Double trouble: the legend of crime brulee

Chapter 32 - Epilogue part 2

All I’m presenting you with are the facts, and that’s more than Connie was willing to do for Eddie. She made no mention of their relation, or the twisted misadventure that had led to his existence, but if I were conceived in a hijacked body to the musical stylings of Ron Saul, I suppose I wouldn’t want to know that.

Just then, a call came in on Eddie’s NeuroLink–unhinged invention, but state-of-the-art–and just as she backed out of the doorway, he blinked to operate its optical controls.

“Yeah, no, actually, there’s something wonky going on with my screen sharing. Do you think you can print it out and run it up here?” said Eddie to whoever was on the other end of the line. At the same moment, Connie’s cellphone rang in her back pocket.

She and I hadn’t spoken in all these years, but after she left Eddie’s office, I thought it time to reach out.

Despite the private number on the caller ID, she picked it up. “Connie speaking.”

“I thought we were friends, Connie!” I implored her. “And now you promise my head on a platter to my nemesis?”

“You mean my nephew?” she hissed down the receiver as she made her way back down the hall how she’d come.

“Oh, come off it. You conceived him in a borrowed body using my machine. If anything, he’s my intellectual property.”

“Is that why you’ve made multiple attempts to kill him and his team?” snapped Connie. “I think you’ll find that unlike a few of my favorite things, I’m as easy to lose as I am to pick up, and you? You’re a monster, Leo. Just like Agent D. You’re a brilliant man, but like he did, you operate under the delusion that people belong to each–”

Just then, she ran headfirst into something warm and soft.

“Terribly sorry,” said the man on the other end of the collision.

“Oh, no, I–”

“Blowtorch?”

His swipe badge read MELVIN BRADLEY, and then down underneath, SALVIDAR SOLUTIONS - GRAPHIC DESIGN. The years had been kind to him, she observed, his thrift-store clothes traded in for a sharp button-down and slacks that flattered his ample figure, his old broken plastic glasses replaced with smart, stainless steel frames. His reddish-brown curls now stood elegantly coiffed, graying a bit at the temples, but she thought it only made him appear more distinctive.

And he had gained yet more weight–fifty pounds, if she had to estimate, allocated evenly between his plump arms, doughy chest, round belly, and thick thighs as if by her own artist’s brush. “I have to let you go, Leo,” she said into the phone.

“Oh, you are incorrigible.”

She made a mental note to tell Eddie that I was jacked into his surveillance system–and that she knew he was responsible for this ‘chance encounter’. ‘Wonky screenshare’ nothing. He could have warned her Blowtorch’s old flame worked here before setting them on a crash course…then again, would she have fled if she’d known? She wasn’t without guilt over how things had ended between them.

She ended the call, slipped her phone into her back pocket, and, at first, couldn’t resist having a dig. “How is it that Mr. ‘I don’t fuck around with fat fetishists’ winds up working for Captain Feedee?”

He glanced off to the side, biting his lip guiltily. “Listen, Blow–”

“Connie. Just Connie,” she insisted.

“Connie, then. What I’m trying to say is that back in the past, I said a lot of things to you I’ve come to regret. I was acting out of fear of what I didn’t understand…I wish I could say more, but the boss needs me to bring him–”

His phone dinged in his pocket. He glanced at the screen. “Nevermind. False alarm. He says I can take the rest of the day… But what about you? I thought you were dead!”

“Yeah, well, the US Division of Heroics has a knack for making the public believe things that aren’t true,” said Connie. “No, I’m not dead…just been hanging out, working in a desk, occasionally jumping back into the streets to tear up the town as Crime Brulee…”

She figured since she had her foot in the door towards earning Big Tech’s endorsement, it didn’t have to be a secret–not from him, at least.

His eyes widened. “Whoa…so you really had the entire vigilante world by the balls, huh?”

“How did I know you’d be impressed?” She smirked, in spite of her blush.

“You’ve got to tell me all about it sometime,” said Melvin.

“I…I’d like that. I’d like that very much. Maybe over coffee?”

“I was actually thinking dinner.”

***

According to some of the older staff at Fitzgerald’s, the steakhouse used to be Blackwater City’s undisputed crown jewel. The framed photographs hanging on the wall wove a tale of an eatery bustling with business, every table on its vast floor sat, every barstool occupied. Many a celebrity and multimillionaire had a portrait snapped standing with the waitstaff and chef. Diners used to book reservations months in advance, clearing all other priorities from their schedules for a chance to taste the chef’s latest creations. Servers would walk out to their cars at the end of the night with their next three months’ rent stuffed into their apron pockets.

Of course, that was years ago, before the rent was so damn high and before the sadistic supervillain Honeybee detonated a bomb in the dining room.

Jace had been standing around in the water station, polishing the same silverware over and over lest the manager catch him idle and assign him to bathroom duty or some other less pleasant task, for three hours since his shift started before a table was finally sat in his section. While he ought to have been grateful for any business at all, the look of the two-top worried him.

