Lowball: A Wild Cards Novel by George R. R. Martin
Who had to dodge behind parking meters and between cars as Wheels picked his way down the sidewalk. Being flung from side to side, Jamal stretched his arms and legs, bracing himself against the “walls” of the “bed.” Then Wheels hit the street and began a sickening rock-and-roll motion as he gained speed. Jamal could only think, the son of a bitch is getting away—!
But up ahead, a black Escalade pulled into the street, a blocking move by the second FBI team. “Give it up, man! We’ve got you!” Wheels didn’t hear or didn’t understand. He slewed into an impossible turn and tipped his right side toward the front of the Escalade. The joker managed to avoid hitting the FBI vehicle. Not so Jamal, who was flung into its grille. As he felt himself getting airborne, he dug his nails into Wheels’s “bed,” the equivalent of scratching a man’s back.
The last sound Jamal heard before slamming into the Escalade was Wheels’s anguished cry. Jamal bounced onto the street, landing on his side. He felt as though he’d been punched at the same time someone twisted his arm and kicked him in the leg.
There was no bounceback. Just Jamal Norwood half conscious, in horrifying pain.
Those About to Die …
Part Two
“ARE YOU SURE ABOUT this?” Marcus asked. He slithered along beside Father Squid, having to work at it to keep up with the furiously striding joker. “Meeting in the middle of the night and all? Don’t sound right to me.”
Under streetlights, into shadow and out, along parked cars and down alleys, the priest marched like a man on a mission. “We can’t let this opportunity escape us,” the priest said. “This could be the key to everything. It’s the lead I’ve been praying for. God always responds to us, Marcus. Sometimes he even provides us the answers we seek.”
The priest turned unexpectedly, heading east on Water Street. Marcus had to carve around and shift it to catch up. “Okay, but … who called and what did he say?”
“I don’t know who he is, but he mentioned Chakri’s name. Said he’d heard I was looking for information about the disappearances.”
“You sure that’s not been solved already? I mean, the dog-training—”
“Was a sideshow, Marcus! Breaking that up was a rare success on the part of the police, but not all of the missing were found at the kennel, and it hasn’t stopped the disappearances. Two more went missing just this week. There remains something sinister at work.”
Dryly, Marcus asked, “Which makes it a good idea to be going to meet some guy in the middle of the night?”
He knew he was pushing the skepticism, but he’d been hoping that the case was indeed closed. He’d had enough of this. Cruising around the city at night, looking for creeps nobody really wanted to find anyway, getting nowhere. There were other things he could doing.
He checked the time on his phone. 11:13. It wasn’t actually that late. Early enough for a few good hours at Drakes. His thumb caressed the screen. He itched to replay the video greeting the snake-loving nat girl had sent him. She was persistent. He had decided to meet up with her there just before Father Squid had called him.
He thought to himself, Option One—meet up with blond girl that did some very weird things with a garter snake in a video. Option Two—follow a fishy-smelling, tentacled joker priest on the wild-goose chase to meet some unknown dude.
“If you had heard the man’s voice,” Father Squid was saying, “you’d have no doubts. He had reason to be nervous about reaching out, and yet he did so anyway. His line of work is not entirely legal.”
“Great.” Marcus put as much sarcasm into the word as he could.
“He runs a chop shop. He dices up stolen cars, gets new ones in every night. Earlier this evening a vehicle came in that wasn’t stolen. It wasn’t even new. It had little value, and yet the owner wanted it painted and detailed. Disguised.”
“You think it’s this van Lupo and Doctor Gordon saw?”
“Why else would someone go to an illegal establishment to have work done to an old vehicle?” He turned and set his dark eyes on Marcus. “We just need to confirm it. Then we call the police into action. They wanted tangible leads? We’ll give it to them.”
“Yeah, but the guy’s not going to want the police anywhere near his chop shop.”
“We’re meeting him in the East River Park. He is taking great risks, as you must now see.”
As they passed a fenced basketball court lively with late-night play, a lanky nine-foot-tall joker shouted, “Hey, IBT, ball’s up!” He tossed a basketball over the high fence.
