Chapter Three: Born To Kill
New York City, Sally Jupiter's Apartment, Central Park West, December 1962
I: Laurie
Unlike Liv, Laurie really didn't like the taste of beer.
She took one sip, just to be polite, and passed the can back to her friend.
"I still can't believe you did it with Frankie Bear. He's about seven million times more disgusting than old Popeye! He used to try an' beat on us when we were kids. Hell, at least up till two or three years ago. And he's ugly as hell."
Liv shrugged.
"Men ain't supposedta be pretty. Well, Popeye got so fuckin' upset when he found out I was only 13, yunno? Jesus, my Ma met my Daddy when she was 13. She married him when she was 15. So I figured, what the fuck I'll try somebody around my own age. Bear, he's like, 16, an' he's the only guy I could think of who at least looks like a man. And at least I know him."
"What about Joe Mac? Ya know him, ya've known him since you was seven. He won't do ya dirty like Popeye did. An' he looks pretty grown up, he could pass for 19 or 20. An' ya don't hate him."
"I don't hate Bear. He turned out okay."
"He's a crazy fuckin' asshole!"
"But he's okay. He's one of us, now. But you gotta point about Joe. But Joe and me, we go way back. I don't wanna screw up us bein' friends."
"That's what Joe says."
"He does?"
"Yeah. He told me. He just doesn't wanna say anything, onna count of he thinks you wont wanna be friends no more."
"Awww, that's kinda cute. Maybe I'll hafta give him a real nice Christmas present." Liv leered.
"You gotta one track mind."
There was a knock on the door.
"What?"
"It's me, Paulie."
There was Paulie, sure enough.
Crazy Paulie, and his goofy-looking moustache and his haphazard patches of whiskers and his shaggy looking hair.
"Hiya, Paulie. You're late."
Paulie threw the old knapsack he was carrying onto Laurie's bed, and started rooting around in it for his pyjamas.
Which generally consisted of his briefs and a tee shirt, but since he was staying at Laurie's, he had worn boxers.
"I know. Ma was givin' me alla this shit about I'm too old to sleep over with you guys. Like I'm gonna have a big make out party with a coupla girls who are practically my sisters. You guys see my beard growin' in?"
"Is that what that shit is all over your face?" Laurie asked.
"Yeah. We thought it was a fungus. And you was the fungus among us." Liv joked.
"Yeah, well, you two oughta think about shavin' your legs. 'Specially you, Liv. Ya look like a hairy carrot."
Liv was about to say something when, from downstairs, the low roar of shouting that the two 13 year olds having a sleepover had been ignoring escalated considerably, and was accompanied by the sound of glass breaking.
"You think your Ma needs help?" Liv asked.
"She might." Laurie said.
"Don't worry. It's just my Uncle." Paulie was telling them.
"Well, let's check it out, anyway." Liv decided.
The two trainee superherores, Laurie in a pair of pajama bottoms and a PS 154 Gym tee shirt, and Liv in her underwear, GI-Issue army surplus boxers and an A-line undershirt, in olive drab, crept out into the hallway.
"…goddamn you, Eddie, you lousy, no good son of a bitch! You get the fuck outa here, or I'll cut your goddamn ear off!"
"Fuckin' shit-faced drunk again, huh? I like that! Ya got two kids upstairs you're supposed ta be watchin', an' your fuckin' shit-faced drunk!"
"It's your fault! All you fuckin fault ya…"
They went back into Laurie's bedroom.
"Nothin' special, Paulie. You was right." Liv said.
"Toleja." Paulie replied.
"Jesus, there they go again! I can see why Mom didn't stick with Eddie. Half of what they do is scream at each other. She even fuckin' screams at him over the phone when he's not around. She must like screamin'."
"Naah. It's probably for what they do the other half of the time." Liv cracked.
"LIV!"
"What? Put the TV on. The late movie's going to be on, soon."
The Late Movie was a Western, and not only that, it was a John Wayne movie.
Screaming or no screaming, nothing was going to stop Liv and Laurie from getting some popcorn for the John Wayne movie, and they came crashing down the stairs and into the kitchen.
"Hi Eddie. Ma, you broke something." Laurie said, offhand.
"Hi, Mr. Blake."
Liv looked like she had more to say, but Laurie grabbed her and dragged her across the kitchen.
"Ma, where's the popcorn popper?"
"What?" Sally asked.
She was not, in fact, drunk, just very upset.
"You know, the thing. The goddamn popcorn thing."
"You stay away from that! The last time you two tried to make popcorn, all you made was a mess that I had to clean up. Go back upstairs and I'll bring it to you. Where's Paulie?" Sally told Laurie.
"Upstairs."
"You know, you girls are getting too old for sleepovers with Paulie."
"That's really gross, Ma. Paulie's practically my brother." Laurie told her.
"Yeah. An' Paulie, he ain't my type. I'd rather go for the original." Liv agreed.
She had located a bag of potato chips, and she tucked it under her arm.
"Liv, what the fuck are you wearing?" Eddie asked.
"Liv! You shouldn't be parading around in front of Eddie in your underwear!" Sally told her.
"Relax, mom. Her underwear is pretty much what we wear at school in gym class."
"That's your underwear?" Eddie snorted in disbelief.
"Yup." Liv replied, tearing open the chips.
"It looks more like GI Joe's fuckin' underwear. Why are youse wearin' men's army underwear?" he asked.
Liv shoved a handful of chips into her mouth and chewed, thoughtfully.
"I'm gonna be a mask, right?"
"Yeah."
"Well, if I get shot, an' they take me to the goddamn hospital, an' I'm all unconscious, an' shit, an' they gotta cut my costume offa me, if I got all this girly goddamn underwear on, who's gonna take me seriously?"
"What the fuck is that supposta mean?"
Laurie grabbed her by the arm.
"Don't listen to her, Eddie. She's crazy. Come on, Liv. We'll miss the movie."
"G'night, Mr. Blake." Liv yelled as Laurie dragged her upstairs.
"Sal, is it just me, or is that kid startin' ta act funny?"
"Who, Liv? Funny ain't the word. She's discovered beer and boys. Nice habits to go with cigarettes an' fights. I'm glad Laurie's not crazy like that. How does this crazy machine fucking work?"
"I'll do it."
"Then you'll leave?"
"Maybe."
II: Sally
On the short list of bad days, Sally had a doozy.
Whereas Laurie was sort of easing into puberty, normally, being a teenager had hit Liv Napier like a Mack truck, and when she came around, she had started shaping up to be one of those Peck's bad boy kind of kids who spent their free time in search of another smoke, another beer, a feel or two, and a fight with anyone who looked at them funny.
Except she was a girl.
However, other than the fact that she chased boys, she didn't act much like one.
Laurie frequently rolled her eyes and said that Liv was "kinda crazy" and she wasn't going her friend's way, but Sally still worried about her.
She worried about Liv, too.
After all, she didn't have a mother, and Sally was training her.
Then, on this of all mornings, over an early lunch, Hollis blurted out some disturbing information that he learned about Popeye MacTavish.
Popeye, who had been in the Navy for about a hundred years, was a short, burly ginger tough-guy who had had tattoos on his bulgy forearms and had been in the Navy for 20 years before he ran a crooked pawn shop on Fulton street over in East New York, Liv's old neighbourhood in Brooklyn.
