“She’s been lying to me, Paul.”
“And you’ve been honest with her? How do you think she’d feel if she found about you spying on her?”
“That isn’t the same.”
“It isn’t?”
“Dammit, Paul, you’re supposed to be on my side. Quit making me feel like a shit.”
He grinned. “But it’s so easy.”
“Fuck you.”
“Listen, Juno, I’ve never see you like this. You must love her, right?”
I begrudgingly nodded.
“Do you think she loves you?”
I nodded again.
“Then at least give it a couple days. You need to cool down first, so you can think straight. Will you at least do that?”
I gave him a reluctant yes.
“Good. Now let’s go get drunk.”
NINETEEN
SEPTEMBER 32, 2762
PM became AM and Paul slowed the drinks down. My buzz started to fade. Paul and I had been living large since we’d left my place-a two-person bar-hopping blowout. I’d been knocking back drinks with forget-Natasha abandon the whole night.
The crowd was thinning out. Where there’d only been standing room, there were now open tables. I hadn’t had a drink in at least an hour, and I was beginning to see straight. I wasn’t liking the idea of being sober one bit. The same strippers that I thought were hot an hour ago were now playing ordinary in my eyes-bad dancing, bad thighs, and bad sags were suddenly coming through strong. I wasn’t ready to shift from drunk-and-happy to depressed hangover. “You know where we should go, Paul?”
“C’mon, Juno, it’s late. The sun will be up in a few hours.”
“You haven’t even heard my suggestion yet.”
“All right, what is it?”
My phone rang. “Yeah.”
I couldn’t hear a damn thing over the late-night hubbub, but Natasha’s smiling hologram was blocking the stage. I read her holo-lips. “Juno,” she said.
Her sweet face soured in my mind, yet I couldn’t keep myself from cranking up the call’s volume. “Yeah?”
“I need you to come over. Something happened.” Her voice rang an alarming note over the go-go music.
“Be right there.” I clicked off. “We have to go to Natasha’s.”
Paul asked, “What do you think she wants?”
“I don’t know, but there’s something wrong.”
We went to the back door and knocked. Natasha opened up and let us into the kitchen. It was my first time inside the house that I had spent so much time spying on. I turned on the lights-knew right where they were. “Oh god, Natasha. Are you okay?”
Her shirt was covered in blood. There were spatters on her face, in her hair.
“Somebody broke in…my parents…”
“Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m okay.”
Paul and I sprinted through the house. We bounded upstairs like we lived there. We found her parents in the bedroom. There was blood on the walls, the carpet, the lamp. Pavel Yashin was lying in bed, stab wounds all over his body. His blood had run through the mattress and puddled to the floor underneath. Blood spatters doused geckos drinking their fill. Flies were already bouncing around the room. We waved our hands in a futile attempt to keep them away. Pavel’s wife, Gloria, was huddled in a defenseless ball under her Virgin Mary shrine; white candles were spotted red. A lase-blade handle protruded from her back and smoke rose from her charring flesh as the blade burned an ever-widening hole. Half the hilt was already sunken into her back. I flicked it off before it burned through to the floor and set the house ablaze.
Paul said, “Go take care of Natasha. I’ll scope the place out.”
I returned to the kitchen. Natasha was sitting at the table, blood-smeared Formica under her hands.
“Tell me what happened.”
Her face was unreadable. “I’m sorry I called you. I know you don’t want to hear from me, but I didn’t know who else…”
“It’s okay, Natasha. I’m here now. Tell me.”
“I went out with my friends…and no, I wasn’t hooking. When I came back, I saw that my parents’ door was open. I peeked in to see if they were home, and I found…” She couldn’t finish. Tears began to stream.
“Then what?”
“I checked to see if they were still alive, but they weren’t breathing. That’s when I called you.”
“Do you know who did this?”
“No. Somebody must have broken in and sneaked back out. There was nobody here when I came home.”
