I noticed the Grant Gymnasium during a patrol that had, up to that point, produced nothing more dangerous than a delivery truck parked in front of a fire hydrant.
Donnelly was driving slowly down a street lined with old shops, one hand on the wheel, the other resting near the radio. The road was still damp from a morning shower. The tires made a soft hiss each time they passed over manhole covers, and the smell of warm bread drifted out of a bakery whose window was too clean for the rest of the neighborhood.
After several weeks in the field, the streets were beginning to lose their appearance as an indistinct mass.
I recognized certain owners, the buildings whose locks worked badly, and the intersections where drivers treated red lights as simple recommendations. I knew which alley led to the back of a pharmacy, which lobby permanently held the smell of damp carpet, and which restaurant used its trash cans to cut the width of the sidewalk in half.
Even the graffiti was becoming 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. Wide windows covered in condensation offered glimpses of moving silhouettes, turning ropes, and a heavy bag swinging under blows.
An old sign hung above the door.
GRANT GYMNASIUM
I turned my head as we passed.
The name tugged at something deep in my memory.
Not an entire memory. Only a resistance, like a word I had once known without being able to recover the sentence that went with it.
Frank, sitting in the back seat, suddenly straightened.
"Ted Grant."
I continued following the facade with my eyes until it disappeared behind us.
"I know that name."
Frank looked at me in the rearview mirror, though his reflection did not appear there.
"Wildcat."
The memory rose in fragments.
A black costume.
Pointed ears.
Boxing gloves.
A man without laser beams, without supernatural speed, and without a destroyed planet in his past, but tough enough to hold his place among people who had all of that.
"The Justice Society," I murmured.
Donnelly turned his head slightly.
"You talking to yourself, Professor?"
I brought my eyes back to the street.
"I was reading the sign."
"Grant Gymnasium. An old neighborhood institution. You like boxing?"
"I mainly practice karate."
Donnelly observed my posture as if I had just supplied him with a compromising piece of evidence.
"So that's why you stand like you're waiting for someone to announce their attack before throwing it."
Frank leaned his head between the seats.
"Ask him if he knows Ted Grant."
I kept my eyes on the sidewalk.
"Is the owner still there?"
Donnelly shrugged 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.
"It's him."
I did not answer.
Donnelly turned at the next intersection.
"You want to sign up?"
"No."
The answer came out too fast.
He gave me another look.
"Did a boxing gym personally offend you?"
"I already train."
"You also have a cereal bar for an eight-hour patrol. Your ability to declare one thing sufficient is not proof."
Frank nodded vigorously.
"He's right."
I turned slightly toward the window, pretending to observe a group of teenagers in front of a grocery store.
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 had perhaps been active in this world before disappearing from public records.
That could explain the almost total absence of references during my childhood research. Heroes had not necessarily begun with the events I remembered. A previous generation might have acted, been forgotten, withdrawn, or seen its history deliberately buried.
The realization should have pushed me to search further.
It had the opposite effect.
"We should go back," Frank said.
"No."
"I didn't suggest asking for his autograph. We go in, look around, and verify."
"We do not look for heroes."
"He isn't hard to find. His name is written in giant letters above his door."
"That is not the point."
"That is exactly the point. You want proof, but the moment a potential proof has fists, you cross the street."
I clenched my teeth.
Donnelly briefly looked in the rearview mirror.
"You have that face again."
"What face?"
"The one where you're holding an entire 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 a tenant before Donnelly could continue.
The Grant Gymnasium left my field of vision.
Not Frank's.
Over the following days, he found several opportunities to return to the subject.
At the dojo, he observed my movements while claiming that a real boxer would spot every shift in 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 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 prevented me from presenting myself at Wayne Manor, following Lex Luthor beyond public information, or attempting 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 draw 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 warned no one.
His sister was waiting for us in front of the building with the landlord.
The street was quiet, lined with four- or five-story brick buildings. Air conditioners still protruded from several windows despite the season, and a child's bike was attached to the entrance gate with a chain probably more expensive than the bike itself.
The woman in front of the door had to be twenty-five. She was still wearing her nurse aide blouse under a dark coat and was squeezing her phone so tightly her knuckles had gone white.
She came toward us before Donnelly had even closed the door.
"I'm Mariah Holloway. Andre is my brother. He hasn't answered since Monday night."
