Lowball

by George R. R. Martin

  “Joe Frank,” Mollie said, “is the cameraman Michael fired off Jokers of New Jersey.”

  “What the hell is that?”

  Mollie answered without being prompted. “Our new History Channel series about jokers trying to make lives for themselves as waitresses or plumbers or truck drivers—”

  “In New Jersey?” Jamal said, finishing for her, wondering what that had to do with history—and whether or not there was suddenly some connection to Wheels.

  “Tell Agent Norwood why, darling.” Suddenly Berman stood up. “No, better yet, show him.”

  Like a hostess turning letters on a game show, Mollie tottered over to the big-screen, high-def television and expertly called up a display that showed nine pictures-within-picture, each one a fixed camera within the American Hero house in the Hollywood hills that Jamal knew so well.

  “As you may recall, Agent Norwood, our various reality series locations are filled with cameras, all capturing unique footage that is then brutally and skillfully edited to create the fine entertainment that American audiences have come to expect from Diversified Content. But there’s always a lot left over. Hours and hours of footage, most of it tedious beyond belief.” Here Berman smiled. “Some of it rather private and salacious.”

  Mollie aimed the remote, and one small picture filled the screen … Jamal Norwood emerging from the shower, naked and semi-erect. “Look away, Mollie,” Berman said, smiling wickedly. “I wouldn’t want your love for me to be affected by the sight of Agent Norwood in his … natural state.”

  Jamal was too ill to be embarrassed. He was also growing tired of this hound and horse show, though he was impressed that Berman had been sufficiently frightened that he’d created an actual pitch. “There’s more to this than just aces gone wild,” Jamal said. “These things are also snuff films.”

  Berman did his head tilt again. “I fired Joe Frank because we caught him copying raw files on NJ2, Jamal. I have no idea who else he was working for or had worked for. I just know that he was a cheap motherfucking sleaze.” He smiled again. “And when I say that, you know it’s bad.”

  Before Jamal could respond, Berman turned to Mollie. “Get Agent Norwood our file on Joe Fucking Frank, please.” Then he stood up, terminating the interview.

  At the door, Jamal accepted a thick letter-sized envelope from Mollie’s hands. For an instant, he felt something tingly and life-affirming. He had been dismissing Mollie Steunenberg as a truck stop waitress who had probably slept her way into a job in New York and a tawdry relationship with Berman.

  Nothing about her had changed … but Jamal decided that her freckled nose was actually rather appealing, that she had a pretty voice, and maybe that green wasn’t wrong.

  “Thanks, darling,” Berman said, dismissing her.

  He did watch her go, and worse yet, caught Jamal watching her totter and wriggle back into the living room. “Just for the record, I’m not sleeping with her,” Berman said, using the most normal voice Jamal had ever heard from the man.

  “So noted.”

  “Just in case you want to take a shot…”

  “Thanks.”

  Then the old Berman was back, clapping him on the shoulder. “Hear much from Julia these days?”

  Jamal blinked. For the second time today, Berman had managed to make it clear that he knew too much about Jamal’s business. “We’re in touch,” he said, neutrally. “Do you know her?”

  Berman made his oh, come on face. “I know everyone I need to know, right?” He sipped his drink. “Nice girl.” Smirked. “Petite. Bit of a mouth on her.”

  “Never boring.”

  “I bet you really want to get back to Hollywood.”

  “It’s crossed my mind,” Jamal said. There was no point in trying to game Berman: the man possessed a freakish power of perception that could have qualified him for wild card status.

  And Jamal suddenly wondered if Mollie Steunenberg didn’t have a power, too.

  Jamal needed the cab ride back to the Bleecker to gather his strength.

  With what felt a lot like his dying breath, Jamal tapped the auto-dial for Franny. Thank God, he picked up. “I just left Berman,” he said.

  “And yet you live.”

  “Barely,” he said, meaning it in a way that Franny couldn’t know. He gave him the recap. “Consider the source, who happens to be a pathological liar … but the DVDs came from this Joe Frank individual. Berman was kind enough to give me his address and phone, in case I was motivated to contact him.”

