Felicio

The Reason for the Fight

Detective Lang

“What's troubling you boss?” Mary said. She bounced along with the exuberance of youth. She still had things like ideals and hopes. Things that had been eroded from my soul a long time ago. Eventually she would be ground down by the job as well. It happened to everyone. It was impossible to live a normal life after you'd seen the things that we'd seen. How could you go home to your wife and talk about your day when it consisted of seeing the crumpled and broken body of a girl half your age, a girl who hadn't even had a chance to start her life properly yet? I tried it for years but eventually my wife grew tired of it and then one day I came home to an empty house. I had dreams of raising a family of my own, of being a father to them but those dreams were shattered. The job didn't leave much room for anything else. It was a 24/7 commitment and once you were in it was hard to get out. Part of me wanted to tell Mary to get out while she still could, while there was still a chance for her to have a good life but I bit my tongue. It wasn't my place to tell anyone how to live her life and we needed all the good cops we could get. I could sense that the city was changing. It felt like there was a war brewing and I couldn't fight it on my own.

I was sitting at my desk with my head in my hands when Mary walked in. I leaned back and sighed, shaking my head.

“I just don't feel like I'm getting anywhere with this case.”

Mary perched herself on the edge of my desk. I hated unsolved cases. There were too many already for my liking. Emma deserved more than that. She need the truth to be told.

“You got no luck from her father then?”

“No, he basically stonewalled me. He wanted to talk about his precious artifacts more than he did his daughter and that worries me. What kind of man doesn't want to do everything he can to get to the truth about the murder of his daughter?”

“Do you think he's involved?”

I'd thought about the possibility when I was in his office. The funny thing about murder is that it often happened from someone the victim knew. If this was murder. But even if it was suicide I wanted to know what had driven her to it. Why was she on that rooftop in the first place?

“I don't think so. I think he's just obsessed with his work. He's probably one of those genius types that are detached from the world. But I do know one thing. I don't want to go anywhere near that building if I can help it. It gave me the creeps. I don't know what they're doing in there but it's best we don't know about it.”

“Well, if you need any help you know that I'm always here. I just wish I could do more.”

“You're a good friend, and you do help me. If I didn't have you to talk to I think I'd go stir crazy. This job ain't easy Mary. I hope you know that.”

“Oh I know. I saw the effect it had on my father.”

“And you still wanted to join the force anyway?”

“It's the only thing I've ever wanted. My father spoke with great pride about his work and that rubbed off on me I guess. My mom wasn't too happy. Guess she'd already suffered through my dad working on the force and she saw how it affected him. She didn't want the same thing for her daughter but I had my heart set on it. Eventually she came round. I didn't just want to do it for my dad though. I liked the idea of making a difference in the world, even if sometimes it's hard to see where that difference is.”

“You sound like me when I was your age,” I smirked.

“I'd love to have known you when you were younger. I bet you were a fiery guy.”

“You could say that. I got in trouble more than a few times. The red tape was the thing that always frustrated me and it's only gotten worse as I've gotten older. You know there are so many hoops we have to jump through to actually make an arrest. Sometimes I just want to go out there and say look, we know this is the guy, we've done our job, trust our judgment but it's never that simple.”

“Next thing you'll be telling me that you're going to dress up as a cat and find justice yourself,” Mary said, laughing softly. She had a nice laugh, lilting and melodic. I frowned though.

“No chance of that.”

“You know, I was thinking about this case and I was wondering if it's not worth sending out a request to meet Felicio face to face, not to arrest him or judge him but just to ask him what happened that night.”

“Are you kidding me? He wouldn't come in. He thinks we're out to get him, and he's right. He's our prime suspect. If we see him face to face then I'm going to arrest him without a second thought, and not just on suspicion of murder, but also for all the other things he's done.” My voice rose. I was starting to get agitated. Something about that masked man made my blood boil and the more I thought about him the more I grew angry.

“Maybe we should change that then. Maybe we've been looking at this all wrong. What if he's not the enemy at all, what if he's a resource we can use?”

“You mean you think we should deputize him?”

“No, not at all, but I do think we could use him. He's working the streets. He might be able to tell us something that we couldn't find out from anywhere else. I'm not saying you have to like the guy, I'm just saying that we could make use of him. Why do you have such a big dislike of him anyway? I get that he's breaking the law by dressing up but...and I can't believe I'm saying this...from every report I read it does seem like he has some kind of powers of some sort. He hasn't killed anyone that we know of yet and all the people he's attacked have been criminals.”

