I started hoofing, purpose in my gait. I didn’t care that my head ached, didn’t care about my ribs and knuckles either. I wore the wounds like badges, something to be proud of. I’d kicked some ass and tagged myself a fucking force.
I didn’t want to think about where I was going. I wanted to enjoy the moment. Good fucking fight.
I was back.
Nobody would care that I’d taken a beating at the end. What they’d remember was me not backing down. They’d remember how I threw that nasty sucker punch, how I’d stomped that hump’s nuts.
Confidence surged through me. The tattered mission was restored, achievable. I’d take back KOP. My will was too strong. My desire was too great.
* * *
I was putt-putting the river on a rented skiff, a breeze drying the blood on my face.
I was very aware of the fact that nobody had made a move against me at the Beat. Even when I was down, catching facefuls of knuckles, nobody tried to arrest or kill me. That told me Mota’s influence over KOP was minimal. Captain or no, he couldn’t turn the police against me. He was a middle manager, a bureaucrat, nothing more. He didn’t send a crew to guard the alley last night. The best he could do was to get a single uniform posted. A clueless uniform. Jimmy.
I wasn’t going to feel bad about Jimmy. Not tonight. I was serving a higher purpose. Together, Maggie and I were going to change this city.
Mota was just a bump in the road. A temporary hurdle. And I was going to end this thing tonight. I was going to kill the bastard.
I angled the boat into one of the many canals built when Lagarto’s brandy trade was the agricultural envy of the Unified Worlds. I passed houses on stilts, drawn curtains and dark windows. An offworld flyer rose into the Big Sleep’s perpetually black sky. Unusual for this neighborhood. Not many offworlders ventured into the residential districts. The dumbass had probably got lost and decided to get his bearings by taking an aerial view. The flyer banked left and headed for the river, buzzing rooftops with its ear-rattling shriek.
I ducked my head as I passed under a low bridge, viny growths scraping through my hair. I turned left and entered a broad canal. Both banks were lined with stilted homes jutting over the water. I couldn’t stop myself from remembering: Niki grew up not far from here. She’d still lived with her parents when Paul and I staked out their home. Back then, Paul and I were young guns hot to make a name for ourselves by nailing a big-time drug dealer, Niki’s father.
Hour after hour, day after day, we’d spied through the windows, watching her brush her hair and read her books and change her clothes. I fell for her. It was as simple as that. I fell, and fell hard.
The earliest days were the best. We each had our demons, but we were still young and stupid enough to believe that our love for each other would conquer all. I didn’t need to stop my enforcer’s ways, and she didn’t need to face the ugly truth that her son-of-a-bitch father had raped her.
But the happy days didn’t last long. The shit we were carrying kept getting in the way, so we broke up and reunited, broke up and reunited, over and over until we each found a way to contain our demons. For me, the secret was booze. For her, pills.
But even then, the demons never stopped nipping at our souls. They took tiny, little bites, nibbles so small we didn’t even notice them until our hearts and souls had been completely devoured.
She’d had the good sense to escape her torment by leaving this world. And me, I was still here. Why, I didn’t know.
Mota’s house shouldn’t be much further. Afraid of making too much noise, I turned off the motor and let the boat coast to a stop before grabbing a pole. I stood in the stern and stabbed the water, driving the pole deep down into the mud, and propelled the boat with a shove. Quietly, almost silently, I moved toward my destination.
Stroke by stroke, I made my approach. Monitors lurked in the water, their reflective eyes watching me pass.
I stopped.
This was it. Mota’s place. Light from a neighbor’s outdoor lamp penetrated enough of the shadows to let me see his back wall. Weighted by the relentless strangle of jungle roots, the porch had partially separated from the rest of the house and hung down in the water.
I’d expected something nicer. Looked like Mota’s intensely manicured image didn’t extend to his house.
The bedroom light was on, shadows shifting on the ceiling. He was home. I poled the skiff to the opposite side of the canal and drove it as far as I could into a thicket of mangrove. I sat down and waited for the light to go out. I’d do him in his sleep.
