George Martin - Lowball

Berman blinked. “The hero is stuck. He knows that the cameraman is in, shall we say, a tenuous situation, quite likely to be a victim of Baba Yaga’s temper. But he has no choice, does he? He’s trying to buy time-”

“What’s act three?” Jamal said. “How does he get out of this?”

All during the pitch, Berman had been on his feet, moving between the couch and the television. Now, however, the producer was kneeling in front of the cabinet beneath his television, rummaging through various DVDs.

Until he came up with a gun, which he swiftly pointed at Franny. “This is how,” he said, pulling the trigger.

Before he could react, there was a flash to Jamal’s left-a change of light as, strangely, the couch seemed to open up and swallow Franny and Mollie. But only for a fraction of a second; the couch was in place again, spewing fabric as Berman’s bullet blew through it.

Berman was training the weapon on him, but now Jamal was in motion, moving faster than he had in months. He slammed the producer into the entertainment unit, hurting himself in the process, but ensuring that Berman was unable to fire the pistol again.

He was ready to pummel the man … years of frustration made him want to smash the smug criminal bastard’s face. But Berman was moaning, already defeated.

Franny appeared, dragging Mollie with one wrist, holding his weapon with the other. They had simply walked into the living room from the back hallway. “Do pitches usually end like this?” Franny said.

Jamal had no answer for that. After securing Berman’s pistol, he pulled the producer to his feet. Berman groaned and stretched his back, which surely hurt like hell. “Michael, what did you think would happen?” Jamal said.

“Shoot the cop, then you. Then out of here.”

“I’d bounce back.”

“Sure. But not for a few minutes.” Possibly not ever , Jamal thought.

“It’s time we took Mr. Showbiz and his tape downtown,” Franny said.

“What about me?” Mollie was blinking tears and now looked about fifteen-and frightened.

“What about her?” Franny said.

“We take her in, book her, she gets a lawyer. No way any lawyer is going to let her help us. And we need her to get the jokers. Or worst case, she gets bail and she’s in the wind.”

“So a little sin of omission,” Franny said.

Which is how Stuntman wound up handcuffed to Tesseract.

Kavitha had said no to his proposal.

“Why the hell not?” was what Michael had said in response, which in retrospect was perhaps not the most tactful way to persuade a woman to marry you. But he’d been genuinely shocked-he’d never actually thought she’d say no. And worse, Kavitha had refused to tell them why, even when Minal had started crying. And Michael had tried not to shout, but the discussion had gotten a little … heated, and they must have gotten pretty loud, because Isai woke up, and then Maya Aunty, and somehow it was two A.M. before they got everybody back to bed, and he’d just given up and collapsed. Minal wore his ring, but Kavitha didn’t, and that was just wrong.

Maybe Michael couldn’t find Sandip, but he could at least find out what was going on with his girlfriend. If he couldn’t stalk his girlfriend, what good was it being a cop, anyway?

Michael called in sick to work the next day, after he’d left the condo.

She spent the morning at the studio, but at noon she left and didn’t head for home. It was easy, following her. She might have ace powers, and jet set with the Committee on occasion, but Kavitha was still a civilian at heart. She didn’t even look behind as she left the studio, walking a path that wasn’t taking her home to the condo. And when she finally ended up in a frankly terrible part of town, she headed straight into one of the dingiest motels on the street. Michael waited a few beats, and then followed her in. She might see him, but at this point, he knew enough to confront her if he had to. He was going to get the truth out of her, one way or another.

He was in time to see the elevator doors closing, and to watch the indicator go up, up, up. Third floor. Michael took the stairs, as fast as he could, glad he’d kept up with the station’s physical requirements, and emerged from the stairwell just in time to catch her disappearing into room 328. At that point, he abandoned all subtlety-because what the hell? Why in God’s name would his girlfriend be meeting up with someone in a dingy motel? Was this why she’d refused to marry him?

There was just one likely explanation, but it made no sense. Michael found himself with one hand on the door, the other on his gun, fighting a sudden murderous rage. It was one thing to date more than one person-it was an entirely different thing to have one of them cheating on you. If she’d just told him that she wanted to see someone else-well, Michael still wouldn’t like it, but he wouldn’t feel the need to pound somebody’s face in. He didn’t think.

“Open up!” He shouted. “Police!”

The door suddenly swung open, with his fist still raised to pound again, and Michael almost fell inside before catching himself on the door frame. Kavitha stood just a step away, and there, legs and feet hanging off the end of the motel bed was … her brother. His torso swathed in bandages, looking like death warmed over, with terror in his dark brown eyes.

Michael took a quick, steadying breath. Carefully, deliberately, lowered his hand from the butt of his gun, suddenly ashamed of the urge that had put it there. And then he asked, in as calm a voice as he could manage, “Will one of you please explain what is going on?”

They didn’t fall over themselves to explain. Not at first. The silence grew quite deafening, until Kavitha finally said, “Sandip. Tell him.” She moved over to sit by her brother and took his hand in her own slim hand. She petted it gently, reassuring him, and finally, the kid opened his mouth to speak.

“They’re killing jokers. Killing people .” The words came stumbling out, and suddenly, shockingly, the kid was crying, big gasping sobs from deep in his belly, tears streaming down his face. Kavitha grabbed a towel by the side of the bed and started dabbing at his cheeks with practiced motions, as if she’d done this before. As if she’d been doing this for days.

“Tell me what happened,” Michael said, in his calmest cop voice. On one level, he couldn’t believe Kavitha had kept this from him-but he held the anger down, waiting for the facts.

And the story came spilling out. Sandip had been recruited a few weeks ago by the kidnapping squad; one of the disgruntled Tamils he’d tried to join up with had been a joker involved in the scheme. Sandip knew the basics of how to handle a gun, part of his revolutionary aspirations, though he’d never shot one outside the range. He didn’t mind waving one around to scare people, though. Especially given how much money they’d paid him to do it.

“And not just money. Free drinks, as many as I wanted, and women too. Fucking gorgeous women just waiting for us. Machan , you should have seen the setup they had over there.” The kid’s eyes were wide and glassy.

“Over where?” Michael asked sharply.

Sandip huddled in on himself, and Kavitha put a protective hand on his arm. “I can’t remember. They never really told us anything, but I heard some of them talking about it. Some tiny country, something stan?”

This was important. He had to tell the captain, as soon as he got the whole story. The kid was still babbling. “I don’t know where it was, I’m sorry. I’m sorry!” He kept going on about how cool it had seemed, at first. Sandip had thought he was living the dream. And then they’d let him see the killings.