Superhero Stanley
Part the Seventh: Into the Black
By
Brian R. Kupfer
I had to get Karen out of there.
But I knew that with the goons and the vivacious little blonde along, I was going to have to get creative.
I grabbed Karen’s right bicep with my free left hand when the vivacious blonde and I passed her, clutching her tightly to my side and whispering into her ear “just follow my lead”, before the blonde in front of us had a chance to react.
I was taking a huge chance, basing everything on what first impression my thinking head was able to gather of the nymphet that was obviously supposed to be a distraction.
What can I say, she was good at her job.
Squeezing the blonde’s hand to get her attention, I stated, as nonchalantly as I was able to, “As long as we’re in for a good night, why not make it great? You’re into three-ways, right?”
I inclined my head towards Karen while I pulled her into step with us.
The little blonde looked Karen up and down quickly, then paused in mid-step for a heartbeat before taking a longer, more appreciative look, all while the three of us wove our way through the increasingly-packed crowd towards the door.
I almost held my breath waiting for her reply.
While I was turning blue in anticipation, the “Third Knut” band finished their sound check and the bassist, a five-ten man with longish sandy hair, a goatee and thin beard, thumped the mic twice before his band mates started up.
“This is our newest song, ‘Interpretive Dance’. Hope you like it. And 2, 3, 4…”
On four, the guitarist, a man maybe five-nine with black hair and a goatee, wearing Jedi robes, slammed into a frenetic beat, which the bassist, who was dressed in a multicolored serape with a huge sombrero on his head, thrummed a counterpoint to.
Behind them, their drummer, wearing a three-piece business suit and sunglasses, his longish wavy black hair done up to look like a 60s greaser, did a passable Animal imitation from the Muppet Show, and their keyboardist, the shortest of them, wearing a racing suit and glasses, made like Jim Carrey on acid with the percussion instrument.
Strangely, the frenetic discombobulation of the four instruments worked. I found my head bopping along to the music while we walked towards the door.
All four of the men leaned into their microphones and sang in chorus on the opening line and final exclamation of each stanza, the Jedi sang the first verse, the Mexi-Can’t the second.
“Our Love’s like Interpretive Dance,
No one understands it
But you gotta take a chance.
YEAH
Our Love’s like Interpretive Dance,
I dated this Girl once
She thought she was a Man
GO!”
On GO, the bassist launched into a rumbling solo, vibrating the walls of the little club while his three band mates took a break and flirted with members of the crowd.
After that, we were out the door and past the Mr. Clean-lookalike bouncer-cum-security guard, and I was left humming along to the band’s song, thinking their style was a strange combination of the Barenaked Ladies and Megadeth.
Upon leaving the Full Moon, the blonde wiggled and jiggled her way down the street towards a white Cadillac Escalade EXT parked around the corner from the club.
Flicking a glance over my shoulder, I noted the two buddy-boys were not-so-discreetly following us.
I looked back at the blonde just as she clicked a little key fob remote, and the lights on the ostentatious luxury SUV blinked once, and I could hear the “click” of the doors unlocking.
Not really surprisingly, since I had been expecting the goons to join us, the blonde slithered her lithe little body into the rear seat, motioning for Karen and I to follow her in.
The two goons approached and opened the front doors, the larger of the two getting into the driver’s seat, the smaller thug into the passenger side.
My brain was running in overdrive trying to figure a way out of this one, and my mouth was doing its own thing, without conscious control, like it so often does.
“Hey, hey, hey. Wait just a minute. Three can be fun, but five’s a bit more freaky than I wanna deal with tonight. Besides, muscleboy fruits aren’t quite my flavor.” I rambled on, sandwiched between the two women in the back seat, filling my voice with an outraged bravado I didn’t quite feel.
The goon in the driver’s seat extended a meaty paw back towards the blonde, who wordlessly slipped the Cadillac’s keys to him.
The man-gorilla, who had enough hair on the backs of his hands and forearms to make Robin Williams envious, turned and started up the re-badged and overpriced Chevrolet Avalanche.
Pulling the white SUV away from the curb, the muscle managed not to scrape the massive car into anything before pulling out into the street, pretty much a major accomplishment for most drivers here in the downtown area.
Somehow, the residents of this metropolis had never managed to perfect, or even come close, the art of parallel parking, or, depending upon whom you asked, even driving their vehicles.
Many people, yours truly included, believed that the DMV here had been founded and the first drivers’ tests given by, Helen Keller herself.
Though that is probably unfair to Helen Keller. I’m sure if allowed, even she could have driven better than most people in this city.
While thinking about the shoddy driving in this city, my overwrought brain suddenly came up with a half-cooked plan.
It was better than nothing, which was more than I had had a moment ago, and still better than a lot of the plans I had come with since deciding to become a hero.
Putting my best lecherous grin on my face, I leaned over Karen on my right, my right hand cupping her left breast, my mouth on hers in an arduous kiss.