Her sentences came out fast, as if she were afraid we would interrupt before she had finished convincing us.
Donnelly adopted the calmer voice he reserved for people whose worry risked overflowing.
"Does he ever disappear without warning?"
"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 get in?"
"I don't have a key. The landlord refuses to open without the police."
The man standing near her raised his hands.
He had a key ring hooked to his belt and looked as if he had already prepared his defense.
"I'm not refusing. I'm following 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.
A few friends.
No girlfriend, as far as she knew.
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?"
Her eyes slid toward the building door.
The hesitation lasted less than a second.
It still mattered.
"He argued with his neighbor a few weeks ago. Over money, I think. But Andre said it was settled."
Frank stood near her, his gaze fixed on her trembling fingers around the phone.
Donnelly asked the landlord to open.
The man used the doorbell first, then knocked while calling Andre.
No answer.
He finally inserted his key into the lock.
The door opened a few centimeters before stopping.
"There's a chain."
Donnelly leaned into the opening without putting his head inside.
"Mr. Holloway? New York Police. We're coming in to make sure you're all right."
The silence remained complete.
I heard no television, no footsteps, no running water.
Only Mariah's too-quick breathing behind us.
Donnelly examined the frame, then signaled to me.
"Beaumont, push when I tell you."
We positioned ourselves in front of the door.
He struck near the chain attachment. I pushed at the same time, my foot braced against the floor.
The wood resisted the first impact.
It gave way on the second.
The smell reached me before I saw the interior.
Not the crushing smell of a body left for several weeks in a closed room.
Something more recent.
Stagnant air.
Cold sweat.
A metallic note.
My stomach contracted before my mind put a word to it.
Blood.
Donnelly smelled it too. His face changed without becoming truly expressive. His shoulders set, and his hand descended near his weapon.
"Ms. Holloway, stay in the hallway."
"What is it?"
"Stay with the landlord."
He went in first.
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 presenter moved his lips in front of a weather map, 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 sat on the coffee table.
For one second, I stopped seeing the apartment.
The bank floor returned.
The cold against my back.
The taste of blood in my mouth.
The lights above me.
Claire's face, distorted by fear.
My breathing locked.
My fingers had closed around my notebook so hard that the cardboard bent under my palm.
Frank stood beside the body.
His face had lost all expression.
"Malcolm."
His voice contained no joke.
I forced air into my lungs.
Once.
Then a second time.
The apartment came back in pieces.
The gray carpet.
The table.
Andre's hand.
The radio on my shoulder.
Donnelly turned slightly toward me.
"You with me?"
"Yes."
The word came out rougher than expected.
He observed me for another second.
I saw that he only half-believed me.
He chose not to insist.
Donnelly knelt near Andre without moving the body. He checked for the absence of response, searched for a pulse at the neck, observed the rigidity, then slowly stood again.
"He's been dead for a while. We secure the scene. Nothing moves."
I called Central.
Supervisor.
EMS.
Detectives.
Crime scene unit.
My voice remained steady.
It made me feel as if I were listening to someone else speak through my throat.
Mariah understood before we told her.
When I returned to the hallway, she tried to enter.
I stepped in front of her.
"No."
"He's there?"
I did not answer quickly enough.
Her face collapsed.
"Andre!"
She tried to pass.
I placed my hands on her arms without gripping.
"Mariah, you can't go in."
"He's my brother."
"I know."
"Then let me see him."
I knew the regulatory answers.
Preserve the scene.
Avoid contamination.
Wait for identification.
None of those sentences could truly reach a woman who had just understood 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.
My throat tightened, but I continued.
"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 dropped into it, the phone still clutched in her hand.
Frank remained near the door.
Motionless.
He looked at Andre as if trying to recognize something of himself there.
Donnelly returned to the living room.
I waited until he had moved away.
"Go look," I murmured.
Frank turned his head toward me.
"You sure?"
"Something doesn't fit."
He looked at the syringe.
Then the head wound.
"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.
A story already prepared, with its accessories placed neatly enough that no one needed to search for another version.
That was exactly what bothered me.
The syringe lay almost parallel to the edge of the carpet. The bag sat at the center of the coffee table, with no trace of powder around it.
Andre was still wearing his work boots, covered in pale dust dried into the treads. His coat had been tossed over a chair as if he had just come home.
