I noticed Grant Gymnasium for the first time during a patrol that, until then, had produced nothing more dangerous than a delivery truck blocking a fire hydrant.
Donnelly was driving slowly down a street lined with old businesses, while I mentally noted building entrances, alleys, and changes that had appeared since our last pass. After several weeks in the field, the neighborhood was beginning to lose its appearance as an indistinct mass. I recognized certain owners, the buildings whose locks worked badly, and the intersections where drivers treated red lights as suggestions. Even the graffiti became landmarks.
The boxing gym stood between an auto parts store and a laundromat whose sign promised one-hour cleaning with an optimism its owner never seemed capable of honoring. The building was narrow, built of dark brick, with large windows covered in mist. An old sign hung above the door.
GRANT GYMNASIUM
I turned my head as we passed.
The name stirred something in my memories, but too vaguely for me to identify it. It belonged to one of those areas that had become blurred with time, a secondary detail glimpsed in a comic, a cartoon, or a series whose version I could no longer distinguish.
Frank, sitting on the back seat, suddenly straightened.
"Ted Grant."
I kept looking at the façade until it disappeared behind us.
"I know that name."
"Wildcat."
The memory returned in fragments. A black costume, pointed ears, boxing gloves, and an ordinary man capable of holding his own among people who were absolutely not ordinary.
"The Justice Society," I murmured.
Donnelly shot me a look.
"Talking to yourself, Professor?"
"I was reading the sign."
"Grant Gymnasium. An old neighborhood institution. You like boxing?"
"I mostly practice karate."
"So that's why you stand like you're waiting for someone to announce their attack before throwing it."
Frank stuck his head between the seats.
"Ask him if he knows Ted Grant."
I kept my eyes forward.
"Is the owner still around?" I asked.
Donnelly raised one shoulder.
"Ted? Yeah. He must be at least sixty, and he still makes kids run until they regret being born. Former champion. He trained half the serious boxers in the sector and probably slapped the other half."
Frank smiled.
"That's him."
I did not answer.
Donnelly turned at the next intersection.
"You want to sign up?"
"No."
The answer came out too quickly.
He looked at me again.
"Did a boxing gym personally offend you?"
"I already have training."
"You also have a cereal bar for an eight-hour patrol. Your ability to declare something sufficient is not proof."
Frank nodded vigorously.
"He's right."
I turned slightly toward the window, pretending to observe the pedestrians.
Ted Grant.
If Frank was right, the existence of the gym suggested that Wildcat had truly existed. And if Wildcat had existed, the Justice Society might have been active in this world before disappearing from public records. That would explain the almost total absence of references during my childhood research. Heroes had not necessarily begun with Batman or Superman. A previous generation might have acted in the shadows, been forgotten, or seen its history deliberately buried.
That realization should have pushed me to search further.
It produced the opposite effect.
"We should go back," Frank said.
"No."
"I'm not suggesting we ask him for an autograph. We go in, look around, and verify."
"We don't seek out heroes."
"He isn't hard to find. His name is written in giant letters over his door."
"That's not the point."
"That's exactly the point. You want proof, but the moment potential proof has fists, you change sidewalks."
I clenched my teeth.
Donnelly glanced briefly in the rearview mirror, as if trying to understand what had caught my attention.
"You have that look again."
"What look?"
"The one where you're conducting a whole trial inside your skull without inviting anyone."
"I'm thinking."
"Toward the back seat?"
Frank smiled.
"I'm really going to end up liking him."
The radio assigned us a dispute between a landlord and tenant before Donnelly could continue. Grant Gymnasium left my field of vision, but not Frank's.
Over the following days, he found several opportunities to return to the subject.
When I trained at the dojo, he watched my movements while claiming that a real boxer would spot every shift of weight before I even struck. When I ran, he suggested that Ted Grant probably knew better conditioning methods. Once, while I was eating breakfast, he asked whether my refusal to meet Wildcat came from a moral principle or from a very reasonable fear of being punched in the face.
I continued to refuse.
I had promised myself not to seek out heroes. That rule had kept me from showing up at Wayne Manor, from following Lex Luthor beyond public information, or from trying to approach Clark Kent under the pretext of commenting on his work. It had protected my family, my friends, and myself from attention we could not control.
Frank considered that taking a few classes in a public gym did not constitute a violation.
I considered that using memories from another life to deliberately get closer to a former vigilante came close enough.
Our discussion remained theoretical until the morning we discovered Andre Holloway.
∗ ∗ ∗
The call was presented as a simple welfare check.
An employer reported that a young man had not come to work for two days, was not answering his phone, and had not warned anyone. His sister was waiting for us in front of his building with the landlord. The address was on a quiet street lined with four- or five-story brick buildings. Air conditioners protruded from the windows despite the season, and a child's bicycle was chained to the entrance railing with a lock far too thick for its probable value.
The woman in front of the door must have been twenty-five. She was still wearing her nursing assistant scrubs under a coat and gripping her phone so tightly that her knuckles had turned white.
