Issue #5

DISCO IS DEAD
by Russ Anderson

I release the webline and let momentum carry me the rest of the way down to one of the brick walls bracketing the alley. Once safely stuck, and hidden in the building's shadows, it takes me a little less than a minute to change into my civvies and drop down to the pavement -- pulling on my shoes in mid-air so I don't have to put my socks in whatever the radioactive slop carpeting the alley is. I straighten my clothes, run a hand through my courtesy-of-Revlon blond hair, and then I step out and into the Baltimore night.

Baltimore's Little Italy district is a hotspot for the city's nightlife, packed to the cobblestones with clubs, bars, restaurants, and street-life of all shapes and sizes. I haven't been down here even once in the two weeks I've lived in Baltimore -- at least, I haven't been down here at street-level. Swung by in-costume quite a few times. In any case, I'm a little dazzled by the activity and light for a moment.

Halfway down the block, there's a line of about two-dozen people waiting to get into a dance club. The blazing neon sign above the door reads HUSTLAH'Z.

I've never been much of a social butterfly, nor one for the dance club scene. Still, I promised myself I'd try to get out and live a little now that I'm practically settled -- getting a life was the reason I'd come to Baltimore after all. And Jerome's enthusiasm for hitting the clubs together was infectious...

I approach the line, trying very hard not to look like a kid who's lost his parents in the middle of a crowded grocery store. It helps, in situations like this, to think about Peter Parker, the guy I was cloned from. I may be a bit of a dork, but compared to Peter, I'm the life of the party.

Then again, Peter was married to a supermodel for a while, so who am I to stick my tongue out and go 'nyah, nyah'?

"Benjamin!"

A young black guy, about my age, appears near the front of the line, waving. This is Jerome, and with a sigh of relief, I move to slip into line with him.

"Nice of you to show," Jerome says.

"I'm only fifteen minutes late."

"Sheee... let Prof Harvenstein hear you say that sometime, you'll find out just how precious fifteen minutes can be."

"I'll pass, thanks."

"Is this your friend, Jerome?" a tall blonde girl says from behind him.

"Yeah -- oh my bad. Ben here is the Prof's new lab assistant. Ben, this is Chloe. She goes to Hopkins full-time, premed."

"Pleasure," she says, extending her hand. Not only is she tall, she's gorgeous. I take her hand and wonder how long I can reasonably go without washing mine.

"This is Kipp, Chloe's boyfriend," Jerome continues, indicating a wiry Asian guy who's been invisible behind the dual wall of Jerome and Chloe up to this point. Kipp blinks through his thick glasses, and gives me a friendly nod.

The line shifts, and suddenly we're at the door. The doorman is roughly the size of the Hulk, and looks about as even-tempered. He and Jerome shake hands.

"Rest of these guys with you?" the doorman asks.

Jerome says we are, and just like that, we're in.

Always sayin' "Little girl, don't step into the club"
But I'm just tryin' to find out why, 'cause dancin's what I love...

The music inside Hustlah'z is deafening. Combined with the strobe lights and the oddly quaint disco balls hung overhead, the effect upon entry is immediate disorientation. As soon as I step inside, my spider-sense starts a steady, just-barely-noticeable hum that indicates I'm in constant danger of being jostled and stepped on.

The dance floor is enormous, packed to the edges with bodies bumping and grinding through the cuts and mixes. Beyond the floor, a bar is set up against the far wall, ensuring that customers have to cross the dance floor to get to it. There's also a scattering of booths and small tables skirting the right and left walls of the club, and this is the direction Jerome sets out in as soon as we've all paid and shown our ID.

I can't see how we're going to get a seat -- everything is full -- but Jerome seems to have a sixth sense about this stuff, and manages to snag a booth as its occupying party is getting up to leave. Chloe and Kipp slide in on one side, I take the other. Jerome doesn't bother sitting down. From the way he's bopping up and down, I assume he's going to hit the dance floor right away.

"Who's got the first round?" he asks.

I open my mouth to volunteer -- it seems like the right thing to do, since I'm the newbie -- but Kipp beats me to the punch.

