Chapter 66: Detective Wilson is on the case

Murdock noticed the surveillance almost immediately. The woman on her trail may have been a professional, but, like all the others before her, she allowed herself to be impermissibly neglectful of her blind victim. In fact, she had gone further than most, not even bothering to disguise herself, sitting in the passenger seat of a shabby cab, twenty meters from the diner.

However, even the best agent in the world would hardly have suspected that a woman lazily munching "lunch in a box," though the time would have called it "a late supper in a box," on StarBucks' outdoor terrace was at this very moment scrutinizing her stalker, who was not even in her field of vision.

"It's been a long time since anyone has attempted me," Margaret thought lazily, picking up the remains of rice with a plastic fork, "if you think about it, there hasn't been anyone worthy since Hardy, just amateurs."

"Miss," the cafeteria worker came up to Murdock, "I'm sorry, we're closing."

"It's all right, I've finished," Margaret said a polite goodbye to the girl and left the diner.

She decided to give the stalker a chance and not sic her subordinates on her right away. Leading her away from crowded places, Murdock found the perfect place to talk in an abandoned building. Not long ago there had been music playing, alcohol pouring out, cocaine tracks scattered on the backs of toilets, and the most impatient fucked in the backyard, but the owners of the Bunker, as the club was called, had somehow decided they lived in a free and independent country. Today in the shadows of the former club lurked Murdock's men, aware of the imminent meeting, and the ubiquitous rats scurried around the corners.

Wanda couldn't help but realize the surveillance was exposed when Murdock brought her to a place like this, but that wasn't a reason to retreat. The mercenary was quite confident in her abilities.

"Gita, our adventure ends for today," Wanda turned to her new friend, who had volunteered to be a sort of personal driver for the mercenary. Not that Gita had much choice: Wilson paid generously, and the Indian needed money urgently to repair her car, her only source of income.

"I can wait for you, Lady Deadpool," per the prearranged rules, Gita didn't call the mercenary by name when she was at work, that is, in costume.

"No need. Go home, I'll call you next time," Wilson got out of the cab without waiting for an answer.

Not particularly lurking, she followed Murdock into the club, the assorted litter on the floor and on the best days of the not particularly presentable establishment announcing the mercenary's footsteps in advance. You had to have a good ear to hear her.

"Not a bad place for a little private talk," Wanda remarked, unmistakably aware, despite the darkness, of the lawyer's location.

"And not just... if we do more than talk," said Murdock, who was waiting for her stalker, leaning against the counter where the club patrons used to order their drinks.

"That would depend on the answers," Wanda shrugged. "What do you know about the attack on the Midtown School?"

"By attack, you probably mean the kidnapping of Peter Parker," Margaret wasn't surprised by the question, "Wait... you don't think I did it, do you? You know, that would be very insulting of you. All this commotion, all this shooting, and the bodies of their own people left behind... you ought to have known by now that it's not my style."

"That's why we're still talking," Wilson said with feigned confidence, but the truth was that she wasn't even looking at the problem from that angle. After all, she simply had no other leads, "and besides, we both know that Queenpin has never shied away from dirty methods... and Peter didn't accept her "invitation," you know that as well as I do."

Deadpool's game didn't escape Devil Girl's keen ears.

[So she really did think I had something to do with the kidnapping and was going to make a mess of it,] Murdock noted to herself with some surprise, [the boy seems to have a whole club of groupies, all of them with the word 'super,' except two have followed the trail, and there hasn't been a trace of them since.]

"I told Captain Stacy this before, and I'll tell you again: neither I nor my employer had anything to do with the attack. The Parker boy made a good impression on me, and that's the only reason I'm going to help you..." Murdock paused, pondering her further words, "but... several assailants were killed in the kidnapping, and in a very extravagant way, about your style, I doubt that Peter or any of the students could have done it, especially since they were all sedated before the attack."

Wanda already knew about these deaths, as did anyone who watched the news or read the local paper. The press didn't miss the opportunity to blurt out all the credible details of the incident, as well as the many alleged ones.

"Who, then?" Wilson, to her own surprise, realized she was ready to believe Murdock's words. After all, this woman, Queenpin or not, is pretty confident in her abilities, even though she knows for sure who she's talking to. Which, given the ninjas lurking in the building (to think the rumors turned out to be true), deprived her of any reason to lie or waste her time talking at all.