“Please don't tell me you're one of these people who actually thinks he's good for the city?”

“Honestly? I don't know. What I do know is that he's out there whether we like it or not and we can either make use of him or we can keep hounding and hunting him. There's already a divide. The people are starting to think he's a good thing for the city. Have you read the news recently?”

“I only like the funny pages.”

“Well, maybe you should give it a read. I respect you Alan but sometimes you have to open your mind about certain things.”

I sighed. “You want to know the real reason why I dislike him so much?” Mary nodded. “Part of it is because he's breaking the law. But the other part is because he's reckless. Sure, he may have stopped some petty crimes but he has no training. He's a liability and one of these days he's going to get himself hurt. Worse than that, he might get the public hurt. But also, if I'm being completely honest with you, I'm a little jealous of him. It goes back to what I was saying before. He gets to go out there and catch the criminals while we're stuck in here doing the paperwork. But ultimately I believe in the system and Felicio is working outside that system. Eventually he's going to cause some damage. Hell, maybe he has already and Emma's death is the result of that.”

“But we need to do something to bring him in. He's the only person who knows what went on that night.”

“We'll get him. One way or another we'll get him and he'll answer for all that he's done.”

I clenched my jaw as I thought about the masked man. He was out there somewhere in my city, waiting for strike against the criminals but he was doing it on his own time. He was dangerous and he had to be stopped. The longer this went on the more chance there was of some copycats creeping out of the woodwork and that was the last thing the city needed. It was already bad enough with him. It felt like I had too few pieces of the puzzle and I was starting to fear that Mary was right. Without talking to Felicio I didn't know how I was going to make any progress in the case.

Peter

I waited anxiously for word from Steph. I'd tried calling her but she hadn't picked up. I hoped she was alright. I was out in the city. It was strange to be walking about among strangers without my costume. Felicio had become a second skin. There were times when I actually forgot that I wasn't wearing it and people caught me looking at them oddly. When I caught my reflection in store windows I had to stare for a few moments. It didn't seem like me anymore. I only felt alive when I had that costume on. It was addictive and I didn't want to stop. Maybe I should have. Maybe I should have just pushed it into the back of the closet and gone back to being an ordinary boy but there was a pull to it, a lure that I could not resist.

I looked at the faces of people around me and wondered what secrets they held. Everyone had secrets. I wasn't the only one. None of them would suspect that a boy like me was Felicio though. I was quiet. A wallflower. I was harmless. Felicio though, I often heard people talk about him. Sometimes it was good. Sometimes it wasn't. But it was always interesting. Most people seemed to think he was doing good for the city and they were quick to praise him, although Emma's death had made some people reconsider their opinion. I wished that there was some way to clear my name and tell them what really happened but it wasn't as though I could make a citywide announcement. Felicio was a creature of the shadows. The more mystique that surrounded him the better it was for me.

I made my way into college. It was lonely without Steph there. She was my only friend really, unless you counted Felicio but I didn't like to do that because I didn't want to start developing a multiple-personality disorder. I looked at all the people around me. They were all my age and they all had it so easy. Their lives were simple, not like mine. They had large groups of friends whom they could rely on. As I walked among them I felt alone, separate from them. I felt as though I was in my own little bubble, almost as though I was out of phase with the rest of the universe. Nobody paid any attention to me. I was an unremarkable student. The only excitement I had happening in my life was Felicio and I couldn't tell anyone other than Steph about it.

I had considered revealing my identity when it first began but I quickly dismissed it. I didn't need the publicity and I didn't like what it would do to my parents. Plus it would make Felicio seem less fearsome if everyone knew that it was just a kid behind the mask. Better that they had their own ideas. I'm sure that whenever anyone thought about what lay under the mask they saw a brawny man, maybe someone who had served in the military. As far as most people were concerned Felicio was just a man in peak physical condition. They had no idea about the magic that had woven around my soul.

As I walked through college I heard a commotion. I looked over to a dark corner of the field and saw a group of people huddled together. They seemed to be surrounding one person, who was cowering. I started to walk over to them then I hesitated. I wasn't Felicio at the moment. I was just Peter.

But I still had to do the right thing.