Crime Spells

“I wasn’t flat chested before I had the implants,” she said. “You know, you’re totally nuts.”

I wanted to remind her that she had come to me for help, that she thought aliens were trying to take her boobs, but I didn’t. Instead I just gave her the rest of the information, calmly and slowly, keeping my voice level.

“The creatures you are having trouble with are not aliens, but they are after the special silicon Dr. Doubleday used in those implants. If you have the implants removed, I’ll be glad to help you give them to the Silicon Suckers in a special exchange ceremony. You give them back what they want, and you’ll always be an honored guest in their sand castles.”

She stared at me as if she were seeing me for the first time.

“Sand castles?”

“That’s what they call their homes. I’ve been in a few of them outside of Tucson. Big, but kind of dusty and dry.”

She stared at me again, then shook her head slowly from side to side.

“I knew better than to come to you,” she said. “Even with Suzy’s recommendation, I knew better.”

She stood and thrust her chest out so far I was afraid she was going to go head first into my steak. Somehow, she managed to remain standing, although she cast a very dark shadow over the table as her breasts pulled an eclipse on the overhead light.

“These are mine, and I paid good money for them,” she said, loudly, indicating what did not need to be indicated. “And I’m not letting any little gray alien suckers take them.”

The guy at a table against the wall choked, then coughed, clearly trying not to laugh.

“Your choice,” I said. “But I’m doing all right with money, and I would be glad to pay for replacements. Remember that. No strings attached. You can even make them bigger if you want.”

“I’ll give it some thought,” she said.

“Don’t take too long to decide,” I said, staring up at her over the monster mountain range between us. “Silicon Suckers are not creatures to be played with. The only way they know how to get into a human body is through the anus, and trust me, taking those silicon implants out that way will not be fun. And more than likely fatal.”

She sputtered, started to say something more, sputtered again.

I didn’t blame her.

Finally she managed to get those sacred and very dead Silicon Suckers on her chest turned toward the door. Then, with one last withering glance at me, she stormed out.

The guy against the wall was laughing so hard I thought he would go face down in his soup.

For me, it really wasn’t a laughing matter. She was in mortal danger.

I wanted to run after her and stop her, but I knew, for a fact, there was nothing I could do at this point. I certainly wasn’t going to force her to have an operation. A woman’s choice of what to do, or not do, with her body was not something a man, or a superhero, should get involved with. She was going to have to make that choice for herself.

For some reason that I didn’t completely understand, Julie’s entire self image must have been tied up in what the Silicon Suckers wanted back. And replacements might not be enough to matter to her.

I wished I understood Julie’s side. I did understand the Suckers’ side.

The guy against the wall finally coughed a few times, shook his head, and went back to eating. I stared at my steak for a moment, thinking over anything I might still do to help her. Without butting in on her rights to do with her own body as she saw fit, there wasn’t much.

She had come to me for help, then refused it. As those of us in the superhero business know, there are times you just can’t help.

I finished my steak and just barely made it into the poker room in time for the seven o’clock tournament.

I won the thing and put the money in a jar on my kitchen counter, saved for Julie’s operation. But I had a hunch she would never call me, because after the tournament, on the way home from the casino, I found a German Shepherd laying in the ditch beside the road. It had been hit by a car, but it was still alive.

I rushed it to the local vet, but the dog died on Christmas morning.

On good adventures I save people and dogs. I couldn’t save the dog, so I had a hunch I hadn’t saved the person either in this one.

But that didn’t stop me from trying some more.

I tracked down Julie and called her the day after Christmas with the hope of trying to convince her to change out the breast implants. She heard my voice and hung up.

I called a few friends I knew in Vegas who could be trusted to go talk to her. Both of them said she got rude and angry at them the moment they brought up the subject or my name.

Julie had made her decision, and by all the gambling gods, she was sticking with it.

Somehow, I had to convince her to change that decision.

I had to keep trying.

That’s what superheroes did, usually against all odds and at some cost and danger to their own lives. And trying to convince any woman to change her mind always had danger involved.

So throwing all caution to the wind, I jumped on a plane and headed for Vegas.

She wouldn’t see me and had me removed from the Circus Circus when I went up to her blackjack table and sat down. Even my Empathy Superpower couldn’t cut through the anger, although it made the guard very nice and apologetic for escorting me to the door.

Since the direct approach hadn’t worked, I headed out into the desert, to where I knew the Silicon Suckers had a pretty good-sized village. It was impossible to see unless you knew exactly what you were looking for, and I did. The entrance to this one was hidden right under a billboard beside the highway.

The entrance led to a huge underground cavern cut out of the sand and rock and filled with castlelike buildings. I was welcomed into their castles, as I knew I would be, since I had helped them recover one of Dr. Doubleday’s mistakes.

The main leader of this band clicked at me in Silicon Sucker language, and I used what I called my Understand Most Anything Superpower to talk with him, asking him for more time to convince Julie to get their sacred dead off her chest.

He clicked that he would give me two full moons, or something that meant two months.

I thanked him, backed from his castle in a show of respect, and went back to Vegas.

I left the message on her answering machine that I had the money for the exchange, had contacted the best doctor in Vegas to do the job, and had prepaid for it. All she had to do was show up. I left the time and date and address of the doctor, the most famous and expensive in Vegas, hoping that might convince her to change her mind.

Nothing. She missed the appointment.

So I pulled some strings in the Casino Gods area of the superhero world, and got the Blackjack God named Da

That didn’t work.

I talked to her friends, even called her mother, then I set up another appointment for her with the great doctor.

Again she missed it.

So one last time, with Da

She was shuffling and didn’t see me coming.

When I slid the doctor’s business card with a third appointment written on it across the table toward her, she glanced up, the anger in her eyes almost knocking me back a step.

“Why are you insisting in meddling in my life?” she demanded, ignoring the stares from the older couple sitting at the table.

“Because you are in real danger,” I said, using every convincing power I had in my superpower collection. With this much energy turned on at a poker table, I could have convinced a world class player I had a pair of deuces instead of aces.

Julie, on the other hand, was a little tougher. She just glared at me, so I went on.

“I have enough money to help. You won’t ever see me again, but please, just do this. It’s paid for.”