Titan's Day

by Dan Stout

  “Doesn’t matter how we got in. We’re here now.”

  “Heh.” Anders returned to his meal, shoveling meat and sticky rice in his formidable jaws, mashing it into a ball against the grinding plates on the roof of his biting mouth.

  “Maybe here’s someone you’ll recognize.” I slid the morgue photo of Cetus St. Beisht across the table. It came to rest next to Anders’s plate of meat and rice in red sauce.

  The Harlq boss worked his mandibles, daintily plucking chewed food from between his biting jaws and depositing it into the secondary mouth in his throat. He swallowed before answering. “Yeah. He was in one piece when I knew him, though.”

  I left the photo where it sat. “Do you know anyone who would want him dead?”

  “Showing me snuff photos ain’t the way to get me to talk.” He placed another forkful into his biting mouth, chewing as his speaking mouth rattled on. “Not that I’m eager to cooperate with your investigation or—” he waved a steak knife in the air, “whatever you’re doing. You wired up, by the way?” He leaned toward us, calling out as if to an audience. “Hello-o-o, cops!”

  “Tell me about your relationship with him.” I sat with legs crossed, chair tipped back to keep the Harlq’s flunkies in sight.

  “Interesting that you’re not the usual cops harassing us.” He leaned to one side, addressing the Gillmyn who’d shared his table, waving his fork at us as he called out, “You ever see these two before? I never did.”

  The Gillmyn was once again slow to respond, the kind of guy who required intense mental effort to speak. “Not in person.”

  “Not in person?” Anders swallowed again, giving me another view of the chewed meal as it passed to his throat. He tilted his head, as if considering that comment.

  “Cetus St. Beisht.” I pointed at the photo. “And his failure of a bodyguard. How exactly did you know them?”

  Anders lifted the napkin to his tusks and began wiping them down. He was well into middle age, as evidenced by the fading color of his head plates, and he carried himself with the constrained movements of someone who woke each morning with aches and pains. It was a process I knew firsthand.

  “The manna strike cops!” he said. “That’s where I know you from. You’re on the television shows.”

  “And in the papers,” I said.

  Jax snorted. “I’m guessing he’s not much of a reader.”

  Anders stared at Jax, then raised the tapered lip of his wineglass and took a long swallow. “Cetus, he was a sports fan. Nice guy. Used to get me tickets to carelbarra matches.”

  “You a c-ball fan?”

  “Yeah.” Anders snapped his fingers in the direction of the shadows. “Hey, Westie, ask one of the boys to get me another glass of this.”

  The Gillmyn left without a word, and I tracked his path to the door. It was possible that Anders never had a second glass of wine with lunch. It was possible that his request was a sign to do some violence to us as we left. Life was full of possibilities. That’s what made it interesting.

  “And what did you do to earn these c-ball tickets?” I asked. “Or was that just out of the kindness of the dearly departed?”

  “Introductions,” he said. “I know people, and Cetus wanted to meet the people I know.” He leaned back and rested his hand on the swell of his belly. “I’m a people person.”

  “I’m sure St. Beisht’s death will inconvenience you,” I said. “Slow down the number of box seats you get. Or,” I leaned back, feeling the give in the seat, “maybe it’s caused more problems.”

  Anders snickered.

  “Like money,” I said. “Getting it moved from one location to the other. That’s important for you Harlq boys, right? Need to keep cash flowing to the people farther up the food chain.”

  Anders watched me as he impaled a bite of food with a mandible. He took his sweet time swallowing, then swiped a napkin across his tusks.

  “Cetus was a nice guy who liked to go to games from time to time,” he said. “But not only did I not have anything to do with him ending up dead, there’s no chance I would.”

  “Why’s that?”

  His eyes crinkled, and there was laughter in his voice as he answered. “Are you kidding me?” He looked at his muscle men, appealing to them to share in the joke. “The cops who were there at the strike, and they don’t even know how big a deal it is.”

  “So explain it to me.” I put my arms on the table. “It’ll be like a public service.”

