I had never actually owned a tailored, or bespoke suit.

It flattered me in ways I didn’t expect. I could sort of understand why Tino had wolf-whistled and given me a thumbs-up when we were on our way to the helicopter. It was a bell TH-57, very nice but recently considered obsolete, but it was easily able to deliver us ashore in New York.

It was perfectly tailored, and unlike the suits I had worn in the past, it didn’t have to be oversize to hide some sort of weapon.

Bespoke was… weird. An actual tailor, someone who worked for Naomi, was flown out to take my measurements and show fabric colors on Wednesday, and by Saturday it had arrived with the supplies by boat.

I didn’t even understand it. I mean, I was used to having to buy oversized suits, because if I bought something that fit, simply putting both arms in front of myself at the same time would split the back. It was a little bit uncomfortable compared to my usual jeans and tee look, but… with my permanent stubble, the dark gray suit with subtle silver pinstripes made me look exactly like what Naomi wanted me to look like… someone who was as comfortable in a suit as underwear.

The shoes were something else, too. To me, shoes were something you wore to improve your grip on the floor. But these were artistically stained leather and shaped in a way that even I, fashion pleb that I was, realized looked elegant. The really scary part was that the suit cost almost a thousand dollars, and the shoes cost just as much. They didn’t even have rock climbing treads!

And Naomi… well… wine-red dress, split up the side, sleeveless and somehow held on by some sort of promises or double-sided tape over her breasts. I didn’t know that a dress could be called strapless, and yet have a series of straps over an open back. She had her hair relaxed and held up in a fancy sort of twist, with two twirls of hair artfully dangling in front of her ears, decorated with large jade hoops and expensive-looking makeup.

As we were walking from the helicopter to a large black Limousine, Naomi asked me, “Are you ready for this? Remember, act cool and slightly menacing. You are here to intimidate and impress people, not terrify them into giving up their wallets and jewelry.”

I nodded and opened up the car door ahead of the chauffeur, an attractive Irish-looking redhead woman in a uniform that looked nearly as tailored as mine.

“Weapons,” I said, clenching my fists hard enough that my knuckles cracked. “Check.” I patted my suit. “Armor, check.” I gave her my best smoldering smile. “Ammunition Check.”

I had appeared socially with cowls before, usually as a bodyguard, but in general, the focus had definitely not been on me. Usually, a grimace or moving my hand towards a shoulder holster had been the extent of my social interaction, and I was definitely going to have to play it cool.

As I slipped into the car, the young lady closed the door behind me. “It’s good that your abilities lend themselves to a subtle approach. If you had more flashy stuff, you’d have to have a dozen guys backing you up.”

She smiled. “Would you prefer I had other guys backing me up?”

I growled, practicing the possessive boyfriend thing. “That would depend on how far they backed you up.” and cracked my knuckles again.

She giggled, “Good, but tone it down just a bit. Subtle threat, not an imminent offer to rip their throats out with your teeth.”

I chuckled, “I’ve known cultures where that would be considered flirting.”

She nodded, “But not here. Remember, keep it on the DL. Pretend you are protective, not jealous. No violence.”

“Not even if I am invited behind the place?” I said, smiling slightly.

“No,” she said, “Because you would probably find a way to get invited in order to avoid the awkward stress of being social.”

Wow, she really had me pegged. Without even the fun of a reach around.

“Something like this, there are bound to be a few masks around. If it gets stupid?”

She shrugged, “Once I get out of the way, feel free to get your ass kicked thoroughly. Remember, we are not here to win. Play sacrificial mook to your heart’s content, we are not wearing masks, and you can fool a meta test, so brave, noble normal guy getting beaten to protect his helpless girlfriend is on the table.”

She sighed. “Unless they are throwing down with the lethal. At that point, all bets are off. That’s why we have the silk hoods. If they start killing people, get the hell out of dodge or pull on the hood and play vigilante, whatever.” she giggled, “I am just realizing that if it happens… and I don’t want it to happen… having a rumor that my boyfriend might be a cape in disguise could work in our favor.”

I sighed in exasperation. “Amateur.”

“What?” she asked, looking a little irritated.

“The first rule of being a cowl. NOTHING happens that is outside of your control. Especially if it’s outside of your control. Does your party get interrupted by a bunch of mooks? It’s because you planned for them to interrupt your party. Do you want your boyfriend to look like a potential vigilante? You set it up that way. You get caught by capes? Obviously, it was because you were ready to get caught by capes.”