He was one of the most hated men in Brooklyn, and Hollis wasn't too fond of him. The cops had been trying to get Popeye for years, unsuccessfully, and even though Hollis had retired from being a cop and a mask, he kept tabs on Popeye.
Sometimes Popeye he took merchandise he didn't know if it was hot or not, sometimes he sold people's goods before their ticket expired and he never paid what an item was worth. In addition, and he sold cases of beer out the back to teenagers.
Well, Popeye, who was a year older than Sally, he'd had a pretty good thing going on with a little Irish girl about 17, built like a brick shithouse, a pretty little overgrown tomboy who looked like a naughty pixie in Levis or coveralls who came to him to buy a case of beer every week.
Then, he found out that the girl in question was precocious and an early bloomer, and that not only was she only 13, but that he had popped her cherry for her.
Popeye was distraught.
She drove her own car, which meant she had to be at least 16, and she didn't come on like a little girl, and when he'd first done the dirty deed to her, in the back of her 1933 Ford V-8 that she'd bragged she built up from junk, there was no bleeding and no screaming.
How was he to know she was just a kid?
Then, when he found out who her father was, he went to see his mechanic, Hollis Mason, who used to be a cop, hat in hand.
He would stop selling booze to minors, he was done, this had cured him. And from now on he would run his pawn shop like a priest ran his church. How did he know the girl was only 13? She drove a car, she had a license, not a permit, and there was a grease stain over the year, but Liv was a real grease monkey. She never said she was 13, she had tits out to here, for Christ's sake, she kept a knife in her pocket and wore a gun strapped to her ankle and swore like a sailor, and she said she went to FDR High and was graduating in a year or so.
That didn't add up to 13, what if her father wanted to haul him before a judge for statutory rape?
What should he do?
Did he need a lawyer?
He would never touch her again, he'd go straight, straight as an arrow, his right hand to God.
Did her stepfather even know what she was up to?
Somebody should tell him.
The girl didn't even seem to understand why Popeye wouldn't let her come around, anymore.
Now, Hollis had told Popeye MacTavish that was what he got for running a shady business, and exacted a promised from him that from now on he'd toe the line, and said he knew the girl's people, he'd take care of it.
Hollis told Sally.
He wasn't willing to buy Popeye's "Oh, Poor Me" bit, but at least he could keep him honest, from now on.
Did Hollis think it was up to her to keep Liv honest?
Maybe he figured she'd supply Popeye with a little reinforcement.
Maybe the bastard didn't know, but he never cared enough to find out, and Sally slipped on her costume, and paid him a little visit and bounced Mr. Tough Guy around the walls of his pawn shop a little.
She left him dazed and bloody, and reminded him that if he put his toe over the line, if she heard he was taking hot property, or selling booze to kids, or chasing around with Liv anymore, she'd be back, and this time she'd bring an old friend of hers with her.
An old friend who had plenty of reasons to hate dirty old men who were two-bit criminals.
The Comedian.
Sally took Laurie aside, and Laurie admitted knowing about Liv and Popeye MacTavish, and that Paulie knew too, but they weren't about to squeal on her, and what were they supposed to do?
Hollis and Sally finally decided to wait until after the upcoming holidays, and then they would go, together, and tell Bruce what his stepdaughter was up to on weekends when she probably told her overworked stepfather that she was with Laurie or Paulie.
Sally felt terrible about it.
Liv was going about as wrong as wrong could go, and, maybe it was just teenage high spirits, but if it was any indication of how things were going to be, then they were in for a bumpy five years.
Worse, Liv Napier was Laurie's best friend, to whom she was fiercely loyal.
Thinking about Laurie, going the way Liv was, the way, quite admittedly, that Sally had when she was a teenager made Sally sick.
She had started running around with boys and drinking at 13, and at 15, she was lying about her age and working as a burlesque dancer in a club on 42nd Street.
Not to mention that , in all the commotion about Popeye MacTavish's revelation, Hollis forgot what today was.
Today was the anniversary of the worst day of her life.
That night in the trophy room.
23 years had passed, and it remained fresh in Sally's mind.
Sometimes, during those times she and Eddie were on again, she'd be lying there in bed with him, at night, and dream about it.
Was irony even the word for waking up screaming in a cold sweat, and looking for comfort in the arms of the man who had made your nightmare?
It made her feel a little better to think that she had fallen in love with Eddie, the good Eddie, the one who raised his family and put on a mask to get evil pricks like his late father off the street before that night, and that she had eventually forgiven him, because she still loved him.
They had Laurie between them, and even now, Eddie never poked into her business or chided her for her drinking and her cursing and the kind of men she ran around with; the son of a bitch loved her the way she was.
Most of the time, that was how she had it in her mind.
That was how she could justify calling him up after a few months went by, letting him come around, again, maybe once a week, twice, until they got into another fight and she quit speaking to him or he quit speaking to her for another couple of months.
But not tonight.
Tonight all she could remember was the fear and the blood and the pain, and that wild look in Eddie's eyes and how frightfully sick it all was.
Laurie, of course, had no idea about any of it; to her it was just another Saturday, and one close to Christmas, and she didn't think anything of asking Sally if Liv could stay over.
Now, Popeye MacTavish was the original drunken sailor, and a crooked businessman, but he wasn't an evil man, and he had likely treated his teenage tomboy girl well enough before he gave her the horrified heave-ho.
He certainly hadn't done anything to harm her, Popeye wasn't the type.
But, unless Sally was imagining Liv making eyes at "Mr. Blake" and she had decided, already that he was the kind of guy she liked, God only knew what kind of trouble she could get into with that kind of man, so she jumped at the chance to have Liv where she could watch her.
The girls would be in Laurie's room most of the night, watching TV and listening to records and all the usual teenage girl things, leaving Sally alone with her misery.
She bought them a pizza and a six-pack of Coke, and settled into a long evening with her misery and a bottle of whiskey.
Somewhere around 11:30, when she had drank more of it that she'd hoped she would, the son of a bitch dared to show up.
III: Eddie
One thing about Edie, she never minced words.
"Paulie, go sit in the car."
"Who's car?"
"Then just go outside and wait."
Paulie looked from his mother to his uncle, and quietly doded out the kitchen door.
Edie waited till she heard it slam.
"Listen, Eddie, are you outa your fuckin' mind? Tonight, you wanna go see Sally, when you ain't seen her since right after the kids went back to school? Tonight, of all fuckin' nights? Wouldja like to die?"
"What? Somebody's gotta take Paulie. An' why shouldn't I? Why should me an' Sally hafta suffer?"
"Because you fucked up, Eddie! Because you did a real bad thing, and this is the anniversary of it, that's why."
"All the more reason I should go."
Eddie drove Paulie over to Sal's place
She wasn't mean with the kid, she just reminded him that he was getting too old for sleepovers with Liv and Laurie.
Paulie looked incredibly disgusted.
"Geez, Miz Jupiter, I wouldn't do somethin' like that. An' Liv, well, they're both, yunno, like sisters to me. I don't think of them as, yunno, like girls."
He made a quick exit, his face with its patchy whiskers beet red.
