Edwin has never killed a man. In his professional life he has almost always advised against it. The motives that lead one to murder are ill-informed. Justice and its darker cousin revenge are ill-served by murder. And crimes of passion are always, always more expensive than they first appear.
The way he sees it, if your object is to cause someone pain, then killing them is suboptimal, because they cannot feel pain after death. If you truly wish to revenge yourself upon another, then the thing to do is to force them to live in a set of unbearable circumstances. Oepdius is a good starting place. Arrange for a man to unwittingly kill his father and marry his mother, then reveal it to him. That is revenge. By comparison murder is simply pedestrian, ill-informed and wasteful.
And especially wasteful. When you kill a man you forfeit the benefit of his labor and expertise. Even slavery, as ruinously expensive as it is, is better than murder.
What Edwin rarely explains is that there are certain cases in which the benefits of killing a person greatly outweigh the costs of keeping them alive. Why else would political assassination exist?
And right now, Edwin is faced with one of those rare cases in which killing someone is the best thing to do. But that’s what he thinks, in the safety of his logical abstraction. This is what he does:
Gus is outside the courtroom. He puts a cigarette in his mouth, but before he can light it, he is overcome with a coughing fit. It’s the kind of fit that might make a person think that killing Gus is a waste of time. He’s clearly half-dead already. In fact, he might even drop dead before he stops coughing.
Edwin places his hand on Gus’ back. “Are you all right?” asks Edwin. Still coughing, Gus looks over his shoulder. When he sees who it is, he jerks away from the contact.
“Get your hands off me you shifty bastard.”
Edwin is nonplussed by this insult. He offers Gus his handkerchief. “I thought you might need assistance.”
“Even if I do, I’m not taking help from the likes of you.”
Then Excelsior is there. He puts himself between Gus and Edwin. “You stay away from him,” says Excelsior. Edwin raises his hands as if to suggest that he means no further harm. Excelsior ushers Gus away from the courthouse.
Edwin stands with his hands at his side and watches Excelsior and a dead man walk away. Very carefully, Edwin opens his right hand. A small needle drops to the ground. The needle is tipped with ricin, a deadly poison derived from the shell of castor beans. Even a few microns are poisonous. The needle itself is so delicate that it will soon be ground into oblivion by the shoes of the unsuspecting. The unsuspecting always make such wonderful accomplices.
Edwin nods to a photographer who has been snapping pictures of the whole exchange. The photographer has no idea why what he has photographed will be important, useful or even desired. Why would anyone want a photograph of a chance meeting with an old man? He doesn’t know. And neither do we.
Hours later, Excelsior is awakened by the angry squawk of the pager. He drags himself out of bed. What is it this time? Can’t these emergencies wait until the morning? He squints at the vile plastic box. He blinks twice as he tries to make sense of the message. Then he is gone. He doesn’t even bother to don his costume. He just grabs a pair of pants and shirt and flies out the window, without bothering to open it.
Within minutes he is standing in an Intensive Care Unit. The figure in the bed is obscured by tubes and wires. A variety of machines cluck and beep and suck as they wrap Gus in a cold embrace of mechanical concern. Excelsior feels awkward, and powerless. Gus looks withered and weak. With his eyes closed lying helpless in the bed, he seems both a thousand years old and as innocent as a child.
But innocent he is not. Where the blanket has fallen off his chest, Excelsior can see the crisscross of scar tissue. He wonders what it would be like to have scars, for the world to leave its mark upon your flesh in pain. He re-covers his oldest and only friend with the blanket.
A doctor enters the room. “Is it… Cancer?” Excelsior asks.
The doctor snorts. “Yeah it’s cancer. He’s had lung cancer. But that’s not what put him here. He’s had a massive stroke. Hits just keep on coming.”
“Is he going to be okay?”
“Be okay? How should I know? I’m just a doctor. I would have told you he should have been dead 6 months ago. But he wasn’t. As for the stroke, we’ll have to see. There’s some brain damage. How long it will last? How much of him will come back? We’ll just have to wait and see.”
“Wait and see? That’s the best you can do?”
“I’m sorry, I’m just a doctor. I don’t have superpowers.”
The Doctor leaves. Excelsior doesn’t know whether to sit or stand, to cry or remain stoic. He wishes that Gus’ stroke was a giant monster he could punch. But of course it isn’t.
His grief and confusion are interrupted by a small coughing noise. Excelsior does not turn. Then he hears it again, louder.
“Heh-HEM”
Excelsior turns to see a man whom he does not remember meeting. The man is small and vaguely piggish. This man knows so much about Excelsior he thinks he owns him. He opens his mouth and noise comes out.
He had intended to say, “I am Director Smiles. For the time being, I will be your liaison with the government.” But what actually comes out is, “I am Directasquee—”
Smiles is scared shitless.
“I think you have the wrong room,” Excelsior says, summoning what little patience he has.
“No,” the Director says, sweating profusely, “I am Director Smiles, I will b-b-b-b-b-” As Smiles struggles with the future tense, Excelsior is sucked in by the suspense of his stutter. What is he trying to say? Will he make it past the second letter of the alphabet this time?
“b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b”
In the midst of his terror and motorboat impersonation, Director Smiles decides that this ‘b’ is unassailable. He gives up on the sentence and tries another one.
“I am in control of you now,” says Director Smiles. He is pleased that he has gotten this sentence out in such good voice, with a real tone of authority. But when Excelsior’s face collapses into a frown, Smiles realizes he may have made a mistake.
“You do NOT control me!” Excelsior picks the little man up by the front of his cheap suit. “I control you! You get it?” Excelsior twists his wrist and turns Director Smiles upside down. As small change falls out of the Director’s pockets, Excelsior whispers, “I can end you any time I want. And if you don’t leave me alone with my friend. I am going to end you.”
“Government!” Smiles squeaks by way of protest.
“Wait outside, we’ll talk about it when Gus wakes up.”
Excelsior stands a vigil over his friend. Smiles sits outside on the couch frantically messaging people from his phone. He is praying, to whatever committee of dark gods bureaucrats pray to in their secret, inefficient hearts, that Gus will pull through.
As the first fingers of dawn claw their way through the heavily louvered blinds, Excelsior raises his head. The lack of sleep hangs under his eyes. He looks to Gus. “It’s a new day old man. It’s a new day and I have to go. But you rest easy, I’ve got it from here.”
Director Smiles awakes with a jerk. He realizes that Excelsior is watching him. Smiles is afraid before he can even fully wake up. “I have to go to court,” says Excelsior. Smiles nods. “Is it your fault that I have to go to court?” Smiles nods again. Excelsior frowns. “Rule 1 — no more court cases.” Smiles nods. “Rule 2 — You don’t pick and choose the emergencies anymore. You send me everything, I choose what I’m going to help with.”
“But you can’t possibly—” Smiles protests.
“I can. And I will. Send me everything. If Gus wakes up, it takes priority.” Smiles nods again. He opens his mouth to speak, but Excelsior is gone.