"I'll get it. What do you want?"

"Brother, you know I'm a Yuengling man. Why do you even ask?"

"Ben?"

I hadn't planned on drinking tonight -- had an alcohol-related incident a few years back that reminded me just how dangerous it is for a guy with my strength and my secrets to imbibe mind-altering substances -- but now that I'm here, with the music pumping and the good-will flowing... what the hell? It's my night out.

"I'll take a Coors Light."

"Coors Light?" Jerome demands, as if I'd just asked for a glass of milk with Strawberry Quik. "Watchin' that girlish figure, Ben?"

"Doesn't look girlish to me," Chloe purrs, reaching across the table and squeezing my upper arm. "Just lean. Very lean."

"Do you practice martial arts, Ben?" Kipp asks, an interested light appearing in his eyes. He doesn't seem particularly bothered by Chloe's flirtation.

"No, not at all. I just manage to stay in shape somehow..."

"Comes from drinking all them girlie beers," Jerome pipes up.

"Boy! Whatchoo talkin' about! You know we don't serve girlie beers in my club!"

A new face has appeared at Jerome's shoulder. Another black man, a bit older than the rest of us, he's sporting an immaculate white suit, and his hair is frizzed, swooping back from his forehead in a steep ramp that ends nearly a foot above his shoulders. Jerome wheels in surprise, then laughs and claps hands with the man.

"Hey, Alvin," Kipp and Chloe say in near-unison.

"Al, you know Kipp and Chloe. This is my buddy Ben. He ain't never been here before."

"Never been?" Al demands. "Don't you know Hustlah'z is the finest dancing establishment in this city?"

"I'm new in town," I reply meekly.

"Oh... well, that's okay then. But I expect to see you back in here often, dig? You ain't got no excuse now."

"Al owns the joint," Jerome confides, but I've already pretty much figured that out. Furthermore, 'Al' looks vaguely familiar... only vaguely, tho, like maybe he's changed his hair or shaved since the last time I saw him. His eyes are hidden behind mirrored glasses, despite how dark it is in here.

"You all have a good time, y'hear?" Al says. "Let me or one of the bartenders know if you need anything. Especially you, my white brotha."

He puts a clenched fist out to me and I look at it in surprise for a moment. In all my years, I've never been called anybody's 'white brotha'. Still, I can tell he's not making fun of me or anything, so I put my own fist out and bang my knuckles against his.

"Proper," he says, sounding just like MC Hammer. Then he moves off, quickly swallowed by another just-arrived group of people.

"Alvin's a great guy," Jerome says. I just nod. I still can't place the face, but I'm sure I've seen him before. And considering I spend a whole lot of time battling guys who operate on the wrong side of the law, it's almost never a good thing when I can't place a face.

Chloe touches Kipp's arm. "Let's go get those drinks," she says. The two of them get up and head to the bar, hands clasped as they wend thru the crowd.

"Nice people," I say, watching them go.

"The best. You gonna dance, Benjamin, or you gonna hold down this bench all night?"

I steeple my fingers on my chest and flutter my eyelids. "Are you asking me to dance, Mistuh Noel?"

"You wish." He turns and snags a passing girl by the arm. The two of them seem to know each other, and after a few moments of "How've you been"s, they head toward the dance floor together, Jerome giving an absent wave over his shoulder.

Sighing, I settle back in my seat and wait for the beers to arrive.

I told you leave your situations at the door
So grab somebody and get your ass on the dance floor

"... And it's like, how useless are they, you know? We've got guys who can punch holes in mountains just by looking at them. Guys who can fly, who can bench press cities, and what do they spend 98% of their time doing? Beating up on similarly empowered guys who're trying to knock over banks!"

I nod as Chloe continues. She's been on this tangent for approximately twenty minutes, ever since she and Kipp came back from a foray onto the dance floor, and she's showed no signs of letting up. Kipp remains silent.

"Like this new guy who showed up in town... whassisname?... the Spider-Man guy..."

"The Scarlet Spider," Kipp offers.