Sally waited until the door shut, upstairs.
She got up and slapped Eddie right in the face.
"You gotta lotta nerve, showin' up here, tonight, ya no-good shanty Irish sunnuvabitch! Get the fuck outa my house!"
That was actually a better reception than Eddie expected.
"C'mon, Sal. Don't beat yourself up about this. It was my fuckin' fault. I was a mean, rotten, evil little son of a bitch, an' I did a lousy fuckin' thing to ya."
"I know that, Eddie! I fucking know that! Why do you think I'm sitting here with this bottle of whiskey! Ya know somethin'? I really liked you. I mighta been in love with you. Even then. We coulda had a nice life, Eddie. Maybe not the most conventional life, I'm sure there woulda been a lot of drinkin; and screwin' around, on both our parts, and we might not have ever got around to gettin' married, but we still coulda had a nice life. You coulda been Laurie's father, insteada playin' at it a couple times a week a few months outa the year. But you fucked it all up. Fucked up my life. And yours. And hers!"
Now that was way the fuck out of line.
"Don't start that shit with me, Sal! You're the one who decided Laurie shouldn't know who her own father was, an' I went along with it. I raised four kids before I was thirty, an' I've had a hand in raisin' Paulie an' Pat, an' I never did nothin' ta hurt any of 'em? Ya think I woulda been any different with my own daughter? That's all your fault, not mine!" Eddie yelled back.
Sally hit the roof, she threw the bottle on the ground.
"What? You motherfucker, you're gonna talk to me like that? Tonight? Goddamn you, Eddie, you lousy, no good son of a bitch! You get the fuck outa here, or I'll cut your goddamn ear off!"
"Fuckin' shit-faced drunk again, huh? I like that! Ya got two, no, three kids upstairs you're supposedta be watchin', an' your fuckin' shit-faced drunk!"
"It's your fault! All you fuckin fault ya lousy rotten bastard!"
That, of course was when the girls came into the kitchen, and Eddie was temporarily distracted by the odd fact that Jack's kid was wearing men's military underwear.
And when he tried to talk to her about it, his kid dragged her away.
"Sal, is it just me, or is that kid startin' ta act funny?"
"Who, Liv? Funny ain't the word. She's discovered beer and boys. Nice habits to go with cigarettes an' fights. I'm glad Laurie's not crazy like that. How does this crazy machine fucking work?"
"I'll do it."
"Then you'll leave?"
"Maybe."
"Jesus, Sal, anything to do with cookin' and your're lost. The oil goes in here, an' the popcorn goes in here, and then it comes outa the slot and goes in the bowl. You sure she ain't? Because I know Laurie's welded to Jack's kid. You couldn't break 'em up."
"Don't worry about that, Eddie, I'm keeping my eye on Laurie. I try to keep my eye on both of them. Especially Liv. She's got her eye on you, and when she goes out looking for company, it's not boys she's looking for. It's a big bad man, just like her Mr. Blake."
"You're crazy, Sal. She's just a kid."
"Well, she's already runnin' with men. Not boys. Men. How old were you when you got started? I was 13."
"So was I. But I didn't start with broads old enough to be my mother. You're imaginin' things."
"Eddie, I know the way I look at you. And Liv looks at you the same way."
Eddie just laughed.
"Awww, she's just a kid. It's one of those teenage girl things. She'll meet some guy at school who likes cars as much as she does, or who's a real brain, an' she'll forget all about me. Hell, the kid still calls me Mr. Blake."
He handed her the bowl of popcorn.
And she was crying.
Women.
Sally pushed past him, took the popcorn upstairs and came back down.
"It was right around now, Eddie. Twenty-three years ago. Why? Really. Whydja do it?"
"Ya really wanna know? Because, it ain't pretty."
Sally sat down at the kitchen table.
Eddie sat with her.
"Ya know Sal, I never met a doll like you, before. I mean, I had a lotta women, but I never really gave a fuck for any of 'em. I mean I liked 'em well enough, but I could take a broad or leave her. An' love, I didn't know shit about that. I knew that no matter what Pop did to Ma, or us, and how much she hated herself for it, she never could manage to quit bein' glad ta see him. It took me a long time ta realise that was it, that I was in love with youse. An' it drove me crazy. I'd see some guy lookin' at youse, an I wanted ta kill him. Some low-life you was fightin', he blacked your eye or somethin', an I went inna jail after him, and smashed his head against the wall of the holdin' cell until his brains started squirtin' out his ears. I can't explain it, every day I'd get up in a crazy fuckin' rage, but horny as a junkyard dog under a full moon. I couldn't get ta sleep at night unless I hurt somebody, or fucked some broad, and then I'd get a few hours an' it would be at me, again. Then, at the party, when that Nazi faggot bastard draped himself all over you, I almost killed him. I was thinking about tearin' his fuckin' throat out with my teeth, like a goddamn animal. And you was always so nice ta me, an' when ya went inna trophy room, an' said about changin', I thought that was my green light. Ya really did just about have "no" through my head when ya hit me. An' when I tasted my blood in my mouth, that was it. I switched stations. I wasn't beatin' youse to soften you up so I could fuck you, I was beatin' youse to beat you. An' when you was on the ground, I switched back again. I thought I'd make it up to ya. I thought maybe ya wouldn't be so mad, after all it wasn't like I just beat ya up. I thought I could explain. That's the way it worked at home. Yeah, well, twenty-three years ago tonight, I figured out that shit don't work that way."
Eddie wondered if Sal felt as horrified as she looked.
"Wait a minute. Eddie, are you tryin' to tell me that you went into some crazy homicidal rage because I was trying to resist your attempt at rape, and then when ya beat me to the ground an' my ass was showin', ya figured you'd make it up to me by fuckin' me instead off killin' me, an you was surprised I counted it all as a rape attempt? You figured atht f you quit beatin' me an' fucked me, instead, that would make it all OK, and I'd feel better? How the fuck did you hatch that shit?"
Eddie put out his cigar, and ran his hand through his hair in a fist.
His face twisted up as he choked out his reply.
"Sal, my father threw my oldest brother, Paul, down the steps and left him there to die so it would look more like an accident and less like murder. He'd beat Ma up' in front of alla us, and when she was lyin' there, bleedin' an' cryin'. He'd get all sorry an' tell us all t get the hell out, an; then he'd fuck her. Like that made it up to her. You'd hear her, sayin' his name. She was prob'ly just glad he wasn't hurtin' her, anymore. Hell, if he felt like it, he'd take Edie into the bedroom with him, talk to her nice and tell her she was his special girl, an' Edie told me that it was worse on her because he didn't beat her up an' get rough with her, he'd try to make her like it. Hell, after he was in jail long enough, when he came home, he'd yell for Paul to go get the Vaseline, and the day Paul refused, Pop killed him. Threw him down the stairs and left him to die. Called us all over an' pointed his finger and Paul lyin' there. And he tells us that he made us and he'll do what he wants with us, and if we give him trouble that's what'll happen. Me, after that, when told me to go get the Vaseline, I went. What the fuck did I know about love?"
He wished he hadn't told her any of it, because it made him want to cry on one hand, and on the other, it made him incredibly fucking angry.
Sally grabbed his hand.