I crouched at a distance from the body.
My knee cracked slightly.
The sound felt out of place in the silent room.
"There's blood behind the furniture."
Donnelly leaned without crossing the area.
A small dark mark stained the lower corner of a bookcase, nearly two meters from the body.
The carpet between the two showed a wrinkled area.
"He may have fallen there before collapsing here," he answered.
"Then someone may have moved him."
"Or he moved himself."
"Yes."
I could not choose the version that suited me simply because it made the scene more interesting.
My gaze returned to the coffee table.
A cleaner circle showed in the dust near the bag, as if an object had sat 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 pale scratch. A matching mark ran across the floor for several centimeters.
A broken glass had been partially pushed under a cabinet.
Not cleaned up.
Hidden quickly enough to stop drawing the eye.
Donnelly followed my gaze.
"You're thinking dispute."
"I'm thinking the room was tidied too fast."
"That isn't the same thing yet."
"I know."
The neighboring apartment door opened slightly.
A man watched us for one second.
Very short hair.
White T-shirt.
A recent cut on his left hand.
When he noticed I was looking, the door closed.
Donnelly had seen it too.
"The neighbor?"
The landlord nodded from the hallway.
"Calvin Ross. He's lived here about a year."
Frank returned through the wall.
He came close enough for me to hear without needing to turn my head toward him.
"Andre's phone is at Ross's. In a bag under the sink. He's cleaning a pair of shoes with bleach. There's still blood in the treads."
A cold certainty settled beneath my ribs.
Ross.
Phone.
Shoes.
Blood.
None of that information existed for Donnelly.
None of it could enter my report.
I kept my face still.
"The neighbor argued with Andre," I said.
"His sister mentioned that."
"He just closed his door when he saw us."
"Which isn't a crime."
"He has a cut on his hand."
"Which still isn't a crime."
Frank crossed his arms.
"He's destroying the shoes now."
I looked at the neighboring door.
Donnelly followed my gaze.
"Any particular reason you're interested in him?"
"Several weak elements going in the same direction."
"That doesn't sound like your usual way of talking."
The skin between my shoulder blades had tightened.
Every minute could erase a little more of what Frank had seen.
But entering without a legal basis risked turning the truth into something we could never use.
"I think we need to act fast," I said. "But cleanly."
Donnelly exhaled through his nose.
"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 whose pages were already protruding under the cover.
She greeted Donnelly by his first name.
"Donnelly."
"Walker."
"Did you touch anything else before I arrived?"
"Only the door."
"I'll ask the door if it wants to file a complaint."
Her gaze moved to me.
It did not stop only on my face. It went down to my gloves, my notebook, my shoes, and the position of my body in the hallway.
"The rookie?"
"Malcolm Beaumont."
"The one who writes reports long enough to be published in several volumes?"
Donnelly raised his empty cup as if offering 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 phrasing immediately put everything back in its place.
I started again from the entrance.
The chain.
The smell.
The body's position.
The syringe.
The bag.
The visible wound.
The blood mark on the bookcase.
The wrinkled carpet.
The broken glass.
The moved chair.
The missing phone.
Walker barely interrupted me. She noted some 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 material is very visible, and the room seems to have been partially tidied around it. The syringe is about thirty centimeters from his hand, almost parallel to the carpet. The bag is placed at the center of the table, while other objects have been moved or hidden. 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 and let the people whose job it is interpret it."
The remark stung enough to stay.
I nodded.
"Understood."
Walker scanned the room, then turned toward the neighboring door.
"And Calvin Ross?"
"He argued with Andre about money. He was watching 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 speak with him."
"Yes."
She observed me for another second.
I had the unpleasant impression that she could see the exact shape of the space left by what I could not say.
"Then find me more."
She signaled the other investigator to question Mariah, then approached the body.
Donnelly guided me toward the hallway.
"You think he's destroying evidence?" he asked quietly.
"I think we shouldn't leave him several hours without supervision."
That was not an answer.
He accepted it anyway.
Donnelly turned toward the landlord.
"Do you have a legitimate reason to enter Ross's apartment? A leak, scheduled inspection, heating problem?"
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 enters with two officers because of a leak that wasn't reported today, Ross will understand exactly what we're trying to do."
"And while we look for something better, he can keep cleaning."