  Franny gratefully thanked him for the information. “I’ll handle this particular numbnuts.”

  “Let me know how it goes.”

  All he wanted to do was lie down.

  Maybe forever.

  But first a shower: he truly needed it now.

  Galahad in Blue

  Part Seven

  THE GARROTE WAS DEEPLY embedded in the skin of Joe Frank’s throat. Frank was an older man, maybe late fifties, early sixties with a face lined by the sun and years. Rivulets of blood filled the wrinkles on his turkey-like neck. His blackened swollen tongue protruded from between purpled lips, and his eyes were open and staring.

  “Son of a bitch,” Franny said.

  The small apartment would have been pleasant if it hadn’t been trashed. Cushions on the chairs and sofa had been ripped open, books and DVDs and a few VHS tapes were pulled off the bookcase.

  The moment Jamal had provided him with the cameraman’s name and address Franny had headed straight to SoHo to find a door that swung open at his first knock, and a body. It was only that unlocked door that had Franny inside. Joe Frank’s murderer hadn’t cared enough to close the door behind him, much less lock it. The man’s contempt and confidence had saved Franny the trouble of a warrant. The only plus in this shit sandwich.

  Franny called in the crime, and while he waited for criminalistics and an ambulance to arrive he donned gloves and began to search the apartment. He doubted he would find anything. The thoroughness of the search conducted by Frank’s murderer extended to every room. In the kitchen every cabinet, cereal box, and canister had been emptied. In the bedroom the mattress lay on the floor looking like a gutted white whale. Every drawer, every article of clothing had been searched. In the bathroom Franny’s shoes crunched on broken porcelain from the shattered toilet tank lid.

  The evidence techs and a coroner arrived along with a detective from the 9th Precinct. He was not happy with Franny, and indicated that he found Franny’s rather disjointed explanation of why he was even in Joe Frank’s apartment to be less than compelling—though he didn’t phrase it that way. What he said was far more terse, and expletive filled. He promised his captain would be calling Franny’s captain.

  Before he headed back to the 5th Franny swung by the street corner where the aces had confiscated the DVDs. He wasn’t surprised when he found the bootleg DVD seller had vanished. Probably decided things had gotten too hot. Or he was dead too.

  When Franny returned to the 5th Homer was quick to tell him that Captain Mendelberg wanted him in her office—pronto. “And she is pissed.” He drew out the word with obvious relish.

  “What the fuck were you doing in SoHo?” she asked the moment Franny stepped into the office. Her ears were waving more than usual.

  “Ummm, well, I had a tip.”

  “From who?”

  Franny knew her eyes were always bloodred, but did they seem redder than usual? “Umm, Agent Norwood.”

  “And why, pray tell, are you taking tips from a Fed?”

  So, he tried to explain. About American Hero, and the audition lists, and the DVDs, and how all of that led them to Berman, but the longer he talked the more convoluted and confusing it seemed even to him.

  “So when Jamal … uh, Agent Norwood got this cameraman’s name he did the right thing and turned it over to me … and … I … went … there…”

  Mendelberg was staring at him. Kept staring at him. “Get out of here, and try to do some work that might
actually result in us finding our missing citizens!”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The fifth martini was going down a lot smoother than it had any business doing. Franny and Jamal sat in a booth at a cop watering hole just outside Jokertown on its northern edge. “The Ninth is ruling it a home invasion,” Franny muttered into his glass.

  “Yeah, so many burglars carry a fucking garrote,” Jamal said, and took another sip of his beer.

  “Yeah.”

  “Dead end,” Jamal said.

  “Yeah,” said Franny.

  “I think that bastard knew he was dead when he sent us his way.”

  “He? Who? Huh?” The amount of alcohol he’d consumed was making it hard for Franny to untangle all the pronouns.

  “Berman. I think he knew the cameraman was dead when he gave me his name,” Jamal said.

  “Throwing him under the bus.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But we can’t prove it.”

  “I know. We can’t prove a goddam thing.”