"I know that Captain Stacy was never able to interrogate the teacher from the school who was injured in the attack: first she was in intensive care, and then she was taken away by representatives of a secret intelligence organization we both know. But... she wasn't the only one who saw what happened with her own eyes. Mary Jane Watson, Parker's girlfriend, according to the other students, was the one who first helped the victims, so maybe you should have asked her first. Now go away, I don't want to kill you. You may be the boy's only hope of salvation."

For her, the days since her abduction have been one long, hopeless nightmare. Yes, hopelessness is an appropriate definition. It's what she feels, what she dreams about, what she sees when she looks in the mirror. Hopelessness - a face like an unironed jacket, tears rolling down her cheeks.

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For a while there was hope in Mary Jane's soul for the heroines in the chase. She tried to hang on, to believe the promise Peter had made to her. He'd been kidnapped before. Twice, though she'd learned of the first after the fact. And both times he'd gotten away with it. Always with a smile and not forgetting to crack silly jokes, maybe this time he'd get away with it...

No. Even a skilled liar like M.J. couldn't convince a gullible simpleton like Mary Jane that everything was all right. Nothing is all right. Time goes on, and there's no word from Spiderwoman or Venom.

Nor did talking to Jane Stacy, who had taken control of the case and was personally handling Watson as a key witness, bring relief. But as much as Jane wanted to support her daughter's girlfriend, she wouldn't give her false hope: There were no leads, none of the dead could be identified. Whoever the attackers were, they had considered the possibility of their soldiers' deaths and even the need to dump the bodies. A monstrous precaution. They could only wonder why such people would want Parker.

After the long and tedious process of testifying, Mary Jane returned home, where everything reminded her of him: the smells, the sounds, the faces of acquaintances. Even when she stayed in her room, she could see from the window the cluttered room in Peter's house - where old, unwanted things like that broken computer were stored...

His absence is gaping, the silence is rumbling...

It was in this position: sitting at the window, with an open but unread chemistry book and caught the girl Deadpool, when late at night, decided to secretly break into the Watson's house.

The chatty mercenary's visit did not particularly surprise Mary Jane. She was aware of the fact that, in addition to Spiderwoman and Venom, Deadpool was also in constant communication with Peter. He didn't go into detail, but Watson was under the impression that Parker had hired Deadpool for a job. After all, she wasn't heroic like Venom and Spiderwoman, whom Peter helped with gadgets and drugs, but she was constantly hanging around his lab.

Finding that Wanda, like herself, knew nothing of Peter's fate, or of the whereabouts of Venom and the Spiderwoman, Watson recounted the events of a half-week ago, as she had done in the police department. Particularly interesting to the mercenary was the mention of how Sarasti dealt with the two soldiers sent after her.

Wanda, who already had some experience with intelligence agencies and secret organizations, suspected her of being an undercover agent who was supposed to follow Parker. And the fact that the agent could kill with his bare hands well armed and trained soldiers, literally ripping their throats out with his bare hands, suggested the involvement of no ordinary people. After all, she herself had dealt with such organizations, including in the role of a test subject.

"Hey," Wanda yelled at the apathetic Watson before she left, "why the snot? Get some work done, Parker's not dead yet, and neither are the others, you hear me, I'll find them. What will you tell him, then, that you've been crying in your room all the time, burying him beforehand?"

"I... I don't know, does it matter? As long as he comes back..."

"Hmm," Wilson couldn't find an answer, all she could say was silly jokes that weren't really appropriate right now.

"So, physics teacher Sarasti," Wanda thought to herself, "if Murdoch wasn't lying, that's the last lead, and Police Captain Jane Stacy can point it out."

"You have any idea of the police captain's address?" Wanda asked, not much hope of success.

"I do," Watson tore a piece of paper from a discarded notebook on the table and quickly wrote the address on it, "but you're more likely to find her at the police station than at home."

"The eternal "Miss, will you never find a husband?"" Wilson smirked, alluding to one of the cruelest taunts single women married to work can suffer, usually teachers, for only children can be so cruel.

"No, her daughter is missing, three days ago, too, though she'll just run away... she's been doing that a lot lately."

"Stacy..." she held out, remembering Wanda, "wouldn't be Gwen by any chance?"

"Yeah... how did you know?"

"Connors mentioned her," Wanda answered honestly.

"Gwen Stacy..." pondered Wilson as she left Watson's house, "Connors' lab assistant, daughter of a police captain, disappeared at the same time as the attack, and she obviously knows Watson well... coincidence?"

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