"Then let's look for something better quickly."
His jaw contracted.
Not anger.
Impatience.
We were looking at the same line from two different sides.
Donnelly would have preferred a shortcut that could save evidence.
I preferred a justification that would survive a judge, a prosecutor, and Ross's lawyer.
Neither of us considered the other absurd.
We simply had a different emergency.
"We go back through the timeline, the neighbors, and the cameras," he concluded.
Walker observed our exchange.
"I suppose I don't want to know the rest."
"Probably not," Donnelly replied.
"As long as your mysteries don't contaminate my scene, keep them."
Mariah explained that Andre had lent Calvin Ross twelve hundred dollars four months earlier.
Calvin had promised to pay him back after finding a new job, but the payments had stopped. Two weeks earlier, Andre had said he wanted to get the money back before the end of the month.
Mariah was now staring at her dark phone.
Her thumb kept sliding over the black screen.
"He wouldn't have called the police for that," she clarified. "He always said Calvin was going through a hard time."
Walker crouched slightly to place herself at her height.
"Did Andre use opioids?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
Mariah suddenly raised her head.
"I'm sure he didn't inject anything. He was afraid of needles. When he was little, it took three nurses to hold him down for vaccines."
Her mouth trembled on the last word.
That detail proved nothing by itself.
An old fear did not always prevent an addiction.
But it shifted the scene slightly.
The landlord led us to a small room in the basement where the surveillance system was located.
Two cameras covered the lobby and rear entrance. The image was poor, in black and white, and the clock was six minutes fast. Recordings from the last two days were still available.
The room smelled of warm dust and old cables.
I remained standing behind the landlord while he scrolled through the footage.
Andre entered the building on Monday at 7:12 p.m., corrected for the clock. He was wearing the same boots and coat as those found in the apartment.
Calvin Ross appeared thirty-seven minutes later.
A bottle in one hand.
Nothing in the other.
He came back down at 8:17 p.m.
Andre's phone was not visible.
However, Calvin was now carrying a dark plastic bag he had not had on the way in.
I felt my pulse quicken.
That was something I could show.
"Did he go to Andre's?" Walker asked.
"The camera doesn't cover the landing," the landlord answered.
A third-floor resident, Mrs. Greene, remembered an argument around eight.
She wore a purple robe and kept her door open just enough to speak to us without letting us see inside.
"I didn't hear the words. Someone was shouting. Then there was a big 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 shout about things that aren't always worth opening your door for."
The medical examiner arrived shortly afterward.
A first observation of the wound at the back of the skull made overdose much less likely. It was still too early to establish the exact cause of death, but the trauma now fully justified a criminal investigation.
The syringe did not disappear.
Nor did the bag.
But they stopped being a complete answer.
Walker had a warrant request prepared for Calvin Ross's apartment.
The debt.
The overheard argument.
Ross's presence in the building at the probable time of death.
The bag he was carrying when he left.
The missing phone.
Andre's wound.
Each element remained imperfect.
Together, they finally formed something that could be shown.
The problem was time.
A warrant did not simply materialize because we feared what might disappear while we waited.
Calvin refused to open when Walker knocked on his door.
"Mr. Ross, Detective Walker. We'd like to ask you a few questions about Andre Holloway."
His voice came from behind the wood.
"I have nothing to say."
"You were in the building Monday night."
"I live here."
"You went upstairs with a bottle and came back down with a bag."
A silence followed.
"I want a lawyer."
Walker's tone did not change.
"You are free to contact a lawyer. We are not questioning you in custody. We would simply like to speak with you."
"Then leave."
Frank briefly passed through the wall.
He returned almost immediately.
"He's putting the shoes and the phone into a backpack. His window is open."
A metallic noise echoed outside.
I turned my head toward the landing window.
Donnelly heard it too.
"Fire escape."
A second impact sounded.
Then the slam of a window.
Walker turned around.
"Donnelly, with Beaumont. I'll go down through the entrance."
We ran toward the stairs.
Frank passed through the side wall while Donnelly and I charged down the steps.
My shoes hit the stairs too hard. My hand brushed the rail without gripping it. On the second floor, a door opened in front of us, and I had to pivot to avoid a woman holding a trash bag.
We reached the ground floor just as the rear door opened violently.
Calvin Ross burst into the courtyard, a backpack on one shoulder.