  Franny sat quietly for a moment, feeling the alcohol buzz through his bloodstream. “We know from the DVDs that the missing jokers are fighting in an arena … somewhere. And we know people are betting on the fights.”

  “Yeah. Like dog fights.”

  “Uh huh, but a really different crowd than you find at a dog fight. Tuxedos, fancy dresses, bling, but fancy bling—diamonds and rubies and emeralds and stuff.” Franny’s tongue felt thick. “Berman’s a big Hollywood guy. He could be in that crowd. Instead he’s providing them with the names and abilities of jokers—or so we think. So maybe he’s working off something.”

  “People bet on American Hero,” Jamal said thoughtfully. “How could we find out?”

  “My undergraduate degree is in accounting,” Franny said. “Then I went to law school—”

  “And then you became a cop. You’re an idiot.”

  “But lucky for us, an over-educated one.”

  Ties That Bind

  Part Four

  “KAVITHA! I NEED TO talk to you!” Minal was hollering down the hall, giving Michael a headache. This was not a great way to start the day. He stumbled out of bed, to hear Kavitha shouting back, “After rehearsal!” and disappearing out the door. God. She’d spent almost the entire day yesterday at the studio, and now she was gone so early? It wasn’t even six A.M. yet. He wasn’t even sure they turned on the AC in her building at this hour of the morning.

  “Michael, I know you don’t like dealing with money, but we have to talk about this,” Minal said, walking up to him, frowning, hands balled on her hips. Finances always gave him a headache—maybe the residue of all those years of hearing his parents worry about money, about whether the laundromat would make enough to see it through another month. It had been such a relief when Minal, capable Minal, had taken over the family finances. “She spent way more than her discretionary budget allows for yesterday.”

  “Minal, that’s not my problem. Take it up with Kavitha.” Michael was relieved that it really wasn’t his problem. He had enough to worry about. He was going to go back and re-check the docks for Sandip on his lunch break today; he’d thought of a few more places worth looking at.

  Minal thumped him gently on the arm. “I tried to talk to her! You saw—she just ran away from me.”

  Maya Aunty came out of Isai’s bedroom, the child rubbing sleepy eyes and holding her grandmother’s hand. “What is the problem? Why all the shouting? I would be happy to give you children some money.”

  “No, no, Aunty,” Minal said hastily. “We have plenty. It’s just important to stick to a budget, you know? Kavitha has always had trouble with that, but we’ve been working on it—I thought we finally had an agreement. She was being so good, but now—”

  “It’s a difficult time,” Maya Aunty said quietly. Isai let go of her hand and climbed up into Michael’s arms for a good morning hug. He buried his face in her unruly hair and took a moment to enjoy the fierce embrace of his daughter. This part, he loved.

  Minal sighed. “I know. She probably bought herself some new clothes to cheer herself up. Although I haven’t noticed any shopping bags.”

  Isai slid down impatiently and went to give Minal the same monster hug treatment. Michael said, “Maybe she was embarrassed. She might have left them at the studio.” It was sort of charming, actually—he could imagine Kavitha there, surreptitiously trying on clothes in front of the big glass mirrors. Something red and slinky would look so great on her, although that wasn’t really her style. Maybe when all this was over, he would buy her something she could wear out to dinner, with his ring on her finger. He was pretty sure Minal already had plenty of slinky red dresses. Although it might be the better part of wisdom to get her a present too. A man didn’t survive this long with two girlfriends without learning a few things.

  Minal sighed in reluctant agreement. “I suppose we can talk about this later. C’mon, sweetie.” She settled Isai more comfortably on her hip. “Time for morning potty and teeth brushing.”

  Morning potty was another thing Michael was happy to leave to Minal, along with the financial headaches. Right now, all he wanted was coffee. “Coffee, Aunty?” That, he could take care of.

  Yesterday, Kavitha’s mother had finally explicitly told Michael to call her Maya Aunty. It was a huge concession, and won only after her husband had decamped. He had tried to persuade her to come too, saying, “What is the point, kunju? The boy will come home when he wants to come home—it’s not up to us.”

  She had responded, “You! You are the one who drove him away! Go, go now. I will stay, and make sure that he comes home.”