There were two reasons for this.
One, I wanted the blonde watching my lips and right hand and Karen’s upper body, not my left nor our lower torsos, which were hidden by the way I was twisted towards Karen.
Two, I’d really wanted to do that since day one of meeting Karen.
Karen’s respondent kiss was surprised at first, but she soon got into it when she felt my left hand pull her seatbelt down and across her waist, slipping it into place, shielded by my body from the blonde’s view.
Coming up for air, I winked at Karen before looking over my shoulder at the blonde.
“Your turn.” I commented, my right hand reluctantly leaving Karen’s chest.
The lithe blonde licked her lips and leaned towards me in anticipation.
Making it look like I was turning all the way around to give her my full attention, I used my momentum to enhance a strong right hook into the passenger goon’s temple.
The man slammed to his right, spiderwebbing the passenger side window before slumping against the door, and I whipped my now smarting right hand across the driver while wrapping my left arm around his throat. I kept the lock in place by pulling back on my left elbow with my right hand.
Reflexively, the driver took both hands off the Caddy’s wheel to try and pry my arm from around his throat, and the big SUV drifted to the right, bouncing over the curb and heading for a building along the street.
I tightened my grip on the goon’s throat with my left arm while tensing my whole body against his chair and grabbing the steering wheel with my right hand and jerking it hard to the right.
The Escalade twisted to the right, the wheels on that side trying to come off the sidewalk when the blunt nose of the SUV slammed into the mirrored glass and steel beamed front of the skyscraper.
The Cadillac crunched into the building, caroming off one of the support beams and skidding into a spacious lobby for a few feet before slamming in to a thick, decorative marble column.
The jarring impact brought the big SUV to a sudden and noisy stop, the screech of bending metal and the tinkle of shattering glass nearly deafening.
When the Escalade EXT slammed to a halt, the rear wheels lifted off the lobby’s floor for a moment with the force of the impact.
At the same time, and thanks to the same momentum, the goon in the passenger’s seat rocketed through where the windshield had been, flying past the marble column and skidding on the floor like a limp rag.
The little blonde slapped into the side of the SUV and the back of the driver’s seat before slumping to the floor beside me.
The driver had nowhere to go, and I heard a snap when the momentum tried to fling him forward, and he suddenly stopped struggling against me.
Karen seemed to be ok, but she was probably going to have a nice welt from the seatbelt.
As for myself, I slammed into the rear of the driver’s seat, hard, and it was probably the only thing that kept me from being flung out of the vehicle like the man in the passenger’s seat had been.
Even so, I was sure I’d be sore for a week.
Somewhat shakily, I pulled myself off the floor of the Escalade and crawled across Karen’s lap, trying the door handle on her door.
It took some shoving, but I finally got her door open, and Karen and I spilled out onto the lobby floor.
While Karen took a moment to steady herself, I rummaged around in the SUV, finding duct tape, blankets, and a pair of shovels in the vehicle’s bed.
Apparently I wasn’t supposed to have been coming back from this ride, and, because I had involved her, neither was Karen.
Moving quickly, because I was sure that the Caddy plowing through the front of the building had set off alarms, I used the duct tape to truss up the lithe little blonde and the surviving goon, trussing them up like Han and Chewie in ‘Return of the Jedi”, minus the Ewoks and long poles, of course.
The driver wasn’t headed anywhere but the morgue.
After helping Karen off the floor, the two of us started to head out of the smashed building towards where I had parked the Durango earlier in the evening.
While we were headed out the door, a thought occurred to me, and I held up a finger to let Karen know to wait for me for a moment.
I jogged back into the trashed lobby and picked up the bound blonde, slinging her unconscious over my shoulder.
Then I ran back to Karen and we hightailed it for my Dodge.
After unlocking and opening the passenger door of the Durango for Karen, I opened the back door and tossed my blonde bundle across the back seat.
About the time I turned the Dodge’s ignition, a pair of Police cruisers roared past, lights flashing and sirens wailing, heading for the building where the destroyed SUV rested.
I waited for them to pass before pulling out, making a mental note to call Dodge and explain the situation later.
I headed out, following the directions Karen gave me to drop her off at her place, since she had been driven to the Full Moon by a friend.
Once she was safely back in her house, with the door securely locked, I pulled out my cell phone and dialed Joeda, to see if he had made any progress with Jim’s laptop, and to tell him that we needed to meet up, and that he should bring Syn along.
We settled on his place in a little over 20 minutes.
I pulled over to the side of the road in a scarcely populated part of the city near Joeda’s place, changing from my civvies into my Stanley gear.
I also made a quick call to Sarah Dodge’s voicemail, as she was predictably too busy with the downtown situation to answer her phone.
When I pulled up to Joeda’s place, I grabbed the blonde out of the back, who was now our best bargaining chip.
Or so I thought.