  Anders seemed to consider that. “It’s like a legitimate money mill.” He plucked another glob of chewed food from his biting jaws and shoveled it into his eating mouth with a mandible. “I keep telling the cops in this town, I work for a nonprofit.” He waved a hand absently over his shoulder. “Give him a card.”

  The big, tight-lipped Gillmyn stepped closer, hand in his jacket. My heart picked up its pace, and Jax’s posture tightened, ready to strike out. But the muscle only drew a pair of business cards, and handed them to us. Gold foil announced Anders’s name and title as advising board member of Echo Unchained.

  “We’re working to bring fair treatment for those in the Harlq Syndicate who’ve been forced to work outside the laws.” Anders trilled the words slightly, displaying a bit of pride. “Some of the leadership in the Syndicate were . . .” He brought a hand to his throat to cover a belch. “They were a little on the gray side of the moral compass.”

  The understatement might have been comical in another context. “Why here?”

  He raised his hands, silverware pointed at the ceiling in exaggerated frustration. “The amount of money the manna strike will bring in is gonna change the world, let alone the city. In all of Eyjan, the best place for an organization to transform itself is right here, right now. Anyone who wants to start over from scratch,” he pointed his knife at the ground, “this is the place to be.”

  Anders nodded, as if satisfied he’d made his point. He shifted in his seat, and the open front of his shirt moved far enough to expose a pair of round scars that looked like old bullet wounds.

  “You keep calling St. Beisht a money launderer,” he said.

  I crossed my arms. “I never said that.” But I knew Dungan had, and so had the papers—I’d seen the headline.

  “That’s nice. Anyways, St. Beisht wasn’t a laundry man, he was a CFO. Without him, we’re at a disadvantage.”

  “The Syndicate always plans for contingencies.”

  “See, your failure to listen is why we have communication issues,” he said. “I’m not with the Harlq Syndicate.” He pointed at the card. “Echo Unchained. Right there in front of you.”

  He took another bite. “But I’ll tell you something. There is a Harlq Syndicate. And they won’t forget that a good man got diced up by some inbred locals.” He shook his head. “I understand you got a job to do, but you really oughta focus on whoever wanted him dead, you know?”

  “Your bosses want results,” I said. “And there’s people like the CaCuris nipping at your heels. You afraid you’re going to end up in a washing machine yourself?”

  Anders tossed the napkin onto the table. “I work for a nonprofit! I don’t got those kind of bosses. And as for Thomas CaCuri,” to either side, the guards twitched, as if someone had whispered the boogeyman’s name, “the guy’s a menace. You’d do well to get him off the street before he hurts more people.”

  Interesting.

  “More people?” I said. “What’s that mean?”

  His eyes dropped to the mug shot. “What d’ya think happened to Cetus’s bodyguard?”

  “Anson cleared out of town,” I said.

  Anders snorted. “Bullshit. He’s scared shitless, because the guy he was protecting died on his watch. But he’s still around. Ask Thomas CaCuri if you wanna know more. I hear Anson’s his house guest these days. Beyond that I don’t know—but I will say this,”
he leaned forward, gesturing with his knife, “you boys in red don’t get around to taking care of CaCuri, someone else is gonna have to do it for you. Someone with the balls to do it right.”

  The man might have called himself a legitimate businessman, but in the course of one conversation he’d gone from never having heard of Anson to being able to tell us where to find him. It was time to change tactics. I reached into my jacket and retrieved a photo of Jane. Printed from the surveillance video, when she was alive and smiling at the camera. It was a step up from the morgue shots we’d had before. I held it at arm’s length, keeping my eyes on Anders.

  No strong reaction.

  “I dunno. But you guys are Homicide. So she’s a killer or a corpse, right?” He scratched the surface of one tooth with a mandible, bringing out the shine of its decorative jade stud. “So which is it?”

  “She’s dead,” I said. “Near your pal St. Beisht.”

