There is a Season... Follow-Up Notes
During "There is a Season..." Laughton and Sihn followed up on a few loose threads "off-stage".
Hamlet pursues hiring another detective for the firm, something he'd wanted anyway and now something necessary given Davis' departure. He comes across Manfred ("Manny") Wulfenstein, an investigative reporter working on "weird but true" type stories.
As Hamlet has been researching Dr. 13, the strange supernatural man who created Medusa, so to speak, he's found details on several victims: the Wallflower in Boston who is literally now a flower living walls, a sort of floral ivy; Gas Attack who lives in a desert as his flatulence is unbearable; Mama Pudding in Mexico, a bowl of pudding that communicates telepathically to a limited few; Dr. Doom allegedly has some links though not necessarily a victims; and Natasha in Russia who is a 2-D but live animated-looking copy of the Rocky and Bullwinkle Natasha.
Also, as a follow-up to Hamlet's previous conversations with Medusa, he is evasive as always about his past, but responds to her questions on good and evil:
"I am just a man, born from woman as every other man. I have free will and make my choices, it is society, the gathering of influences that causes evil, not evil inherent. You are no more evil in your core than I am Andrea. What has been done to you; what has happened to me; its not an act of either evil or good. It just happened. This is what I think: Good and Evil, are just the outer edges of the rainbow spectrum of free will. A mindless animal can not be evil, just because the lion eats the zebra does not make him evil, even from the zebra's perspective. One must make a conscious act, exert their free will. To be good, you make the choice to ignore the wills of the mobs and society. You must choose to be better, to make the world a better safer place. Those that are truely evil, they chose differently. They made a conscious effort to willfully effect and change the enviroment of others for their own benefit.
"Simply letting something happen, be it good or bad, does not make you good or bad, just a pawn in the grand scheme. I have chosen to not be a pawn. You can make the same choice, Andrea.
"I did not choose to have my powers, and neither did you yours. That your power was forced upon you in a manner not of your choosing, was perhaps in itself and evil act by some one else, Dr. Thirteen. It does not make you evil.
"I do not believe that happenstances can in and of themselves be good or evil, maliciousness implies intent, and intent implies free will through planning."
Hamlet pauses his mind whirring at inconceivable speeds, as he formulates the possible and probable lines of attack in his argument
"Take what Magneto has proposed, as an example. Exerting your own will upon someone else due to power imbued or created is a conscious act. The ultimate goal of that act is what determines evil or good. Magneto's wishes for a society bereft of mutant persecution is a good thing, an admirable thing. But at the cost of persecuting others? There the spectrum darkens. You can see there is no Black and White, it is all shades of grey. You must make the choice to live above the apparent to be good. I am chided by some for my methods, my successes. Does the ultimate end necessitate the ultimate means? Do I have the ability to choose to make my influence felt in a positive or negative effect? Does a tarnish silver keepsake lose its value because it is black from neglect?
"You tell me, Andrea. I know I have free will. I make my own choices. Do you make yours?"
He finishes by bring up the final point that he alluded to in the first paragraph. That of the mob mentality that society has where people make the conscious effort to not make a difference. This makes the total effect of society a shade of gray that is dark indeed, as every mindless drone makes a conscious effort to specifically not exert his free will. The act of not acting is in itself a choice to be evil.
Laughton sees Sihn about selling the hair tonic that The Captain stumbled upon. By Laughton's way of thinking this is simply fair compensation for leaving the agency in the lurch for resources with Davis gone. Not to mention the expense of getting new signs and business stationary with out Davis's name on them. Sihn agrees to facilitate the deal, making clear he wants no part of the patent and that he makes absolutely no assurances about the safety of the product.
More urgently, Hamlet is trying to find out more about Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin. He believes that Fisk is either tied up with the NEA or just behind the death of his friend Maggot, and has vowed to track him down. But he also is aware of Kingpin's immense power and stays carefully on the fringes. Knowing that Comet and Wombat operate in Miami and have both tangled with Kingpin, he seeks them out. Wombat he cannot access via any electronic means but Comet returns a request to talk on a secure channel. The conspiracy-minded Laughton is surprised to find Comet communicating on a government-sponsored secure channel, and he suggests they instead speak on a series of pay phones for five minutes apiece. Comet indicates he suspects government collusion with the Kingpin as some authorities are in the crime boss' pocket. When Laughton mentions they can meet in Miami, Comet seems turf-conscious and politely insists on Detroit. He mentions he is aware of Wombat's having worked against Kingpin but refuses to comment on the possibility he did any work with him.