"I'm Mariah Holloway," she explained as soon as we approached. "Andre is my brother. He hasn't answered since Monday night."
"Does he ever disappear without warning?" Donnelly asked.
"Never. He calls even when he's going to be ten minutes late. His foreman contacted me this morning because Andre didn't show up yesterday or today."
"Did you try to go in?"
"I don't have a key. The landlord refuses to open without the police."
The man standing beside her raised his hands.
"I'm not refusing. I'm respecting the rules."
Donnelly looked at him.
"You just described the polite version of a refusal."
The landlord lowered his arms.
Mariah explained that Andre was twenty-two and worked as an apprentice electrician. He was following a union training program, saving to get his own vehicle, and called their mother every Sunday, even when he had nothing to tell her. He had a few friends, no girlfriend as far as she knew, and no obvious reason to leave town.
"Does he use drugs?" Donnelly asked.
Mariah stiffened.
"No."
"I have to ask."
"He smoked sometimes when he was in high school. Nothing else."
"Any recent problems? Money, arguments, threats?"
She hesitated.
"He had an argument with his neighbor a few weeks ago. About money, I think. But Andre said it was settled."
Frank stood near her, watching the way her hands trembled.
Donnelly asked the landlord to open. The man first rang the bell, then knocked while calling Andre's name. No answer came. He finally inserted his key into the lock, but the door only opened a few centimeters before hitting something.
"There's a chain," he said.
Donnelly leaned into the gap.
"Mr. Holloway? NYPD. We're coming in to make sure you're all right."
The silence remained complete.
He looked at the frame, then signaled to me.
"Beaumont, push when I tell you."
We struck together near the chain. The wood gave way on the second blow. The smell reached me before I saw the inside.
Not the crushing smell of a body left for several weeks in a closed room. Something more recent, mixing stagnant air, cold sweat, and that metallic note I knew far too well.
Donnelly smelled it too. His face changed without becoming truly expressive.
"Mrs. Holloway, stay in the hallway."
"What is it?"
"Stay with the landlord."
He entered first, one hand near his weapon. I followed him.
The apartment was small. A living room opened onto a kitchen, with a hallway leading to the bedroom and bathroom. The television remained on without sound. A morning program moved across the screen, perfectly indifferent to what lay a few meters away.
Andre Holloway was sitting on the floor against the couch, his head tilted toward his shoulder. His eyes were half-open. A thin line of dried blood ran from the back of his skull to the collar of his T-shirt.
A syringe lay near his right hand.
A small bag containing white powder was on the coffee table.
For one second, I stopped seeing the apartment.
The floor of the bank returned with brutal precision. The cold against my back. The blood in my mouth. The lights above me. Claire's face distorted by fear.
My breathing locked.
Frank stood beside the body. His face had lost all color, which seemed absurd for a man already dead.
"Malcolm."
There was no joke in his voice.
I forced air into my lungs. Once. Twice.
Donnelly turned slightly toward me.
"You with me?"
"Yes."
The word came out hoarser than expected.
He watched me for another second, then knelt beside Andre without touching more than necessary. He checked for the absence of a pulse, observed the rigidity, and stood back up.
"He's been dead for a while. We secure. Nothing moves."
I called Central to request a supervisor, detectives, and the medical examiner. My voice remained stable, which made me feel as if I were listening to someone else speak.
Mariah understood before we told her. She tried to enter when I returned to the hallway.
"No," I said, placing myself in front of her.
"He's in there?"
I did not answer quickly enough.
Her face collapsed.
"Andre!"
She tried to pass. I placed my hands on her arms without grabbing her brutally.
"Mariah, you can't go in."
"He's my brother."
"I know."
"Then let me see him."
I knew the regulation answer. Preserve the scene. Wait for official identification. Avoid contamination.
None of those phrases could truly reach a woman who had just understood that her brother was dead behind a door.
"I'm sorry," I said. "You shouldn't see him like this."
She looked at me with anger as violent as her grief.
"You don't know what I should do."
"No."
The answer stopped her for a moment.
"I don't. But if you go in now, that image will stay with you. Let us first understand what happened."
Her legs seemed to give way. The landlord placed a chair in the hallway, and she sank onto it, still gripping her phone.
Frank remained near the door, motionless.
"Go look," I told him quietly when Donnelly returned to the living room.
Frank turned his head toward me.
"Are you sure?"
"Something doesn't match."
He looked at Andre, then the syringe.
"I felt it too."
He passed through the wall leading to the bedroom while Donnelly and I began observing the scene without moving anything.
The immediate hypothesis was obvious. Overdose. The bag, the syringe, the body found alone behind a chained door.
And yet every detail seemed to have been placed to be noticed.
The syringe lay parallel to the edge of the rug. The bag was almost in the center of the coffee table, with no visible trace of powder around it. Andre was still wearing his work boots, covered in dried dust, and his coat had been thrown over a chair as if he had just come home.