I grinned, “You get broken out of jail by your partner? You do something else to make it look like getting sent to jail was all part of your plot. Release a few fellow cowls, rip off the warden’s records, something. You want the heroes, especially the really smart ones, to always feel two steps behind. It keeps them nervous, off balance, and guessing. It also makes them paranoid, but that’s their problem, not yours.”

“If you want someone to interrupt this shindig, so your boyfriend can put on a mask and look suspiciously like a vigilante, tell me, I can make a couple of calls and spend some of your money and there will be a dozen mooks here inside of half an hour.”

I chuckled, “The most fun thing ever is to leave some kind of clue behind at a well-known hero’s disposal. A riddle that makes no sense, a poem, a set of pictures clipped out of a bunch of different newspapers, a demand to return ‘what is rightfully yours’ done in anonymous letters.”

“Then you go do your heist, robbery, kidnapping someone’s dog whatever… and you leave another pointless puzzle at the scene, to make it obvious that it was you. Warning in advance, or something like that.”

I grinned, “That will send the police, vigilantes, and even a genius detective-type like Blackhawk spinning their wheels, desperately trying to figure out how the two were connected. I have heard some amazingly stupid theories come out of supposedly brilliant crime fighters when faced with a ‘villain that’s begging to get caught.”

Naomi shook her head. “You know, Caelo says you are good on the inside, but I think that may have been the evilest idea I have ever heard.”

I shrugged, “Not my idea. I saw it on a TV show about a serial killer that only kills bad guys. But I promise, it really works. Sooner or later they figure out it's bullshit, but when you keep doing it, they get back on the shovel again, convinced they missed something.”

She laughed, “Alright, old man” and the driver got into the car, sending us off towards a rendezvous with horror, an art opening.

What I left unsaid was that mooks sort of had an unwritten code. You don’t sell out your fellow henchmen. If a killer vigilante is coming after you, you don’t leave another mook behind to die.

Even professional stool pigeons who are hired to sell out the cowl for their own nefarious purposes know that you stick strictly to the top… you don’t sell out the hired guys. Professional stoolies are protected by that understanding. We don’t go after them after their job is done, and typically the cowls won’t either, even to prove a point. That’s mob and cartel shit, not part of the game.

That’s why I had been so upset that Pete had sold me out. I had expected it, but what we had planned for was everyone staying silent and then Smile picking me as a ‘random’ target to make an example.

I got it. Pete had a family and a little girl who would be destroyed if she lost him. But honestly, he should have gotten out. You don’t mook if you have such a glaring vulnerability. I know, he had bills to pay, no skills other than being intimidating, and a record. But it was still a bad choice.

I hoped he got out before some mook with a stronger sense of honor decided to teach him a lesson about screwing up the game.

Yes, I had a million ideas for heists, scams, cons, and basic cowl lore, but I had them because they had all been done before. I was not that terribly creative or brilliant, although some hadn’t been seen in decades and would likely catch modern capes by surprise.

Naomi wanted me to be her partner, and I could play the part a bit, but even with a stronger powerset, I was still just following the script, I was still just a mook, inside and out. Even my powers screamed ‘hireling’. I was well-nigh invulnerable, but could only do superhuman stuff in short bursts. What was I supposed to do, beg a cape or a cowl to hit me so I could kick their ass?

Since I technically had powers, everything we did would be in response to metahumans or invoke the response of metahumans. Baseline human crime had no appeal, because it tended to get messy, violent, and involved really hurting people. No thank you. Unless it involved robbing a brothel and had side benefits from the girls, I wasn’t interested.

Naomi had said something I had been too absorbed to catch. “What?”

“I said,” she started again, “We need to scope out a few of the folks here… Our first job involves ripping off a brothel.”

The exhibit had been exactly as exciting, so far, as I expected. Some of the shit on the walls… I think was actually literal shit. One exhibit actually pissed me off. It was a pair of glasses with a bullethole through one lens, lying on a pool of blood on a chair that was dripping into a puddle on the floor.

The blood was obviously painted. It was the right color but had the wrong shimmer. And the glasses were pristine… if you catch a bullet in the eye, especially through glasses, the shock would rip the frames to shreds and the lenses would be coated in secondary splatter.

