Lowball: A Wild Cards Novel (54 page)

“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?”

Jamal set his phone on the table between them. “We’d love to.”

“I am offering my full, voluntary cooperation here,” Berman said. “Mollie, you’re a witness.”

“Wow,” Mollie said, stretching a single syllable into a four-second snarl of sarcasm.

Berman held up his cuffed hands. “May we lose these?”

“What,” Franny said, “you can’t talk without using your hands?”

Jamal laughed. “He’s telling the truth!”

So Jamal uncuffed Berman, who flexed his wrists and got slowly to his feet. “Time for the aria. You may recognize this.”

“Jamal—” Franny said, a bit alarmed.

Jamal just waved a hand. “Watch and listen.” He knew that for Berman, presentation and salesmanship truly over-rode all other concerns, even personal safety and dignity.

The producer faced them, hands clasped, eyes closed.

Then he opened them. “Okay, picture this. A talented, rich, ambitious, handsome young man with a flaw. A very human one … he wants money and power, not just for themselves. But for what they can give him. Which is love, right? What everyone wants. Picture Tom Cruise.”

“Oh, you wish!” Mollie said.

Franny was still nervous. To Jamal he said, “Okay, what is this?”

“He’s
pitching
!”

“He’s
trying
to, Detective,” Berman said. He actually seemed angry at the interruption.

“Continue,” Jamal said.

“Thank you,” Berman said. “Let’s give our hero a name—Gene. Gene could never accept that he would be loved for who he was or what he wanted to be … so he went for the money. So, yeah, he’s a bit of an unsympathetic character. But so was Rick in
Casablanca
. Or Charles Foster Kane. You don’t have to like Gene, you just have to want to see how far he goes … the depths he will descend to.” To Jamal he said, “He makes a lot of money.”

“So I recall,” Jamal said, knowing that Berman was playing him, but not especially concerned. He had always found the producer to be fascinating. How low
would
he go?

“But no amount of money is ever enough, right? Just like you never have enough love or—” And here he leered at Mollie. “—or sex—” Which made Mollie shudder.

“And earning it through work is ultimately unsatisfying. So Gene begins to gamble.”

“Like every other rich asshole in Hollywood,” Franny said. Jamal laughed: Mr. Police Detective was getting into this!

“It starts with sports, then gets into … more interesting sports. Cock-fighting, then the human equivalent. Fights to the death, especially with jokers. Insane visuals, tragic moments, and large amounts of money changing hands. Then, and here’s where Gene’s arrogance rises to the level of a Greek tragedy—which is pretty highfalutin for a Hollywood pitch, but you’ll see why it works. He bets on his own television series, one of those survival game things in which spy cameras and crazy competitions are edited into episodes week by week, so audiences can vote on their favorites.

“This series becomes hugely popular, and there is betting everywhere, especially in Europe. Now, you can’t just go to Vegas and make these kinds of bets, not for interesting amounts of money. You’ve got to find a place with a Wild West sensibility, or in Gene’s case … Wild East. A casino in Kazakhstan.” Berman glanced behind him. “If I’d had a few moments’ notice, I could show you some visuals.”

“If you’d had a few moments’ notice, we wouldn’t be here,” Franny said.

“Gene goes big for a female winner whose name is probably not important—only to have her walk off the show! There’s a little twist for you … she just changes her fucking mind, typical woman, something Gene can’t control—making a far less-suitable male contestant the winner.”

Jamal cleared his throat. “Less suitable?” He couldn’t let Berman’s comment pass without challenge.

Berman continued to play the game. “Let’s just say, less suitable for our hero’s purposes.”

Jamal wanted to get to the point where Berman actually incriminated himself. “Michael, so far we’re just taking our character down,” Jamal said. “I like a good wallow as well as anyone, if the scenery is good and the dialogue is snappy.”

“Oh, the scenery is fantastic. A bleak landscape in Kazakhstan, and set against it a city of mystery. Known as Talas when it was a major stop on the ancient Silk Road you’ll now see it written as Taraz or Tapa3, but it’s the same place filled with history and secrets. And there are dangerous secrets in this casino palace in the middle of it. Beautiful Russian hookers for eye candy. Handsome Eurotrash men in tuxes. And wild bad guys like Dmitri, who is this huge fat guy, always wears a T-shirt, one of those sleeveless ones, even on the casino floor. Oh, and he chews gum. All the time. What makes him dangerous is his ability to crawl into your head. Fucks with you, makes you afraid. So afraid you freeze up.”

“Noted,” Jamal said. “But Dmitri isn’t the star of your movie.”

Berman smiled. “Nowhere near. He’s just one of many threats. There is one far more dangerous, and the most unlikely villain you can imagine. Picture an elderly woman, call her Baba Yaga—”

“Michael,” Mollie said, warning the producer. She had suddenly begun to pay attention.

He ignored her. “Obviously, given her business, she’s not an ordinary old lady. Terrific casting possibility here, though. I’m thinking of one of those English actresses who were sex symbols a generation ago—”

“Wait!” Franny was laughing. “Your big villain is the world’s scariest seventy-year-old woman? What does she do, whack you with her walker?”

Berman laughed. “Good one, Detective. Actually, no. Baba Yaga is an ace. She … changes people. And not in a good way. We’re talking about furniture. So, at the same time Gene suffers a series of losses—huge amounts of money he can’t pay—rather than transform him into a footstool, which she threatens to do, she comes up with a way he can pay her back: by using his skills and his team to, uh, recruit jokers for death matches at her casino. Next thing Gene knows, he’s in business with a pretty young woman who possesses an amazing talent, one that allows her to move pretty much anywhere. There’s a nice symmetry there too—this girl was also a contestant on our hero’s show but in a later season. Ties everything together, you know? Anyway, this is the end of the first act.

“This team identifies interesting jokers and grabs them. Not by themselves, of course … Baba Yaga wants people she trusts at every step of the process. So Gene and his girl—”

“I was never your
girl,
” Mollie snapped.

“I’m talking about the girl in this movie,” Berman said, smoothly. “The jokers would be held in New Jersey until they had enough to fill a van for this talented girl to ship them to Kazakhstan.”

Franny said, “Hey, is that where Father Squid is?”

“Who?”

“A very large joker who looks just the way the name suggests,” Jamal said. “He’s a priest.”

Berman snorted. “He’s not part of the pitch.”

“He’s an important figure in Jokertown,” Franny snarled. “It’s important for us to find him.”

“I can … imagine a joker like that in Kazakhstan. So, sure, he’s part of the cast, part of this new crew. Better fights, more money. Everybody’s happy!” Then he lowered his voice. “Until one stupid cameraman sells footage of the fights.”

Jamal had felt two different emotions as he listened to this presentation. First was amusement at seeing Berman in action—the producer’s version of begging for his life and using the tools that have worked for him all his career.

Second was the satisfaction of having the dots connected for the missing jokers and dead cameraman Joe Frank. “Is there some point in the story where our hero fucks up?” Jamal said. “Where he is confronted by the police and possibly a handsome superstar of a federal agent, and he gives up the cameraman only to learn that he’s been killed?”

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
DVD
s.

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.

Ties That Bind

Part Five

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.