Murray Hill || A Superhuman Tale - 1

Chapter Seventeen

Straight through, it was a 12- or 13-hour drive from New York to Chicago. Sam didn't want to push his driver, so they stopped every hour or two for a short break. Young Jacob, his chauffer, recently had graduated from the Illinois Institute of Technology, with honors. Sam had played no small role in getting the young man into the school and helping his family wrangle tuition.

That was how Sam worked: favors for favors for favors. If Sam did something for you, you could depend on him coming back around later for a favor in kind (always for someone other than himself). If you did something for Sam, he would always do you right.

For young Jacob, this exchange was a bargain. Sam hated driving, so Jacob would ferry him around for a couple of weeks while he was poking around and searching for clues to Amy's disappearance. Beyond that, Jacob needed to tutor a few of Sam's younger protégés over the next year—all in exchange for a first-rate education at a rock-bottom price. A bargain.

Sam had joked and kidded with the younger man on-and-off over the last few hours. They were somewhere in central Pennsylvania, when they fell into a comfortable silence.

Sam thought of Amy.

***

He'd always adored her. The two first had met in 1979. At that time, she was in Chicago for an underground poker game. Sam had owed a small debt to the game's organizer and was there as security to work it off. By that time, he had met few of the Gifted—in fact, Tommy was the only one of whom he'd been certain. But it soon became apparent that something was up with Amy.

Sam wasn't at the tournament to catch cheaters—mostly his presence acted as surety against strong-arm robbery—but he watched the players, nonetheless. The game went on for almost 18 hours, at the end of which all present were exhausted.

All save Amy, who showed no signs of flagging.

During the course of play, she'd seldom won a big pot, had exhibited no tells, but systematically had worked away at the other players' piles of chips. Sam scrutinized her throughout and realized that she really wasn't an especially adept player. She was a watcher. She watched the other players patiently and carefully, and, somehow, seemed to know what they were going to do, often before they did themselves.

By the end of the day, the game had gone from five tables of seven down to one table, including Amy and two extremely tired and surly men, and the pace of play quickened.

Amy suddenly began to win one big pot after another.

This performance, by a young woman barely in her twenties whose playing style the other players very obviously found grating, was too much for one of the men. After one hand that'd very nearly left him bust, the man sprang up and began swearing and threatening all involved. He reserved the lion's share of his contempt for Amy, who sat calmly against the maelstrom of abuse.

Sam moved closer, but by the time he was within arm's reach of the man, the fellow produced a knife. Sam usually could disarm a knife-wielder with little or no trouble, but this man demonstrated uncanny skills. As the Chicagoan moved to intervene, the lout slipped free and, now completely unhinged, rapidly thrust the knife five times into Sam's belly.

Blood spewed everywhere before Sam managed to take hold of the deranged player's upper arm and place it in a bone-crunching grip. When Sam looked down, he saw the knife and one of the man's fingers laying in a pool of blood amid the chips. The fool had thrust his thin, razor-sharp knife into Sam's unyielding belly with such force that he'd managed only to lose his grip and to sever one of his own fingers. Another finger had been very nearly cut through.

Some screamed at the sight, and one person vomited. Amy looked at a slightly grinning and completely unharmed Sam without the least shock or surprise—which in itself was no small surprise to Sam.

Later, over a beer, Sam was candid with her about his Gifts. He was strong, quick, and had the endurance of a racehorse. His true Gift was his near complete invulnerability. Knifes were useless against Sam. Bullets stung him, but did no lasting damage. Very few could hit Sam hard enough to hurt him—people like Tommy Haas. Sam always speculated that if someone dropped a locomotive on him, it might do the trick. Otherwise, good luck.

Amy was somewhat less forthcoming in discussing her Gift, but over the months and years their friendship blossomed and grew. He seldom saw her as much as he liked, and the idea now that she might be locked up in some government oubliette left him with a slow, simmering anger. Such fury was a stranger to him.

***

There was now a palpable relief in Sam's heart that Tommy would join him in the search for Amy. Sam was tough, and he knew he was smart. But Tommy, as he slowly had discovered over the years, was of a completely different order. Sam sometimes still had difficulty wrapping himself around this fact. Tommy was old. His skills and Gifts seemed without limit. It might take a locomotive to crush Sam, but Tommy could lift that locomotive.

Sam shook his head.

For all that, Tommy's greatest gift was his humanity. He wasn't gregarious and social like Sam and Amy. In fact, he was something of a loner. But he had an enormous capacity for friendship and simple human decency. He could laugh and be laughed at in turn. There was another swell of happiness in Sam's heart when he thought of Rhonda. Sam had loved that kid from first sight.

She's exactly what he needs.

Sam roused himself from contemplation. He needed to get back to the matter at hand. Of the dozen or so Gifted who'd dropped off his radar in the last eight to ten years, half undoubtedly had been the victims of foul play.

Perhaps some of the other six or seven had received help disappearing, too?

The answer wasn't clear, but he began thinking about how he might look into those people. He pulled out his phone, glanced at it distastefully, and began to dial the number of someone who might help.

He had a good memory, so he would use his time driving back to Chicago to work his phone list. At home, he would pull out a white board and jot down everything he'd learned. Sometimes seeing things in writing helped him think.

This is going to be a lot of shoe leather and brain time, he thought as he dialed the last digit.