Paul came around the corner. He checked the kitchen window then asked for a key to the basement. Natasha told him to look in the silverware drawer. He ran down to the basement for a minute, came back up, and waved for me to follow him to the living room.
“Excuse me, Natasha; I have to talk to Paul for a minute.”
Paul and I went into the living room. Paul spoke in whispers. “They’re both dead.”
“Do you think Bandur could have done this?”
“Is that what she said?”
“No. She said that somebody must have broken in.”
“I checked all the windows and doors, Juno. There are no signs of forced entry. The basement is fucking packed with O. He’s also got a couple cases of money down there. Nobody touched any of it.”
I couldn’t purge brandy-buzzed go-go tunes out of my mind. “What are you saying?”
Paul scratched his head. “You know what I’m saying.”
I dropped onto the couch. What had I done? She needed my help; she begged me for it. She asked me to deliver her from her home, and I shut the door in her face. “It’s my fault. I knew how desperate she was to get rid of her father. I made her do this. I left her no other choice.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Yes, it is.”
He put his hand on my shoulder. “What do you want to do? Nobody knows about the cameras but us. We can play it however you want.”
“You want to take the opium and the money, don’t you?”
“It’s your call on this one, Juno. I’ll do whatever you say.”
I dropped my face into my hands and tried to concentrate. The upstairs massacre scene dominated my internal vision. A film of Natasha murdering her parents set to go-go music looped continuously before my eyes. I pushed the heels of my hands into my eye sockets, creating kaleidoscopic color patterns that drowned out the butchery.
Two paths emerged in my head. One path promised a life free of Paul and his cooked-up schemes. I could live free of Natasha and her wounded psyche. All I had to do was walk out that door. I could leave it all behind- adios.
The second path was risky. I’d have to break all the rules. I’d have to sacrifice my conscience…
I didn’t have to think long. “What time is it?”
Paul checked his bargain-basement watch. “We have two hours until sunrise.”
“Let’s do it.”
I put Natasha in the shower and bagged her clothes. I made her scour her body. I even got in with her to scrape under her nails. “Here’s what we’re going to do, Natasha. When the sun comes up, you are going to call the police. You’ll tell them that when you woke up, you saw your parents’ door was open, and you peeked in-just like you told me except you’ll say you found them when you woke up in the morning. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t hear anything last night. You’re a sound sleeper, and you like to fall asleep watching vids. You were watching vids last night. Think up a couple titles that you could’ve downloaded last night, in case they ask.”
“Why do you want me to lie? Don’t you believe me?” Natasha’s coffee skin was flushed from the steamy water. Her smoldering eyes burned less fiercely; vulnerability was seeping through.
“I believe you, Natasha. But the people that did this might try to blame you. They might say that you’re the one that did it. I’m going to protect you. I’m going to take you away from this.
Okay?”
“Okay.”
“You have to be strong for this, Natasha. Paul and I will come right after the police get here. We’ll say we were investigating your father, which is true. But we won’t be the ones interviewing you. They’ll have homicide cops talk to you. Paul and I know most of those guys, so we’ll soften them up a little. We’ll let them know you and I are dating. They’ll take it easy on you. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Did you finish your hair?”
“Yes.”
“Scrub it again.” I continued giving instructions. “You don’t have any idea who would do this to your parents. You don’t know anything about your father’s business.”
“Okay.”
“Stay in here and keep washing. I’ll come get you when it’s time to stop.”
“Okay.” Her eyes were dull.
I went downstairs and went to work on the kitchen, cleaning the table and chairs. I remembered to wipe down the undersides, where you put your fingers when you slide your chair in. I worked my way down the hall and then moved upstairs, erasing her bloody tracks.
Paul came up the steps dripping wet. “I got the last of the cameras. They’re a bitch to take down. I’m gonna start in the basement.”
“Yeah, I’ll come down as soon as I’m done here.”
