Ultimate Spider-Woman: Change With the Light

Chapter 23: A Magnetic Personality

Jason Phillip Macendale eagerly opened his cell phone at the sound of the ring, smiling widely as he heard Fancy Dan's voice on the other end.

"What's the scenario?" Macendale asked Dan.

"The Kingpin's decided," Fancy Dan, the Kingpin's main underboss in charge of internal affairs and administration in his boss's criminal syndicate, "and we're ready to get the police in on this."

"We're going after the Maggia?" Macendale asked.

"That's right," Fancy Dan replied with an evil chuckle. "They'll be hard-pressed as it is fighting Bazin…just imagine how much worse it'll be when the New York Police Department goes after them?"

"Okay, I see where you're going with this," Macendale nodded, "but how are we going to get the NYPD after the Maggia? I'm on the Superhuman Activities squad, not Organized Crime!"

"You're going to be getting a tip from that George Stacy guy about what he thinks is a safehouse for the Acolytes of Magneto," Fancy Dan explained. "However, when you raid the safehouse you're going to find that it's actually a Maggia base, and you're going to find some dirt on the Maggia's money laundering schemes in the Midwest. After that, being the honest and upstanding enforcer of the law that you are, you're going to turn that information over to the Organized Crime unit."

"This, of course, gives the police extra motivation and leverage to go after the Maggia," Macendale laughed, "and none of it can be traced back to the Kingpin."

"You said it, not me," Fancy Dan replied smoothly.

"How'd George find out about this?" Macendale asked.

"We just alluded to how the Maggia is laundering money and smuggling supplies for the muties," Dan laughed. "That wound him up real bad. The Kingpin knew full well that George
would go straight to the cops with that information. I gave him your number."

"Sucker," Macendale laughed as he hung up.

With a wide grin on his face, Macendale returned to watch Pumpkinhead, one of his favorite movies. He knew that Dan wasn't telling him the whole story, of course-he'd heard from some of his contacts in the Organized Crime squad that the flamboyant Crimewave was planning to take advantage of Bazin's being distracted by the war with the Maggia to try and expand into Bazin's territory in New Jersey. Bazin and the Maggia would both be fighting on two fronts...and who knew what the Green Goblin, who'd been a wildcard ever since he came on the scene three years ago, would do in this situation?

The New York mob scene was a ticking time bomb waiting to explode.

Macendale was loving every minute of it.

SPIDER-WOMAN #23

"A MAGNETIC PERSONALITY"

"That should just about cover it," Gwen Stacy told her Aunt Nancy as she handed over the cheque. "Let me know if there's anything else, okay?"

"Actually, there is something else," Nancy Stacy replied, grabbing her niece by the arm as she turned to leave. "Are you doing anything for vacation?"

"…What?" Gwen asked in surprise. "No, I've got a lot to deal with right now," she shook her head.

"Like what?" Nancy asked with a half-frown. "Rent, your job at the coffee shop, figuring out your classes for next semester, getting some more help for Helen, trying to find more acting work, and trying to decide whether you're interested in Randy or Ben, right?"

"More or less, yeah," Gwen sighed with a resigned smile, not mentioning that she was also trying to put up with Roderick Kingsley's lecherous stares and looking after Harry as Spider-Woman, in between stressing about whatever Polestar, Moonstone and Jack O' Lantern were probably scheming.