Chapter One
The lead pipe whooshed through the air as it headed toward his unprotected head. The dry, airy song turned into what sounded for all the world like a metallic squawk as it impacted a trash can lid and was knocked clean out of the attacker’s hands. Before the man could make another move, the lid had smashed into his jaw and he was down, stunned.
A pair of hands seized the trash can lid wielder’s arms and yanked him around into the path of an oncoming fist. He ducked, listening to the sound of the fist hitting what he assumed to be a face. The hands released him.
Another attacker thought going low would be the way to go. The kick he aimed at the other man’s groin was deflected by a foot that smashed into the side of his knee. “The little shrimp’s tough!” he shouted as he went down.
“‘Little shrimp’?” Davy replied. “Isn’t that a bit redundant?”
“I’ll show you redundant, you foreign bastard!” Another lead pipe came at him. Davy caught it and wrenched the arm to the side, yanking the length of metal from his attacker’s grasp. The man yelled in surprise and came at him with the other arm. Davy twirled the pipe until it rested against his forearm just as the man’s hand connected with it. The man’s eyes crossed as he went to his knees.
Finally, one of his attackers got in a lucky blow, slamming a booted foot into Davy’s stomach. Davy staggered back, curling up as if in preparation to fall. Smirking, the attacker wound up for another kick. Moving like lightning, Davy spun, sinking below the line of attack and smashing the pipe into the knee that the man was supporting himself on. Gasping, the assailant fell.
That left only one. The leather-jacketed punk was bouncing on his toes, as if calculating the best line of attack. Davy twirled the pipe in his fingers, extending his body into a perfect attacked position, his limbs poised. The man smiled and spread his hands out from his body in a position of surrender.
Davy slowly straightened, still watching intently. The smile grew. The feint was revealed as the man came in low and fast. Davy leaped into the air, tucking his legs up under him. The attack passed beneath and he extended his body down, both heels smashing into the side of the man’s knee, followed by the force of his weight plus gravity. Down the man went, gasping and grabbing at his leg.
Davy reached out and seized the man’s knee, digging his fingers into the injured joint. The howls of pain echoed off the high walls of the alley.
“Four Winds territory. We own this turf. Now beat it.” Davy gave the knee a final squeeze, then stood.
The man nodded and tried to stand. Davy waited until the man had staggered off before turning back to the Pad, a small, triumphant smirk on his face.
“You’re late,” Mike said as Davy walked in.
“Sorry, Mike. Had some . . . business.”
“What kind of business?”
Davy plopped down next to Micky on the couch. “Thanks to me, the couple blocks around the record store belong to us now.”
Silence. They looked at him.
“What?”
“Belongs to us?” Micky asked.
“Yeah! There was a gang that hung around there, but,” here Davy paused to buff his nails on his chest, “I cleared ‘em off. Single-handedly, too.”
Micky’s eyes narrowed. “So you’re made us no better than the Tanks.”
Davy looked to Mike and Peter for help, but he found the same closed, disapproving expressions. “But . . . don’t you see? I got rid of them! The whole area’ll be safer now that they’re not there!”
“And other gangs’ll muscle in on us!”
Davy’s face fell. “Well, don’t all thank me at once, fellas.”
“Davy,” Peter said softly. “You should have come and got us.”
“For what? I had the whole situation under control!”
“A whole gang? Alone? Didn’t what happened to Micky teach you anything?” Mike burst out.
“B-But Mike! I won!” Davy spluttered, his dreams of backslaps and congratulations crumbling to dust.
“And what if you hadn’t, huh?” Mike asked, his voice tight.
Davy paused. Mike was right, but . . . he hadn’t lost. He’d won. “But I did, Mike. Can’t you be happy for me just one time?” He shook his head.
Mike stood up, crossing his arms over his chest. “We went through this with Micky. I’m not goin’ through it with you too.”
“I don’t believe this!” Davy snapped as he shot to his feet. “I go out there and make the streets a little safer and this is the thanks I get?”
Peter stood up. “Davy, please. We’re just worried—”
“Yeah, worried that I might have the spotlight for once!”
“It’s not that at all and you know it!” Mike growled.
“Do I?” Davy snarled. “Micky goes out and gets himself half-killed and he gets all the attention! You two . . . !” He stammered for a minute. “You get all the attention because you’re both so good! So where does that leave me?”
They all looked at each other. “Is that what this is about?” Peter asked, his head tilting. “Attention?”
“Well, why not? Do you guys know what it’s like to get shoved to the back and forgotten?” He snorted. “No, of course you don’t!”
“Davy, we’ve never—”
“Save it, Mike! If you won’t let me have my moment, then . . . then maybe I’m finished! You can find another Wind! I quit!” Turning on his heel, Davy stomped into the bedroom and slammed the door.