He saw us.
His gaze moved from Donnelly to me.
Then he took off in the opposite direction.
"Police! Stop!"
He kept going.
Frank passed through the courtyard wall and took the lead.
His outside speed remained linked to mine and to our maximum distance, but he could cut angles, cross fences, and ignore obstacles I had to go around.
Calvin crossed a first alley, struck a trash can that toppled behind him, and turned at the corner of a building.
I jumped over the rolling lid on the ground.
My foot slipped slightly in a puddle. I recovered my footing before falling, but Calvin gained two meters.
Donnelly ran behind me.
His breathing grew louder without losing its rhythm.
When I reached the next corner, I saw Frank against the wall.
He did not need to tell me what he was preparing.
I understood from his posture.
Calvin passed in front of him.
Frank materialized a leg just long enough to catch his ankle.
The movement lasted only a fraction of a second.
Calvin's foot stopped.
The rest of his body continued.
He collapsed heavily onto his hands and knees. His bag slid across the asphalt.
Frank's leg became translucent up to the hip. His entire silhouette wavered.
Calvin turned around with an incomprehending expression, as if the ground had just decided to attack him.
I was already on him.
I grabbed his right wrist and pulled his arm behind his back.
"Stop moving!"
He immediately struggled.
His elbow shot backward and grazed my cheek. His shoulder struck my chest. He managed to turn enough to get one knee under him.
I shifted my weight outward, tried to control his hip, and pulled his arm into the angle that should have prevented him from standing.
He was stronger than I had estimated.
Or simply more desperate.
Calvin twisted violently.
My knee slipped on the gravel.
Pain ran up my thigh.
He almost tore his arm from my grip and began to rise.
Donnelly arrived on his left side.
He struck the back of Calvin's knee with his own and brought him back to the ground.
Together, we controlled his arms.
I applied the first cuff.
Donnelly fixed the second.
Calvin kept swearing, his cheek pressed against the asphalt.
Donnelly remained crouched near him, slightly breathless.
"How did he fall?"
I briefly looked at Frank.
He was sitting against the wall, one leg almost erased.
"He took the turn badly."
Donnelly examined the perfectly flat ground.
Then Calvin.
"For once, the city does us a favor."
I recovered the bag without opening it.
Walker entered the alley a few moments later, accompanied by another officer.
She observed Calvin, the abandoned bag, and the way I held my shoulder.
"Why did he run?"
Donnelly caught his breath.
"Because he loves exercise."
Walker put on gloves.
She examined the bag without searching inside, checked that it was closed, and placed it under the control of the second officer.
"We seize it and add it to the warrant. Nobody opens it here."
My relief was almost physical.
The evidence existed.
We did not need to compromise it through impatience.
Frank approached me, limping slightly, though the gesture 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 officers around us.
"I'll try not to collapse before then."
Calvin was lifted up.
Walker read him his rights before any question related to the case.
He asked again for a lawyer.
No one questioned him further.
I returned my attention to the bag entrusted to the officer.
Using Frank during the chase did not pose the same problem for me as entering Ross's apartment solely based on what he had seen.
Calvin was fleeing while investigators already had serious elements linking him to a suspicious death. We were authorized to arrest him. Frank had used limited force to cause a fall, at a real cost to his cohesion.
He had not manufactured evidence.
He had prevented a suspect from leaving with it.
The difference mattered.
It would have to continue to matter.
The bag was opened later, after the judge's authorization.
Andre's phone was inside.
Along with a still-damp pair of shoes that smelled strongly of bleach.
A brown-stained towel was rolled at the bottom.
The analyses would confirm the presence of blood in the treads of the soles.
Calvin first refused to speak.
Then, several hours after his arrest, he himself asked to resume contact with the investigators. Walker reminded him of his rights, verified that he wanted to speak without waiting for his lawyer, and had his waiver recorded before beginning.
He had not planned to kill Andre.
He had come to ask him for more time to repay the money. Andre had refused and threatened to tell their mutual acquaintances that he never kept his word.
The discussion had become an argument.
Calvin had pushed 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.
Then he had returned with the injection equipment. A cousin used. Calvin had recovered 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 using a string passed through the opening.
It was not a planned murder.
It was a series of decisions made after a violent gesture.
Each decision had been meant to protect Calvin.
