He gets five inches from my face and looks me in the eye. "Do you know a Marjorie Barret?"
"Yeah," I relax and reply, "90 year old lady who lives next door to me."
"She reported this car stolen, described the thief as six four, black hair, exactly your pajamas down to the turtle, and exactly the man who exited Ralph's a minute ago."
"Possible she was mistaken." I try to be helpful. I picked this spot because there are no cameras, which is not to my advantage if they decide to beat a confession out of me.
"Can I search the trunk?" He asks, not really asking if you get my drift.
"Search away."
The trunk is a mess, but no six four man with black hair would even fit inside it. I'm clean, unless they planted heroin in there on purpose just so they could run me in. I've been to the movies, happens all the time. After a couple fruitless minutes, he walks back, looks me over again, puts his hand on his pistol butt, and starts to ask another question. But he stops.
The guy would harump if he could harump, tells junior to write me up for not having my license, walks back to his car, rounds his partner up and squeals away in disgust.
Twenty minutes later I am heading home, 10 miles per below the speed limit, a shiny new $200 ticket on my passenger seat. Fuck me, I am lucky to have it. If they had caught me with his face, I would be headed to jail right now, and short of simply busting the wall and making a break for it, I might be stuck in there for a long time.
My plans need adjusting. I've almost been caught twice in three days. I actually know how to fly. It's time to stop practicing and do something. The question is, what?
Chapter 7
It's a beautiful Monday morning that I spend playing nine holes and then having lunch with three of the other junior first officers. My game is sharp, the weather is perfect, I actually win back the money I lost in Hawai'i. We go to Tommy's and have burgers for lunch, renew our bets about who makes captain first, then go our separate ways.
Starbuck and I head for the mall in Santa Ana, stopping first at the post office to mail in my $200 to the Santa Monica PD. I hit the big department store to buy clothes. Not for me, for him. I may have neglected to mention that when I was young and stupid two months ago, I took a high speed, high damage trip to Denver where I bought two complete motorcycle outfits, sans helmets. Black leather boots, black leather pants, and cool black leather riding jackets with the high exaggerated collars. They are in my closet, in boxes on the floor, pretending to be old pictures and mementos.
Now I buy some everyday wear. More of the stretchy underwear things including black tops to go with the bottoms, some polo shirts, one nice going out on a date shirt, two pairs of casual slacks, a few pairs of socks, and a pair of black casual shoes. The dressing rooms are uncameraed, so I can become him, try some things on, and go back to being me without alerting anyone. There is the briefest flash of light when I change, but only someone in the next stall would notice, and they are empty. I brought cash with me, so there are no receipts tying me to the clothes.
My bags and I head back out to Starbuck, and we drive across Main Street to park by the Starbuck's. No cameras in this strip mall, which was my third choice for a place to park and fly, and I park near the street and away from everyone else. I take off my clothes except for my underwear.
Risking maybe too much, I slide down in my seat and change myself right there too. Note to self: put a reminder label on Starbuck's dash to reposition seat before engaging light. I may have pushed the seat slightly off it's tracks by becoming bigger in a confined space.
No time to worry about that, I put on one of the new polo shirts and a pair of slacks, and for the first time, he is wearing shoes. It will feel odd to walk not bare foot. And, thinking too much again, I am suddenly concerned about my ability to fly with shoes on. Will I be able to talk to the molecules? I remind myself to remind myself to try that tonight, then I walk across the street and back into the mall. My feet report contact with molecules, though I can't tell if they are shoe molecules or useful molecules or both.
I head first to the sporting goods store and buy a portable GPS. The 18 year old clerk knows way too much about this stuff, but gets me a good deal on a camping grade unit that, hopefully, won't short out the first time I fly into a cloud. Then it's off to the bookstore to buy a detailed paper map book of LA county. Both purchases in cash, both with me wearing his face. Untraceable. Then my brain has another thought. Are my fingerprints the same? Also something that needs to be checked.
I walk to the second floor, and quietly enter Nerd Central, also known as Radio Shack. An even nerdier 18 year old than the guy with the GPS counter helps me out here, and I leave with a nice portable police scanner, and a cel phone that works fine, but does not require me to give my name to the phone company. It only has 100 minutes, but the nerd assures me I can add time without identification.
My bank balance is not what it should be any more. Shopping for two is hard on the budget. As I'm walking back across Main I get a text from Jen, who once again is going to be working late. She says she'll meet me Wednesday night at dispatch when I get home. I give her the usual ok, and I love you response.
Back in my Starbuck, I do the quick change back into me and my clothes, grab the GPS and its operating manual, then wander over to the Starbuck's and have a giant sized iced tea while playing with my new toy. I leave about three, wanting to avoid the rush hour traffic on the 405 home.
It's planning time. Start small, Captain Amos said, any decent superhero would have to start small and build up to the big time. I'm going to look for a meth lab, or cache of real drugs, or even just a minor drug lord, see if I can't turn them over to the police without getting them killed or me caught.
For the past two months when I read my morning
Times
I have copied down the address of every drug bust significant enough to make the paper. Now I have that notebook, my new LA map book, and my new GPS spread out on the kitchen table, and I'm marking the bust locations on the map with a red felt tip. Before too long, three pages of the book are seriously red, the rest either just a few spots, or none at all. Doesn't tell me where the drugs are now, just where they've been, but I'm counting on my fog-induced powers to give me clarity once I'm there.
The attire question is still a question. Naked would be the best for stealthy approach, but I don't need drug dealers (and potential hidden cameras) oogling the salami. The leather gear is untested, but more superheroey. I make a decision. Tonight I will get all leathery, and give the new stuff a test flight. Gives me a chance as well to find out if I can duplicate last night's efforts and be as productive with my big rocks too.
