Lowball

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 DVDs 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 DVDs. 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 DVDs, 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 DVDs 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.”