I crouched at a distance from the body.
"There's blood behind the furniture."
Donnelly leaned without crossing the zone.
A small dark trace marked the lower corner of a bookcase, nearly two meters from the body. The rug between the two showed a slightly rumpled area.
"He could have fallen over there before collapsing here," he replied.
"Then someone may have moved him."
"Or he moved himself."
I looked at the coffee table. A clean circle appeared in the dust near the bag, as if an object had rested there for a long time before being removed.
"His phone is missing."
Donnelly scanned the room.
"Maybe in the bedroom."
A chair stood near the kitchen, perfectly straight, but one of its legs bore a fresh scrape. A matching mark ran across the floor for several centimeters. A broken glass had been partially pushed under a piece of furniture.
Donnelly saw what I was looking at.
"You're thinking argument."
"I'm thinking the room was straightened up too quickly."
"That isn't the same thing yet."
"I know."
The door of the neighboring apartment cracked open. A man watched us for a second before closing it again. He had very short hair, a white T-shirt, and a recent cut on his left hand.
Donnelly had seen him too.
"The neighbor?"
The landlord nodded from the hallway.
"Calvin Ross. He's lived there about a year."
Frank returned a few moments later by passing through the wall. He came close enough for me to hear him without giving the impression that I was staring at the other side of the room.
"Andre's phone is at Ross's place. In a bag under the sink. He's cleaning a pair of shoes with bleach. There's still blood on the soles."
I kept my face still.
"The neighbor argued with Andre," I said to Donnelly.
"His sister mentioned it."
"He just shut his door as soon as he saw us."
"Which is not a crime."
"He has a cut on his hand."
"Which is still not a crime."
Frank crossed his arms.
"He's cleaning the shoes right now."
I looked at the neighboring door.
Donnelly followed my gaze.
"Is there a particular reason you're interested in him?"
"Several weak elements pointing in the same direction."
"That doesn't sound like your usual way of talking."
"I think we need to act quickly, but cleanly."
"That's a sentence your father would have framed."
Footsteps came up the stairs before he could continue.
Detective Renee Walker entered the hallway with another investigator and two technicians. She had to be a little over forty. Her black hair was tied low, her dark coat remained open over a simple suit, and she carried a notebook already filled with notes. She greeted Donnelly by his first name, which indicated that they had met often enough to develop an opinion about each other.
"Donnelly."
"Walker."
"You touched anything before I got here again?"
"Only the door."
"I'll ask the door if it wants to file a complaint."
Her gaze passed over me.
"The rookie?"
"Malcolm Beaumont."
"The one who writes reports long enough to be published in multiple volumes?"
Donnelly raised his empty coffee as if making a toast.
"His reputation precedes him."
Walker handed me a pair of shoe covers.
"Show me what you observed. Not what you think. What you actually saw."
The wording forced me to take each detail in order. The body, the position of the syringe, the blood trace on the bookcase, the broken glass, the moved chair, the missing phone, and the door chain.
Walker barely interrupted me. She noted certain elements, checked others herself, and asked the technician to photograph the mark under the chair.
"Why does the overdose seem staged to you?" she asked.
"The materials are very visible, and the room seems to have been partially straightened around them. The syringe is parallel to the edge of the rug, about thirty centimeters from his hand. The bag is placed in the center of the table, while other objects were moved or broken. His phone is missing."
"Are you a medical examiner?"
"No."
"Then don't tell me what the syringe should have done according to the physical laws of your imagination. Give me its position, then let the people whose job it is interpret it."
I nodded.
"Understood."
She crossed the room, then looked toward the neighboring apartment.
"And Calvin Ross?"
"He argued with Andre about money. He watched us from his door and closed it when he saw the police. He also has a recent cut on his hand."
"All of that explains why you want to talk to him."
"Yes."
Walker watched me for another moment, probably aware that I was holding something back without being able to identify what.
"Then find me more."
She signaled the other investigator to question Mariah, then approached the body.
Donnelly guided me toward the hallway while the technicians began their work.
"You think he's destroying evidence?" he asked quietly.
"I think we shouldn't leave him unsupervised for several hours."
It was not a direct answer, but it was enough for him.
He turned toward the landlord.
"Do you have a legitimate reason to enter Ross's apartment? A leak, scheduled inspection, heating issue?"
The man thought.
"The pipe under his sink leaks sometimes."
Frank raised his arms.
"Perfect."
I shook my head.
"An old leak isn't enough to turn his apartment into an open scene."
Donnelly looked at me.
"I didn't say we were going to search."
"If the landlord goes in with two officers because of a leak that hasn't been reported today, Ross will understand exactly what we're trying to do."
"And while we look for better, he can keep cleaning."
"Then let's look for better quickly."
He briefly clenched his jaw, then looked at Walker.
"We rebuild the timeline, neighbors, and cameras."
Walker watched our exchange.
"I assume I don't want to know the rest."
"Probably not," Donnelly replied.