  And so Maya had stayed, moving into Isai’s bedroom, giving them back their living room. A bit of breathing space, and even some grandmotherly babysitting—whatever her prejudices, Maya had been completely won over by her grandchild. And Isai, for her part, adored her new grandmother. It was endearing, if bizarre, to see the old woman crooning over her grandchild, singing old lullabies in Tamil while preening the girl’s shape-shifted feathers.

  So things were relatively quiet at home, and quieter at work too—no new snatches. There were reports of similar incidents overseas, but nothing in America recently. Yesterday, he’d found the final link in his smuggling case; it was all over, except for the paperwork. Michael was going to keep looking for Sandip, of course, but he was still hoping Sandip would find his own way home soon. Michael was almost ready to relax—until he was ambushed in his own home.

  Maya dug into her dressing gown pocket. “I do not want coffee. I want to know, what is this?” she hissed, holding up a little red box, practically shoving it into Michael’s nose.

  “Where did you find that?” Michael whispered, with a glance down the hall, to where Minal was in the bathroom with Isai. The door was closed; she shouldn’t hear anything, as long as he finished this quickly. Follow a question with a question, that’s what he’d been taught—keep them on the defensive. Easy to say, hard to do, especially when your heart is racing.

  “I wanted to wash your jackets and coats yesterday; winter is coming.”

  Not for months! “You don’t need to do that, Aunty,” Michael said, automatically.

  She frowned. “If I don’t, who will? At least that girl”—she always referred to Minal as that girl—“can cook, but none of you clean properly. You live in filth.”

  Michael was glad neither of the women were around to hear that—Minal would probably shrug and move on, but Kavitha would be hurt. She was just beginning to mend her relationship with her mother, but it was a fragile peace—she wasn’t up to taking much in the way of criticism yet. Michael had had enough of conflict in the last month to last him a lifetime.

  Yet here Maya came with more. “So what does this mean?” She flipped the box open, letting the two rings sparkle. One was a vintage ring, lots of tiny little diamonds in an intricate setting, for Kavitha, who loved old things. And the other was a single large-ish diamond, flanked by two tiny rubies�
�that one was for Minal; he’d thought she’d appreciate a flashy rock to show her old street friends. Neither ring was terribly expensive, but the best he could afford on a detective’s salary.

  “It should be obvious, I think,” Michael said, striving for calm.

  “For both of them?”

  Quiet certainty, that was the tone to use. He needed to sound sure of himself, even if he wasn’t. Maya would leap on weakness like a shark on its prey. “Yes.”

  She raised a diminutive eyebrow. “So what are you waiting for?”

  “What?” He felt as if she’d just punched him with that tiny little hand.

  “How long have these been sitting in your pocket?”

  “Umm … a while?” Had it really been less than a month since Sally had gotten that promotion? The weeks with Black as his putative partner seemed endless.

  Maya snapped, “A while? Do you know how far we could have gotten in planning the wedding in a while?”

  Michael frowned, bewildered. “You mean—you’re happy about this? You wouldn’t mind if your daughter married a man who was also marrying someone else?” This was not the reaction he’d expected.

  Maya frowned right back, and stepped even closer to him. He wanted to step back, but he was enough of a cop to stand his ground. He wasn’t going to be pushed around by a little old lady, even if she was his almost-mother-in-law. Maya said, “It’s not the marriage I would have chosen for her. But the important thing is that she get married. She is so old.”

  Michael winced. Another thing Kavitha didn’t need to hear.

  Maya continued, “Besides, the marriage is your affair. The wedding is mine. I will have to hurry if we want to reserve elephants for next summer. We cannot get them any earlier, I am quite sure.”

  “Elephants?” Michael felt as if she’d added a set of brass knuckles to the fist she was punching into his gut. Metaphorically.

  She sighed. “Well, of course, elephants. In the old days, we would have had to go back to Sri Lanka for a proper wedding, but now, things are advanced. You can get anything you need here. The elephants, thali necklace, saris, saffron and jasmine, a priest willing to perform mixed marriages…”