George Martin - Lowball

Franny called Berman’s bank and had the good fortune to end up with a representative who was a Badge Bunny. Once he’d scanned and e-mailed a copy of the warrant she was more than happy to help him, and was very disappointed when she discovered he was in New York City and she was in Houston. After an hour where his ear went numb she had given him online access to all Berman’s checks for the past five years.

What he found had him jumping out of his chair, and pumping the air in triumph. Berman was a liar. He hadn’t fired Joe Frank. As late as two weeks ago he had been writing checks to the cameraman. He was picking up the phone to call Jamal, when Deputy Inspector Maseryk walked up and dropped a file on his desk. “That big Committee ace Rustbelt and one of our meter maids have been playing detective, and they nearly got Gunderson killed.”

“I told him not to,” Franny said.

“Well, he didn’t listen, and I’d like an actual detective to follow up. Maybe they’ll have something useful. God knows we need something. I just hope it’s not another of Darcy’s fantasies.”

“Yes, sir.” Maseryk walked away and Franny slowly replaced the receiver. What he was doing with Jamal and Berman was strictly off the books. This was his actual job. And maybe the big ace did know something.

Wally Gunderson walked toward Franny’s desk, the floor shuddering under his weight, and Franny watched in dismay as paper clips, sets of keys, staplers, and anything made of metal went sailing through the air to land like a flock of futuristic butterflies on the exposed metal skin of Rustbelt’s face, neck, hands, and arms. Cops were yelling, and snatching at their suddenly airborne items. The big iron ace batted in alarm at the clinging objects and only succeeded in having them attach to each other in long strings that dripped from his fingertips. “Ah shoot,” he said in his deep Minnesota accent.

Rikki, her over-developed chest heaving in alarm, rushed up waving her arms like a modern-day Chicken Little. “The computers,” she yelled. “The computers.”

Franny suddenly realized what she was ranting about. Rustbelt’s magnetized skin was probably wreaking havoc on the hard drives. He reached up, placed his hands on Rusty’s shoulders, turned him around, and propelled him back out of the precinct. The big head with its steam-shovel jaw drooped. “I’m sorry. I guess I got all magnetized by that magnet.”

“Not your fault,” Franny said as he plucked metal detritus off Rusty, and set it in a pile just inside the door. He spotted a coffee vendor’s cart on the far side of the street down by the corner. “We can sit on the bench at the bus stop. I’ll buy us some coffee.”

“Sure,” Rusty said, as he plucked off an overlooked paper clip.

“How do you take it?”

“Lotta cream and sugar.”

Franny sprinted down the street and bought a couple of cups. Joining Wally on the bench Franny took a swig, and felt his gut rebel. He stared down into the black depths, and realized he had been subsisting on coffee for the past few weeks.

“What did you need from me, Officer?” asked Rustbelt. “Darcy wrote everything up, and I sure hope you fellas aren’t gonna fire her. She works real hard to be a good policeman.”

Franny set the cup on the sidewalk next to him. “Well, that’s not my decision, but I’ll certainly put in a word for her. I did read Darcy’s report, but it’s a little…” He considered the twenty-seven-page-long report filled with an exposition about the decay of cities, analysis of traffic patterns, traffic camera logs, parking violations, and a detailed sketch of a junkyard, and finally settled on a neutral word. “… detailed. I just need to hear what happened when you reached that junkyard. Darcy’s report was a little vague on exactly how the perps got away.” Franny’s pen was poised over his notebook.

“There was a tunnel, and this skinny guy wearing a towel. And he stuffed some stuff up my nose, and I got all woozy. Oh, and this red-haired woman. She was driving the car when it went into the tunnel.”

“Was she a joker?”

“No, just a girl.”

“Girl. So she was younger?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Franny asked a few more questions, but it seemed he had exhausted Gunderson’s store of useful information. Vaporlock was old news. What was new was the woman, and the use of a clear ace power.

The bus pulled up, the doors opened, and the driver glared at Franny and Rustbelt. “Let me guess, you’re just passing the time?”

“Sorry.” Franny stood. Shook hands with Wally. “Thank you, Mr. Gunderson.”

“Did anything I told you help?”

“I think so.”

“May I tell Darcy? She’s feeling real low right now.”

“Sure,” said Franny. He returned to his desk and his computer to search for aces who could open tunnels. It didn’t take long to find one.

He called Stuntman. “Berman’s got a gambling problem,” Franny said. He paused for breath while Jamal gave a low whistle. “And Berman hadn’t fired Joe Frank. He was still writing him checks as late as two weeks ago.”

“Son of a bitch lied to me.”

“Yep, but that’s not the best part. I think I know how the jokers are being taken out of the city.” Franny told Jamal about Rustbelt’s testimony. “So, I went looking for an ace with a power like that. There is one. She was on American Hero, Tesseract. I looked up what ‘tesseract’ means. It’s a four-dimensional analogy to a cube. I found some YouTube video of Tesseract doing her thing. She can make an opening in, say, Los Angeles, and reach through to Paris, or Beijing, or somewhere. She can make these openings big enough to walk through, probably even drive through.”

“You have a real name?”

“Oh, yeah, sorry. Mollie Steunenberg.” There was silence from the other end of the line. A silence that went on for so long that Franny thought they’d been disconnected. “Jamal? Hello?”

“I’m here. Mollie Steunenberg is Berman’s assistant.”

“Oh, holy fuck.”

“Your guy just arrived. He’s got the girl with him.”

“Thank you,” Jamal Norwood said. “We’ll be there as soon as possible.” Then he clicked off. He didn’t want to be on the phone with Jack Metz any longer than necessary. Not that he had anything special against Upper East Side building managers, but this one was off-scale creepy.

He had proved to be useful, however. Metz’s call meant that Michael Berman was back in the city with Mollie Steunenberg, aka Tesseract. Jamal knew it was unlikely to be for long.

It was early morning, mid-week, rainy, colder than it should be in New York this time of year. Jamal’s physical and mental state matched the grim weather. He had been dozing, dreaming strange dreams about being chased down a street by the missing joker Wheels, feeling that he was late, ill-equipped, in danger.

On waking, he considered phoning Julia, something he had not done in over a week. But what would he tell her? I’m feeling great! Every conversation he could imagine ended in a lie, or a very uncomfortable revelation.

So he didn’t. He distracted himself by watching TV with its news of the various campaigns, growing bored as the same stories repeated.

Eventually he turned to a movie channel and, to his amazement, caught the last half hour of Moonfleet, a cheap adventure feature he had worked on early in his career. In spite of its title, it had not been sci-fi, but rather a period piece about pirates and smugglers in the Caribbean (though the confusing title likely contributed to Moonfleet ’s failure … that and an unappealing cast and incoherent script). Stuntman Jamal Norwood had one major gag in the piece, as a sailor who goes aloft during a storm only to have the yards break, plunging him to the deck of a ship.