"As long as your mysteries don't contaminate my scene, keep them."
There was no great argument. Donnelly would have preferred a shortcut. I preferred a justification that would survive a judge and a defense attorney. Neither of us considered the other absurd.
We simply had a different sense of urgency.
∗ ∗ ∗
Mariah explained that Andre had lent Calvin Ross twelve hundred dollars four months earlier. Calvin had promised to repay him after finding a new job, but the payments had stopped. Two weeks earlier, Andre had said he wanted the money back before the end of the month.
"He wouldn't have called the police over that," Mariah clarified. "He always said Calvin was going through a bad time."
"Did Andre use opioids?" Walker asked.
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure he didn't inject anything. He was afraid of needles. When he was little, it took three nurses to hold him during vaccinations."
That detail proved nothing by itself, but it slightly shifted the scene.
The landlord led us to a small room in the basement where the surveillance system was kept. Two cameras covered the lobby and rear entrance. The image was poor, black and white, and the clock was six minutes fast, but recordings from the last two days were still available.
Andre entered the building Monday at 7:12 p.m., wearing the same boots and coat found in the apartment. Calvin Ross appeared at 7:49 p.m. He went upstairs with a bottle in one hand.
He came back down at 8:17 p.m.
Andre's phone was not visible, but Calvin now carried a dark plastic bag he had not had when entering.
"Did he go to Andre's place?" Walker asked.
"The camera doesn't cover the landing," the landlord replied.
A resident on the third floor, Mrs. Greene, remembered an argument around eight o'clock.
"I didn't hear the words," she explained, "but someone was shouting. Then there was a loud noise, like furniture falling. After that, nothing."
"Did you look into the hallway?" I asked.
"No. I watch the news at that hour. And people in this building yell about things that don't always deserve opening your door."
The medical examiner arrived shortly afterward. A first observation of the head injury made overdose much less likely. Andre had suffered a violent blow to the back of the skull. It was still too early to determine whether the injury had caused death, but it now fully justified a criminal investigation.
Walker requested that a warrant be prepared for Calvin Ross's apartment. The footage, the debt, the overheard argument, and the close timeline formed a serious enough whole to begin the procedure.
The problem was time.
A warrant did not materialize instantly because the police were impatient.
Calvin refused to open when Walker knocked on his door.
"Mr. Ross, Detective Walker. We want to ask you a few questions about Andre Holloway."
"I have nothing to say."
"You were at his place Monday night."
"No."
Walker looked at Donnelly.
"We have video showing you entering the building."
"I live here."
"You went upstairs with a bottle and came back down with a bag."
A silence followed.
"I want a lawyer."
"You have that right. Just open the door so we can confirm your identity."
"No."
Frank briefly passed through the wall, then almost immediately returned to me.
"He's putting the shoes and the phone into a backpack. His window is open."
A metallic sound echoed outside.
I turned my eyes toward the landing window.
Donnelly heard it too.
"Fire escape."
A second sound rang out, followed by the slam of a window.
Walker did not wait any longer.
"Donnelly, with Beaumont. I'll go down through the entrance."
We ran toward the stairs. Frank passed through the side wall and disappeared, while Donnelly and I raced down the steps.
We reached the ground floor just as the rear door burst open. Calvin Ross emerged into the courtyard, his backpack on one shoulder. He saw us and immediately ran in the opposite direction.
"Police! Stop!"
He kept running.
Frank passed through the courtyard wall and got ahead. His outside speed remained linked to mine and to our maximum distance, but he could cut corners and pass through obstacles instead of going around them.
Calvin crossed an alley, knocked over a trash can, and turned the corner of a building.
When I reached the corner in turn, I saw Frank waiting against the wall.
He had not been able to warn me what he was planning. We had no means of silent communication when several meters and walls separated us.
He did not need one.
At the precise moment Calvin passed in front of him, Frank materialized one leg just long enough to hook his ankle.
The suspect collapsed heavily onto his hands and knees. His bag slid across the asphalt.
Frank's leg became almost transparent up to the hip, and his silhouette wavered from the effort.
I understood immediately.
Calvin, however, understood nothing. He turned around with a confused expression, as if the ground had just decided to attack him.
I was already on him.
I grabbed his arm and brought it behind his back. He struggled, threw his elbow backward, and almost managed to push me away. I shifted my weight, used my knee to control his hip, and tried to keep his arm against the ground.
Calvin twisted violently. His shoulder struck my chest and forced me back. He tried to get up, but his fall had cost him enough time.
Donnelly arrived and struck the back of his knee. Calvin fell again. Together, we controlled his arms and cuffed him.
Donnelly remained crouched near him, slightly out of breath.
"How did he fall?"
I glanced briefly at Frank, sitting against the wall with one leg still blurred.
"He misjudged the turn."
Donnelly examined the ground, then Calvin.
"For once, the city does us a favor."
I recovered the bag without commenting.