"Right, him. He beats up on bad guys, causes all this destruction, but do you see him -- I don't know -- helping the Red Cross, or something? Using his gifts for something other than perpetuating greater and greater violence? Even somebody like Reed Richards, who's done a lot of good, can't work on a cure for cancer, or a cheaper worldwide fuel resource, or something, because the friggin' Wizard is blowing up the Baxter Building this week!"

"Uh huh," I agree. I look at my glass, and see with surprise that I've drained it. It's my third. I look around the table, see the others are similarly bereft, and quickly straighten in my seat. I recognize an opportunity for escape when I see one.

"Chlo," Kipp cuts in all of a sudden.

Chloe stops in mid-rant and turns. "What is it, babe?"

"Stop, you're boring the guy."

"I am not! I'm not boring you, am I, Ben?" She turns a doe-eyed stare on me and places that beautiful, slender hand on my arm again.

"Well, you're boring me then," Kipp growls. "You always go off on this stuff. It gets old."

"Old?"

"Old. What good does it do to sit in a bar and bitch about how the costumes don't help the common man? They keep Dr. Doom from taking over the planet once a month or so. We should be happy with that."

"What I'm saying is: Dr. Doom wouldn't want to take over the planet so much if he didn't have these guys out there as a counter-force to him. It's like a challenge to guys like him. What would be the fun of robbing banks or trying to poison a city if there wasn't a superhero there to try and stop you?"

"That's the biggest load of bull I've ever heard," Kipp sighs, crossing his arms.

"What the hell do you know?" Chloe demands, releasing my arm and throwing her hands up in the air. "Why do you always have to try to make me feel stupid? Why can't you just support me, or at least not pick fights in front of people!"

"I'm not the one who's flipping out, Chloe."

"Hey!" I cut in as smoothly as I can under the circumstances. "Who wants a refill?"

Haven't we met?
You're some kind of beautiful stranger
You could be good for me
I have a taste for danger

It takes longer to get noticed once I'm at the bar than it took to cross the dance floor to reach it. Watching some of the more successful customers, I pull a twenty out of my wallet and hold it up. A bartender appears seconds later.

"What can I get ya, dude?"

I give him the order and wait while he starts rounding the drinks up. Kipp, Chloe, and even Jerome -- who we haven't seen for more than two minutes at a time since we got here -- are going thru them just as fast as I am, so it's not a small order. Haven't drunk this much in a while. Hope I'm okay to web-swing home at the end of the night...

A hand falls on my shoulder and I turn. My spider-sense is still humming constantly, but there's no jump in intensity that would indicate I'm in danger. Honestly, I don't know how other people survive without a danger sense. It's saved my bacon in my civilian life almost as much as it has in my professional.

"Ben Reilly?" a woman with long dark hair grins in my face. "I thought it was you!"

"Lorena!" I return the grin watt for watt. "What's a respectable Baltimore rental property owner doing in a place like this?"

Lorena, a beautiful woman who's maybe a couple years older than me and who also happens to be my landlord, laughs. "Bite your tongue, Reilly. I come here every week."

That's a surprise -- I haven't talked to her much since I moved in, but I'd gotten the impression she wasn't the type. More like she was my type -- stay at home, read a book, maybe a trip to a coffee shop with some friends. A nerd, in other words. Bite my tongue indeed. Probably just wishful thinking.

She looks great -- a revealing black top, slit up the sides, with painted-on blue jeans. Really an attractive woman. And she lives right down the hall from me. And I spent most of my week at school. Where are my priorities at?

"You here with anybody?" she asks.

"A couple buddies from school." The bartender reappears with my drinks, and I take a moment to pay him. "You?"

"Same. A couple of girlfriends. Need some help with that?"

If I didn't know better, I'd think she stressed the word 'girlfriends'. In any case, I accept the help and the two of us make our way back toward the booth.

"Do you dance?" she asks.

I laugh. It's answer enough.

"Well, save one for me anyway, okay? It's not fraternizing if we're away from the building, right?"

"Right."

"Just don't tell the other tenants. Don't want them thinking I'm playing favorites. This the table?"