I’d be the prime suspect. Thanks to Wu, my feud with Mota had been well advertised. And it wouldn’t take much asking around to learn of my new protection racket. They’d come for me. A cop killer.
Did it matter that Mota might’ve killed a cop himself?
I doubted it.
Were this the old days, I wouldn’t sweat it. Back then, I had protection at the highest level. Between Paul and the Bandur cartel, I had free rein. I was untouchable. Bulletproof.
Shit, Mota never would’ve challenged me in the first place.
Damn that SOB. Why couldn’t he have stood down like he was supposed to?
The guy had grown tougher than he used to be, a bona fide badass. But had he gone so bad he could’ve chopped off Froelich’s head? That shit was savage.
The timing of it was hard to contradict. Froelich must’ve died just hours after I ordered the breaking of Jimmy’s legs. Who else could it have been?
I told myself it didn’t matter. Either way, Mota had to die. The mission required it.
My face hurt. I probed my features with my fingers. They felt strange, like I was wearing a puffy mask. My side ached, like somebody had shoved a shiv between my ribs. Despite the pain, I had to smile. Good fucking fight.
The bedroom light went out. My heartbeat moved up a tick. I checked the time. I’d give it a half hour, let him get into a deep sleep first. Let him dream his last dream.
I spent the next thirty concentrating on how I was going to beat the rap. The obvious move would be to frame Wu. After that stink he raised tonight, he’d be an easy mark.
But he was one of mine. That dumb, scar-headed asshole was one of mine.
I twisted my brain, trying to figure a way. All raps were beatable. There was always a way. And I was a fucking master, a frame-job maestro. Evidence was my paint, crime scenes my canvas. The perfect scam was out there. I could find it if I just concentrated. Think, dammit. Just think …
Fuck this brainy shit. I’d kill that dickhead and take his body with me. I’d take it out to the jungle and find a nice private place to dump it. The jungle made quick work of corpses. Geckos and ’guanas. Beetles and maggots. Give it a couple days, and he’d be mulched into shit.
I poled the skiff out from the mangrove and crossed the narrow canal, pulling up to his dilapidated back porch. Broken posts sat atop bent pilings, the collapsed floor half submerged. I tied the boat to a loose beam.
I pushed my shades up onto my forehead. I needed to see. Carefully, gingerly, I stepped onto the porch. Floorboards creaked. The rooftop swayed. Shit. I froze, my heart pounding, my throat dry, my teeth clenched tight. I reached for my piece, my ears waiting for the sound of approaching footsteps, my eyes zeroed in on the bedroom window.
Nothing.
Breathing easier, I moved toward a window, not the bedroom window, but the one on the opposite side of the door. This section of the porch was underwater. I stepped slowly into the drink, taking care to keep from slipping on river muck. Cool water seeped into my shoes as I popped the screen and crawled silently through.
I was inside. A rush came over me. I was unstoppable. A fucking force.
My inner enforcer was in charge now.
I slunk down a hall, water squishing in my shoes, the bedroom door my target. I carried my piece two-handed to keep the shaking under control. Mota didn’t know what was coming. Wakey, wakey, pretty boy.
The bedroom door was open
. I filled the door frame, my piece trained on the bed, bathed in the blue glow of a holo-clock. Mota’s fine features were an unearthly mix of radiant light and shadow. He snored loud, deep sawing echoing off the walls.
I looked to his right. From under the crumpled sheet, thick black locks spilled across the pillow. Mota wasn’t alone. And he wasn’t gay. She slept with her mouth wide open, a model’s face caught in an ugly pose. My piece shook in my hands. I had to fry them both. No witnesses. Whoever she was, she had to die.
I tried to level my weapon.
Tough luck, lady.
Wrong place, wrong time.
Shit fucking happens.
I was on a mission, dammit. KOP needed to be conquered. This world had to change.
I couldn’t steady my hands, my aim wobbling out of control. Sweat stung my eyes.
