Lowball: A Wild Cards Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

ask her out back when he first started work at the Five, only to be turned down. It had been done with charm and a smile, but it had still been a shutdown. Now here she was. She drew in a deep breath, preparing to speak, which thrust her amazing rack almost into his face. “Detective Black, I wanted to offer you my congratulations,” she said in fluting tones.
    “Ah … oh … thanks.”
    “Would you like to ask me out?”
    “Ummmm…”

 
    Ties That Bind
    by Mary Anne Mohanraj
     
    Part One
    DETECTIVE MICHAEL STEVENS WALKED into the Jokertown precinct and paused, blasted by noise that didn’t help his pounding head. It had been a shitty day even before he came into work. Michael had woken with a raging hard-on, but he’d somehow slept through his alarm. Both of his girlfriends were already up and dressed, and his daughter was up too and hollering for her breakfast, so there was no chance of persuading one of the women to come back to bed, even if he hadn’t been late. And then Minal had gotten distracted by Isai pissing all over the kitchen floor, so the eggs had gotten overcooked, and if there was one thing Michael hated, it was dry eggs. Also, piss on his kitchen floor. Isai was supposedly done with potty training, but sometimes, she got distracted. He’d finally escaped the family drama and taken the subway to work, jammed between a guy covered in spikes and a woman who smelled like rotted meat. Michael had entered into the precinct with a sigh of relief, only to be greeted by this wave of noise slamming at him, like a steel spike jackhammering on his head.
    Not a wild card–powered wave, just the normal morning frenzy at Fort Freak. What you’d expect in a station where a handful of underfunded cops tried their damnedest to keep the peace in an increasingly strange and difficult borough of New York City. Perched on the front desk, where she had no business being, Apsara leaned over, making sure that the desk sergeant had a full view of her generous assets. Hey, sweetheart. Got something for me? Her voice loud enough to carry over the noise. Darcy the meter maid was just leaving the room, thankfully—he didn’t need to hear her ranting about law and order and a civil society again.
    Sure, that was why Michael had become a cop, to protect and serve. In the deepest parts of his soul, that desire was what pulled him through his days, the need to be a great cop, to prove himself. He’d grown up watching his folks struggle just to make ends meet; he’d promised himself that someday he’d have a job that was more than just a way to put food on the table and clothes on your back. Michael had never loved school, but he’d gritted his teeth and plowed through. He’d spent late nights over his books at the scarred Formica table in his mother’s kitchen, while she cooked bi bim bop and they waited for his dad to come home from his second job. Michael’s folks had skipped vacations, skipped meals, even skipped Sunday church sometimes because they were embarrassed by their threadbare clothes. Clothes they hadn’t replaced because the money had gone to pay for Michael’s grammar school uniforms, his high school books, his college application fees.
    He owed them so much that it stuck in his throat, love and gratitude tangled up with resentment. Michael had been determined to pay them back for it, and eventually he had, at least a bit. When he’d made detective, the pay bump had been enough that he could finally put the down payment on a condo for them, and help them out every month with the mortgage. He’d worked as hard as he could to rise above, to be better than everyone else—a better student, a better cop, and now, a better detective. Michael Stevens was determined to be the best damn cop on the force. But unlike Darcy, he didn’t need to talk about it all the time.
    The door banged open and a kid scuttled in, shrieking. Really shrieking, in a voice pitched three octaves above normal. The hammering in