Kipp has disappeared while I've been gone, but Jerome is back, and he fixes me with this smirk while I introduce Lorena. Once the names are all shared, Lorena says she's got to get back to her party, tells me to remember to save a dance, and leaves. I slide into the booth next to Jerome.

"Look at Big Ben, gettin' his pimp on!" Jerome trumpets as soon as Lorena's out of earshot. "Go get 'er tiger! Rrrroww!"

"She's cute, Ben," Chloe says half-heartedly. I can only assume the argument with Kipp got worse while I was gone.

"Hey, maybe you can get a discount on your rent!"

I shake my head and take a drink of my Coors Light. It's very good... haven't enjoyed a beer this much in a while. Must be the company.

"Where's Kipp?" I venture. Beside me, Jerome groans.

"Who cares?" Chloe demands, suddenly coming to life. "He thinks he's so damn hot -- Tony Stark and Jet Li all rolled up into one. Vertically-challenged bastard..."

I stare at her wide-eyed for a moment. Before I can think of anything to say, she stands up, mutters something that might be 'I'll be back', then vanishes into the bodies streaming by the table.

"Vertically-challenged?"

Jerome is sipping his drink thoughtfully. "Don't worry about it, man. They do this just about every week."

"I didn't mean to piss her off."

"You didn't. If you want to help, though, you could go ask the DJ to play 'Let's Chill'. They'll be dry-humping on that bench before the song's over."

"Listen up, little boy and girl hustlah'z!"

I turn. Alvin, the club owner -- still infuriatingly familiar the more I look at him -- has mounted the small stage where the DJ sits, and is standing in front of the equipment with a microphone in his hand. In the club's dim light, his blazing white suit makes him look almost ghostly. Or like a black Elvis, maybe. He waits for a moment for the applause to die down -- apparently something's about to happen, and the regulars know what it is -- and then he raises the mike to his lips again.

"Y'all know what time it is," he begins, and the roar from the crowd is absolutely apocalyptic. "I want y'all to do something for me now. I wantcha to...

"Get down, get down!"

Music cuts in, and it takes me a moment to recognize it, the strobe lights sweeping the floor and the disco balls glittering. It's 'Jungle Boogie', of course, only Alvin's singing along to an instrumental cut, and the crowd is singing along with him as everyone piles onto the dance floor.

"Jungle Boogie! (Get up with the get-down!) Jungle Boogie! (Shake it around!)"

But I'm not looking at the dancers. I'm looking at Alvin. The voice. And the singing. And that funky little dance step he keeps repeating while he sings.

Click.

Jerome is pushing me out of the way so he can go dance. I scoot out and stand beside the table while he disappears, my eyes narrowed, looking at Alvin as he works the crowd into a frenzy. He actually has a pretty good voice, like maybe he was a professional at one time. I know he was, in fact.

"C'mon Ben, this is it!"

Lorena has reappeared beside me, and before I'm entirely sure what's happening, she's dragged me onto the dance floor. I try to keep an eye on Alvin as we go, but the crowd around me is too thick.

Lorena is pressed against me -- though, in all fairness, I've got bodies pressed against me for 360 degrees -- dancing like a woman who does it frequently. She's good, she looks good doing it. As for me, I learned a long time ago that just because I can outflip, outdodge, and outleap the most spectacular of Hong Kong action stars, it doesn't mean I'm not an utter imbecile when it comes to dancing. Still, I do the best I can, while trying not to seem too distracted with frequent glances at Alvin.

Lorena makes that last part a little easier. She's all over the place, shaking parts of her body I hadn't even noticed until now, spinning, weaving, sliding up and down in front of me. Meanwhile, here I am, bouncing up and down like the kids in those old Charlie Brown cartoons.

"Get down, get down! Get down, get down!"

Don't move, Alvin. Just stay right there. I never met you, but Peter sure did, and I paid close attention to Peter's adventures for the first year or so after I left New York.

The song draws to its conclusion and I really am starting to think that every warm body in the place is on the dance floor just now... which is cool with me. Less room to move means less chance of looking like an idiot in front of the girl still shaking it in front of me.