Naomi explained that it was supposed to be symbolic, but I just didn’t understand that crap. Older art was beautiful, even the ugly stuff. That fraud, Vinnie Van Gogh, had created stuff that was eye-catching and colorful, despite the fact that he had zero artistic talent.

But this stuff? Cans marked ‘shit’ in a stack? A statue of Mary covered in piss? ‘death of a writer’? It was all complete and total crap. Shocking junk that had no value except for the snobs that used it to launder money. Symbolism without meaning. Post-modern garbage assigned labels so that rich people could pat each other on the back and talk about how much better they were than the common man for ‘getting it’.

I didn’t get it, and I refused to pretend I did. It got a few sneers from the poofs, and more than a few snickers of disdain, but these people were marks, not humans. Their opinions mattered less than my shoes.

Among the sneering artsy set, though, were people who did matter. Wealthy industrialists who scrabbled their way up from my world with their teeth and claws. Politicians that were worth even less than the art snobs. Celebrities that...I guess… were now my social peers.

And one interesting waiter who was serving drinks from the open bar. Something about him just screamed 'wrong'.

One thing you learn in decades of playing the game was how to fit into a role. This waiter was a dumpling in an undersized outfit that had a pair of pants just slightly off-color like it had been washed with a pair of underpants that were a slightly different color.

The slacks he was wearing were not from the same uniform company as the rest of the waiters, the belt loops were in slightly different places. The way he kept watching people closely, looking at their watches and sweating a little, let me know that this was not just a fill-in temp for the event.

I was not the only one that noticed, either. Eventually, you begin to realize that capes in their secret identity still had major tells… at least three of them, one woman and two men, were keeping their eyes on the kid as he served drinks, and occasionally flicking their eyes around to see if they were noticed or to look for good spots to change into a mask.

This could get messy in a hurry, especially if the kid was a meta… his lack of support implied that he didn’t think he needed support, which strongly suggested he was powered and overconfident, if nervous. Either his first time out of the gate or a big step up from knocking over Val-Marts.

I smiled and turned to Naomi. “Hey gorgeous, I just saw someone I know… could you excuse me for a few minutes?”

At her nod, I leaned in and kissed her. Chances were likely that someone was photographing this event for some kind of gossip rag, so I put my all into it like only sheer willpower was keeping all of our clothes on.

After a few moments, I felt a sort of buzzing and realized that Naomi had lost a little control, and I was absorbing energy. I leaned back away from the kiss and smiled, noticing that her eyes were bright and she was panting a little. I reached forward and gently touched her nose with a fingertip, to hopefully remind her to concentrate on locking it down. “Be right back.”

“You had better be.” she almost growled, and I chuckled, turning and heading toward the kitchen.

Yep, the kid was a meta. The moment I grabbed his arm and dragged him into the dishwasher alcove, I felt electricity running through my arm. I absorbed it handily, so it was probably less than the arc welder had applied. That was good, it meant he either wasn’t that powerful, or he could tone it down to less-than-lethal levels.

“Lock it down.” I growled, “You wanted to get busted your first time out of the gate?”

He blinked at me disbelievingly, and then apparently tried to bullshit his way out. “What? What are you talking about? I just work here.”

I shook my head. “Don’t even try it. You are being really stupid trying to hit this place. I scoped out at least three masks watching you, and if you don’t have a decent rep, your first arrest will be your last one.”

“Three masks? Where?” he asked.

I shook my head, “Don’t worry about it unless you want to add a felony to your charges, one that is guaranteed to get you 15 years or a stay in stronghold. Secret Identities get you fifteen minimum, which is why I am shocked you are throwing yours away.”

He gulped again, and I felt an even stronger charge go through my hand, so I slapped him lightly. I wanted him shocked into sense, not unconscious.

“Stop that crap!” I whispered harshly. “I have a discharge device in my shoe. Electricity can’t touch me. Why are you even hitting this place?”

“Are you a cape?” he asked.

I shook my head, “Not even slightly. My girlfriend is part of the crowd, though, and I will be damned if I will risk her getting electrocuted or killed by some newbie that’s too stupid to wear a mask.”

“If I wore a mask, I couldn’t sneak in and scope the place out.”

I sighed. “I get it. You have watched too many movies. But the only thing valuable here is either the exhibits, most of which are worthless or unsellable, or the jewelry and stuff on the guests. Good call, but this place has an open bar. No one brought any cash because they don’t need it. That leaves jewelry. I noticed you checking out all the bracelets and diamond necklaces and stuff, right?”

