Lowball: A Wild Cards Novel (43 page)

“Hey,” she said, tiredly, nicely completing Jamal’s mental portrait of Berman’s bored assistant.

Berman flopped onto the couch. Jamal carefully lowered himself to the nearest chair. It felt good to sit.

“So, nasty
DVD
s,” Berman said. “And you think I had something to do with them.”

“The only thing every scene has in common is you.”

Berman rocked his head from side to side, like a metronome. It was as obvious a tell as an eye blink from a nervous poker player. With Berman, it meant: I’m actually going to be honest. “Look around me, Jamal, and ask yourself this: what possible value would there be in my involvement in naughty outtakes from my shows? You don’t get rich off stuff like that. And I’m rich.”

Shit
, Jamal realized, what if Berman wasn’t the source? “If not you, then—”

Berman turned to the redhead. “Darling, who was I just complaining about five minutes before Agent Norwood called me?”

“You want the short list?”

“Don’t fuck with daddy, baby.” He was getting impatient.

“Joe Frank,” she said.

“Joe Frank!” Berman said, turning to Jamal and gesturing, as if to say,
problem solved
.

“Okay, who’s Joe Frank?”

“Mollie, tell Agent Norwood who Joe Frank is!” Berman smiled. “Because I can’t fucking bear to talk about the cocksucker.”

“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
DVD
s 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
DVD
s 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
DVD
s. 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
DVD
s, 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
DVD
s 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.”