I had to kill them. The mission required it. I couldn’t blink. Paul and I never blinked when we took KOP so many years ago. Fucking do it.
But she was an innocent. You don’t hurt women, Juno.
Conflicting urges yanked at me like a pair of monitors tug-of-warring over a fresh kill. My knees shook, and my heart pounded explosive beats. I couldn’t make myself pull the trigger. But Mota had to die. He wouldn’t stop until he turned KOP against me.
Pull the trigger, Juno.
But my trembling finger wouldn’t move. She was innocent.
And with every second of hesitation, I felt the mission crumbling away. I wasn’t up to the job. I could see that now. I didn’t have what it took. Not anymore.
I spun away, out of the door frame, and pressed my back against the wall. My lungs heaved for air. Must’ve been holding my breath.
I moved down the hall, away from the snoring, into the living room and slumped onto the couch. This whole thing was a joke. I couldn’t take over KOP. I wasn’t even a cop. What was I thinking?
Why did I even care? This world was beyond saving. People were mostly assholes anyway. I shouldn’t even give a shit.
With total certainty, I knew the mission was dead. Dead, dead, dead.
So was Niki. My Niki.
And Paul.
I realized I was dead too. My body just didn’t know it yet.
I wanted the mad spark to come. The crazy sensation that could sweep me away from this world. I tried to summon it—come out, come out, wherever you are. It didn’t come. Even it had abandoned me.
I held up my lase-pistol and studied it in the dark. This gun was all I had left.
I brought the barrel into my mouth and sucked on the metal composite, my finger fondling the trigger.
Still, the mad spark wouldn’t come. Fickle bastard.
Do it anyway. Just fucking do it. I came here tonight to end this, and I still could. Pull the trigger.
A tear trickled down my cheek. I couldn’t breathe, not with my nose running and my mouth stuffed with metal. Just do it already. My lungs felt ready to burst. I was getting light-headed. Dizzy. Do it!
I pulled the weapon out of my mouth. Fucking coward. That was twice you couldn’t pull the trigger.
I sank deeper into the cushions and dropped my shades down over my eyes. I listened to snoring from down the hall. I didn’t know how long I sat there. One minute? Ten? An hour? I couldn’t tell. But I stayed put until long after the tears dried and my nose cleared.
I still tasted metal. I licked my shirt to scrape the taste off my tongue.
A phone rested on the coffee table. Mota’s phone. He must have left it there when he went to bed.
I called Maggie, holo-free. I got voice mail, hung up, and tried again.
I was numb. From head to toe, nothing but numb. I called her again. And again.
She picked up, her voice a middle-of-the-night croak. “Yes, Captain?”
I kept my voice down. “It’s me, Maggie. It’s Juno. I’m using Mota’s phone.”
“Why are you using Mota’s phone?”
“I trashed mine, didn’t want to be tracked.”
“Where are you?” Her voice turned urgent. “Why are you whispering?”
“I’m at Mota’s place. In his living room.”
A pause. “What?”
“I came to kill him.”
“Jesus Christ. What’s wrong with you?”
“I really fucked up, Maggie.”
“You killed him?”
“No, he’s in bed, sleeping. He’s with somebody. I couldn’t do it.”
“Can he hear you?”
“I don’t know. He’s snoring pretty loud.”
“Get out of there. Now, Juno.”
“I started something I can’t finish.”
“Are you moving?”
I stood up. “I am now.”
“Good. Now keep moving.”
“Did you hear me before? I started something I can’t finish. I really screwed up.”
“No fucking kidding.”
nine
I COULDN’T sleep. I lay in the dark. Blinking neon splashed the far wall. A loud groan came through the wall behind me. Somebody was getting their money’s worth. At this hour, he must’ve paid for an all-nighter.
I’d managed to sneak in without waking Maria, who was crashed in the sex swing, her big hair catching every strobe of neon in its net and briefly lighting up firefly style before fading to black.
Despite Maggie’s insistence, I’d refused to go to her place after leaving Mota and his girlfriend sleeping in their bed. It was the middle of the goddamn night. I couldn’t intrude like that. I’d intruded enough when I woke her.