I am not, however, heading for Santa Monica. Anaheim just became my only stop until I can find another primary. The issue of fake ID is also on my list. Channel 2 says that Columbia is the state of the art when it comes to forgery. I probably need to pay them a visit. Those three years of college Spanish might be about to pay dividends other than improving my odds with women of the Latina persuasion.
It's already 10:30, so I dig into the closet and stuff the leather in a plain black duffel bag I bought for just this purpose. It's got enough room for a spare set of my clothes, and side pockets to put wet underwear or whatever. I couldn't figure out what whatever was when I bought it, but now I know it's a GPS, a police scanner, a cel phone and whatever. Whatever.
I leave the apartment and get to Starbuck, on the lookout for elderly nosy neighbors the whole way. I spot none. Past their bed time, or should be, even though Mrs. Barret was out last night. She's a widow, so maybe she was getting back from a booty call at some assisted living center. OK, so I'm mean. Kill me. Oh yeah, you can't. You just have to wait 1,001 days like everyone else.
Anaheim is 20 minutes away tonight, light traffic for LA. I park in my usual spot, and realize that I have a problem. I've been going in my too large clothes and just holding my pants up long enough to get to and from the alley. Now I need to change clothes, get my old ones back in the car, get my new ones back into the car, get my old ones out of the car. The idea was to be him in the alley and me everywhere else, but I don't see how I can do that.
So I go into the alley as me, no plan at the ready, put the bag on to of one of the disgusting dumpsters, strip to my underwear, change into him, put his clothes on, put mine back into the bag. I clip the GPS to my waist. Roof. Roof looks good. Now comes test two. I feel for molecules with my feet, firmly encased in socks and boots. They are there. I push gently. I go up, the boots go down. My socks stay on.
I put the bag on the roof, which looks as though it has not been visited by a human being in a long time, but given the quantity of bird shit, will force me to clean the bag when I get home. If I can even stand to have it in the car that long. Then I go back down and try again. Boots go on, molecules get tickled, Simon flies away (is that his name?). Boots are flying, just not on my feet, and following the rules of Isaac Newton, they are going in an equal and opposite direction.
Socks aren't solid, I can feel the wind whispering through them as I float in the night sky. The boots are apparently too solid to wear. So back down, grab them and put them in the bag before flying off toward downtown.
It takes me a while to get the special feeling back. The light is nowhere to be found. I grab the molecules and slow myself, imitating my behavior from last night. Close my eyes, breathe, be patient. The light eventually pops out, and once again I know I can do it. Eyes open this time, I am fearless, six inches off the sides of buildings I was nearly bringing down a couple days ago. I'm thinking, the light is steering. It's a partnership of sorts.
I land on top of the B of A building, and grab my GPS. It appears to be functioning. I set the bank building as a destination, so it will remember the coordinates in case I'm ever lost. The I'm being watched feeling is suddenly there in my head. Maybe Fog Dude doesn't know what a GPS is.
Then I molecule myself skyward, and set course for the rock throwing area. I don't take a straight line there for the first time ever on purpose. I dodge, roll, loop, flip, flop, sail, soar, and swerve. I have the time of my life. Free. Wind in my face, socks on my feet.
I don't think I'm any better at the rock toss than I used to be, but it doesn't matter. I don't stay long before heading down the rail road tracks, pausing at Magic Mountain to enter its coordinates into the GPS, and then turning and playing through the mountains and canyons. I try something new tonight, staying north and hitting the ocean well out into the farm lands, then turning and burning barely above the Pacific all the way home.
Disneyland is quiet beneath me, only a few folks out cleaning, when I return. My bag is undisturbed, and actually not too poopy. I change back into me, and then into my clothes, before heading for Starbuck and home. I have to be at the airport and headed to Kona in a few hours, and I need to come up with a new training regime for the islands that will not get me on video.
Boring flight to paradise, especially for a man crossing the 1,000 days to live mark. Miss Mankat was out, so none of the "usual witty repartee," then five hours of Matt talking about what he was planning to do to her now that she had agreed to have dinner with him.
All seven of us, the five flight attendants, Matt, and I, go snorkeling, which, besides being relaxing, gives me an idea for my overnight adventures. After, we shower, change (clothes not faces), eat shrimp by the ocean and wander together around Kona town.
They all go to bed, and I become him. Put on the swim trunks, but not the t shirt, slink out of my room, across the hotel lobby, down to the water's edge and slide in. Lots of molecules by my feet, I push as gently as I can. It works. I am a torpedo, a dolphin, a tuna. Like them, my species is certainly endangered.
I cruise out from the coast, which drops off quickly on the big island. It's dark down there, but I go anyway. I don't stay long. No infrared vision, or super special powers that let me see shit down here. It's just dark. So back up nearer to the surface, which is still pretty dark. It's night, and under water, and I still thought I was going to be able to see. World's stupidest superhero, film at 11.
Idiocy confirmed, I abandon all thought and head north by north west (roughly toward Japan), but at a nice slow submarine like speed. Given my history with high speed travel, I don't want to leave any dead whales or dolphins in my path. Pele hates me, I don't need to get Kanaloa, the ocean god, pissed too.
I cruise for what seems like an hour, but I can't be sure because at least I was smart enough not to wear my watch underwater. I do not need air, so no idea how long I can hold my breath, but hours certainly.
Grab a toeful of molecules, and I shove really hard, breaking the water's surface maybe 10 miles off the Kohala coast. Leveling off at 20 feet above sea level, I rocket up to near the speed of sound. No speedometer, but I have learned my lesson and slow as soon as I feel the air pressure change as I near that barrier.