Walker entered the alley a few moments later, accompanied by another officer. She looked at Calvin, the abandoned bag, and my shoulder, where a dull pain was beginning to develop.
"Why did he run?"
"Because he loves exercise," Donnelly replied.
She put on gloves and opened the bag after securing Calvin.
Andre's phone was inside, along with a pair of damp shoes giving off a strong smell of bleach. A brown-stained towel was rolled at the bottom.
Frank approached me, limping slightly, even though the gesture probably had no real use.
"The trip was elegant."
"Your leg is disappearing."
"Elegant doesn't mean free."
"Go back inside as soon as we're alone."
He looked at the other officers.
"I'll try not to collapse before then."
I turned my attention back to Calvin.
Using Frank during the pursuit did not particularly bother me. Calvin was fleeing a homicide investigation with evidence in his bag. We were legally authorized to arrest him, and Frank had used only limited force to make him fall.
The question was not whether our power could replace proof.
The proof was now in front of us.
Frank had simply prevented the man carrying it from escaping.
∗ ∗ ∗
Calvin talked several hours later.
He had not planned to kill Andre. He had come to ask him for more time to repay him. Andre had refused and threatened to tell their mutual acquaintances that Calvin never kept his word. The discussion became an argument. Calvin had shoved him. Andre had stumbled over the chair and struck the back of his skull against the bookcase.
According to Calvin, Andre was still breathing when he left the apartment.
He had panicked, taken the phone because it contained their messages, and returned later with the injection equipment. He knew a cousin used drugs and had retrieved a syringe and an almost empty bag in order to stage an overdose.
He had moved Andre to the couch, wiped certain traces, straightened the chair, and locked the door with the chain by using a thread passed through the opening before leaving.
It was not a planned murder.
It was a sequence of decisions taken after a violent act, each intended to protect Calvin at the expense of a man he had left to die.
Walker found me in the precinct hallway after the interrogation. I was sitting in front of a vending machine, an improvised ice pack against my shoulder. Donnelly was filling out his report in a nearby room.
She leaned against the wall.
"You were right about Ross."
"We had enough elements in the end."
"That's not what I said."
I looked up.
Walker crossed her arms.
"You were looking at him as a suspect before the video, before the neighbor's testimony, and before the medical examiner's opinion."
"Several elements seemed inconsistent to me."
"And you looked to confirm them rather than invent what was missing. That was the right decision."
She paused.
"But don't congratulate yourself too quickly. If Ross had destroyed the phone while you were questioning the neighbors, you would have had to live with the result."
"I know."
"You say that often?"
"According to my mother, yes."
A very slight smile passed over her face.
"The next step is accepting that some correct decisions produce bad consequences and that some shortcuts sometimes give good results. That's where this job becomes dangerous."
She pointed to the room where Donnelly was.
"Your TO knows that part very well."
"Do you trust him?"
Walker thought.
"I trust him to want to help. That isn't always the same as trusting him to respect the way."
She straightened.
"You have a good eye, Beaumont. Just learn to make sure others can see what you see."
She left before I could answer.
Frank materialized weakly on the chair beside me. His leg had already recovered some of its clarity, but the outlines still trembled.
"I think she likes you."
"She just spent five minutes explaining why I could become dangerous."
"In the police, that's practically a mark of affection."
Donnelly came out of the room with several sheets.
"Your report is going to be interesting."
"I only described the pursuit and arrest."
"And the way Ross was attacked by an aggressive sidewalk?"
"He tripped."
"In the middle of a perfectly flat stretch."
"He was running too fast."
Donnelly looked at me for a long time.
He knew a piece was missing.
He just did not know its shape.
"One day, you're going to have to explain certain things to me."
"Maybe."
"That wasn't no."
"It wasn't yes either."
He looked at my shoulder.
"You still need better footwork."
"I caught him."
"After his mysterious encounter with the ground."
"The result counts."
Donnelly smiled.
"Careful, Professor. You're starting to talk like me."
Frank raised one finger.
"Grant Gymnasium."
I closed my eyes.
"Not now."
Donnelly arched an eyebrow.
"I didn't say anything."
"I know."
"You're becoming truly worrying."
"You have no idea."
∗ ∗ ∗
I learned the connection to Jamal the next day.
I called him to ask if he knew Andre Holloway. The silence that followed gave me the answer.
"Where did you hear that name?" he asked.
"On a call."
"He's dead, isn't he?"
I looked at Frank, sitting on the windowsill of my apartment.
"Yes."
Jamal did not speak for several seconds.
We met that same evening in his car, parked near a closed construction site. He was still wearing his work pants and a fluorescent jacket covered in dust. A toolbox occupied the back seat, and the cabin smelled of metal, coffee, and insulation.
"I knew him," he said, staring through the windshield. "Not well. We had two classes together at the training center and worked on the same site for a month."
"What was he like?"
"Punctual. Far too punctual. The kind of guy who arrived fifteen minutes early and made you feel late even when you were on time."
A very brief smile appeared on his face before disappearing.
