Murray Hill || A Superhuman Tale - 1

Chapter Two

Despite the heat of the day, the walk from the hospital to Lee's had been remarkably pleasant. Of course, the heat never troubled Tommy, any more than did the cold, and he'd slipped out of the work shirt along the way more out of habit than any sense of discomfort.

His indifference to the climate was just one of the many ways in which Tommy was different, and that difference was a topic on which he needed a few minutes to reflect once he'd taken a seat at his favorite table at Lee's and unfolded the dinner menu before him.

He would never share such a notion with anyone, especially not Rhonda, but the events of 1991 had been the best thing ever to happen to him. For better or worse, those awful days had forced him into a decision. Now he lived a normal life, a plain and pedestrian existence, the type of which most folks would dread, and he did so with unvarnished delight.

And Rhonda was at the very heart of that bliss.

He'd known many women in his life, had even loved some over the years, but none had ever given him the particular brand of happiness that she did. It was obvious that, sooner or later, she'd realize that he was different. He should've prepared her for that, should've been candid with her from the start. The problem was that his secret was a dangerous one.

Over the quarter century since '91, the federal government had come to look askance at those who were different, at least different in that way. By the time Tommy had felt he could trust Rhonda with his secret, the revelation of which could lead to so very many dreadful things, he'd become so attached to her that the thought of losing her had frozen him to the marrow. A world without her in it was unthinkable.

So, he'd vacillated, something rare for him. A dozen or more times he'd come close to sitting her down and opening up. A dozen or more times he'd backed out.

He knew something was amiss with her, had felt it for months, but it still had taken him by surprise when she'd confronted him before her shift.

It's good to know life still holds a few surprises, he thought.

But fretting about it would get him nowhere. Intense practicality was a blessing that the years had bestowed on him, and he realized there was nothing he could do until he again saw Rhonda

Part of him began to peruse the menu, while another part thought about the restaurant's other patrons. There was a time, not too many years before, when examining the customers would've been the first thing he did when entering any establishment. It didn't bother him at all that he was getting soft or inattentive.

It was only with that thought that it occurred to him something might be off kilter.

There were 11 other guests in the place. Given the hour, the dining room should've been bustling. Despite its location on the edge of Korea Town, Lee's was one of the better Chinese restaurants in the city, one that did a good business, but one that catered mostly to locals.

At that moment, 6 of the 11 customers were tourists: two men and four women. Well, the six were just kids, really. They talked a notch or two louder than necessary and took lots of selfies. The most voluble member of the group, an energetic young woman with an intelligent face and flawless teeth, was about six-weeks pregnant. He couldn't tell if she was aware of that fact yet, but he was certain none of her companions knew. If his guess was correct—and he thought it was—the shy young lad across from her was the father. Clearly, though, the tall kid with dark curly hair sitting to her immediate right was her boyfriend.

Tommy couldn't fight back a smile and a wicked thought. That should play out well.

Another two patrons, who sat together near the back, were locals he estimated to be Korean-born Americans. He'd seen one of them in the place before, and both carried themselves as if they were at home. Mae, a septuagenarian from Hong Kong who ran the place, ignored both with just enough diligence to prove their bona fides as regulars. The two probably were brothers—they had that look—and were seeing each other for the first time in a while, probably after some sort of falling out.

Is this the make-up dinner?

The remaining patrons were more interesting. All three had arrived before Tommy—their elevated heartrates and irregular breathing said scant minutes before. More, they sat apart, but it was obvious the three knew one another. (The spacing and distance between them was too regular to have been coincidence, and they studiously avoided looking at one another.) The men no doubt were Chinese, and Tommy had seen the one sitting closest to him in the neighborhood before, a twenty-something chap who went by the name Che.

At that moment, Che reeked of sweat, adrenalin, and gun powder—though the last smell was too faint to discern whether Che recently had fired a gun. The man wasn't armed, but one of the other two was carrying a concealed knife. The knife owner and the third man had a fresh-in-the-country look about them.

You three have been naughty. The thought was inescapable.

It was just a feeling, but something interesting was happening. There'd been two police cruisers down the block a short way when Tommy had entered the restaurant, and the number of police on the street had increased over the minutes since he'd arrived. In that time, Mae had brought him tea, but otherwise hadn't taken his order, which she usually was prompt to do.

Does that make me a regular? Probably not.

Either way, something was up. Tommy was a good tipper, and Mae was tickled by the ease of his Cantonese. She usually was quite attentive.

Tommy tried to be a good citizen and even knew a few of the local cops, who he tipped off from time-to-time if he heard anything worth passing on. He was no busy body. He just didn't want the town in which his girl lived to be a crime-ridden cesspit.

But he decided to take a pass on this one. Whatever was going on was none of his business. There was no need to draw attention to himself. So, maybe Che was a shit-bag. Maybe he shot someone. Modern policing was a wonder. Most cops nowadays were smart and diligent, and he had confidence in them. They'd figure things out without his help.

Nope. None of that. The cooks at Lee's did a great garlic duck, and he hadn't had it in an age.