George Martin - Lowball

Who was that young man? So eager, so fit, so certain he was making all the right decisions, making money, making himself into a star-

Right now Jamal merely wished he possessed that young man’s health.

Franny picked him up a block from the Bleecker. “You’re getting good at all this paranoid shit,” the detective told him.

“A little too late.”

“Don’t be a pessimist.”

“Don’t be a cheerleader.”

It was the middle of rush hour, a murderous time to be traveling from Jokertown to the Upper East Side. “I don’t suppose you can use your siren,” Jamal said.

“Sure, but it won’t do us any good.” They were completely gridlocked trying to reach the FDR. Eventually it did, and to Jamal’s relief there were no unusual traffic problems.

As they turned into the building’s parking lot, Jamal suddenly feared a Murphy’s Law moment, that they would drive right past Michael Berman and Mollie Steunenberg heading out for a latte or breakfast-

Fortunately, no. Perhaps less fortunately, the attendant at the lot seemed all too aware of their business. “You know, my favorite TV series is Baltimore Stakeout, ” he said. “How do you get into that kind of work?”

“If you have to ask, you’re not qualified,” Jamal snapped.

They met up with Metz, who was as eager as a five-year-old on Christmas Day. “They’re up there! You can hear voices.”

“You actually saw them, though, right?” Jamal said.

Metz nodded.

Within minutes, Jamal and Franny were heading up the service elevator. Jamal carried a Watchman tuned to the cameras they had hidden in the apartment the night before, toggling from one view to the other. They were cheap Radio Shack-style equipment that couldn’t be monitored remotely and of the two men one was too busy to man the cameras 24/7 and the other was too sick. No, the cameras were there because of Tesseract and her power. Both Jamal and Franny knew they needed to grab the girl first. Otherwise she’d be gone, and Berman with her. Jamal could see Berman and Mollie in motion in and out of the living room and hallway. They were out of view for minutes at a time, presumably in the kitchen, bathroom, bedrooms.

Jamal loathed stakeouts and had not prepared for this one. Thank God Franny seemed to be … the police detective had not only suggested hauling two folding chairs up the elevator, he produced water and an energy bar without asking. “I hope this doesn’t take all day,” Jamal said, knowing that he was now grumbling like a man twice his age.

They had deliberately chosen the back hallway as a site for the second camera because it gave them their best opportunity to surprise Tesseract and grab her.

“We should have miked the place.”

“Well, we didn’t,” Jamal said. “So we wait.”

Their planning for Operation Grab Michael Berman had been complicated because they were skirting the edge of legality. “I don’t suppose you have any black bag team you could activate,” Franny said. “To find this shit and install it.”

Had Jamal still been on duty with SCARE, he could easily have given the task to just such a group-right after Carnifex signed off on the warrant and the budget. “Haven’t you created a team of Jokertown irregulars?”

“Not yet,” Franny said. “And if this goes tits up, not ever.”

Then there had been the question of warrants. “I can get one,” Franny had said. “Might take a day, or at least hours. What about you?”

Jamal shook his head. “Right,” Franny said. “Hard to do that when your bosses have no idea-”

“-And you’re on medical leave.”

They could just have gone ahead, warrantless. But, eager as he was to put Berman, and by extension this whole gaggle of joker-nabbing criminals, out of business as swiftly as possible, Jamal was unwilling to allow those arrested under U.S. law to skate because he and Franny acted like movie cops. “Do what you can as quickly as you can.”

While Franny worked the warrant issue, Jamal trolled through the audio and video shops on Eighth Avenue in search of surveillance gear-which turned out to be easy to acquire, though a bit hard on his credit card.

That night he left a message for Franny, then collapsed. When he awoke, yesterday morning, Franny’s message was: “Warrant in hand; good to go.”

Shortly after twelve-thirty P.M. Jamal and Franny heard raised voices from inside the apartment, Berman yelling something at Mollie and receiving a blistering answer in return. “All right,” Franny said, “I withdraw my petty complaint about lack of audio surveillance…”

Wearing a T-shirt that displayed two of her more notable features and a pair of shorts that would, if worn in public, have gotten her arrested in certain communities, Mollie stormed into the hallway carrying a bag of garbage.

“Showtime!” Jamal whispered. Franny displayed a pair of handcuffs (“Double-locking Smith amp; Wesson,” he had told Jamal earlier. “Bought them for twenty-five bucks!” He unlocked them-

— As Jamal pushed the door open, smiling and saying, “Hey, there!”

The girl was stunned into silence and immobility as Jamal wrapped her up-not the most unpleasant act he had performed in the past few weeks-allowing Franny to cuff himself to her, his left wrist to Mollie’s right.

Now Mollie found her voice. “What the fuck?” she shouted, writhing and struggling and trying to slap Franny with her left hand.

Her voice brought Berman-in rumpled khakis and an American Hero T-shirt-into the hallway.

Jamal was ready for him-“Hi, Michael!”-diving at the producer and slamming him against the wall in a hammerlock, an action he had wanted to take for at least five years. He got a second pair of cuffs on Berman. “In case you’re wondering, you’re under arrest.”

Berman had sufficient composure to say, “Do you have a warrant?”

Franny slapped the warrant on his chest. “Read, weep.”

They hauled Berman into the living room. Jamal shoved him into an expensive-looking leather chair while Franny took Mollie to the couch. “Why are you doing this?” she asked the detective.

“So you don’t pull your Tesseract trick.”

“I don’t need my hands.”

“True. But if you go, you’ll be taking me. And I’m guessing you don’t want that.”

“What if I need to pee?” Mollie said.

Hearing this, Jamal laughed out loud. “Then you’ll still have Detective Black for company.”

Suddenly the girl seemed less eager.

Berman had been complaining ever since being slammed against the wall. “This is brutality, plain and simple. I don’t care what your warrant says.”

“We don’t care that you don’t care,” Jamal said.

“What’s the charge?”

Jamal turned to Franny. “Detective?”

“Dealer’s choice. Fraud, murder, accessory to both, terminal assholeism.” Franny grinned at Jamal. “It was hard to narrow it down-”

Berman finally lowered his voice. He looked at Jamal, too. “Hey, Stuntman, who’d a thunk it?”

“You mean, who’d a thunk that you’d wind up in cuffs someday, Michael?” Jamal said. “Only every fucking person you ever met.”

That actually seemed to sting Berman. He turned back to Franny. “Okay, what? You take us downtown? Is that the drill? When do I call my lawyer?”

“We could talk first,” Franny said. “Isn’t that right, Jamal?”

“I believe that Mr. Berman’s cooperation at this time would be looked upon with some sympathy.”

Berman seemed to think this over. Then, a dangerous smile-one that Jamal recognized-appeared on his face. “All right, then, yeah. A little conversation between friends.” He cleared his voice and looked at Jamal. “Would you like to record this?”