Half an hour passed before the bedroom door opened and Peter poked his head inside, on full alert. He expected to get hit by a pillow or worse. Davy was standing next to his bed, nearly packing his clothing into a suitcase. Peter walked in and closed the door, sitting down by the suicase. “Bit extreme, don’t you think?”
“I have the right to quit this job,” Davy muttered. “You can’t make me stay.”
“What are you going to do? Burn off your tattoo?”
“If I have to. Or maybe I’ll go somewhere where my talents will appreciated. And needed.”
“Davy, we’re a team. No Wind blows alone and no Wind blows harder than the others!”
“You sure coulda fooled me.”
Peter resisted the urge to grab the shorter man and shake him to get him to see reason. “Davy, where is this coming from? I don’t understand.”
Davy heaved a sigh that reminded Peter of the days when “Oh, Peter!” had followed such sighs. Instead Davy said, “Peter, I’m tired of standing in the background and going unnoticed. I’m tired of you guys always jumping in front of me, and then you get all the thanks and glory and I’m left with nothing.”
“You did do good tonight.”
“That’s not what you guys said before,” Davy replied, irritation still thickening his accent.
“Davy, all we could think was you’d gone off alone. You’d fought. We were afraid.”
“I know that, Peter. But being afraid doesn’t mean you have to jump on me.”
“And that’s what we did.” It was not a question. It was said with embarrassed shame.
“Yeah. You did.” Davy heaved the suitcase up. “So, since you all can obviously manage without me, I’m off.”
“Davy . . . Dan. Don’t.”
Davy paused by the bedroom door, lowered his head, then continued out.
“Davy!” Peter followed him, his cry containing a desperate plea. The smaller man’s shoulders tensed and he hesitated by the door, opened it, then disappeared into the night.
Peter looked at Mike his eyes filled with agony. The Texan was leaning against the staircase, his expression closed. “He’ll be back, Peter. We just gotta let him cool off.”
“But he was packing!”
Micky was sitting over on the bandstand, staring out the window. “So? He’ll need food and money and he doesn’t have much of either one.”
“He doesn’t have us, either,” Peter sighed.
“Peter, he’ll be back, okay?” Mike paused, turning the wool hat in his hands over and over. “And if he doesn’t come back we’ll go get him.”
“And how will we know where he is?”
“He’s on foot with a suitcse of clothes. He won’t get far.”
~~~~~
The cloudy solution swirled over the paper, bringing the image—indistinct in the red light—into focus. A pair of metal tongs moved it into the next pan, one that gave off a faint medicine odor.
A pair of blue eyes, nearly hidden behind a fringe of untidy blond hair, narrowed in concentration as the photo grew sharp and detailed. A rinse in water later and the photo was finished.
“The nighttime lens works well,” the owner of the eyes said, pinning the photo up on a thin wire that ran the length of the darkroom. “Very well indeed.”
He lifted another photo from the water and compared them as he pinned it up. “Such grace . . . such form . . . ”
The first showed a man in mid-turn, his foot snapping upward. In the next the kick was completed, the man standing triumphantly over his victim.
“And they’re all larger than he is,” the photographer whispered as he lifted a third picture and snapped the developing machine off over a fourth. “And still he defeated them . . . ”
It was obvious to the photographer that something had indeed changed; he’d heard rumblings from friends of the Monkees that they were different, altered . . . and now there was proof.
“What this, then?” he asked himself as he liefted the fourth picture from the water. He moved back to the developer and took the negative, reinserting it. Using the fourth picture, he blew up the part he wanted and developed a fifth picture.
This one, the smaller man was mid-whirl, mid-punch. The angle was from the back, and the enlarged area showed clearly the man’s hair blowing to the side with the momentum of his turn. “What’s that on his neck?” He grabbed the magnifying glass from the counter and leaned in, peering closely. “A . . . tattoo . . . ?” Grabbing the pen he used to mark his film rolls, he took a sheet of paper and copied what he saw, frowning closely at it. “I’ve never seen anything like that . . . it looks like a turtle or something!”
Now there was another piece of the puzzle. But did the tattoo have anything to do with the change in man he recognized as one of the Monkees, especially a change into a fighting machine of that quality? Or was it the symbol of a change that went deeper?
“Wonder if Mistress would be interested,” he mused. Then a thought occurred to him, one that hit with such force he nearly knocked over the pans of fluid. “This could get me back into the profession they took from me!” He found himself smiling, not quite in complete control of the expression. “Yes . . . yes! But how . . . how to—I’ll figure it out. I can do this!”
The first thing was to find the man in the picture. No, first he’d contact Mistress, then find Jones. And then . . . Rob Roy Fingerhead would claim what he had lost.
On to Chapter Two
Back to Secrets and Lies Index