The song ends in a climactic bass crash, and Lorena leaps into my arms. Everybody's high on the moment, and even with the stuff I have on my mind, I have to admit I'm a little taken in by it myself.

"You are all the most beautiful goddamn people in the universe!" Alvin proclaims. "Two hours till close, so drink up, party up, and let the rest of Little Italy know where the real fun's happenin' tonight!"

More applause, more roaring. The regulars really do love this guy. He's got a lot of charisma, a natural performer, and his clothing and speech are just ostentatious enough to be interesting without making him look like a bozo. If I hadn't already pegged him for what he was, I'd be taken in myself.

"You dance good!" Lorena shouts sincerely in that tone polite girls save for guys who couldn't dance if their lives depended on it. She leans forward and gives me a quick little kiss on the corner of my mouth. "I'll be here until two if you want to do it again." She giggles into her hand, obviously a little tipsy. "Dance, I mean."

Then she turns and vanishes, probably to meet up with her mysterious 'friends'. I'm not at all happy to see her go... but there is Alvin to deal with. I go up on my tiptoes, and see him descending from the stage. He talks to the DJ for a minute, then heads off toward a door behind the bar.

I move quickly back to the table, wondering for the first time if that background buzz I've been getting from my spider sense all night really is due to the crowd. Pausing at the table, I look up at the strobes and the lights, watching for patterns.

Mmm... beer's good. Maybe I'll have another glass before I go talk to Alvin. Maybe...

I pause, the beer glass poised at my lip. I hadn't even intended to pick it up, and here I was absent-mindedly chugging its contents.

And then the final piece clicks into place. Slamming the glass down, I head toward the bathroom. With luck, there'll be an air duct or something in there, something I can use to get to my costume, which I webbed up outside when I got here.

I could just go thru the front door, but c'mon... who wants to pay that cover twice in one night?

I exploit you
Still you love me
I tell you one and one makes three
I'm the cult of personality

"Marcus, listen man... you writin' this down? You tell Costanzo's man that I got his funds, and he can stop on by and pick them up any time. Tell him if he stops by on a work night, he can drink on me all night. Tha's right, Marcus. Yeah, I love you too, bro. Tell mom I call her this weekend. I'm out."

Alvin Hall sets down the phone and leans back in his seat, his feet propped up on his oak-finish desk, his finger laced behind his head. I have no idea what's going thru his mind just now, but he looks awfully pleased with himself.

Showtime.

"Alvin, Alvin, Alvin..."

I pop the vent cover off and squeeze out of the overhead duct, dropping to Alvin's very expensive office carpeting. Before I even touch down, Alvin has leapt to his feet and bolted for the door.

I web the door shut before he reaches it, then snag the back of his jacket with another webline and yank him back to his desk.

"Sit," I say, tossing him into his chair. The webbing still on his back fastens him securely to the leather upholstery. He lunges forward, reaching for the phone, but I hop up onto the desk and place a finger on the handpiece.

"You can't be in here!" Alvin insists. "This is private property, man! Who do you think you--"

"Ssshhh..." I raise one wrist shooter and aim it at his mouth. He gets the hint and shuts up. "Alvin Hall. Respectable Baltimore businessman. How long've you been out of the big house, Alvin?"

"What the hell you talking about?"

"I'm talking about a fashion nightmare called the Hypno-Hustler, Alvin." At that name, his face goes ashen. "New York stage performer who was convinced disco was making a comeback, but when people didn't buy into his Saturday Night Fever outfits and jive tunes, he started using hypnosis to rob them. Used a combination of light and sound effects to send everybody off to la-la land while he emptied their pockets. That is, until Spider-Man put the kibosh on him. Am I ringing any bells yet, Alvin?"

"Yeah, that's me," Alvin nods, apparently seeing the futility of denying it. "So what? I did my time, man. I'm respectable now."

I lean in close. "Is that why you're doing business with Paulo Costanzo?"

"He's respectable too."

"He's as dirty as they come."