I moved into the Yashins’ bedroom. Natasha had left bloody footprints on the carpet. I didn’t have time to clean them out. I found a pair of Yashin’s shoes in the closet. I shooed geckos away and dipped the soles into his blood. I tied them on my feet and walked in Natasha’s footsteps, superimposing my tracks.
I finished my clean-up job. I got Natasha out of the shower and had her get in bed. “Try to take a nap if you can. That way the bed will look natural.” I bleached the shower walls and poured the rest of the bottle down the drain. I bagged the towels, Yashin’s shoes, and the cleaning supplies.
By the time I made it to the basement, Paul had already worked up a lathery sweat running opium out to Yashin’s car. It took four carloads to get it all over to our stakeout pad. Paul gave the car a thorough wipe-down. I went to check on Natasha. She was sound asleep-at peace.
I took the murder weapon, put it in a separate bag, and threw it in with everything else. I scraped under the corpses’ fingernails just in case one of them had gotten a scratch in on Natasha. I went out the back door, locked myself out, and broke back in, putting my elbow through a windowpane and popping the lock.
Once inside, I made one last run through the place, wiping fingerprints everywhere I went. The sky was starting to lighten. I dashed back into Natasha’s room and stopped by her bed. “Natasha.”
“Mmm.”
“The sun will be up in about fifteen minutes. Do you remember everything I told you?”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to leave now. Everything’s set. Just remember what I told you.” I kissed her forehead and then left to go meet Paul at the stakeout pad.
We had opium stacked to the ceiling. Paul was counting the money into neat piles on the table.
Paul looked up. “Hey. How’re you holding up?”
“This is quite a stash.”
“You can say that again. What do you want to do with the vids?” He motioned toward the monitor.
“Did you watch it?”
“No. Should I destroy it?”
“No…I have to watch it.”
“You don’t have to do that to yourself.”
I voice-activated the monitor.
Paul sighed and said, “I’ll leave you alone. I’m going to listen to the police bands. I’ll let you know when Natasha calls it in.”
I sat in front of the screen, skipping backward through time until I found the right spot. The camera brought the dark room into perfect focus. The Yashins were sleeping on far sides of the bed, careful not to touch each other. The door opened. Natasha stood in the doorway with a blade in hand. She crept over to the bed, slow high steps, like she was walking on eggs. She hovered over her father, lase-blade raised in a two-handed grip. She held that position for a full minute before she flicked it on.
She wanted him to know who it was-let him die with the knowledge that his own daughter did this.
She waited for him to open his eyes. “Natasha?” he said. Then he jerked back-too late. She plunged the blade down; Gloria Yashin leapt out of bed; Natasha struck her father again; blood fountained from an artery. Gloria made a frantic dash to her Virgin Mary altar. Pavel Yashin held his hands up in defense. Natasha stabbed through them. He stopped struggling, then he stopped breathing. Natasha continued to stick him, motoring back and forth from chest to groin. She moved off him, staring at his corpse, his flesh bleeding and burning, her smoking eyes in full brilliance.
She wheeled on her mother, who was rubbing her rosaries, whispering to herself with closed eyes. Natasha stalked across the room, crying, “You make me sick! You knew!” Gloria rosary-rubbed right up until the moment Natasha plunged the blade into her back-up to the hilt. Two more violent stabs and the rosaries fell from her mother’s fingers.
Natasha left the blade in its flesh-scorching place. She paced the floor, surveying her handiwork. Pavel was dead still. Gloria kept breathing for a few moments then slouched into her final resting position.
Natasha strode out of the room. I flipped channels until I found her in the kitchen. I watched her call me and talk to my holo. She reached out for my cheek, touching nothing but air. After she hung up, she grabbed a soda from the fridge. She stayed at the table and nursed the soda, wearing a disturbingly flat affect.