"Oh Jesus, Eddie! Jesus, I'm sorry!" she blurted out.
"I'm sorry, too, Sal. At least I figured it out, right?"
The funny thing was, as long as he didn't talk about it, or even think about it, too much, it didn't bother him a lot, what the old man had done to him. Killing the evil son of a bitch had gone a long way towards that.
But, talking about it, that was bad.
He never had talked about it to anybody but Edie, and he wasn't sure what he was going to do, next.
Maybe Sally thought he was going to cry, because she was on the other side of the table, hugging him, and Eddie was quiet and still a long time, with his head in his hands, trying to stuff those memories back into whatever hole he had them in, before, and regain his composure.
Until he was himself again.
"Shit. I'm gonna go check on Paulie. He knows Laurie's his blood, but Liv ain't." he announced.
He didn't really look at Sal as he got up; he was afraid that if he did that, he'd start to cry/
Eddie stomped up the stairs, and he didn't knock on Laurie's bedroom door, he just opened it.
She was lying in her bed, and Liv and Paulie were lying on sleeping bags on the floor.
John Wayne was on TV and they were glued to the screen.
It made him feel better.
His daughter, his nephew, and their friend, Merrie and Jack's kid, watching the TV, just having a regular night in their lives that had been untroubled by poverty, violence, and rape.
They didn't know how hard that the adults in their lives had to work to make it so.
"You kids behavin' yourselves?" he asked.
"Hey, Paulie, get your finger outa my pussy, your Uncle's checkin' up on us." Liv cracked.
"That ain't my finger."
"It ain't? Boy, are you in a world of shit!"
"Whaddya want? I'm only 13."
"Yeah, yeah, you kids are real fuckin' funny. Liv, put yer sleepin' bag up on the bed with Laurie."
"But she's a girl!" Liv protested.
"That's the idea."
"But Uncle Eddie, I won't touch her."
"I ain't worried about you, Paulie. It's so Liv don't get any ideas."
He shut the door, stood there for a minute and lit a cigar.
He smoked half of it before he decided to go downstairs and say goodbye to Sal, but as he passed her bedroom door, she opened it.
"Eddie?"
"It's alright, Sal. I'm alright."
"It's midnight, Eddie. That day's over."
"Look, Sal, I'm tellin' ya, I don't feel so good."
"So? Neither do I."
Long Island Expressway , New York, Summer 1963
I: Laurie
The minute Liv suggested it, Laurie knew it was a bad idea, but, she almost felt like she had to go with her, because God only knew what would happen to her if she went alone.
Good old Liv, she might be a stone cold genius, but she was stone cold crazy, too.
Although, Laurie had to admit, she did a really good job on the old Ford V-8.
Only a month ago, it was a broken down rusty old wreck that she got from the junkyard for $25 bucks, and another $25 for parts, and now, Jesus, it looked like it was all ready for Bonnie and Clyde to rob a bank in.
Liv had said she wanted to take a little ride, just around the area, not on any of the main roads or anything.
She was allowed to do that.
Liv had got special permission to get her learner's permit a year early, through good old Uncle Hollis at the police department.
It had been pretty embarrassing, a superhero-in-training getting picked up, repeatedly, for driving without a licence.
What she wasn't allowed to do was drive on any major roads.
Technically, she wasn't allowed to drive without anybody over the age of 18 in the car, but cops didn't worry too much about some crazy rich kid driving around Long Island in her crazy rich stepfather's exclusive neighbourhood.
But, here they were, speeding down the Long Island Expressway like they were Bonnie and Clyde, with Liv behind the wheel, a can of Newcastle Brown tucked between her legs, five of its friends on the back seat, and a cigarette in her mouth.
That, the cops would definitely frown on.
But Liv, she acted like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Like being in a movie.
Laurie laughed to herself.
"What?"
"Calling all cars! Calling all cars! Be on the lookout for two juvenile females in a 1933 Ford V-8 Sedan. Napier, Trivelino J. Age, 14. Weight, 125 pounds. Height, 4 feet, 11 inches. Juspeczyk , Laurel Jane. Age 14. Weight 115 pounds. Height, 5 feet, 5 inches. Calling all cars."
Liv got into it.
"They have just robbed the First Federal Bank of Manhattan. These girls are armed, and to be considered extremely dangerous. Calling all cars. Calling all cars."
They both began to imitate police sirens, and then, Laurie heard them, for real.
"Oh shit! Fuck! What are we going to do?"
Liv just laughed, and lit another cigarette.
"Cheese it! The cops! Ya doity flatfoots!" she laughed, and put her foot right in the tank.
They zoomed ahead, and the cop car seemed to disappear.
"What the fuck are you doing? We're gonna get arrested!"
"No we ain't. Fuck them fuckin' cops. Relax, I got it covered. My father's a supervillain. I know all about outsmarting the fuzz."
Liv finished her beer, and handed Laurie the can.
"Stash this. And the rest of the six pack. Under the seat. An' lemme have that Listerine in the glove compartment."
Liv washed out her mouth, spit out the window, pulled over, popped in a stick of Doublemint, got out of the car, and popped the hood.
The police car soon pulled up.
Your standard middle aged, square-headed Irish cop got out, adjusting his belt and his belly.
"Holy Kee-rist! How old are you, miss?"
Laurie put on her best, Who, Me? I'm Just A Little Girl smile.
"I'm 14. So's my friend. But she's got a special early learner's permit. Really, officer." Laurie answered.
"Uh huh. Sure she does. You stay right there, missy. Okay, you, under the hood…where did ya go?"
"I'm under the car, officer."
"What are ya doin' under there?"
"Checkin' the brakes. I saw youse back there, officer, honest to God I did, but I put my foot on the brake and nothin' happened. I never made a mistake like that before."
Liv came out from under the car, and Laurie could see the big Mick cop's heart melting.
When he looked at her, he saw a sunny little Irish girl, with two long red pigtails and a thousand watt smile, cracking her gum with a Peck's bad boy smudge of motor oil on her cheek.
Probably looked like one of his own kids.
He didn't know Liv better, so she had him.
"Lemme explain. Cars are my thing. Anything mechanical, really. An' I built this car up from a wreck. It's my first one. I was just…here's my permit…testin' it out and, jeez, I put brand new brakes on this thing. I guess I'll hafta do s'more work on it. I'm real sorry, officer."
The cop was looking at her permit.
"Young lady, where's your father?"
"He's at Arkham."
"So he's a doctor?"
"No, he's the Joker. And my stepfather, Bruce Wayne, he's at work. And if he finds out I took this car on the road, he'll kill me. Please, officer. I'll never do it again. I promise. Just let me go home. Please."
The cop slid his hat back on his head.
So this was Bruce Wayne's red-headed stepchild.
Literally.
She didn't seem like the bad seed to him, she was a nice, sunny little Irish girl.
"Let me see those brakes."
He got under the car.
"Good God, no wonder you couldn't slow down!"
Laboriously, the cop crawled out.
"The brake line's cut! You must have gone over some glass. That's why this permit says that you can't be in a car without an adult, or on main roads, Miss Napier. You and your girlfriend might have been killed! How did you stop?"
"Parking break. And all that gravel."
"Well, I can't just leave you girls here, on the side of the road! Anything might happen to you! What about you, miss? Is your father available?"