Laughton also examines Kingpin's publicly known land and business holdings, discovering development property ranging from business to residential in New York and Miami, with a little in Chicago, and increasing building projects in Detroit. Fisk is a board member of IBM, Microsoft, Xerox, Oracle, and MacBeth Laboratories. He has no criminal record despite half a dozen arrests, a couple RICO/racketeering based. No court cases are pending but even being arrested disallows him from holding anything more than minor amounts of stock in Stark Industries and ABC Corporation, due to their highly classified federal projects. This was a major setback for him as he used to be a board member in those. Rumors do involve both Wombat and Comet in Kingpin's first and second racketeering arrests.
Despite his considerable legitimate economic power, he maintains a low profile and is rarely photographed. There's a "curse" associated with photographing him - all manner of dire things have happened to most of those who've snapped unauthorized photos. Yet nothing's been traced back from those accidental deaths, mutilations, and family catastrophes. Laughton finds that what little is rumored about his personal life paints him as sort of Howard Hughes type, eccentric and reclusive, but with a much more frightening background. He grew up the son of a military family (no surviving family members) and bounced from school to school and home to home. He never seemed to get to know any other kids and was never in a school for more than half a year. He was pulled out of school at the age of 13 and educated from then on at home by a couple different hired in-home teachers until the age of 17 - both died grisly deaths, one in front of the poor young impressionable man. Rumors are that he had been pulled out of school, though, to cover up possible involvement in the disappearance (and presumed murder) of a schoolmate. A few children from that school have left bits and traces that Laughton finds that indicate the young Fisk tried to organize some sort of "terror gang". None of these have ever gone on record, though, and several of that group died young. It takes Hamlet a bit of digging to get to some of this info.
At the age of 17 his family was mostly killed in a horrible explosion at a family get-together. Only he and his cousin Lucinda survived. Fisk seemed to already have control of his family's modest fortune via a friendly lawyer (now dead) and he and his cousin lived together for several years. He never went to college, instead immediately investing. He was an extremely lucky investor, many assume trading on insider information perhaps gained violently. Hamlet finds that quiet rumors have persisted that his relationship with Lucinda was "too" close.
At this point in his life, in 1981, he and Lucinda settled into a small rent-controlled apartment in New York. Then Lucinda was raped and found by the police a few months later in Central Park. She narrowly survived but from most accounts it was at this point Fisk began making mafia connections. Suddenly he joined several mob social clubs and seemed to fit in. Then the turf wars began and over time Fisk eliminated all contenders, finally presumably killing the flamboyant Gotti, who disappeared at the climax of the last family war in 1995. Unfortunately the war cost him Lucinda, who was killed in a car bomb no doubt meant for him the year before. A little digging by Laughton finds that underworld rumors persist as well that he is working on bringing her back to life and that Gotti is alive and not at all well, kept for the rest of his (or Fisk's) life locked in a mob prison and continually tortured, often personally by Fisk.
Whatever the case, Fisk had begun extending beyond New York in the early '90s and once New York was safely secured moved to Miami in early 1996. Since then he solidified his position there and has extended his tentacles to the midwest. Rumor has it that Chicago has already acquiesced, hoping that Fisk will fight the living legend heroes ensconced there. But Fisk seems to see Detroit as a priority.
Laughton finds little else immediately - a lot of in-person footwork will be required. What he does verify is that Kingpin is like a cat with mice. It always begins as a game and ends up with a shredded mouse. He checks into former enemies of Kingpin and finds they don't really exist. They're either dead or have become his professed friend. Fisk seems to owe no favors, but many of his newfound friends over the years seem to be in his debt.
As part of his investigation, Laughton pays a visit to Eduardo Tocci the day after his daughter is returned and rumor has it he's given in to Fisk. He indicates in not so many words, that perhaps the tides may yet change. The enemy of my enemy and all that. He does not commit to anything, but leaving a possibility for further collaboration and hidden resources is always a good thing.
Meanwhile, Sihn is also busy. He's interested in locating Lakura, the would-be princess of Princess Namor and his own mother-in-law. To that end, given that the trail seems to lead to the Philippines, he has sought out the services of an "information consultant" local to that area. He finds one Manny Muzantino. To be sure he's worthwhile, he runs a cursory check via Laughton Agency (and of course Laughton catches wind), and finds that he checks out.
Eliot also spends time in the local underground mutant hang-outs. He heads down to a popular pool hall for such and just hangs out, keeping his eyes and ears open (but attached). He tries to casually make acquaintances and remain open to any conversation. For him this is an opportunity to establish contacts and observe; he's not in the market for samples, at least not yet. He finds that actually rather few mutants have gone to the new mutant "utopia" of Origin despite media reports to the contrary.