Each one had left Andre a little more alone on the floor of his apartment.
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.
Walker leaned against the wall.
"You were right about Ross."
"We had enough elements by the end."
"That is not what I said."
I raised my eyes.
She 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 sought to confirm them instead of inventing 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."
Her eyebrows rose slightly.
"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 produce good results. That is where this job becomes dangerous."
She pointed toward the room where Donnelly was.
"Your field training officer knows that part very well."
"Do you trust him?"
Walker thought before answering.
"I trust him to want to help. That isn't always the same as trusting him to respect the method."
She straightened.
"You have a good eye, Beaumont. Just learn to make sure others can see what you see."
She left.
Frank weakly materialized on the neighboring chair. His leg had recovered some of its sharpness, but his 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 sign of affection."
Donnelly came out of the room with several sheets.
"Your report is going to be interesting."
"I only described the chase and the arrest."
"And the way Ross was attacked by an aggressive sidewalk?"
"He tripped."
"In the middle of a perfectly flat section."
"He was running too fast."
Donnelly looked at me for a long time.
His attention settled on my face, then on the invisible alley we were both reconstructing.
He knew a piece was missing.
He simply 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 matters."
Donnelly smiled.
"Careful, Professor. You're starting to talk like me."
Frank raised a finger.
"Grant Gymnasium."
I closed my eyes.
"Not now."
Donnelly arched an eyebrow.
"I didn't say anything."
"I know."
"You're becoming genuinely worrying."
"You have no idea."
I learned about the connection with Jamal the next day.
I called him to ask whether he knew Andre Holloway.
The silence that followed gave me the answer.
"Where did you hear that name?" he asked.
"On a call."
A car passed behind him. I heard the sound before his voice returned.
"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 trousers and a fluorescent jacket covered in dust. A toolbox occupied the back seat, and the cabin smelled of metal, cold coffee, and insulation.
Jamal kept both hands on the wheel, though the engine was off.
"I knew him," he said. "Not well. We had two classes together at the training center, and we worked on the same site for a month."
"What was he like?"
"Punctual. Way too punctual. The kind of guy who showed up fifteen minutes early and made you feel late when you were on time."
A very brief smile appeared on his face.
It disappeared almost immediately.
"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 told him to stop."
"He had lent money to his neighbor."
Jamal closed his eyes for a second.
"That sounds like him."
He finally turned his head toward me.
"What happened?"
I explained that an argument had escalated, that the neighbor had tried to present the death as an overdose, and that the evidence had been found.
I gave no detail that might compromise the investigation.
Just enough for him to understand.
"They could have written that he was an addict," he said.
"Yes."
"And everyone would have said we didn't really know him. That nobody knows what people do at home."
His anger was calm.
It remained in the way his fingers tightened around the steering wheel.
"The report won't say that."
"Because you saw something was wrong?"
"Not just me."
He was probably thinking of Donnelly, Walker, and the technicians.
I was also thinking of Frank.
Jamal looked at the windshield.
"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 turned toward me.
"Then be careful with that."
The sentence was not an accusation.
It was a responsibility he was entrusting to me without knowing I was already carrying it.
We stayed in the car until the cold forced Jamal to restart the engine.
He told me about Andre.
About the way he corrected other people's wiring mistakes without ever humiliating them.
About the tuna sandwich he brought almost every day despite the protests of everyone forced to share the same room.
About the time he had spent an hour repairing an apprentice's lamp for free because the guy could not afford to buy a new one.
When I went home, Andre Holloway was no longer only the body sitting against a couch.
He had a voice.
Habits.
A truck project.
A sandwich everyone hated.
That was probably the most useful thing Jamal could still do for him.
Frank waited until I closed the door before speaking.
"I wonder what they wrote about me."
I took off my jacket.
My shoulder protested when I raised my arm.
"In the bank report?"
"Yes."
He lowered his eyes to the dark impacts on his uniform.
"Reckless security guard. Employee who worsened the situation. Brave man who protected the clients. Victim number four."
I put away my weapon before answering.
"You weren't just a line."
"For the people filling the file, maybe I was."
I sat down.
"You saved Claire."
"I think."
"You did."
Frank looked at the floor.
"And maybe I made the situation more dangerous for other people. I'll never know exactly."
He settled on the chair facing me, though his body placed no weight on the furniture.