"He wanted to buy a used truck. He saved everything. His sister had helped him when he was younger, and he wanted to pay her back, even though she kept telling him to stop."
"He had lent money to his neighbor."
"That sounds like him."
Jamal finally turned his head toward me.
"What happened?"
I explained that an argument had escalated, that the neighbor had tried to make the death look like an overdose, and that the evidence had been found. I gave no detail that might compromise the investigation, but enough for him to understand.
"They could have written that he was a drug addict," he said.
"Yes."
"And everyone would have said we didn't really know him. That no one knows what people do at home."
His anger was calm, which made it heavier.
"The report won't say that."
"Because you saw something was wrong?"
"Not just me."
He was probably thinking of Donnelly and the detectives.
I was also thinking of Frank.
Jamal placed his hands on the steering wheel.
"You know what's disgusting? Even now, there will be people who only remember the syringe. They'll say he must have been using a little anyway, because it's easier than admitting a guy can be killed by someone he was trying to help."
"We don't control what people say."
"No. But you control what becomes official."
I nodded.
"Yes."
He looked at me.
"Then be careful with that."
The sentence was not an accusation. It was a responsibility he entrusted to me without knowing I was already carrying it.
We remained in the car until the cold forced Jamal to restart the engine. He talked to me about Andre, his habits, the way he corrected other people's wiring mistakes without ever humiliating them, and the tuna sandwich he brought almost every day despite the protests of everyone who had to share the same room.
When I went home, Andre Holloway was no longer only the body sitting against a couch.
That was probably the most useful thing Jamal could still do for him.
∗ ∗ ∗
Frank waited until I had closed the door before speaking.
"I wonder what they wrote about me."
I took off my jacket.
"In the bank report?"
"Yes."
He looked at the dark impacts on his uniform.
"Reckless security guard. Employee who worsened the situation. Brave man who protected the customers. Victim number four."
"You weren't just a line."
"For the people filling out the file, maybe I was."
I placed my secured weapon in its storage before sitting down.
"You saved Claire."
"I think so."
"You did."
"And maybe I made the situation more dangerous for other people. I'll never know exactly."
He settled onto the chair across from me, even though his body placed no weight on the furniture.
"Do you regret not going into Ross's place immediately?"
I thought before answering.
"I regret that the information came before the justification. If we went in based solely on what you saw, everything we found could become unusable. If we waited too long, he could destroy the evidence."
"But we recovered it."
"Because we built enough elements to push him into panicking."
"And because I tripped him."
"The trip was useful."
Frank blinked.
"You're not going to give me a speech on the responsible use of spectral legs?"
"Ross was fleeing with evidence in a homicide investigation. We had the right to arrest him. You used limited force and he wasn't seriously injured."
"You're becoming almost reasonable."
"I've never had a problem using our abilities when an intervention is already justified."
"You still refused my help before he left."
"To enter his apartment without legal basis. That isn't the same thing."
Frank thought, then nodded.
"So the line isn't power or no power."
"The line is what we're trying to justify with it."
"Information I find can guide the search."
"Yes."
"But it must not become the sole reason for a search or an arrest."
"Exactly."
"And if someone is already running with a dead man's phone in his bag, I can make him fall."
"Within reasonable limits."
Frank smiled.
"I knew we'd find an agreement."
I took out the old dinosaur notebook. Its cover was now almost entirely covered with adhesive tape, and several sheets stuck out from the edges.
I wrote under the rules concerning Frank:
A truth only we know is not yet proof.
Frank read over my shoulder.
"Add something."
"What?"
"Lack of proof is not an excuse to stop looking."
I wrote the sentence beneath the first.
They seemed to contradict each other.
That was probably why they had to remain together.
Frank observed the page again.
"Grant Gymnasium."
I set down the pen.
"You never give up?"
"I spent twenty years unable to speak. I'm compensating."
"This case has nothing to do with Ted Grant."
"Ross almost escaped you despite my intervention."
"I arrested him."
"Together with Donnelly, after wrestling on the ground with a guy who had probably never taken a combat class."
"He was struggling."
"The people you try to arrest will have that bad habit."
I closed the notebook.
"I'm not going to question Ted Grant about the Justice Society."
"Fine."
"I'm not going to tell him about you."
"Even better."
"I'm only going to ask about classes."
Frank smiled.
"A strictly athletic and legally neutral visit."
"I already regret this."
∗ ∗ ∗
Grant Gymnasium seemed older inside than it did from the street.
The floor bore the marks of several decades of footsteps, jump ropes, and moved bags. Black-and-white photographs covered the walls, showing boxers with broken noses, coaches in robes, and rooms filled with smoke from an era when people seemed to regard their lungs as replaceable accessories. A ring bell was fixed near the counter. The air smelled of leather, sweat, chalk, and a disinfectant too weak to pretend to eliminate the rest.
Several people were training. A teenager struck a heavy bag under the gaze of an older woman. Two men worked their footwork around a ring. In the back, someone skipped rope at a speed that produced a regular hum.