Laurie thought fast.
Who can we call that's over 18, would pass for my father, and just might not rat us out?
Eddie.
Her mother hadn't spoken to Eddie in three months, but she never had any beef with him, and he was her best friend's uncle, and she secretly went with him and Paulie at Pat and Liv to the drive-in every weekend, and he was around a lot when he was around, so she figured she could trust him.
It was a long shot, but he was their only chance.
"Uhhhh…yeah. Yeah, sure. He's at work, too, but I can call him."
Liv gave her an incredulous look.
"You know, Liv. My father. Eddie."
"Took you long enough." Liv snorted.
Laurie wasn't paying attention
"Alright, then, girls, I'll take you to a pay phone."
"What about my car, officer?" Liv protested.
"I'll have my partner wait with it."
II: Eddie
Edward Morgan Blake, Level 10 S.H.I.E.L.D agent and Director of Covert Operations, was sitting behind his desk at his office at HQ, downtown, a rare thing, poring over a map of Cuba, having wonderful awful ideas, and chewing on the end of a cigar when his phone rang.
"What?"
"Is he there?"
"Shut up, Liv! Eddie? Izzat you?"
Laurie.
And Liv Napier.
It had to be trouble.
"Yeah. It's me. What the fuck did you do?"
"Me? Nothin'! Nothin' at all! I been callin' you all around town. Look, Eddie, Jesus, ya gotta believe me. I just went for a ride with Liv in her car. Around the neighbourhood. Her neighbourhood out on Long Island. In the old Ford V-8 that she put back together. Anyways, somehow we ended up on the expressway. And this cop stopped us. Liv convinced him we were goin' real fast because the brakes were fucked up, but he won't let us go and she hadda cut the break line, you know, unless somebody's father showed up. If we call Mr. Wayne, he'll kill Liv, and he'll tell Ma and she'll kill me and all we were doin' was drivin'. We didn't hurt anybody. We was just drivin'! Can you pretend to be my father and come and get us? I mean, I know you ain't been around for like three months and all and, but we're in a lotta trouble an', I mean I don't really have a father, an…"
"An' all you got is me? Yeah, well, that's plenty. Okay Lar, I get it. Where are you?"
"You're comin'? Really? Liv! Eddie's comin'."
Liv grabbed the phone.
"Aw fuck, really? Hey, thanks Mr. Blake. I owe ya one. Jesus."
"Yeah, yeah. Don't get smart with the cop. Act like a cute little girl, and say please and thank you. Now, where are you?"
"You know that diner off the Long Island Expressway, right before ya get to the exit that takes youse to the city? That's where we are."
"I'll be there."
***
Eddie took charge when he arrived, giving the two girls a five dollar bill and sending them into the diner to get something to eat.
The cop was trying not to act like he was thunderstruck at meeting Col. Edward M. Blake, USMC, Special Forces, S.H.I.E.L.D director of something important, in person, but he was.
Still, procedure was procedure.
"And you're her father? She's Miss Blake?"
"Nah. Juspeczyk."
"Jus-what? Canya spell that?"
"Look, ya don't need ta write it down! Her mother and me ain't married, alright? We never was, get the picture? But that's my kid, alright. Whaddya want, a blood test? Look at her. Who's she look like? Your milkman?"
"I can see the resemblance, Mr. Director."
"Yeah, well, look, mac, we're on the same side of the law, you and me, right? And my grandfather, Lieutenant Edward Morgan, you hearda him, aintcha? He was a good cop. My brother, Mickey Blake, he's a cop in Brooklyn. He's a good cop, too. And me, I'm a fuckin' public servant too, ain't I? Canya keep this quiet?"
The cop just nodded.
"You mean nobody knows that's your kid?"
"She don't even know I'm her father."
"What? Why the hell not? Why'd she call you?"
"Well, I'm still the closest thing to a father she's got. It's her mother. You know how women are. Ya do one thing to piss 'em off an' they make youse pay the rest of your life."
The cop nodded.
"They never do forget, do they? Whatever you say, Mr. Director. I'll keep this on the QT. But I'm going to have to notify Mr. Wayne. You know, that stepdaughter of his, she gets into a lot of trouble around here. Not big trouble. Just kid stuff. I know they say smart kids are always trouble, but this girl? I don't envy Mr. Wayne. No matter how much dough he's got."
"Liv Napier is trouble. She can't help it, she was born that way. She's just a kid, she'll grow out of it. Look, I'll wait with them for the wrecker. You go ahead, get your partner, and we'll forget the whole thing."
Shortly after the cop car left, the girls came out of the diner.
Eddie packed them into his car and drove back to their car.
The black and white was gone.
The three of them sat there for a few minutes, and then Liv got out, went to her car, and came back with a beer.
Eddie did a double take.
"What the fuck are you doin'?"
"I'm havin' a beer? Ya want one, Mr. Blake?"
"Yeah!"
He took the can from her.
"Hey! What the fuck!"
"Watch that mouth! If you was mine, I'd slap those words right outa your mouth! You ain't old enough to drink, kid! Jesus! Drinkin'. Speedin'. Lyin' to cops. Walkin' around with a black eye. You always got a black eye, or a split lip, or two fingers taped together. Always fightin'!"
"Yeah? So?"
"Whaddya mean, yeah, so?! I ain't even gonna ask ya what that is on your jeans. I know what that is. Didn't anybody ever tell you that teenage boys are supposed to run around fightin' an' gettin' laid and fuckin' around with cars and drinkin'? You're only 14. Slow the fuck down a little, huh?"
"So what? I'm gonna be a mask, I ain't Betty Crocker. Fuckin' sue me! You ain't my father, what the fuck do you care?"
Eddie surprised both of them by giving her a light, sharp slap on the mouth.
"You watch your mouth, kid! Go sit your ass in that car, and button your lip, or I'll turn you over my fuckin' knee an' make it real hard for ya to sit down for awahile!" he barked.
Liv got in her car and closed the door.
Laurie got out of the back of Eddie's car, and got in the front.
"Holy shit, Eddie, she listened to you!"
"I can see that, Lar. This kinda shit go on a lot?"
"Awwww, don't mind her, Eddie. She's just a little drunk. It's the weekend, yunno. She always gets crazy on weekends."
"I can see that! Jesus Christ. I'd hate to be Wayne. It's only gonna get worse. You see your friend Liv, Laurie? She may be a smart girl, and I'll bet she's gonna be a helluva mask, but everything she does? That's everything you don't wanna do. She could just as easily end up dead, fuckin' wild and nuts as she is."
Laurie chewed her lip.
She had to tell somebody, it was driving her crazy.
And Eddie, he wasn't about to spill it.
"You think you can keep a secret, Eddie?"
"Sure."
"I know all about not bein' like Liv! I mean, I'm no angel, but, Eddie, you wouldn't believe the things she does. I don't believe the things she does. We're still friends, me and Paulie and Liv, and Joe Mac, an' Skinny an' Big Benny, but when she goes out lookin' for trouble, we wait till she comes back. Me, I get the worst of it. Weekends, when there's no school, they're the worst. You know on Friday and Saturday nights I sleep on the couch? So I can here if she comes to the back door in the middle of the night. Drunk. Blood all over her clothes. Smellin' like beer an' cigars an' cheap aftershave. Sometimes all three. She'll show up that way at Paulie's, too. Worse, sometimes. Worse. I mean, Jesus, I'd never get into the kind of crazy shit Liv gets mixed up with. I wish they'd let her be a mask before she was 16, it would give her something good ta do."