  “You got photos of all the dead people today, don’t you?” His eyes crinkled, laughing at his own joke. “Hey, was she cut up like Cetus was? That’ll save you some time on his funeral, right? That’s what you people do here. Cut up the bodies and take ’em on the rock for the vultures to eat?”

  Jax’s voice trilled beside me, a piping birdsong of trills and clicks. I caught a couple words, something about loyalty and tradition. Whatever he said, Anders froze. He stared at Jax, fury lighting his eyes.

  “You got in here on your aunt’s name,” he said. “Because I respect her. And her name’s what’s gonna let you walk out of here. After that, it’s all used up. Remember that.”

  The missing Gillmyn returned with the next glass of wine. The only sound in the room was the scrape of his leather soles on the floor. Anders leaned forward and picked up his utensils. Without looking up from his plate, he said, “The redbacks are leaving now.”

  The guards moved in. I risked a glance at my partner. Jax had a death grip on the notebook. There were a few different ways this could play out and only one of them involved everyone walking out on their own two feet. I raised my hands slightly. Enough to indicate compliance, not enough to indicate surrender.

  “We’re going,” I said.

  I stood, slowly, and a moment later Jax followed suit.

  * * *

  We were almost to the Hasam when Weston caught up with us.

  “Guys! Hey!” He slipped through the crowd with more grace than he’d shown in the restaurant.

  I slowed, but Jax wasn’t interested in hearing what the young gangster had to say.

  “C’mon, guys! Hold up!” West put on a burst of speed and reached the Hasam as Jax unlocked the door. “You can’t leave me to hang like that, okay?”

  Ajax turned, squaring his shoulders and looking like he might tackle the wide-eyed Gillmyn. “You want to not be in danger? Then stop hanging around killers.”

  “But I thought—”

  “That you knew me? Not even close. Now get away from my car.”

  West stepped back, mouth open, buccal cavity flaring. Jax got behind the wheel, then leaned over and unlocked the passenger door. He turned the ignition and we pulled away before West had processed things enough to respond. The young Gillmyn stepped into the road, waving his fist and shouting, “Any one of us is worth ten of you!”

  We left the agitated figure in the distance, and I let Ajax drive in peace. I wanted to process everything we’d learned. There was something in particular that bothered me. There were only two times Anders had really gotten rattled, when Jax spoke to him in Kampi, and when I mentioned the CaCuris. But even then, it had felt off somehow.

  “He didn’t care about Katie,” I said.

  Jax ignored me, and I finished my thought in silence. Anders and his crew had their eye on the wrong CaCuri. Thomas could end the lives of a few of them, but Katie might actually change the landscape of the city. And Anders’s comments about taking a wing of the Harlq Syndicate legit was chilling, but not nearly as disturbing as the notion that he didn’t want St. Beisht dead. Mostly because of what that meant a legitimized Harlq political group might mean for the city, but also because of what it told us about Dungan. Did he know more than he was letting on, or had he read Anders completely wrong? Police work depends on different officers sharing information, and when that communication breaks down, the bad guys slip through the cracks. Everything we learned was only muddying the water further, and our faith in our support network was growing increasingly thin.

  Beside me, Jax drove in silence. Whatever thoughts he had on the matter, he was keeping them close to his vest. Outside our car, we passed tailors and noodle shops, apartment buildings and candy-haunted alleyways.

  “What did you say to Anders back there?”

  “He was trying to get a rise out of us,” said Jax. “I told him what he could do with his provocation.”

  That sounded like a lie, and it didn’t match up with the few words I’d made out.

  “Sounded a bit more specific than that,” I said, but when he didn’t respond, I decided not to push it. After all, I’d recently been told my Kampi wasn’t as good as I thought it was.

  The cars lining the street were parked at odd angles, the result of people doing their best to fit into whatever space was available, desperate to escape the endless cycle of circling the block and hoping someone else would be pulling away.

  “I can tell you’d like to put Anders on a slab,” I said.

  Ajax’s eyes didn’t leave the road.