I moved the vid forward. She heard the knock-put the partly finished soda back in the fridge and let Paul and me in. When the kitchen lights came on, the camera momentarily went into light overload then compensated swiftly for the brightness, bringing back a clear image.
It hit me like a fucking bolt of lightning. OH SHIT!
Paul and I raced up to Natasha’s house. The call went out twenty minutes ago. There were already cops fucking all over. Paul and I badge-flashed our way in.
Natasha was sitting on the couch with homicide dick Yuan Chen. She ran into my arms, laying on the waterworks. “Juno!”
Paul made quick business telling them how she and I had been dating and how he and I were investigating her father’s drug business.
Yuan Chen caught us up to speed on his investigation so far. “Intruder or intruders, we don’t know which, busted the kitchen window and unlocked the door, then proceeded upstairs and committed the crime, then exited through the kitchen.”
My heart beat at unprecedented speed. “You didn’t hear anything, Natasha?”
“No, nothing. I was sleeping.”
Chen said, “It’s a good thing she didn’t wake up. Who knows what would have happened if she walked in on them.”
Natasha sobbed. “But I could have saved them.”
Chen calmed her. “You can’t let yourself think that. If you had tried anything, they would have killed you, too.” Chen looked at me. “I know you two probably want some alone time, but is it okay if I ask her a few more questions?”
“Natasha,” I said, “can you do that?”
She nodded a watery-eyed yes.
Paul leaned in. “I’m sorry to interrupt, Chen, but did you check the basement yet?”
Chen blinked through his glasses. “No. The door was locked.”
“They say Yashin keeps a stash in the cellar.”
Natasha chimed in. “My father is not a drug dealer.” Playing the clueless daughter bona fide.
Even though he already knew the way, Paul thought to ask Natasha, “Where is the door to the basement?”
She gave directions to the door and the key. Chen and Paul headed through the kitchen to the basement door.
Natasha and I were alone-coast clear. “Let me get you something to drink, Natasha.”
I went into the kitchen, my nerves on edge. My eyes sought out the refrigerator. Damn-two uniforms were in the kitc
hen. Neither of them paid much attention to me, so I opened the fridge with my shirtsleeve over my hand. I ran it up and down the handle then I pulled open the door, trying to look natural. I saw Natasha’s half-empty soda bottle on the top shelf-bloody fingerprints all over the glass.
I reached for it. SHIT! I heard one of the unis slide his chair. Is he watching me? I panicked and took out a different bottle. I rummaged through the drawers, found a bottle opener, and flipped off the cap.
Paul and Chen entered the kitchen through the basement door, Chen saying, “We have our motive. The basement’s been picked clean. Looks like a robbery/homicide.”
Paul gave me a questioning look. I frowned a negative; the bottle was still in there. They moved back into the living room. I followed with a sparkling clean soda bottle in hand.
Chen went back to questioning Natasha. She did great-had him feeling sorry for her. My heart reached for her. I knew she was putting on that act for me as much as for Chen. She started off wanting me to save her from her father, and now that she had saved herself, she wanted me to save her from the police and the make-pretend monsters that did this to her parents. She needed me to be her rescuer one way or the other.
Chen said to Natasha, “The coroners are here. It would be best if you waited outside while they work. I’ll come out and check on you.” He brought her out through the rain to sit in one of the cars.
I stayed on the sofa. One of my knees bounced up and down with telltale jitters. I crossed my legs to keep it still. Cops were all over the damn place. I tallied up our violations: illegal surveillance, evidence tampering, accessory to murder, and add a robbery to top it off. That soda bottle would land all three of us in the Zoo.
Hommy dick Yuan Chen was directing traffic from the living room. “Dust every fucking inch of that basement…search the alley for our murder weapon…nobody talks to a reporter-anybody talks, they answer to me.”
I made three trips to the kitchen-always somebody there. I needed that bottle. I sat still, mortified through and through. The lab techs were already moving away from the bedroom, working their way downstairs. They’d be all over the kitchen soon.
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