"That's good. Because if I ever caught you drunk and beat up with some guy's load all over your pants, I'd slap your face bloody and send youse off to school with fuckin' nuns. I never seriously raised my hand to a kid before, but if you started with that shit, I'd slap it right outa youse."
Laurie gave him a funny look.
"What's it to you?"
"You got a father, kid?"
"I guess so. He's dead, though, Ma says. I never met him."
Sally told the kid Hooded Justice was her father?
That Nazi faggot sick fuck who got his jollies beating Eddie up?
He crushed the empty beer can angrily in his hand.
"That's right. You ain't even got an Uncle! Hell, I'm the closest thing you got, an' if I told your mother about this, guess where you'd go?"
The wrecker still wasn't there, but, out of a cloud of highway dust, a blue-grey Aston Martin appeared, and it seemed even before it ground to a halt, Bruce Wayne hurtled out.
"Trivelino J. Napier!" he roared.
"Can't put one over on Batman. Poor Liv. She's screwed." Laurie said.
"I feel sorry for that guy. I'm glad Crazy Jack's kid ain't my responsibility." Eddie mused.
Liv got out of her car.
"Hi, Pop." She said, airily.
Real Jimmy Cagney.
"Jee-ziz Christ, Eddie! Lookit her! If that was me, I'd be shi-crappin' my pants, an beggin' for mercy. Not Liv. She's got balls. Big brass ones." Laurie commented.
Wayne was furious, he grabbed her by the arm, and hauled her over to his car.
"Don't you 'Hi , Pop' me! Look at you! Where the hell have you been all weekend? Where do I have to goddamn go looking for you? The Bowery? The South Bronx? Look at you! You're drunk, and you've been fighting! What do I have to do? Put bars on your windows? Tie you to the bed?"
"What? What did I do?"
"What did you do? What did you do!!!!."
He shoved her in, and slammed the door.
"Hey, Eddie, can we go?"
"Yeah, sure, Lar. This is between the kid and the Bat."
***
Laurie said something about meeting Paulie at Grossmann's, so Eddie dropped her off there, and drove to Sally's place in pretty much a white-hot fury.
He didn't so much come in as break in, and Sally didn't get a chance to say a word before he laid into her.
"What the fuck kinda mother are you anyhow? What the fuck kinda woman? What the fuck are you teachin' these girls? Ya know what I did, today? Our kid called me at work, that crazy Liv Napier almost got them both killed or arrested on the fuckin' Long Island Expressway! Don't you pay no fuckin' attention where she goes? Or who she goes with! And, as for Jack's kid, she's got no Ma! You know as well as I do what happened to Merrie Napier! So what have youse been teachin' her'? You givin' her lousy fuckin' whore lessons? You gonna have both of 'em showin' their tits on stage an' suckin' guys' cocks for tips in the back room of some dive on 42nd Street, like you did, when you was their age? Jesus Christ!" he screamed.
One thing about Sal, there were no flies on her when it came to a fight.
"What the fuck gives you the right, ya shanty Mick cocksucker! When I was their age it was the God damn Depression, remember? My family needed money, an' I made a lot of it in that joint over on 42nd street! And I wasn't no whore, I never turned a trick , not once! Not fuckin' once, ya lousy cheap prick! Didn't I toss you outa this place three months ago? I got nothin' to say about Liv Napier, an' you got nothin' to say about Laurie, an' I'm trainin' them to be masks! I know about Liv! I know what she's like! What am I gonna do about it? What do you care?"
Furious, Eddie picked up a glass from the sink and threw it against the wall.
"I got a fuckin' lot to say about Laurie! GODDAMNIT, I'M HER FATHER!"
"Well she doesn't get into trouble with Liv! You try and make her desert her best friend! Or do anything else she doesn't want to. I know you're her father! I fuckin' live with her!"
"Desert? YOU DUMB WHORE, WHY DONTCHA TRY TO HELP THE KID! SHE'S GOT NO MOTHER! AND ALL LAURIE'S GOT FOR A MOTHER IS YOU! NO FUCKIN' WONDER! It's only because I am her father and I'm around here every once in a blue moon that Laurie ain't a dumb whore like you are!"
Sally had enough.
She reached her fist back across the Brooklyn Bridge, and slammed it towards Eddie's face.
He caught her fist in his hand.
Anybody else, anybody, man, woman, or child, he would have broken their arm and pulped their face, but he stopped himself from hurting her.
He threw her hand down, turned around and walked toward the door.
"Aww, fuck it! Fuck you! But lemme tell you this, Sal. Whether ya like it or not, whether ya like me or not, that's my kid! And if she starts goin' astray, I'm gonna get a judge to order a fuckin' blood test, and drag your ass into court, an' then we'll just fuckin' see who has no business with my kid!"
"Eddie, wait! Eddie!"
Eddie turned around, and saw Sally had tears in her eyes.
"Oh Christ, Sal, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. Really."
"I'm so worried about her, Eddie! What if Laurie turns out like us? Bruce Wayne can't control Liv, my father couldn't control me, and your father, he couldn't control you. What if Laurie goes the way Liv has? You can take me in front of every court in the world, what are you gonna do that I can't? What am I gonna do? Lock her up and throw away the key?"
Eddie could see Sal was worried; it made him feel like shit for screaming at her.
That's the way it was with him and Sal.
One of them was always flying off the handle and pissing the other one off so much they couldn't stand to look at each other for months.
Can't live with you, can't live without you.
"Ahhh, it's not so bad, Sal. Laurie's a smart kid. She knows better. She was tellin' me all about it. How she thinks Liv's crazy and she'd never do the kind of shit she does. And as for Crazy Jack's kid, she's just a teenager. Like you say, you and me, we did some wild shit when we were teenagers, and we turned out alright. I know you try. Don't cry, Sal. You ain't no whore. I didn't mean it. I guess I was worryin' about Laurie, too. An' Liv. Ya don't unnerstand. I was in on that, with the Bat, and Crazy Jack. It's on me, too, if that kid goes bad."
"That's not why I'm cryin', ya sunnuvabitch! On top of everything I got to worry about, ya looked like you was…leavin'."
"You mean for good? Never, Sal. Never in a million years."
III: Sally
"…so then, Liv walks in. And me and Pauile just about shit ourselves. Sorry Ma. And then I asked her what she was doing there, didn't she get grounded, and she just laughs. She has the brake line fixed and the car's there. So I asked her again, and she said yeah, she was grounded, but what was he gonna do about it? He has work to do. She'll be back in her room by the time he gets back. You know. Mr. Wayne. She'll be at school on Monday, that's all I know. Crazy. She's crazy."
Laurie was in front of the stove, making breakfast.
"So, I see you sent Eddie home, early. He hasn't been here for what, four months? Five?"
"Six."
"You and Eddie. Is that why you never got together with him?"
"Yeah. I can't live with the lousy, violent, no -good rotten son of a bitch, and I can't live without him."