I’d meet her in the morning. I’d survive the night without doing something drastic. Starting early, she and I would talk it out. That was what she said. That was enough to keep me going.
I watched the window light up with the crimson glow of neon, then blacken with the dark of night, on and off, back and forth, no telling which would eventually win my soul.
I laughed at myself, at what a fuckup I was.
Maria woke. “When did you get in?” She rubbed her eyes.
“An hour ago.”
She yawned and stretched her arms. “I’ve been waiting for you. I wanted to warn you that a couple guys came looking for you earlier.”
“Who?”
“They didn’t say. I think they were from upriver.”
“How do you know?”
“One was wearing a panama hat, one of those cheap ones they make out of straw.”
“What did you tell them?”
She adjusted her position in the swing. I didn’t know how she could sleep on that thing. “I told them I hadn’t seen you.”
“They say why they were looking for me?”
“No.”
Nice. Now a pair of strangers were after me. They’d have to take a fucking number. “Does Chicho know?”
“I didn’t tell him.”
We stayed quiet for a while. She dropped a foot to the floor and used it to rock herself, red light slashing across her face with every flash from the sign outside. “You know Chicho’s already bringing in protection money from the other snatch houses.”
“I figured.”
“If I were you, I’d ask to see his books. He’ll short you if you don’t keep on top of him.”
“You think his books are accurate?”
“Yeah. That man keeps track of things. He’s smart that way. I’ve been asking him lots of questions. I gotta know how to do numbers to run my own house. It’s actually…”
I stopped listening and pulled Mota’s phone from my pocket. It still worked. He must not have noticed it was missing yet or he would’ve ordered it wiped. The bastard was probably still snoring away.
I opened the pics folder, and the first shot materialized over the bed. I squinted at the bright light until I slipped on my shades. Mota stared at me with a pearly-toothed grin, hat square on his head, badge shined bright. It was his graduation photo. I moved to the next pic, and the next. Mota waving from the deck of a boat. Mota posing by a new car. I jumped from p
ic to pic: Mota, Mota, Mota.
He liked to take pictures of himself, hundreds of them, the holo-slide show floating above the bed: Mota rubbing his chin, pensive-like; hands on hips with a faraway look; leaning on a door frame, looking oh so casual. He had all the poses down.
Maria was still talking, going on about her plans for the future. I motored through Mota’s photos, tossing her an occasional “uh-huh” as if I were listening.
What’s that? I stopped and moved back a pic.
“Find something?” she asked.
I stretched the holo-pic’s edges in order to enlarge the image. It was a street market, rugs and wood carvings under jury-rigged tents. Mota stood in the foreground, his arm over the shoulder of another man, a man with a shaved head and a round tattoo on one cheek. Fucking Froelich.
Froelich and Mota? I checked the file’s time stamp. Six months old.
But that couldn’t be. Froelich never had a tattoo. I thought the killer must’ve stamped him when he chopped off his head. I zoomed in to get a closer look at the two interlocked snakes, each one eating the other’s tail.
“What is it?” Maria asked.
I spun the 2D image her way.
“Isn’t that one of your crew? The one who showed up late?”
“Yeah. But he didn’t have that tattoo.”
“You know they make ’em so you can turn ’em on and off, don’t you?”
“They do?”
“Offworlders been doing it forever. You’ve seen how they can shift their looks. But now locals can do it too. They can’t afford to get the works like offworlders do, but a little tattoo isn’t that expensive. They even make some that are animated.”
I started back into the slide show, the next bunch of pics all candids of Froelich, some with the face tat, some not. And then came a string of shots of Froelich and Mota posing together. How weird was that? If I didn’t know better, I’d think they’d been dating.
“Lovers,” she said.
“You think so?”
“Definitely.”
“Wu told me Mota was gay, but I didn’t buy it. He sleeps with women.”
“How do you know?”
Remembering the woman in his bed, I said, “Trust me.”
KOP Killer Page 7
