A Master of the Night

My name is Amy Richards. I'm a regular girl, or at least I'd like to think so. Actually, that's a lie. I'm a total tomboy. Always had been. I'm around five-foot-four, with milky white skin, pale gray eyes and short black hair. I am the sort of girl who loves comic books, action movies and adores football. Yeah, I know. You don't meet too many like me. Let me tell you my story. Recently, I got fired from my job as a police officer.

I once worked for the Boston police department. I loved my job. It's sort of the family business. My father, Andrew Richards made detective sergeant with the Boston P.D. before he retired after eighteen years on the force. He was a legend in Boston. A heck of a cop. My mother, Elisabeth Johnson Richards was a Suffolk County district attorney for ten years. As you can see, I come from a family where law enforcement is almost mandatory as a career and we all grow up with a strong sense of justice.

I was just doing my job and I got fired for nothing. I was on patrol, alone, and got called in on this domestic disturbance call. It was some house in the Back Bay. I found this woman holding a bat. She had used it to attack and injure her boyfriend. Both the woman and her boyfriend were familiar to me. Her name was Anne and she was a violent psycho if you ask me. Her boyfriend Tom was a gentle soul who wouldn't hurt a fly. Anne had anger issues. Why Tom stayed with her is beyond me. I arrested Anne for domestic violence and called an ambulance for Tom, who had a broken arm. Oh, I forget the part where I slugged Anne in the face for what she did to that poor man.

That's the part that got me in trouble. Anne was already in cuffs when I hit her. I wasn't supposed to do that but hey, whatever. I don't like people who abuse others. I know women who abuse men and let me tell you, they are some wicked bitches whose violence can exceed that of most violent men. You do not want to have to take on a psycho chick with anger issues. The whole incident, as I would later find out, got recorded by somebody in the neighborhood who had a camera. Some of Anne's cronies used it against me at trial. Michael Brown, the handsome black man who was also the captain of the police department I worked for had the displeasure of firing me. He wasn't happy about it but what could he do? It was either I get fired or I had to do some jail time. I chose forced retirement instead.

After I got fired from the Boston police department, my life was in shambles. I didn't know what to do. Everyone in my family worked with the law. My older brother Ernest is a police lieutenant in Milton. My younger brother Lawrence is the assistant district attorney in Plymouth County. My mother had her own law firm and my father was an instructor at the police academy in New Braintree. I couldn't face them after I had been disgraced. I simply couldn't. So, I moved away. Better to live alone and isolated from those I loved than to be around them and see the disappointment in their faces.

I moved to Worcester. It's a nice enough town in Massachusetts. I didn't mind it. I decided to make a new life for myself. I was twenty five years old and I had a Bachelors degree in Criminal Justice. There had to be some work I could do. Maybe go to law school? No way. I didn't want to be a lawyer. I ended up working as an armed security guard for some wealthy schmuck. I didn't even know who I was working for except that his name was Stephen Verne.

The security agency I worked for sent me to do guard duty for Stephen Verne. I asked Marcus, one of the other guards if he knew anything about our boss. Marcus was a tall, good-looking blond guy with steely blue eyes. If he wasn't married, I would have definitely made a pass at him. Marcus told me what he knew, which wasn't much. No one knew much about Stephen Verne, except that he had peculiar habits. He asked us to guard his Back Bay mansion during the day but gave us the nights off. This was weird. Most wealthy people who hired guards expected them to be on duty at night. The night seems to make rich people especially paranoid. I guess when you've got more money than you knew what to do with, you can become paranoid.

None of us knew what Mr. Verne even looked like. But one night I would find out. I decided to figure out who I was working for. The man who never came out of the mansion during the day. I parked my car not far from the mansion around six one evening. As soon as it got dark, the doors opened and a man came out. I was not prepared for the sight that I beheld. A tall, good-looking black man wearing a business suit came out of the house. I could tell that he was the boss judging by the way his entourage treated him. With respect and something very much like fear. I was very much surprised.