Laurie brought the bacon and eggs over to the table.
"He's a weird guy, Mom. I mean, he's mad all the time. You can tell. And you can tell he'd just kill somebody as soon as look at them. And he's a real asshole. But, then there's the way he is with his family. Even with Liv. I don't know about him, Ma."
"He's a bad man, Laurie. A very bad man. But there's good in him. And the good in him is as good as the bad is bad. You know?"
"It's your business, Mom. He's just crazy Paulie's crazy Uncle Eddie to me."
"Oh yeah? I hear you told some cop he was your father to get Liv out of trouble."
Sally wondered if she sounded too lighthearted when she spoke.
Laurie just laughed.
"Ma, honest, he was the only man I could think of who could have pulled our asses outa the fire. What are we gonna do about Liv? Even Eddie don't know what the fuck to do about her."
"I don't know, Laurie. I really don't know."
Halloween, 1963 Bensonhurst
III: Sally.
"Don't you guys think we're getting a little too old to go to the drive-in with Eddie on Halloween?" Laurie asked.
"Oh yeah. I'm 14. I'm ancient. Where's my cane? You sound like my Ma talkin' about us sleepin' over at each other's houses." Paulie joked.
"I mean it, Paulie. What do you think, Liv?"
"I think I like horror movies, I like goin' to a free show an' gettin' free food, an' I got no beef with Mr. Blake. As far as I'm concerned, he can take me to the movies if I was eighty. And you guys can stay at home."
"Why wouldja wanna go to the drive-in alone with Uncle Eddie?" Paulie asked.
"He ain't my uncle, Paulie." Liv leered.
"You are such a pervert." Laurie told her.
Paulie shrugged.
"I dunno. Uncle Eddie says he won't touch a girl unless she's over 17. Too much trouble. If you can hold onto your shirt a coupla years, I can see where you an' him would get along." Paulie opined.
"Can we change the subject. It's too sick!" Laurie complained.
"You're the fuckin' pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, tonight, ain'tcha? What, you got the curse?" Liv joked
"No! I feel stupid, going to the drive-in with my mother's…I dunno, occasional boyfriend, at our age."
"Then stay home." Paulie suggested.
"Fuck you, Paulie." Laurie told him.
"Ya know somethin', Liv? I think she is raggin' it." Paulie replied.
"Or maybe she needs to get laid. Ya know, all that hostility, a little of the ol' in an' out is good for that." Liv suggested.
"Excuse me if I'm waiting for the right guy!" Laurie protested.
"That'll take awhile." Liv chuckled.
"I met the right girl, alright. The one who said "Sure, Paulie. Why not?"
They both laughed.
Laurie was scowling and they were both laughing when the big Caddy pulled up to the curb.
Laurie and Paulie piled in the back.
"Let her sit in front with my uncle. She likes him."
"It's disgusting!"
"Hey, if she grows on him, he'll look after her. Keep her outa trouble. Better than those other guys she runs around with." Paulie opined.
They stopped off at Paulie's house, and picked up Pat, too.
Laurie asked him if he thought they were all getting too old for this, and he just looked at her like she had grown an extra head.
On the way into the drive-in, a guy in a car with some chick cut across two lanes, and cut Eddie off, and he had to slam on the brakes.
He leaned on the horn as he cranked down his window.
"Hey, ya fuckin' asshole! Whaddya think this is, fuckin' bumper cars!" he yelled.
The guy got out of the car.
He was one of these greaser dudes who had not got the message that shit was over and done with.
Eddie just laughed, and he got out, too.
Laurie couldn't help it, she laughed, too, when she saw the look on this kid's face.
"Oh no! No, I couldn't. It'd be too fuckin' easy. Hey, girls! C'mon out here and beat this punk into the ground."
Laurie and Liv both got out.
"What the fuck is this?" the guy asked.
"Beatin' up a little punk motherfucker like you is beneath me. Actually, it's beneath these girls, too, but they need the practice."
"What, ya want me to fight a coupla cunts?"
Paulie shut the back door.
"What did you call me? I'll fuckin' cripple you!" Laurie insisted.
Liv slammed the front door.
"You motherfucker! I'm gonna beat you bloody, throw you down and fuck you stupid, right in front of your girl! And you better be able to get it up, or I'll cut your dick off!" Liv erupted.
They both launched themselves at the guy, and he got back in his car, and fled.
"What a fuckin' pussy. Hey, kid, you don't really do shit like that do you? If ya do, cut it out, right now. Because that's fuckin' sick." Eddie told Liv.
"Naaah. I just like to get 'em goin'. Confuses the shit outa them."
Liv and Pat and Paulie went to the drive-in with Eddie every week, but Laurie was only supposed to go when Eddie and her mom were speaking.
Actually, she went every week, too.
In spite of her protests to the contrary.
The first movie was pretty dumb, and they laughed and ate through it, all of them stuffing themselves with junk food like popcorn and hot dogs and hamburgers and Coke were being outlawed, tomorrow.
The second movie, called Black Sunday, was actually pretty scary, and they were all real quiet.
The third movie, Blood Feast, was really, really, really disgusting.
Paulie actually ran out of the car and came back from the bathroom looking green.
"It's bullshit, Paulie. It don't look like the real thing at all." his Uncle told him.
"It's pretty sick, anyway." Pat volunteered.
"I wonder what kinda animal's tongue that was. Whaddya think, Paulie? Pig? Sheep? Cow?" Liv suggested.
Paulie ran out the door again, with his hand over his mouth.
"Quit that shit." Eddie told her.
"What?"
"Just fuckin' quit it."
"Okay, Mr. Blake."
The last movie was from a couple of years ago, but it was a pretty good one, Curse of the Werewolf.
Eddie had to stop the car for Paulie to be sick again, on the way home, and they stopped off at an all night drugstore in Manhattan to get Paulie some Pepto-Bismol.
Laurie already knew she and Liv were staying at Paulie's house, because her mother went to a Halloween party with Uncle Hollis.
While they were trying to scare up some midnight horror movies on the TV, Laurie went downstairs, to get something to drink from the fridge, and she saw Eddie leaving, with his mask costume on.
"You gonna try and get back into Ma's good graces, Eddie?" she asked.
"Yeah. Crazy, I guess."
"You in love with her? Ma, I mean?"
"That's what makes me crazy."
IV: Sally
Halloween marked two months without that son of a bitch Eddie Blake.
She had spent far too much time with him over the summer, before they had a falling out in August, she was letting him come over two or three nights a week.
Well, that was all over, because for the last three months, Sally had been tentatively seeing Hollis Mason.
This bullshit with Eddie, it had to end.
On Halloween, he invited her to go to the party at the Avengers Mansion that Tony Stark threw.
They were the newest mask team on the block, and after being joined by a newly-discovered Captain America, as well as Thor, they were starting to get noticed.
Officially, it was the Avengers Halloween party, but every mask in the tri-state area got invited, and Sally was going with Hollis Mason.
"Wow, Sally, is that your old costume?"
"You bet, Hollis. My figure's all I got goin' for me, so I've always kept it up. You don't look so bad, yourself."
"I feel like an idiot in this get-up. I guess I'm just a crazy old man."
