Aztlan: The Last Sun

by Michael Jan Friedman

  “If you say so.”

  “I don’t care who we’re talking about,” said Molpilia. “Maybe it’s my biggest enemy. Maybe I hate his guts like I’ve never hated anyone before. I do what I can to take him down, sure. I put the fear of the gods in him. But I stop short of murder.”

  “I’m sure the judge will appreciate your restraint,” I told him.

  After I dropped Molpilia off at the Aztlan Temporary Detainment Facility in District Six, where he would await the next available judge, I returned to my office.

  I had always looked forward to being there, ever since my first day as an Investigator. I loved the activity, the camaraderie. But the place felt different all of a sudden.

  I allowed that it might be my imagination. It would have been normal for me to experience a little paranoia after what I had told Necalli. But I didn’t think it was paranoia.

  I felt like I had been exposed. In fact, as soon as I sat down at my desk, I felt like my colleagues’ eyes were drilling holes in the back of my neck.

  Some of them had to be Knife Eyes, just by the law of averages. Sure, the names Yaotl had given me hadn’t included any of my fellow Investigators, but he had made it clear he didn’t know everyone in the organization.

  And I believed him. I mean, who knew more about keeping a secret than a bunch of Investigators? They would never have trusted someone like Yaotl with everything there was to know.

  I tried to tell myself that I could trust Necalli, that of everyone I knew in the place he had always been the most straight-up with me.

  Still, every time someone walked behind me I felt a little twinge between my shoulder blades. I didn’t like it.

  For a long time, my desk had been my home away from home, my sanctuary.

  Now I felt as if I had been evicted.

  I wanted to stand up and challenge everybody at the top of my lungs, get it over with. But I couldn’t. Not until Necalli had conducted his investigation.

  Fortunately, I only had to sit there long enough to file my arrest report. Then I had somewhere to go.

  Just as I was finishing the report, my radio buzzed. I picked it up and said, “Colhua.”

  “This is High Priest Itzcoatl,” said the smooth, measured voice on the other end.

  “High Priest,” I said. “How may I serve you?”

  “You have already served me better than I might have hoped,” said Itzcoatl. “By apprehending the murderer, you have defused an explosion that threatened to shake Mexica to its foundations.”

  “You mean Molpilia?” I asked.

  “Who else?”

  Lands of the Dead, I thought. I knew the High priest was well-connected, but I had arrested Molpilia only an hour earlier.

  “Honestly,” I said, giving away a confidence I should have restricted to police officers, “I’m not sure if he’s the one. I have another lead.”

  “Then, by all means, pursuit it. But as you have access to certain sources, I do as well. And I am confident that you have found the one you seek.”

  I had to smile. If the gods were on my side, maybe I had cracked the case.

  Or maybe Itzcoatl was just too eager to put the murders aside. It was understandable, considering who he was and what he was preparing to do that evening.

  “But I am not calling merely to praise you, Colhua. I would like to mark your accomplishment in a more public way.”

  “Public. . .?” I echoed.

  “As you know,” said Itzcoatl, “I will be making the journey from the river to my sanctum this evening. I would like you to walk at my side as part of my Honor Guard.”

  Inclusion in the High Priest’s Honor Guard was usually reserved for noblemen and prominent government officials who had in some way benefited the priesthood. Not police officers.

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  Itzcoatl laughed softly. “You mean is it a wise decision, when so many powerful men will feel slighted to see a man of your station in a place they covet? At a time like this, there are more important things than placating the powerful. There are also the common people to consider. And,” he added, “to be honest, it is not only your efforts I wish to honor. I wish to recognize your father’s as well.”

  I was touched.

  But the High Priest had said himself that it wasn’t simply a matter of rewarding me. The common people had to be soothed in times of change, and I was one of the common people. By serving in the High Priest’s Honor Guard, I would be telling them that they had a place in the new millennium.

  “I don’t know what to say,” I told Itzcoatl.

  “You need not say anything. Simply meet me at the river before dusk. You know the place, I trust.”

  I said I did.

  “Gods’ blessings, Colhua,” said the High Priest.

  “Gods’ blessings,” I replied.

  When the connection terminated, I leaned back in my chair. The High Priest’s Honor Guard. Now that was something I could tell Aunt Xoco.

  Yet I didn’t feel completely comfortable with the idea. Itzcoatl might have been certain that I had caught the killer, but I wasn’t.

  I needed to know more—and there was a place where I might satisfy that need.

  Eren’s apartment was in District Five, not far from the edge of town, in a pyramid that had seen far better days. If it hadn’t been torn down and replaced yet, it would be soon.

  In the meantime, the rent was low and the neighbors didn’t seem to mind the animal sacrifices. Or maybe they did, and they were just afraid to say anything.

  The majority of the cultists lived in the building. I knew that because that was where we had found them after each of the murders.

  There wasn’t any doorman, so I walked in and took the lift to the fourth floor. According to our files, that was where Eren lived. When I emerged from the lift, I checked the day-signs on the doors.

  New buildings just used numbers, and had for the last fifty or sixty cycles. But for a short time before that, builders had decided it was charming to use day-signs like Flint, Wind, and Monkey instead.

