that?"
"What car?" Jeremiah squeaked out. For a third time, his head was bashed into the wall and another cloud of plaster dust wafted up.
"The Mercedes that dropped you off here tonight! You didn't think we'd notice it?"
"I don't know who owns it, but the guy who was driving it was telling me that Mike was saying good things about me."
"Is that where you got the money?"
"Yeah, it was to set up production, they said to cover off Manhattan and the Bronx."
"What do you mean?"
"They wanted to set up a lab and get retailers…" Jeremiah was interrupted as Kick-Ass smacked him across the face with his sap glove. He whimpered pathetically and spat blood out of his mouth onto the dirty floor.
"Don't try and pussyfoot around by calling yourself a retailer. You're a pusher! Don't pretend you're not!"
"Alright! They wanted to get pushers working in Manhattan, Harlem and the Bronx." Jeremiah blubbered pathetically.
"Harlem IS in Manhattan, you fucktard." Mindy sighed.
"Where're they pushing their poison now?" Dave growled, ignoring Jeremiah's shaky grasp of New York City's geography.
"They're all working close to the production area: in Brooklyn and Queens. I heard them say a few guys might want to try out on Long Island after New Year's."
"That's where your lab is now: Brooklyn or Queens?"
"Yeah, but I swear to Christ I don't know where!"
Dave turned to look at Mindy. "What do you think, Hit-Girl? What should we do with him?"
"If we throw him the window, he'll crack the pavement and the kids might not be able to play basketball anymore. Ah fuck it, I can't think of anything much worse than Christmas in jail." Mindy said after appearing to ponder the question over. "So, Jacob, here's what you're going to do…." Mindy said as she explained what Jacob B. Jeremiah was to do if he wanted to keep breathing.
A short while later a New York Police Department patrol car cruised smoothly down Nelson Avenue. The two officers in the car made idle chit-chat as they scoped out their patrol area as the 3pm-11pm shift passed quietly. Just then, a man in a leather jacket, gold chains and a fedora hat came running into the road. The officer driving slammed on the brakes and looked over at her partner. Her partner just sighed and shone a light on the man in the road.
"Hey! Officers! I want to give myself up!"
"Can you repeat that please?" The officer from the passenger side of the car asked as he rolled down the window.
"I want you to arrest me! I've been dealing drugs...to schoolkids!" The man cried as he threw some plastic baggies onto the asphault in front of him, knelt down in the middle of the road and put his hands in the air. He looked like he was terrified of something. His mouth was bleeding and his head looked like it was covered in what seemed to be plaster dust.
"I love it when they make it easy for us." The officer behind the wheel said as the two patrol officers got out of the unit. She drew her gun to cover while her partner circled and approached the suspect from behind.
From the shadows of the building, Dave and Mindy watched as Jacob B. Jeremiah, now relieved of cash but still in possession of the methamphetamine was taken into custody by patrol officers from the 44th Precinct.
"Well, I guess he won't be attending his ten-year graduation reunion." Dave said with a satisfied smile on face.
"Probably not, but you can never tell with the parole board." Mindy said sagely. "By the way, you were fucking amazing in there. I've never seen you scare anyone into pissing themselves before."
"Thanks" Dave said sheepishly. He was still amazed at how far he'd come in the years since he and Mindy first became a team. "Hey, didn't you say once that I wasn't cut out to be 'bad cop', when we do 'good cop/bad cop'?"
"Well, a girl can be wrong, you know." Mindy said with a smile. As proud –and aroused- as she was by Dave's sheer ferocious intensity in their interrogation of Jeremiah, she was still a little upset that she'd missed her chance on the rooftop to finally open up her heart to him. Mindy suppressed a sigh, as she figured it just wasn't meant to be.
The duo, now carrying the $250,000 that was to have been start-up funds for another drug lab and distribution chain, began their walk back to where the Mistmobile was parked. Mindy saw that the local tough guys were still dominating the basketball court. She smirked, pulled her iPhone from her belt and dialed in to their headquarters.
"Scarlet-Wiki" Angela answered.
"It's us."
"How'd it go?"
"Purr-fect. Our least favourite Fillmore grad is now in police custody and we have a new lead. And…I think we'll need you and Crosshairs on this one."
"When do you need us?"
"Tomorrow. Are you two still at headquarters?"
"Yes"
"We're about to head back there now. Can you start a check on a license plate for us?"
"Sure can."
"Sweet" Mindy replied as she related the Mercedes' plate details to Angela, aka The Scarlet-Wiki. She was about to end the call when she remembered something…the punks who'd chased those kids from the basketball court. "Oh, one other thing..."
"Yeah?"
"You have contact information for any Justice Forever members working in the Bronx, don't you?"
"I surely do."
"Can you give them a call and ask them to drop by here? There are a bunch of punks on the basketball court where Jeremiah lived who need to be taught some manners."
"I'm on it. Oh, how about The Bronx Bomber and Babe Ruthless?"
"Oh shit, that's sweet. Those two are awesome." Mindy laughed. "Don't you think so?" Mindy said to Dave with a sarcastic chuckle. Dave shrugged his shoulders and waved his hand as if uncertain, as he smiled. Mindy chuckled again. The Bronx Bomber and Babe Ruthless were a boyfriend-girlfriend team that operated out of The Bronx. Their names came from the fact they were both fanatical fans of the New York Yankees. Their costumes were patterned off of classic Yankees livery (basically it was if the Yankees wore body armour and masks when they played) and –surprise, surprise- their favourite crimefighting equipment was baseball bats. The two were actually quite competent though –even if their emotional state varied in late September and into October, depending on how The Pinstripes were faring in the playoff race. Dave well knew they were good at the job, but was torn by the fact that –as a native of Queens- he felt he should be at least somewhat loyal to the New York Mets.
"Ok. I called them and they're on the way. Oh, I told them that the punks all look to be Red Sox and Orioles fans."
"Bra-fucking-vo" Mindy said with a laugh. "That'll get them worked up."
"Crosshairs and I will be waiting for you."
"Awesome. We'll be there as soon as we can." Mindy said as she disconnected the call.
Soon enough, Dave and Mindy were back in the Mistmobile. Dave started the engine and steered them back to the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge. Mindy adjusted the car's heating and rubbed her exposed ears to warm them up.
"Are you cold?"
"A little."
"Want to stop for hot chocolate?"
"I don't think we could go into a Starbucks in costume and keep our bad-ass image."
"You don't?"
"No…But I appreciate the offer." Mindy said as she touched Dave's hand briefly after adjusting the heat controls.
Dave shivered, and not from the cold, as he savoured her touch. He took a breath to calm himself. Then he spoke. "So what do you think our plan would be for tomorrow?"
"Well, we need to find out who's running this."
"Well, once we get that plate traced we should have something. I think we should trace back the distribution chain back. Find where the lab is."
"I totally agree. That's what we're going to start tomorrow. We're going to identify Mike the Mooch and trace him back."
"How do you think we should trace him back?"
"That's where Angela and I come in. I somehow doubt he'll expect a couple girls our age to be a threat."
"They never have before." Dave said with a smile as he recalled past operations. "What'll you two be doing: Scottish shortbread, Irish soda bread or music?"
"I think the Celtic Chicks are going to make their re-appearance."
"Sweet" Dave said. "I'll watch from the street and Todd takes his usual job."
"Sound good." Mindy said with a smile as they drove back over the East River to plan the next day's campaign in their war on crime.