Marcus caught it. The court was crowded, jokers and nats mixed together, shirtless guys with cut abdomens, groups of girls milling around, bottles tilted in the air. Speakers boomed out the ubiquitous, deep-throated lyrics of Nutcracker Man’s latest release. It was tempting. He’d never been much of a ball player before his card turned, but he had some skills now.
“This is no time for ball playing,” Father Squid said. He snatched the ball away and spun around long enough to hurl the ball back over the high fence and right through the hoop. If the ring had had a net it would’ve whooshed. The priest acknowledged the impressed exclamations with a raised hand, but he kept moving.
Marcus tore his eyes away from the crowd. As they called after him, he followed the striding, hooded figure of the priest toward the dark shadows of the East River Park.
“That’s it,” Father Squid said. “Just where he said he would be.”
The van sat under a thick copse of trees on a dead end street in the park. As they got nearer, Marcus noticed a lone figure standing a little distance away, illuminated by a streetlamp just behind him. He could see him clearly, but kinda wished he couldn’t. He was a thin man, naked except for a cloth wrap around his privates. His bald head and boney chest and pigeon-toed legs all glistened with a sticky-looking moisture. He ran one hand over his abdomen, streaking the sticky stuff. The man walked forward to meet them.
The name came out of Marcus’s mouth all by itself. “Gandhi?”
“That supposed to be an insult?” Expecting a Hindi accent to complete the look, Marcus was disappointed. The guy’s voice was pure Village, a bit nasally and dipped in sarcasm. “I’m no Gandhi. Just a joker, like you.”
A gust of air blew in from behind him, draping a pungent medicinal scent over Marcus. He covered his nose with his hand. He’d heard of this guy. “Vaporlock,” Marcus said, “you don’t chop cars. Petty burglary’s your deal, isn’t it?”
The joker chose to ignore that. “I said for the kid to come by himself.”
“I saw no reason to send Marcus alone,” Father Squid answered. “I am a man of God. I am no danger to you. I could not, however, know that you were not a danger to us. I could not send the boy into harm’s way alone.”
“That’s real like … fatherly of you, Father,” the guy said. “Annoying, too.” He rolled his eyes and said, as if speaking to someone other than the two jokers, “He was supposed to come alone. But no, there’s two of them!”
“It doesn’t matter,” Marcus said. “Just show us the van!”
The guy chewed the corner of his mouth. “All right. Why the hell not?” He gestured toward the vehicle with a glistening finger. “That what you’re looking for?”
It wasn’t much to look at. A battered, off-white cargo van. Dent in the side, hubcaps missing, gang tags etched in the coating of grime on the back door, half a Yankees sticker on the bumper. New York plates. “Wait till you see what’s inside,” Vaporlock said.
Marcus’s long stomach tensed with unease. He could’ve been at Drakes, getting stroked by an average-looking blond girl with a thing for shiny scales. Instead, he was about to look into the back of a parked van. Images from serial killer documentaries flooded his mind. Father Squid, however, sounded resolved as ever. “Open it.” He crossed himself and glanced at Marcus. “Prepare yourself, son.”
Vaporlock got a grip on the latch with one moist hand. His free hand slid up his chest, cupping a handful of gook. “It’s nothing like w
Inside was one of the ugliest jokers Marcus had ever seen.
Huge black eyes, tiny ears, no nose at all. The guy hissed, drawing his lips back from a bristle of needle-thin teeth. All of this supported on a muscle-bulging weightlifter’s body. Before Father Squid could draw back, the joker punched him. The blow knocked the big priest’s head back, but it wasn’t the impact of the fist that really hurt him. It was the electric sizzle that accompanied it. Father Squid shook with convulsions. His eyes rolled back and he fell.
Before he hit the pavement, Vaporlock snapped his hand out and shoved the palmful of gook up Marcus’s nose. The scent exploded in his head. His vision blurred. Tears sprang from his eyes. As he crumbled to the ground beside the priest, he heard the joker say, “Told you I was no Gandhi.”