Ordinarily, he would look forward to a hefty tip from a great big fat man with a skinny little woman on his arm: when a couple came in like that, it meant the guy had money and came to spend it. But the women who accompanied those men were usually young, and the lady who took a seat across from her date at a window table easily matched her date for age. They were both dressed business-casual, she in a button-down and blazer over–were those fucking jeggings? She walked with a limp and carried a cane. The man, meanwhile, wore khaki slacks and a patterned shirt, with his office swipe badge still dangling around his neck on a lanyard.

On her way back to the front desk, the hostess passed Jace and said, “Back when I first started here, we’d have thrown them out for coming in without a tux and cocktail dress…not to mention a reservation. Good luck.”

Hoping for the best, but prepared for disappointment, Jace approached the table. Standing over the couple, he realized the woman was missing three fingers on her right hand. “Good evening, welcome to Fitzgerald’s. My name’s Jace and I’ll be at your disposal tonight. Did you need a minute to look over the wine list?”

“If I drink red wine, will you drink it with me?” the lady asked her dining companion.

“Yeah, sounds great!”

“Then we’ll take a bottle of the Cadmus Cabernet, please!”

“And two waters, and a regular Dr. B,” said the man.

Of course, it would be regular soda.

At least the wine was expensive. Still didn’t guarantee a good tip, though.

Jace returned in a few minutes with their drinks and started his wine presentation, expounding on the vintage, the flavor notes, the quality of the soil in which the grapes had been grown, but it soon became clear that they were too engrossed in their conversation to pay attention, so he just poured the wine.

“So, what’s the difference between a feeder and an encourager?” the man–Melvin, read his name badge–asked his date.

“It’s basically the difference between being bisexual or pansexual; they’re just words, really. You can identify as either.”

“What do you identify as?”

“I guess mostly a fat admirer, but I can be a feeder if the other person’s into it. Only if they’re into it, though.”

Jace had heard those words before–who hadn’t anymore, after the rise of Big Tech and Bombshell to both fame and notoriety? He wasn’t familiar with the practices of feedism himself, but he knew enough to read the signal that this table would be racking up a bill.

Still didn’t guarantee a good tip, though.

“Are you ready to order any appetizers? I recommend the bacon wrapped scallops, myself, but if there’s anything on the menu that appeals to you more–”

“Oh, geez, sorry, I haven’t even looked,” said Melvin with an apologetic smile. “Connie?”

The woman, Connie, winced. “I haven’t looked, either. We’ve been catching up. Give us a minute?”

Jace gave them several minutes–each time he passed by the table, the pair was too deep into their conversation to even notice him.

“Graphic design is actually nothing like drawing freehand–when I used to draw you, I was drawing what I saw,” Melvin was explaining as Jace refilled the table’s water, silently, for the third time. “This job here is all about appealing to the viewer. N-not that you haven’t always been appealing…”

“Still such a flatterer, I see!” teased Connie. “You know, if Eddie lets me set up shop here in the city, maybe you could help some of my guys out with costume design? I’d pay, of course…”

On his way to replace the water pitcher, Jace swung by the hostess stand. "I think the lady at my table is active in the vigilante scene."

"Big deal. We used to sit Captain Justice at table 34 with his whole entourage, back before this dump lost its sparkle."

"Junior or Senior?"

"Both!"

Jace watched the clock for five minutes before making another pass.

"So I have reintroduced meat, but it has to be wild game, and it has to have been shot by someone I'd trust with my life," Melvin had just gotten done explaining.

"Oh, in that case, I can set you up with a selection of vegetarian-friendly options from the sides menu! Did anything look good?" Jace cut in.

"Sorry!" said Connie and Melvin in near-perfect unison.

"We still haven't gotten a chance to look," Melvin admitted.

The next time Jace swung by with a water refill–they were really going through it, which tracked, given all their yakking–Connie was saying to Melvin, "That Captain Justice was really a dick, and I hear the new one's not great, either. If it weren't for Bone Appetit, I'd have been a goner."

"My condolences," said Melvin.

"It was a long time ago…and anyway, Shooting Star was able to finish out the heist and get us out of there."

Ho. Ly. Shit.

That was Crime Brulee! THE Crime Brulee! Her reign of terror in the streets of Blackwater was legendary. Never apprehended, never defeated, she robbed the city blind until she decided to take a hiatus and disappear once more from the public eye whenever she pleased.

Was she planning to make a comeback? Should he have the hostess call the cops?

"Were you two ready to order?"

"My gosh…I'm sorry, man, we still haven't looked. Unless…Connie?"

"I have no idea," said Connie.

Jace ultimately thought better of calling the authorities; in all her years of operating in the criminal underworld, they had been as powerless to catch her as Jace was to make her order some fucking food.

He checked back up five minutes later. "I'm in this new condo now, it's a lot nicer," Melvin was in the middle of saying. "You know that tower on the east side–"

"Ooh, you're an east-sider now!"

"Yeah, right across from that sleep center they just opened."

"Sleep center? What does that mean?" asked Connie. "Do they sell mattresses in there? Or are those people doctors?"

"You can ask them yourself in the morning…if it's not too presumptuous that I invite you over."

Jace cleared his throat. "Terribly sorry to intrude, but all dinner orders need to be put in within the next ten minutes so the kitchen can start closing."

"We're so sorry!" Connie reached across the table to grasp Melvin's pudgy hand. "I guess time got away from us. It's just that we haven't seen each other in such a long, long time."