"Old? C'mon, Hollis, we're not even fifty, yet."
But that was Hollis, for you.
Forty-seven, going on ninety.
Eddie had once said that Hollis probably had his last hard-on during the first Eisenhower administration, and Sally was beginning to think he was right.
She had made a couple of half-joking passes at Hollis, and he jokingly turned her down for all of them.
But, she was forty-three, after all, and maybe Hollis had a point.
She had started running around with men when she was 13, she was a lot more like Liv Napier than she wanted to admit, and, it hadn't done her a lot of good in her life.
Maybe it was time to grow up, settle down, retire her number, thirty years was a very long career.
Sally was having a pretty nice evening, all in all.
She had a talk with Bruce about Liv's progress through the parts of her training she was handling, and she and Hollis had dinner at the same table as Lois and Clark.
Halfway through the evening, she got to meet the host, hotshot young mask Tony Stark, otherwise known as Iron Man.
He reminded her an awful lot of Errol Flynn.
He was handsome and dashing with the same kind of impish blue eyes, but he also had this very James Bond air about him; a cocky, good-looking kid who both had it and knew it.
He wasn't in costume, he had on a white tux with a black tie, and showed up with the suavest of manners to light her cigarette, and hand her a fresh drink.
"You know, of all the people I invited, Miss Jupiter, you're the one I was hoping to meet the most."
He wasn't talking to her like she was some old bag, he was talking to her like she was a woman.
And after three months of celibacy, that was something sally couldn't ignore.
"Really? Was I your hero when you were a little boy?" Sally asked.
She realised she was flirting with him, but, she couldn't help it.
"I had your poster on my wall. If you'll forgive me for saying so, I had such a crush on you."
"Honey, really, I'm old enough to be your mother."
"You don't look anything like my mother."
Sally could see a soft, bluish glow coming from under his shirt.
"Don't look now, kid, but you're all lit up."
"Miss Jupiter, looking at you, I'm sure I'm not the only man in the room who is. Would you like to dance?"
Sally realised she should have said no, but, where was the harm in it?
"Why not? And you can call me Sally."
He was a great dancer, too, and after they danced, what was wrong with letting him get her another drink?
"So, this glowing disc, you got that stamped right into your chest, huh?" Sally asked him.
"Yes, I do."
The kid was good, he picked up on her little subtle hint, unbuttoned his jacket, and also a button or two in the middle of his shirt.
He showed her the device that kept him alive, but also a good piece of his hairy, muscular chest.
"That's really something." She said.
"I'm glad you think so. I'd love to talk to you all night, Sally, but I've got a whole ballroom full of guests. Let me give you my card."
After he buttoned up, he got a pen and a card from his tux jacket's inside pocket, and wrote something on the back of it.
"That's my personal number. I'd like to get together with you, sometime. You've been at this a lot longer than I have; I'm sure you have a lot you can teach me."
You bet your ass, kid.
"I'm sure I do. It was nice to meet you. I hope to see you again, soon."
"So do I."
He tipped her a wink, and an in like Flynn grin, and they went their separate ways.
Sally tucked the card into her bustier, and went back to sit with Hollis.
This whole giving up screwing thing was going to be harder than she thought.
"So, what's out young host like?" Hollis asked.
"Oh, he's a nice boy."
"Well, it's getting late. Are you ready to go, yet?"
Sally looked at the clock on the far wall.
"Hollis, it's only 9:30. But, if you want to go…"
"No, that's OK, Sal. I trust you here with all our friends and associates. But this old man has had enough excitement for tonight. Besides, I think I'd better get Byron's car keys and take him home, he looks like he's ready to fall over."
"Hollis, are you sure?"
"Sure I'm sure, Sal. You never get out. Laurie's at Edie's house, you might as well enjoy yourself. I'll call you, real soon."
That was Hollis for you.
Not only did he leave at 9:30, he didn't even insist she go with him.
Nonetheless, it continued to be a nice party until about 12:30, when disaster struck.
"Boy, Sal, it's a good thing ya didn't go to the drive-in. They put this one movie on, Jesus, it was like bein' in a fuckin' war zone. Poor Paulie musta tossed his cookies four times."
There he was, and in his fucking costume, yet, with his goddamn guns on.
Disaster on two legs.
"Eddie, what the hell are you doing here?"
"Makin' sure Howard Stark's horny little bastard kid don't go home t'night with my date. That's right kid. Not tonight."
Eddie made eye contact with Tony Stark, who only grinned, and continued on his way.
"Eddie, I am not your fucking date!"
"Well, ya oughtta be somebody's date. What, youse came alone?"
"I came here with Hollis. And he…"
"Left early because it was past his bedtime? So, how's that goin', anyway? I'll betcha the Scoutmaster's the last of the red hot lovers, huh? Just thinkin' about him gets ya all hot an' bothered, huh?"
"You're such a pig, Eddie. Our relationship has nothing to do with all of that. And thinking about Hollis does not get me all hot and bothered."
"Oh yeah? Then what are you all hot and bothered about? I guess it must be me."
"Who says I am?"
"Sal, it's me you're talkin' to. I'm the guy who's name you're screamin' when you're tearin' up the sheets. I know."
Sally angrily stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray at the table.
"Leave me alone, Eddie. I'm all done with all that, now."
"Oh yeah? What's this, then?"
Before she could stop him, Eddie had seen the little sliver of white against her cleavage, and grabbed Tony Stark's card.
He looked at it, laughed uproariously, and put it back.
"I guess you an' Wonderboy are just gonna talk shop, huh? Boy, is he in for it. Little bastard better eat his fuckin' Wheaties."
Sally thought about slapping him in the face, or throwing her drink at him, but that just would have made him laugh harder.
"You the boss of me now, Eddie? Is that what this is all about?"
"Sal, look. I don't care if you play house with Hollis Mason. An' I don't care if you come up here and show Wonderboy some new tricks. All I care about is that I'm the guy who goes home with you, tonight." Eddie told her.
Sally sighed.
"Eddie, you make it so hard for me to be good."
"That's because youse makes it so good for me to be hard."
***
Sally yawned, lazily, and stretched, her head against Eddie's chest, watching the plume of cigar smoke lazily float towards the windowsill, where the grinning electric plastic pumpkin twinkled in the dark.
"Ya know somethin', Eddie?"
"Huh?"
"I think I'm gonna quit tellin' myself I'm all done with you."
"Ya can't be all done with me, Sal. We got a kid together. So, as long as ya can't be all done with me, ya might as well enjoy it."
"But I almost made it, this time. Poor Hollis."
"Poor Hollis, nothin'! He was prob'ly sweatin' it, thinkin', Jeeziz, this broad wants me to deliver the goods, and I ain't used my dick except to piss with it since 1955! I gotta go see a doctor. This way, when ya go back to havin' lunch, and tea, an' talkin' about the ol' days an' shit, he'll feel a whole lot better."
"You don't have to make fun of him, Eddie. Some people just aren't very interested in sex."
Eddie put out his cigar, and then reached over and rolled one of her nipples between his thumb and his forefinger.
Sally gasped, in surprise and pleasure.
Eddie laughed, a low chuckle, thick with lust.
"Bet you're glad you ain't one of them, huh?"
"You bet your ass I am."