Ties That Bind
Part Two
THE RINGS WERE STILL in Michael’s pocket days after he thought he’d be proposing. He walked in the door at home, exhausted and late for dinner, to be met with chaos. Happy chaos, for the most part—Kavitha had her latest show mix blasting, and was slowly twisting in the living room, sending out happy sparkles, rainbow coruscations. She must have just gotten back from the studio; she was still dressed for rehearsal, in a black leotard and long flowing skirt, her eyes darkened with kohl, her hair piled high, in elaborate braids. Kavitha looked gorgeous, like an Indian queen from a storybook, and once again, Michael wondered why she’d picked him. A woman that beautiful could have had her pick of guys—a doctor, a lawyer, a Wall Street trader. But instead Kavitha had gone for a skinny black cop. He should count his blessings. Isai was dancing around her mama and laughing, trying to catch the lights. Minal was, for a change, not at the stove—dinner was clearly over, with a clutter of dirty plates still on the dining table and the scent of curry lingering in the air—but was sprawled across the sofa instead, smiling and watching the show.
And, surprisingly, they had a guest.
Some guy was in the easy chair, his back to Michael, so that for a minute, Michael couldn’t place him. Was it unenlightened of him, that for that minute, Michael’s pulse rate quickened, and he felt a surge of possessiveness? A strange male in his territory, among his women. The adrenaline rushed through him—and then drained away a moment later, as the boy turned. It was only Sandip. What was he doing here?
“Brother!” the boy said, enthusiastically bounding out of his chair to wrap Michael in a hug. Michael hugged back, wincing a little.
Why did teenagers have so much energy? He was tempted to correct Sandip—after all, the kid was Kavitha’s brother, not Michael’s. But on the other hand, the boy was only jumping the gun a bit—if Michael ever actually managed to propose, then Sandip would be his brother, in law at least. Frightening thought. Did that mean he’d have to take on familial responsibility for this wild child? Kavitha smiled approvingly at him, still twisting in the center of the room, her body a long, lean poem of grace and beauty. His throat tightened. For her, okay. He could watch over Sandip. And he was honestly fond of the boy—Sandip had some of the same passion that Michael had felt at that age, the same need to prove himself. Although Sandip was more culturally directed, toward his own Tamil Sri Lankan people. Not the safest of passions.
“It’s good to see you, man. What are you doing in town?” Michael hadn’t seen Sandip in months—it only cost a couple hundred to fly down from Toronto, but that was a lot for a seventeen-year-old working odd jobs. “You finally checking out colleges?” Sandip was still living at home, and had decided to take a year off between high school and college; his parents weren’t thrilled.
“Can’t I come to visit my sister? See my adorable niece?” Sandip turned and stuck out his tongue at Isai, delighting her—she grinned and returned the gesture. In that moment, he looked closer to twelve than seventeen.
Kavitha slowed her spinning, long enough to say, “You know, I’d be happy to take you up to Columbia tomorrow. They have a great poli sci department.” She smiled hopefully at her little brother.
Sandip groaned. “Aw, let it go, okay? I don’t want to study politics, like some geek—I want to be in it, making shit happen.”
Michael’s pulse quickened. God, if the kid was getting involved with the Tamil separatists—that shit was dangerous. There were quite a few, up in Toronto; some people just couldn’t accept that the war was over, like it or not. And yes, the Tamils back in Sri Lanka were getting treated like shit, again, but that wasn’t a reason to return to the killing. On that subject, Michael and Kavitha were in complete agreement. But this hothead—the kid was just like Franny, wanting to skip the work, jump the queue. It wasn’t right, and it wasn’t fair. “You need to grow up, Sandip. Go to college, learn something about how the world really works.” Michael snapped the words, and laid a warning hand on Sandip’s arm.
The boy hesitated, and for a moment, Michael thought he had managed to get through to him. But then Sandip’s face hardened, and he shook off Michael’s hand. “You’re not my father, bro. And I’m not an American—you don’t need to police me.”