"Do you regret not going into Ross's apartment immediately?"
I thought.
The easy answer would have been no.
It would also have been false.
"I regret that the information came before the justification. If we went in solely based on what you had seen, everything we found could become unusable. If we waited too long, he could destroy the evidence."
"But we recovered it."
"This time."
"Because we built enough elements to make him panic."
"And because I tripped him."
"The trip was useful."
Frank blinked.
"You're not going to give me a speech about the responsible use of spectral legs?"
"Ross was fleeing while we had legal reasons to arrest him. You used limited force and he was not seriously injured."
"You're becoming almost reasonable."
"I never had a problem with using our abilities when an intervention is already justified."
"You still refused my help before he ran."
"To enter his home without a legal basis. That is not the same thing."
Frank remained silent for a moment.
Then he nodded.
"So the line isn't can or can't."
"No."
"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 would find an agreement."
I took out the old dinosaur notebook.
Its cover was almost entirely hidden by tape, and several sheets protruded from the edges.
Under the rules concerning Frank, I wrote:
A truth we alone know is not yet proof.
Frank read over my shoulder.
"Add something."
"What?"
"The absence 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 looked at the page again.
"Grant Gymnasium."
I put the pen down.
"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 got away from 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 the classes."
Frank smiled.
"A strictly athletic and legally neutral visit."
"I already regret this."
The Grant Gymnasium looked older inside than it did from the street.
The wooden floor bore traces of several decades of footsteps, jump ropes, and bags being moved.
Black-and-white photographs covered the walls. Boxers with broken noses. Trainers in robes. Rings surrounded by smoke dense enough to suggest people once considered their lungs replaceable accessories.
A 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 hit a heavy bag under the gaze of a gray-haired woman.
Two men worked their movement around a ring.
At the back, someone jumped rope with a speed that produced a steady hum.
Frank entered beside me and immediately scanned the photographs.
"It's definitely him."
"You're sure?"
"Much more than about most of the things I remember."
"Why are your memories clearer than mine?"
Frank continued looking at a photograph of a young boxer in a dark robe.
"Because you spent twenty years becoming Malcolm. I stayed stuck with the old collection."
I did not know whether that explanation was accurate.
It nevertheless matched what we were observing.
Some details of my old life were fading. Frank sometimes recovered them with a precision I lacked.
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 frail old trainer.
He had short gray hair, a nose broken often enough to no longer remember its original shape, and shoulders still broad beneath a simple black T-shirt.
Deep wrinkles marked his face.
His eyes, however, moved fast.
He noticed me before I decided how to approach him.
His eyes moved down to my shoes.
Back up to my shoulders.
Stopped on my hands.
"You looking for someone?"
"I wanted to ask about the 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. He did not stand facing me. He positioned himself slightly at an angle, outside the most direct line.
"Cop?"
I lowered my eyes toward my civilian clothes.
"How do you know?"
"You watch everyone's hands, you checked both exits when you came in, and you stand too straight for someone who only came to try a free class."
Frank smiled.
"He read you faster than Donnelly."
Ted pointed at my feet.
"Show me."
"What?"
"Your stance."
I placed myself as I did at the dojo.
Left foot forward.
Weight distributed.
Hands raised.
Ted walked around me.
"Karateka. Good balance. You load the rear leg a little too much when you think."
I corrected instinctively.
He gave a brief smile.
"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 each kick."
"A telegram?"
"I'm old. I use the communication methods of my era."
Frank approached the bag.
"Ask him for a fight."
I did not need to.
Ted pointed to the ring.
"You want to understand?"
"Understand what?"
"Why you came."
My stomach tightened.
I immediately thought of Wildcat.
Of the Justice Society.
Of an identity I had not spoken.
Ted could not know.
He was probably talking about my training.
The way I observed him.
Probably.
"I came to ask about classes."
"No. You came to verify something."
I held his gaze.
He was not smiling anymore.
After a second, he pointed to the ring again.
"One light round. Gloves, control mandatory. You can use your legs if you know how to stop them. I'll show you what's missing."
"Do you train with every new client?"
"Only the ones I think I can make pay afterward."
I looked at Frank.
"He's trying to sell you a membership."
"He is mostly 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 thankfully packaged mouthguard.
Ted had only put on a pair of lighter gloves.
He had not taken off his T-shirt.