  Eren’s door had the sign Dog on it. I rapped on it and waited.

  A few moments later, it opened. But it wasn’t Eren standing there. It was one of her fellow cultists.

  The phrase “a bull of a man” came to mind. In fact, I had seen bulls smaller than he was. His neck alone was the size of my waist.

  There were others standing behind him—a man and a couple of women. I didn’t see Eren, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t somewhere in the back of the apartment.

  “I’m an Investigator for the Empire,” I told the guy with the bull neck. “I’ve come to see Erendira Nacatl.”

  “I know who you are,” he responded in a clipped, northern accent.

  And he wasn’t moving aside. He’s got balls, I thought.

  “This is a bad decision,” I told him.

  He smiled a cold, dangerous smile. “Mocking the gods is a bad decision too.”

  “That’s a worthwhile sentiment,” I noted, “but it’s entirely irrelevant to the situation at hand. As a public service, I’m going to summarize that situation for you. Ready?”

  Bull Neck’s eyes narrowed.

  I took that as a yes. “You’re impeding a police investigation. Do you know what the penalty is for that?”

  “Only the gods can judge a man.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” I said.

  All I’d come for was to see Eren. But now that this lizard turd had challenged me in front of the others, I had to do something about it. Otherwise, I’d be derelict in my duty.

  I remembered one guy, maybe a cycle from retirement, who had backed down from a public confrontation in the course of an investigation. As soon as his superior learned of it, the guy was fired. No retirement celebration, no benefits, no nothing.

  He hadn’t complained, either. He knew he had been wrong.

  People had to have respect for the police. Otherwise, all kinds of bad things would happen. Tha
t was what it said in the Investigator’s manual, and that was what I believed.

  Faced with an oppositional citizen, I was supposed to go for my hand stick. That was another thing it said in the manual. And as stiff as I was from my beating, no one would have criticized me for it.

  But hand sticks left scars, and I didn’t think I needed to do that to make Bull Neck see reason.

  The first thing I did was throw a left at his face. He managed to block the attack, but he had to use both hands. That deprived him of a chance to strike back. Too much weight-lifting, I thought, and not enough time in the sparring house.

  Taking advantage of the opening, I stepped forward and planted my other fist in Bull Neck’s belly. It doubled him over, if only for a moment, but that was long enough for me to hook him hard in the ear with my left.

  He didn’t go down, but he staggered. If I’d believed that he would let it go at that, I would have stopped. But I knew he wouldn’t, so I hit him again.

  That dropped him to his knees.

  I looked past him, half-expecting someone to take Bull Neck’s place. But it wasn’t another challenger I saw standing there in the doorway. It was Eren.

  “It’s all right,” she told the cultists behind her, signaling for them to stay back. “Just take care of Cuetz.”

  One of them, a tall fellow, swung a finger in my direction. “But this shitbug Investigator—”

  “Watch your mouth,” I told him.

  “It’s all right,” Eren insisted, putting her hand against the tall man’s chest.

  The cultist’s eyes were a fiery red, but he choked back whatever else he had to say. Then he bent to pick up his friend Bull Neck, though he didn’t look happy about it.

  Eren didn’t look happy either. Slipping sideways past Bull Neck, she grabbed my arm and said, “This way.”

  We went back down the corridor, into the lift, and down to the lobby. Then she walked me out the back door of the pyramid into a big concrete courtyard, the likes of which was popular fifty or sixty years ago as well.

  Somewhere in the expanse of dirt and grass beyond it was the place where the cultists conducted their animal sacrifices. I tried not to think about that. After all, I had more important salamanders to fry.

  Eren studied my face. “That didn’t happen just now, did it?”

  “No,” I said. “Two days ago.”

  She frowned. “You should have buzzed before you came. We’re all on edge. We’ve gotten a lot of threats.”

  “I’m not surprised,” I said.

  “Neither were we. And we’re not going to let them stop us.”

  “Because the gods will protect you?” I asked, unable to resist the gibe.

  “Because if we die,” she said, apparently unperturbed by my remark, “we’ve died doing the right thing.”

  “Always a praiseworthy idea. But it’s better to live.”

  She tilted her head to one side. “So you came here to talk theology with me?”

  I bit my lip. Why did I let her get under my skin? Unfortunately, I knew the answer.

  “No,” I said. “I came to talk about a buzz I got the other day. From an unidentified informant. It was you, wasn’t it?”

  Eren didn’t reply. She didn’t have to. I could see the answer in her eyes.

  “Where did you get your information?” I asked.

  “I can’t say,” she told me. “People would lose their jobs. Maybe more than their jobs.”

  “How do you know these people? From the capital?”

  She smiled, despite herself. “Good guess.”

  “It wasn’t much of a guess. You lived there a long time. And there’s no record of the work you did there. Which suggests—”

  “That I worked for the Emperor. Which I did.”

  “Until you met some people who belonged to Ancient Light, and decided you would better serve society by teaching it to honor the gods.”

  “Not some people,” she said, reddening a little. “Just one. But yes, I felt a calling.”