Damn it. He’d come on too strong, as if he were questioning a suspect. Michael gentled his tone. “Sandip, I wasn’t trying to—”
Sandip flung up a warning hand. “Yeah, machan, I don’t need this kind of crap from you. I just came here to get a meal, see my sister and my niece. Minal Acca, thanks for the food—it was delish. I gotta get going. Later.”
“Sandip, wait!” But it was too late. The kid had already grabbed his leather jacket and was out the door, slamming it behind him.
Kavitha came to an abrupt stop in the middle of a spin, her eyes wide. “Michael. What the hell just happened? Where’s Sandip going?” Minal was sitting up on the sofa now, and Isai came running up to Michael. He bent down and scooped her up into his arms, bending his head down to smell the sweet child scent of her. Almost five, and she still smelled like a baby, vanilla and cinnamon mixed together.
“Uncle Sandip went away?” Isai asked, her eyes wide and confused.
“He’ll be back soon, sweetheart,” Michael said, forcing a smile. “He just went for a walk.”
Typical teenager—Sandip would probably walk the streets for hours, but he’d be back when he got hungry and tired enough. Isai snuggled down into his arms, reassured. Kavitha seemed less convinced, but she let it go for now. Tension still lingered in the air. Probably not the best time to break out two engagement rings. Besides, he was starving, and the food smelled great. Michael smothered a twinge of guilt. The kid would be fine.
They were in bed that night, the three of them, Isai safely asleep, when Sandip’s call finally came. Michael had just shifted over to the middle of the bed, to take his turn for some extra attention. Minal’s mouth was moving on his, her hands tangled in his tight black curls. Kavitha was sliding down the bed, her body slick with sweat. When they were together like this, warm and sweet and hot as hell, that’s when Michael realized how lucky he was, how all he wanted was for this sweetness to go on forever. That was why he’d bought those rings in the first place. But today had been a rotten day, and right now, he couldn’t think about getting married. Maybe later; proposing in bed could be romantic, right? But right now, all Michael wanted was to forget himself in their bodies for a while. Kavitha was just lowering her mouth onto him when the phone rang. Michael groaned.
“I’m sorry,” Kavitha said. “When people call at this hour it’s usually important … or bad.” And she was up, rolling out of bed, picking up the handset and walking out of the room, still gloriously naked. Her tight dancer’s ass lifting and releasing with every step.
“Sandip? Where the hell are you?” Michael was relieved the kid had finally called, but damn, his timing sucked.
Minal grinned at him sympathetically. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I think I can keep you occupied until she gets back.” She rolled over so that her body was braced above his, and Michael slid his hands up her hips, feeling his dick get pain
Michael groaned, and reluctantly slid out from under Minal. Cop training—respond to trouble. There was a phone extension in the hall; five steps had him there, picking it up, hearing Sandip ranting. “I don’t need school, I don’t need Amma and Appa, I don’t need you! I got a job, sis. I’ve got people who appreciate me and my skills!”
Kavitha spat out, “What skills?”
Sandip snapped, “Wouldn’t you like to know? I’m not a little kid anymore. I can do shit.”
What kind of mess was the kid getting involved in? Michael tried to intervene in the sibling shouting match. “Hey, no one doubts you have skills, Sandip. We just want you to come home.” He’d come on too strong before; Michael tried to keep his voice calm and coaxing this time.
But to no avail—the kid was too far gone, practically screaming into the phone, “I’ll come home when I’m ready! When I’ve proved myself. Then you’ll see. You’ll all see!”
Kavitha said, “Sandip, shut up and listen to me!”
“Go to hell, sis!” And then the click—they’d lost him. Well, that was a terrific end to a truly crappy day. Michael stood, naked in the hall, staring at an equally naked Kavitha. This night really hadn’t gone the way he’d planned. Now what was he supposed to do? Wander the streets looking for his girlfriend’s brother? The kid was almost an adult—surely he could manage in Jokertown for one night? Minal came out of the bedroom, wrapped in a blanket, and leaned against the doorway, her face worried.
“Was he calling on his cell?” Michael asked. They could track that at the station.