I had not seen him warm up.
"Are you sure?"
"You worried about me?"
"You said yourself you were old."
Ted smiled.
"Hit me and we'll talk about my age again."
The bell rang.
I began cautiously.
Ted remained almost motionless, his weight on the balls of his feet, his hands high but relaxed.
His guard did not resemble mine.
Nothing in it seemed locked.
His shoulders, hips, and knees seemed available in every direction.
I threw a jab to measure the distance.
He tilted his head by a few centimeters.
My glove passed beside him.
I doubled and added a straight.
Ted stepped back half a pace, just enough to let the punch die in front of him, then 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 launched a roundhouse kick to the body.
Ted observed 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 recovered my balance.
"Your eyes look at the target before your legs."
I switched stance.
Ted did not seem impressed.
I threw a faster combination, using a straight to mask a controlled low kick.
He blocked the punch, moved his leg, and entered my distance before I could develop the power of the kick.
His shoulder touched my chest.
I stepped back.
"You fight movement by movement," he explained. "You strike, you return, you think, then you start again."
I felt my jaw contract around the mouthguard.
"I think during."
"Not fast enough."
I advanced more.
My gymnastics allowed me to change angles more easily than most karate practitioners I had faced.
I feinted a kick, passed under his arm, and pivoted almost behind him.
For the first time, Ted had to clearly move one foot.
His glove brushed my temple as he turned.
I touched his shoulder.
Not cleanly.
Not enough to count in a real fight.
But I touched him.
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 withdrew his leg before my foot arrived, moved to my outside, and placed two perfectly controlled touches.
One to the body.
The other near the jaw.
I barely saw the second one leave.
I stepped back, changed levels, and tried to pass under a hook.
Ted had never intended to finish that hook.
The movement served only to send me to 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, struck the mat with my forearm, and immediately rolled to get back up.
Ted was already waiting at distance.
"Good fall."
I resumed my guard.
My breathing had grown shorter.
"Thanks."
"You can thank your gymnastics teacher. Not me."
I attacked again.
Every time, Ted observed the movement before it fully formed.
My years of training were not useless.
They allowed me to understand how much better he was.
He did not simply possess 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 on 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 the place where they could no longer reach him.
I managed to force him to block a second time thanks to a change in rhythm.
He deflected the blow, immediately entered inside my guard, and placed his glove against my sternum.
He could have struck.
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.
It therefore annoyed me particularly.
Ted removed his gloves and held out his hand.
I took it.
His grip was firm, without useless demonstration.
"You're good," he said. "For someone who trains in several things without having mastered a single one yet."
I removed my mouthguard.
"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 does not yet control the fight. 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 truly support him.
"He sees everything coming."
Ted continued:
"Karate taught you to strike cleanly. Gymnastics taught you to recover. Now you need 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 me.
The photographs.
The worn ring.
The bags.
Ted Grant, in front of me, with perfectly steady breathing.
He did not seem supernatural.
He was simply what a human being could become when he pushed ordinary abilities to a level I had only encountered in stories.
If this man truly was Wildcat, my memories had considerably underestimated the difference between a trained person and someone who had devoted his entire life to combat.
I had no proof of his old identity.
I had only just received a particularly painful demonstration of his current competence.
Ted pointed toward the front desk.
"The first month is cheaper if you pay today."
"Do you do that with everyone you beat?"
"Only the ones who get back up."
Frank placed himself beside me.
"We're signing 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 come home alive after a struggle that would not always take place on a clean mat.
"What are the hours?"
Ted smiled.
"I knew you were smart."
That evening, I placed the registration form near my old notebook.
My shoulder still hurt because of Calvin Ross. Several areas of my body were also beginning to remind me that Ted's controlled touches remained those 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 hidden, forgotten, or never made public.
I did not move Wildcat into the confirmed column.
Ted had revealed nothing to me.
I had only a name, a gym, old memories, and physical abilities abnormally impressive for his age.
That 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 is not 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 specifically advised me to avoid.
I wanted to become a better police officer.
More attentive.
More competent.
Harder to surprise.
Capable of turning what Frank and I knew into something a judge, an investigator, or a jury could examine without needing to believe in the existence of an invisible dead man.
The rest could wait.
The registration form remained on my desk anyway.
Not just in case.
Because I had already decided to come back.