Frank entered beside me and immediately scanned the photographs.
"It's definitely him."
"Are you sure?"
"Much more than about most things I remember."
"Why are your memories clearer than mine?"
"Because you spent twenty years becoming Malcolm. I stayed stuck with the old collection."
I did not know whether that explanation was accurate. It did, however, match what we observed. Certain details from my old life were drifting away, while Frank recovered them with unexpected precision.
A man stood near the main ring, arms crossed.
Ted Grant had to be well past sixty, but nothing in his posture matched the image of a fragile old trainer. He had short gray hair, a nose that had been broken often enough to no longer remember its original shape, and shoulders still broad under a simple black T-shirt. Deep lines marked his face, but his gaze moved with a speed that immediately made me uncomfortable.
He noticed me before I had decided how to approach him.
His eyes dropped to my shoes, moved back up to my shoulders, and stopped on my hands.
"You looking for someone?" he asked.
"I wanted to ask about classes."
"You've trained before."
It was not a question.
"Gymnastics and karate."
"How long?"
"Several years."
Ted approached. He was not as tall as me, but the space around him seemed to naturally organize itself according to his position.
"Cop?"
I looked down at my civilian clothes.
"How do you know?"
"You look at everyone's hands, you checked both exits when you came in, and you stand too straight for someone who just came to try a free class."
Frank smiled.
"He read you faster than Donnelly."
Ted pointed at my guard with a flick of his hand.
"Show me."
"What?"
"Your stance."
I positioned myself as I would at the dojo, feet staggered, weight distributed, and hands raised.
He circled around me.
"Karateka. Good balance. You load the back leg a little too much when you're thinking."
I corrected instinctively.
"And now you correct because an old man looked at you for three seconds."
"Do you always try to discourage new clients?"
"Only the ones who already think they know how to fight."
"I didn't say that."
"Your face said it for you."
Frank crossed his arms.
"I like him less now."
Ted led me near a bag.
"Hit."
I threw a controlled straight punch, then a second. He watched my feet rather than my hands.
"Again."
I added a simple combination, then a roundhouse kick stopped before impact.
Ted tilted his head slightly.
"Flexible. Fast. You recover your stance well. But your shoulders announce your punches, and your hips send a telegram before every kick."
"A telegram?"
"I'm old. I use the communication methods of my era."
Frank approached the bag.
"Ask him for a spar."
I did not need to.
Ted pointed to the ring.
"You want to understand?"
"Understand what?"
"Why you came."
I looked at the ropes.
"I came to ask about classes."
"No. You came to verify something."
The sentence immediately made me think of Wildcat.
Ted could not know.
He was probably talking about my abilities.
Probably.
"One light round," he suggested. "Gloves, control required. You can use your legs if you know how to stop them. I'll show you what's missing."
"Do you train with all new clients?"
"Only the ones I think I can make pay afterward."
I looked at Frank.
"He's trying to sell you a membership."
"He's mainly trying to humiliate you with admirable commercial efficiency."
I accepted.
A few minutes later, I found myself in the ring with borrowed gloves and a mouthguard that had fortunately been packaged. Ted had only put on a pair of lighter gloves. He had not removed his T-shirt or performed any visible warm-up.
"Are you sure?" I asked.
"You worried about me?"
"You said yourself you were old."
Ted smiled.
"Hit me, and we'll talk about my age."
The bell rang.
I began cautiously. Ted remained almost motionless, his weight on the balls of his feet, hands high but relaxed. His guard did not resemble mine. Nothing about it seemed rigid. Every part of his body seemed able to move in any direction without preparation.
I threw a jab to measure the distance.
He tilted his head a few centimeters.
My glove passed by.
I doubled the motion and added a straight. Ted moved back half a step, just enough to let the punch die in front of him, then lightly touched my ribs before my hand returned to guard.
The contact was not powerful.
It did not need to be.
He was showing me the opening.
I pivoted and threw a roundhouse kick to the body. Ted saw my hip before my leg even left the floor. He slid out of the trajectory, placed a hand against my shin to guide the movement, and touched my shoulder while I regained my balance.
"Your eyes look at the target before your legs do," he said.
I changed guard.
Ted did not seem impressed.
I threw a faster combination, using a straight punch to hide a controlled low kick. He blocked the punch, moved his leg, and entered my range before I could develop the kick's power.
His shoulder gently struck my chest.
I stepped back.
"You fight movement by movement," he explained. "You strike, return, think, then start again."
I clenched my teeth.
"I think during it."
"Not fast enough."
I advanced more, determined to break his rhythm. My gymnastics allowed me to change angles more easily than most karate practitioners I had faced. I feinted a kick, slipped under his arm, and pivoted almost behind him.
For the first time, Ted had to move one foot decisively.
His glove brushed my temple as he turned.
I managed to touch his shoulder.
Not cleanly, not enough to count in a real fight, but the contact existed.