He nodded quickly.

“First off, at least half of that stuff is either knockoffs or costume jewelry. You might get fifty bucks for all of that junk at a pawn shop that will record your name and phone number. The good stuff that you see on the models and the actresses? That isn’t owned by them. Most of it is stuff that a jewelry conglomerate lets them wear as an advertisement at events like this, or are stupidly expensive gifts from men with endless money and no conscience to show that they are property.”

“That stuff cannot be sold without revealing its source. You would have to break it down at a fraction of its value. And jewelry conglomerates have very special rules about what to do with cowls that steal too much value. If the grand total is worth more than a million, they will attempt to retrieve it. Do you know what that means?”

He shook his head.

“The guy that showed his real live face suddenly has his photograph, and likely his police and school records, family records, relatives, everyone he’s ever had contact with, even the guy that works at the local Strawbucks where he buys his morning java, in a neat little file in the hands of someone like… say… Totem, or Carbuncle, or maybe even a cowl like Razor Blade Smile that needs a little extra income. And a check for fifty grand that they can cash as soon as they deliver your head on a plate.”

He shivered a little bit. Hopefully, I had gotten to him.

“Even if you had a mask, this is the wrong time and the wrong place, and as I said, stuff like this has masks all over them. If you are lucky, a cape grabs you and drops you off at the prison. If you are unlucky, a vigilante decides to turn you into a graphic, bleeding example of why crime doesn’t pay. And if you are REALLY unlucky, one of those three people that noticed you are a cowl. You don’t even want to know what a cowl will do to exact vengeance when there are no rules in play and they are feeling a sense of righteous justice.”

I sighed a little. “Did you bring your cell phone with you?”

He nodded, and I almost facepalmed. He probably even brought his wallet. Idiot.

“Put this number into your phone. The guy’s name is Mitchell. He’s a fixer that’s worked with a lot of masks just getting started. If you have talent, he could help you become a decent cowl, or even help get you set up as an actual superhero if you don’t. He won’t even charge you until you start bringing in the jobs or get sponsored as a cape.”

He shook his head, “But I need money…”

I sighed. I hated doing this, and I was out if this little idiot decided not to call Mitchell. I pulled out my wallet, and grabbed a card from it, tossing it on his tray. “Take this. Will 500 bucks do you? It’s probably more than you’d get from this heist if you did get away with it.”

He nodded quickly.

“It’s a numbered debit account. The pin is 4666.” The pin number had been a joke by Naomi. “Use it, and when you call Mitchell, tell him Jim Webb set you up. He will pay me back when he helps you get started. Now get out of here.”

He nodded, and started to say “Thank you” but I stopped him. “Don’t thank me, I don’t want to know your name or anything else about you. Someday when you make it big you might hire me, and you can thank me then. Got it? Good, go.”

I headed out of the kitchen, and back into the indescribably boring crowd, quickly finding Naomi again, surrounded by trust fund babies who were making pouty faces and trying to look irresistible.

I pushed my way between two of the wealthy scions none too gently and lightly slipped my arm around her waist. “Hey, sweety. Sorry for being gone so long. Who are your friends?” I scoped out one blonde specimen, at least two inches taller than me, who looked like he’d be right at home in one of Naomi’s underwear ads, Swedish edition.

She quickly introduced me to each of them, and I noted that mister blonde was one of the guys that had been scoping out the waiter I had scooped up.

With his age and build, he was most likely a meta cape of some kind, possibly attached to the protectors or a solo operator with sponsorships. Probably not a hard-core vigilante, those tended to be older and more… weathered. Or female, lots of female vigilantes tended to be the killer type, avenging some horrible event in their past by chopping up costumed freaks.

Memorizing blonde ambition’s look, I quickly guided her away from the crowd. It was a felony to doxx a mask, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t use the information if it came up. Most masks, capes especially, seemed to think that donning tights and hiding their cheekbones would make them unrecognizable, but it was a polite fiction.

Most cops knew damned well the real-life identity of the cowl, but legally, evidence rules prohibited them from using the information.

I whispered to the lovely girl on my arm, “Remember that card you gave me for incidentals?”

Naomi nodded.

“Well, I had to use it for incidentals. If we are going to be showing our faces for the paparazzi and a few drinks later, you’re buying.”

She chuckled, “Oh Rhett, What shall I do?”

I grinned, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.” I love it when someone feeds me a great line.