"I have no knowledge of such things."

I drop a sheet of webbing over the phone, just to keep him from going for it again, then hop down off the desk. "Okay, how about this? If the police came in here and dismantled your light and sound equipment, do you think they'd find anything funny?"

His eyes narrow. "What're you getting at?"

"I don't know, Alvin. Could it be possible that you're up to your old tricks? Only you've learned a little more subtlety and now you just use the lightshow to get people to spend more money at the bar? Am I close?"

He doesn't reply for a long moment. Then, "Man, you ain't got nothin'. I could have all the evidence wiped out before you could get the cops in this place."

"What I don't get is... why? Why bother? You've got a good gig here... why risk messing it up?"

"You don't know a damn thing... who the hell do you think you are? What are you, anyway? Are you Spider-Man in another suit? You just commute back and forth between here and NYC?"

"No, actually I'm his perfect genetic duplicate."

Alvin sighs and leans back in his chair. "Whatever. Keep your secrets than."

He's right of course. I've got nothing on him, and I couldn't get the police in here quick enough to find anything, that's for sure. Still, it'd be a shame to go to all this trouble and not get something out of it...

"What're you paying Costanzo for?"

"What business is that of yours?"

I turn suddenly and leap back onto the desk, hovering over him in a way I hope is at least a little menacing. "You may think that I've got nothing on you, Alvin, but how long do you think that will last if I make it my mission in life to tear you down? How many days and nights do you think I'll have to shadow you before I figure out a way to bust you? Answer the question!"

He gulps -- audibly gulps, like in a cartoon -- and says, "It's protection money. Everybody in Little Italy's got to pay it, especially now that this new blood is in town, trying to take over business."

"You mean the guys who tried to have Costanzo whacked last week."

"How'd you know about that?"

I ignore the question. "Alvin, here's my offer. You take it, or I take you down, those are your only options."

He nods, apparently still a little freaked by my Dirty Harry impression. "What is it?"

"First of all, you get rid of all the hypnosis crap."

"What--?!"

"Get rid of it, Alvin. You've got a nice club here, loyal clientele. I think we both know that you could get by without everybody buying one or two more drinks a night. And think about it: it'll keep you clean. No chance of getting run back into jail."

He's mad... I can see that on his face, but not much else. "Anything else?" he growls.

"Are you going to take the hypno-equipment down?"

Through gritted teeth he replies, "I am not confirming that I have hypnosis equipment in my club... but if I did, you can bet it would be removed as quickly as possible. Now, is there anything else I can help you with."

"Ever heard of a song called 'Let's Chill'?"

Alvin blinks. "Yeah. It's by Guy."

"Guy who?"

"Just 'Guy'. They were an early 90's hip-hop trio."

I back-flip off the desk (for no reason, just showing off), and touch down just beneath the vent I entered the room through. "That webbing will dissolve in about a half hour. When it does, I want you to go see your DJ and have him play the song."

"Let's Chill."

"Right."

"You web me to a chair, make me change my entire business... and then you make a song request?"

"Think you can do it?"

Alvin sighs, slumping back into his seat. "Sure thing. Soon as I'm unstuck."

"Thanks. And keep your nose clean, Alvin. I'll be watching."

I leap up into the vent, pull the cover back up with a webline, then set off for the roof again, the sound of the Hypno-Hustler's inspired cursing slowly fading behind me.

Let's chill
Let's settle down
That's what I wanna do...

Chloe and Kipp are entwined together as I toss them into a cab at around two-thirty. They've been necking for nearly two hours now, and it's a wonder either of them still has any clothes on.

"What'd I tell you man?" Jerome asked, slinging an arm around my shoulder. "That song works every time." He leans over and peers into the cab at the lovers. "Just think, some people pay good money for a show like this."

I assure Jerome he's right, then I shove him in on top of them. "Take them where they want to go," I tell the driver, shoving a twenty at him. Might not be enough, but it'll at least get them started.

"You're a beautiful man, Ben Reilly!" Jerome calls from the back seat. I made him stop drinking around one, but he's still comple