Ted smiled.
"There. That was better."
Frank, at the edge of the ring, had stopped joking.
"He still knew where you were going to come out."
I knew it too.
Ted had not merely reacted to my angle change. He had let me take that space because he already knew the only position from which I could reappear without losing my balance.
I threw a high jab, then attempted a sweep.
He removed his leg before my foot arrived, moved to my outside, and placed two perfectly controlled touches, one to the body and one near the jaw.
I barely saw them begin.
I stepped back, changed level, and tried to use my flexibility to pass under a hook. Yet Ted had never intended to finish that hook. The movement existed only to send me toward his right.
His foot placed itself behind mine.
A light push on the shoulder was enough.
The ceiling appeared in my field of vision.
I controlled the fall by reflex, slapped the mat with my arm, and immediately rolled to get back up.
Ted was already waiting at a distance.
"Good fall."
I raised my guard again, breath shorter.
"Thanks."
"You can thank your gymnastics teacher. Not me."
I tried several more attacks. Each time, Ted observed the movement before it fully formed. My years of training were not useless. They allowed me to understand exactly how much better he was.
He did not simply have superior reflexes. He read the tension in my shoulders, the shift of my hips, the direction of my eyes, and the pressure of my feet against the floor. His footwork controlled distance without ever giving the impression that he was retreating. He did not flee my attacks. He moved the fight to where they could no longer reach him.
I managed a second time to force him to block thanks to a change in rhythm. He deflected the strike, immediately entered inside my guard, and placed his glove against my sternum.
He could have hit.
The round would have been over.
Ted stepped back on his own.
"That's enough."
I lowered my hands.
"The round isn't over."
"Yes, it is. You're starting to want to touch me more than you want to learn."
The remark was accurate.
That made it particularly annoying.
Ted removed his gloves and offered me a hand.
I took it.
His grip was firm, but not theatrical.
"You're good," he said. "For someone training in several things without having mastered one yet."
"That sounds like a very carefully crafted compliment."
"You've got flexibility, good reflexes, and you don't panic when you fall. Most men already lose half their brain the moment a fist comes toward their face."
He pointed at my feet.
"But your footwork mostly serves to launch your techniques. It doesn't control the fight yet. Your hips announce your kicks, your shoulders announce your punches, and your eyes announce everything else."
Frank leaned against the ropes, though they could not actually support him.
"He sees everything coming."
Ted continued:
"Karate taught you to strike cleanly. Gymnastics taught you to recover. Now you have to learn not to offer your intention before your attack."
"And you can teach me that?"
"I can try. The rest depends on your ability to listen when an old man tells you you're wrong."
I looked around. The old photographs, the worn ring, the bags, and Ted Grant standing in front of me with perfectly steady breathing.
He did not seem supernatural.
He was simply what a human being could become when they pushed ordinary abilities to a level I had only encountered in stories.
If this man truly was Wildcat, then my memories had greatly underestimated the difference between a trained person and a real peak human.
And if Batman was one day supposed to reach or surpass that level, my years of karate and gymnastics did not even place me in the same category.
Ted pointed to the front desk.
"The first month's cheaper if you pay today."
I removed my mouthguard.
"Do you do that with everyone you beat?"
"Only the ones who get back up."
Frank stood beside me.
"We sign up."
I looked at Ted.
No question about the Justice Society.
No mention of Wildcat.
No attempt to join his old world.
Only a boxing gym and a man capable of teaching me how to survive a real fight.
"What are the hours?" I asked.
Ted smiled.
"I knew you were smart."
∗ ∗ ∗
That evening, I placed the registration form beside my old notebook.
My shoulder still hurt because of Calvin Ross, and several areas of my body were beginning to remind me that Ted's controlled touches were still the touches of a former champion. Frank stood behind me, far too satisfied.
I opened the notebook to the page devoted to heroes.
In the PROBABLE column, I wrote:
Justice Society. Ted Grant still active. History perhaps concealed, forgotten, or never made public.
I did not move Wildcat to the confirmed column yet.
Ted had revealed nothing to me.
I only had a name, a gym, old memories, and physical abilities abnormally impressive for his age.
It was a lot.
It was not proof.
Under the personal rules, I added another sentence:
Being able to identify a danger does not mean being able to face it.
Frank read over my shoulder.
"You forgot the most important rule."
"Which one?"
"Never kick a boxer who knows exactly when you're going to do it."
"That isn't a general rule."
"It should become one."
I closed the notebook.
In Andre Holloway's apartment, I had learned that knowing the truth was not enough to prove it.
Facing Ted Grant, I had learned that seeing a fight coming was not enough to win it.
Both lessons were frustrating.
They were also necessary.
I had no intention of becoming a vigilante. I did not plan to run across rooftops, wear a mask, or seek out the dangers my memories precisely advised me to avoid.
I wanted to become a better police officer.
More attentive. More competent. Harder to surprise.
The rest could wait.
The registration form still remained on my desk.
Just in case.