  I felt a pang of jealousy, but I managed to put it aside. “Well, for what it’s worth, your friend Molpilia is awaiting an audience with a judge as we speak. But I’m not convinced that he or the people who work for him committed the murders.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because there’s no hard evidence that they did it. The story you told me about his gambling problem certainly sounds plausible. But until I have something more tangible, I’m not going to be able to pin a murder charge on Molpilia.”

  “So why is he going to stand before a judge?” Eren asked.

  “Another charge,” I said. “One I can’t talk about.” For any number of reasons, I had to keep my business with the Knife Eyes to myself.

  She seemed to find that hard to accept. Finally, she asked, “So who do you think did commit the murders?”

  Olintecke maybe. And the Knife Eyes were still in the running, with or without Molpilia.

  But what I said was, “I was hoping you could help me with that. After all, you knew about Molpilia. If there’s anything else, anything at all . . .”

  Eren thought for a while. Then she shook her head. “Nothing I can think of.”

  “Well,” I said, “it was worth a try. Thanks anyway.” And I left her before I was tempted to say anything else.

  I had already opened the back door to the lobby when Eren called my name. As I turned, I saw her coming after me. To my surprise, she had what looked like tears in her eyes.

  “I just wanted you to know,” she said, “that I had a crush on you. When we were kids, I mean. I thought you were the handsomest, smartest, most wonderful boy on Earth.”

  It was nice to hear, I said. “But why tell me now?”

  “Because,” she said, “I don’t think we’re ever going to see each other again.”

  I did something stupid then: I kissed her. Me, an Investigator of the Empire, working a murder case in which Eren Nacatl was still, technically, a suspect. And I kissed her.

  “I wondered what that would be like,” she said.

  “So did I,” I confessed, “when you weren’t slugging me in the face.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “I slugged you . . . ?”

  “I can tell you the day and time.”

  “It must have been . . . memorable.”

  So was this.

  I ran my fingertips along her cheek. It was as soft as I’d always imagined. “I’ve got to go,” I told her.

  “Then go,” she said.

  She had barely gotten the words out when my radio buzzed. Taking it out of my pouch, I said, “Colhua.”

  It was Necalli. “You know the call you put out on Olintecke? They found him.”

  My heart beat faster. “Where?”

  He told me.

  “I’ll be right there,” I said.

  Eren looked at me. “Something?”

  “Yes,” I said. “But not what I hoped.”

  “Max,” she said, “I hope I’m wrong. I mean about never seeing you again.”

  “So am I,” I said.

  Then I really did leave her.

  As it turned out, Olintecke lived in District Two, in one of the older pyramids there. Even older, I believed, than the one in which Eren and her friends had taken up residence.

  When I got to his apartment, there was a police officer at the door. I showed him my bracelet and he let me in.

  The place was a mess. There were food wrappers and cardboard cups everywhere I looked, and it smelled faintly like dog urine though there weren’t any animals in evidence.

  The only other living person there was a doctor, sitting on a chair in the eating room and making notes. She looked up as I joined her.

  “Colhua?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  She jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “He’s in there.”

  Following her gesture, I went through the doorway and saw a man sprawled on the floor, facing away from me. I could tell by the ponytail that it was Olin
tecke.

  “Gods of Judgement,” I muttered.

  The doctor had followed me into the room. “You know him?” she asked.

  “I know who he is,” I said.

  But then, at that point the doctor had to know that too.

  I knelt beside the body. The officers who had found Olintecke had cut him down and removed the rope from his neck to see if they could revive him, though in fact there hadn’t been any chance of their doing so. His face was dark and bloated, and the way his eyes popped made him look like the last thing he had seen was a big surprise.

  Maybe it was, if the stories about seeing the Lands of the Dead in one’s last living moments had any truth to them.

  “How long ago?” I asked.

  “Not long. A few hours, maybe. Any idea why he did it?”

  I shook my head. “None at all.”

  I also didn’t know why he had been following me. And with Olintecke silenced, it looked like I never would.

  “Anyone we should notify?” the doctor asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Sorry.”

  “That’s all right. We’ll figure it out.”

  Olintecke’s pouch was lying beside him, still tied to his belt. I removed it and checked its contents.

  He had carried the usual things—a radio, a handful of spending beans, a metal identification card. Also a piece of paper, neatly folded in quarters. I unfolded it and saw that there was a list written on it.

  Three names.

  The first was Patli’s. The second was Mazatl’s.

  The third was mine.

  I took a breath, let it out. It was chilling to see my name on Olintecke’s list, written in his own handwriting. More chilling, even, than seeing his reflection in the window of that flower shop.

  And where had the names come from? We hadn’t yet released them to the public. Sure, Mazatl’s neighbors knew what happened to him, but Patli hadn’t had any neighbors.

  So was Olintecke connected to the Knife Eyes after all? As Investigators, they could have given him not only the victims’ identities but mine too.

  Most disturbing of all was the question of what Olintecke planned to do with his list. Had he simply been following the case, and therefore also been following me—the Investigator assigned to it? An innocent subject of the Empire, curious to see how it would all turn out?