Stephen Verne was a fine-looking man! My curiosity was piqued and I decided to find out more about this reclusive man. I followed him around. No, I'm not a stalker, I'm just curious! Stephen Verne walked out of the mansion, leaving his entourage, which seemed to be made up of a tall, elderly black man and an older black woman, behind. He strode through the streets. I watched him with my binoculars. His face was handsome and he was looking at everything. Almost like a man who just out of a house and hadn't been outside in a long time.

Stephen Verne walked through the quiet, easy streets of the Back Bay. He headed toward Arlington, closer to Copley Square. I got out of my car, parked it and followed suit. He went into Copley Mall. I went in after him. I've been inside Copley Mall before and generally I don't like it. Most of the people inside are loaded and since I am not, I feel out of places. I don't wear dresses ( unless my mother forces me to attend one of her events) but I can't imagine paying three grand for one. No way. That's three months worth of rent money.

Stephen Verne walked through the crowd of people inside the large mall, which was a who's who of Boston's rich and famous as well as some of the middle class people. Stephen went inside, and blended in. There weren't that many black people in there but there were plenty of men and women of various races who were well-dressed and seemed to be having a good time. My hunky boss went into one of the upstairs restaurants. I stood outside, looking. He sat down and ordered a drink. After a while, someone came and sat next to him. A tall and handsome black man dressed in an expensive black suit. Stephen Verne's friend, I think.

I watched the two of them sit down and talk. I smiled. Two handsome, well-dressed men. I wish I could be with them! My hopes were dashed when my boss leaned closer to the other man and kissed him on the lips. My heart skipped a beat. Could it be that my handsome, reclusive, nocturnal boss was gay? As I watched them kiss, I came to that conclusion. Oh, well. My boss was a black hunk. He was rich. He was also gay. I just can't get lucky, can I? I was about to leave when something unexpected happened.

My boss was kissing his friend and neither of them noticed a man who sat at another table, watching them with disgust on his face. Suddenly, the man rose up and pulled something from inside his vest. My eyes locked onto it. A gun, he had a gun! Someone shouted. Women started panicking and screaming. My boss looked at the man, who stood perhaps ten feet away, with a gun pointed at him. I pulled out my gun and crossed the distance, intent on taking down this maniac before he killed my boss.

Stephen Verne rose from his seat and looked at the man. The man shouted some obscenities about queers and gesticulated with the gun. That's when Stephen rushed him. Moving faster than I could have anticipated, Stephen grabbed the man and lifted him off the floor with one hand. I was close enough to marvel at it with wide eyes. My boss threw the man against the wall, twenty feet away. The man hit the wall and landed on the floor with a sickening thud. He lay still.

Stephen Verne stood over him, watching. Around the restaurant, people were moving closer to look at the maniac's inert body and the man who had taken him down. I pulled my piece back into my pocket since it was no longer needed. I reached Stephen first. He looked at me and I took a step back. His eyes...there was something wrong with them. For a second, I thought they were completely black. Stephen blinked, and I saw that his eyes were normal. Beautiful, but normal. I must have been seeing things.

Stephen looked at me, then looked back at his friend, who still sat there, as if everything were fine. He was very composed and didn't look worried at all. I looked from one of them to the other. They looked at each other without speaking and some agreement passed between them. Stephen's eyes were back on me. He took a step toward me. I felt my heart skip a beat. What a handsome guy!

A moment later, two police officers arrived. I recognized one of them. Officer Matthew Jackson, of my old precinct. He looked at me questioningly. I greeted him, and told him what happened. He talked with Stephen and a few other people around the place. Other cops arrived there shortly. Some of them looked at the fallen man while taking statements from various witnesses. This was standard police procedure. The fallen maniac was put into an ambulance.

I watched Stephen and his friend, who had identified himself as Paul walk out of the restaurant. There they were, two handsome, well-dressed black men who were obviously in love with each other. I knew that there was definitely something out of the ordinary with Stephen Verne. Definitely more than meets the eye. My boss who lived a nocturnal existence had eyes that went completely black sometimes and he displayed superhuman strength and speed when threatened. I was definitely going to keep an eye on him and not for the reasons you might think. Whatever his secret was, I was going to figure it out.