Lowball

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.

Maybe Michael couldn’t find Sandip, but he could at least find out what was going on with his girlfriend. If he couldn’t stalk his girlfriend, what good was it being a cop, anyway?

Michael called in sick to work the next day, after he’d left the condo.

She spent the morning at the studio, but at noon she left and didn’t head for home. It was easy, following her. She might have ace powers, and jet set with the Committee on occasion, but Kavitha was still a civilian at heart. She didn’t even look behind as she left the studio, walking a path that wasn’t taking her home to the condo. And when she finally ended up in a frankly terrible part of town, she headed straight into one of the dingiest motels on the street. Michael waited a few beats, and then followed her in. She might see him, but at this point, he knew enough to confront her if he had to. He was going to get the truth out of her, one way or another.

He was in time to see the elevator doors closing, and to watch the indicator go up, up, up. Third floor. Michael took the stairs, as fast as he could, glad he’d kept up with the station’s physical requirements, and emerged from the stairwell just in time to catch her disappearing into room 328. At that point, he abandoned all subtlety-because what the hell? Why in God’s name would his girlfriend be meeting up with someone in a dingy motel? Was this why she’d refused to marry him?

There was just one likely explanation, but it made no sense. Michael found himself with one hand on the door, the other on his gun, fighting a sudden murderous rage. It was one thing to date more than one person-it was an entirely different thing to have one of them cheating on you. If she’d just told him that she wanted to see someone else-well, Michael still wouldn’t like it, but he wouldn’t feel the need to pound somebody’s face in. He didn’t think.

“Open up!” He shouted. “Police!”

The door suddenly swung open, with his fist still raised to pound again, and Michael almost fell inside before catching himself on the door frame. Kavitha stood just a step away, and there, legs and feet hanging off the end of the motel bed was … her brother. His torso swathed in bandages, looking like death warmed over, with terror in his dark brown eyes.

Michael took a quick, steadying breath. Carefully, deliberately, lowered his hand from the butt of his gun, suddenly ashamed of the urge that had put it there. And then he asked, in as calm a voice as he could manage, “Will one of you please explain what is going on?”

They didn’t fall over themselves to explain. Not at first. The silence grew quite deafening, until Kavitha finally said, “Sandip. Tell him.” She moved over to sit by her brother and took his hand in her own slim hand. She petted it gently, reassuring him, and finally, the kid opened his mouth to speak.

“They’re killing jokers. Killing people.” The words came stumbling out, and suddenly, shockingly, the kid was crying, big gasping sobs from deep in his belly, tears streaming down his face. Kavitha grabbed a towel by the side of the bed and started dabbing at his cheeks with practiced motions, as if she’d done this before. As if she’d been doing this for days.

“Tell me what happened,” Michael said, in his calmest cop voice. On one level, he couldn’t believe Kavitha had kept this from him-but he held the anger down, waiting for the facts.

And the story came spilling out. Sandip had been recruited a few weeks ago by the kidnapping squad; one of the disgruntled Tamils he’d tried to join up with had been a joker involved in the scheme. Sandip knew the basics of how to handle a gun, part of his revolutionary aspirations, though he’d never shot one outside the range. He didn’t mind waving one around to scare people, though. Especially given how much money they’d paid him to do it.

“And not just money. Free drinks, as many as I wanted, and women too. Fucking gorgeous women just waiting for us. Machan, you should have seen the setup they had over there.” The kid’s eyes were wide and glassy.

“Over where?” Michael asked sharply.

Sandip huddled in on himself, and Kavitha put a protective hand on his arm. “I can’t remember. They never really told us anything, but I heard some of them talking about it. Some tiny country, something stan?”

This was important. He had to tell the captain, as soon as he got the whole story. The kid was still babbling. “I don’t know where it was, I’m sorry. I’m sorry!” He kept going on about how cool it had seemed, at first. Sandip had thought he was living the dream. And then they’d let him see the killings.

Now he was crying again as he talked, the words stuttering between jagged sobs. “I mean, they told me what was going on, but it’s different when you see it. They said joker fight club, I figured it was gangsters, big guys, fighting it out to prove their manhood, y’know? Those were the kind of guys I was helping to grab. But the first real fight I saw, it was this little man, with glasses-he looked like a schoolteacher. Like the guy who taught my freshman history class. I kind of hated Mr. Matthews, but I didn’t want to see him ripped apart into little pieces! The other guy started chomping on what was left of his stomach, and that’s when I knew I couldn’t keep doing this.” Now Sandip was crying so hard that he couldn’t talk anymore, and Kavitha took up the story.

“That’s almost all of it,” she said. “When they came back to New York on that trip, he took off. Got shot in the shoulder, but got away. He was too scared to go to the hospital, so he called me. It was the day your parents came for dinner. I snuck out that night, took some of our money, and rented him this place. Got medicine, bandages, dug the bullet out of his shoulder, patched him up and prayed that he’d survive it. You should have seen the shape he was in.” Her voice was high, trembling.

Michael couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “A week. You’ve kept this from us for a week?” No wonder she’d been wound up so tight; keeping secrets wasn’t in Kavitha’s nature. It must have been killing her to lie to them like this. That didn’t make him any less angry. Rage was churning in his stomach.

“Michael.” Kavitha stood up, came two steps closer, close enough that he could smell her fear. Although, perhaps wisely, she didn’t touch him. “I knew you’d have to arrest him, send him to jail for a long, long time. But he’s just a kid. That’s what they do, you know.” Her voice was shaky now, close to breaking. Kavitha took a deep breath, trying to steady herself. “To keep the brutality going-they take children, and make them part of their battles. We can’t punish the children for what the adults have done.”

Michael shook his head. His chest felt as if it were being stabbed with knives. He’d never thought heartbreak could feel so literal, so real. “Kavitha, you know better. He participated. Sandip is old enough to know what he was doing when he took those people to their deaths.” She’d always been so committed to doing what was right. It was part of why he loved her. He’d known how she felt about family, but he’d thought she was better than this.

The boy was quieter now, doubled over and hugging his knees, swallowing his sobs.

She spread out her hands, helplessly. Despite everything, Michael was struck once again by how beautifully she moved. “He’s my little brother,” Kavitha said. “You should have seen him, bloody, with a bullet in him. He asked me to help him. I thought if I hid him for a little while, until it was all over…” She trailed off, clearly not sure what possible good ending there could have been.

If she had only come to him right away-he could have found some way to make it right. To protect the boy; as a juvenile, if Sandip had come in and told his story right away, maybe Michael could have saved him. But now it was too late. “You lied to me for a week. You let these bastards continue their operation unimpeded. How many people did they grab, in the last week?” He could see the words hitting Kavitha, see her bracing against their assault.

How could they come back from this? Michael realized that she was never going to wear his ring, not now. He couldn’t offer it to her after this, even if he understood on some level why she’d done it. He couldn’t keep living with her; he could barely look at her. Oh, Isai. Sweetheart. This was going to tear their little girl apart. And Minal-would she still marry him? Or would he lose her too? If he made her choose between them, Michael didn’t know who Minal would pick.

Kavitha stepped back, away from him. Let her hands fall to her sides. “What are you going to do, Michael?”

She knew the answer; she knew him too well. “What I have to.”

Michael said the words, feeling the weight of them fall like a knife between them, cutting the ties that bound them together. “Sandip Kandiah, you’re under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say or do can and will be held against you in a court of law…”