  “I want him, too,” I said. My head hurt, and I pressed on my temples, trying to squeeze away the pain. “But we don’t handle organized crime work. We don’t got the tools or the support to put in the hours it takes.”

  I wasn’t sure what was more disturbing, the Harlqs attempting to go legit or the fact that the manna strike provided both them and the CaCuris an opportunity to do so.

  “I know,” he said. “I’m not about to do anything stupid.”

  “What you told me about the kids from Kohinoor, it was awful.” I didn’t add that he’d left out a crucial part of the story, the name he’d dropped to get us into the meeting with Anders. Jax looked almost ready to speak, if I could only let him know it was okay to do so.

  “Bunch of bastards,” I said.

  “There was one bastard in particular,” his eyes stayed on the road as he spoke, “a Harlq sub-boss in Norgaerev, who was originally from Kohinoor. One of our own. Growing up, I called her Auntie Roo.” Jax paused. “I didn’t leave my hometown. I was run out because I was too close to the woman who butchered our children.”

  Ajax steered with one hand and spun the radio dial with the other. He paused briefly on WYOT, just long enough to catch the crescendo of drum and bass.

  To our left a cargo truck overflowing with scrap metal tumbled past. The clanging of discarded pipes and sheet metal created enough noise to drown out the sound of my pager, pulsing and ringing, demanding my attention as the song on the radio ended and the DJ began his patter.

  This is Handsome Hanford, guiding your way through the longest nights, on into the morning light. Coming up we’ve got a new track from Ride the Universe. Ride with me, Titanshade!

  Ajax moved to change it once again, but I stopped him. I needed to answer the pager, but not yet. Some days, a favorite DJ can make even the worst nightmare seem like it will pass before long. So I rode with Hanford, closed my eyes and leaned my forehead against the cool glass of the passenger window. The lights of Titanshade flickered past, each set of bright neon letters announcing a different vice for sale.

  22

  WE DROVE FOR SOME TIME before I had it in me to check my pager. I fished it out and found a number I didn’t recognize. We pulled over at the next pay phone. I wiped the receiver on my suit coat before putting it to my ear and making the call. I reached Anson’s parole officer, a scratchy-voiced woman who didn’t much care for a couple H
omicide detectives poking into the life of one of her charges, but eventually coughed up his address. I hung up and reported this to Ajax, who simply looked at his watch.

  “We’ve got our medical this afternoon.”

  I threw my head back. “It can’t have been a week already.”

  Jax crossed his arms.

  “It won’t take that long to rattle this guy and find out what he saw. Even if he doesn’t roll on what he saw, we can get into his head and see where he runs to.”

  He didn’t answer, but kept his eyes on mine.

  “Do you really feel like getting stuck with needles today,” I said. “Or maybe watch more shadow fights between ice plains critters?”

  He clacked his jaws and looked away, and I knew I had him.

  “Fine,” he said. “Where does this Anson guy live?”

  * * *

  Bryndel Grove sat on the mountside edge of the Borderlands, smack in the middle of the CaCuris’ seat of power, the 24th Ward. Like the rest of the city, it had no groves of any kind, bryndel trees or otherwise. But it was relatively clean, and temperate enough that I didn’t need an overcoat for the short walk from our car to the apartment complex that Anson called home.

  The public often thinks of paroled prisoners as being set free. The truth is that a parolee is still serving the rest of their sentence, only they’re doing it outside a prison’s walls. Just like guards can search a jail cell with no preamble, in the course of an investigation we could enter and search any parolee’s apartment at will. No need for a warrant or probable cause—the fact that Anson was still part of the system was all the justification we needed.

  As we approached I noted the streets were well-maintained, with prominent Titan’s Day decorations and assorted youths idling on the corners. Young teens or even children, they were the kind of lookouts common in gang-controlled neighborhoods, and I expected to see them on the CaCuris’ home turf. Less expected was the scarlet patrol car, parked down the street from an unmarked Hasam that indicated fellow detectives were on the scene. We hadn’t even entered and my stomach was already tightening.