The still missing pieces were Private Jhuko Kapasi and the grand prize, Mayor Omar Samir.
We rode through the outskirts of the city. Kicked-up mud from dirt roads stuck to the windshield. The towers of the Koba Spaceport were now visible, poking up through the jungle.
The cab dropped us at the spaceport gates. We used our badges to get past the guards minus our weapons.
The cargo docks housed five massive freighters that towered like high-rises while cranes dangled metal boxes going into and out of gaping cargo holds. Simba’s new purchase, the Sunda, stood in the second position. Trucks on the ground cannoned the ship with water, hiding all but the tip behind falling clouds of mist.
We entered the command tower and marched down the cinder-block halls. The walls were alive with molds and mosses. We looked for the office of Clay Reinholt, nightshift supervisor. His signatures were on almost half of the delivery receipts from Vanguard Supplies to Nguyen Imports.
We found his office, ignored his receptionist’s protests, and strode for the door. She jumped up and blocked our path. Maggie’s dirty look convinced her to move out of our way.
We headed through the door with the adrenaline-pumped confidence of three successful bully sessions in a row. I was revved-hadn’t felt like this in years.
I stopped face to face with Mai Nguyen. NGUYEN! Maggie bumped into me from behind. The corner of my eye picked up something coming from the side. Before I could turn, I was tackled. My face bounced off the floor. Maggie screamed. My vision went red, and my gasket blew sky high. I thrashed against hands that held me stock still. I jerked violently to no avail, my body overheating with the effort. When my flame finally burned out, the hands lifted me off the floor and sat me in a chair. Maggie was already seated. The hands pinned my arms behind the chair. I couldn’t move.
Mai Nguyen stood before me like a deja vu doomsday. She studied my face with her not-a-day-older eyes. She extended her index finger toward my nose. I slipped into a fried-nose panic. I strained against the hands that held my head. She gave my nose a poke.
She retreated to a desk and sat on its front edge, leaning forward so her impressive cleavage offered a view with the utmost titillation. “How nice to see you, Officer Mozambe. I thought you looked familiar, but I wasn’t sure. I’m not used to people who age. I stole a few skin cells off your nose for a DNA test which verified your identity. I’m sure you don’t mind.” She spoke to the hands. “You can let them go.”
Hands released me. I looked over my shoulder at the offworld bodyguards. The one behind me didn’t look familiar, but I recognized the one behind Maggie from a quarter-century ago. I took in the rest of the room. Off to the side stood a nervous-looking local man. It had to be the nightshift supervisor we’d come to see. Nguyen shot him a look, and he made a quick exit.
Nguyen aimed her cleavage at Maggie. “Who are you?”
Maggie spoke with straight-ahead cool. “Detective Magda Orzo.”
“Are you partners?”
“Yes.”
“I’m so sorry for the rough treatment you just received, but you can hardly blame my bodyguards for reacting that way. You didn’t give them much choice, entering unannounced the way you did. What brings you here, officers?”
My hand was outright gyrating. I tucked it under my leg. I didn’t want her knowing how badly she’d hurt me. “We’d like to know about your dealings with Carlos Simba.”
Nguyen wore an amused expression. “Mr. Simba is an entrepreneur. He approached me to see if I would invest in his new shipping company. Lagarto Lines looked like a sound investment, so here I am.”
“Carlos Simba is a known figure in organized crime.”
“He’s nothing of the sort. He’s a very successful businessman. He’s going to be the first Lagartan to compete with non-Lagartan shippers. That means jobs and affordable shipping prices for Lagartans. I would think he’d be a hero to your people.”
“What goods does he plan to ship?”
“Does it matter?”
“It matters if he’s going to sell our people as slaves.”
“Don’t be so shortsighted, Officer Mozambe. Mr. Simba will be able to cut into Lagarto’s trade deficit. That means the peso will be stronger. Think of all the things Lagartans could buy with a peso that’s worth something-medicine, robots, computers. This is the first step for Lagarto to enter the galactic economy.”
“Don’t bullshit me. You don’t care about Lagarto. You’re selling slaves for your own profit.”
“Look who is suddenly the moralist. That’s quite the attitude from a hatchet man for the Bandur organization. Bandur enslaves his people with their own vices for his profit. I fail to see the difference.”
“But…but…” I stammered like a fool. I couldn’t find the words to defend myself. Maybe because there weren’t any. Maybe there was no difference between Nguyen and me.
“You tire me.” She looked to her bodyguards, “Escort them out, will you. See to it that the guards don’t let them back in without a warrant.”
I stood up and dropped my right into my pocket. My gut stirred anger, vengeance, and guilt into a vile stew that I couldn’t vomit.
Nguyen’s voice stopped us at the door. “You know I have camera implants in my eyes. Whenever I’m feeling down, I recall the recording of our last meeting. It never fails to cheer me up.”
My hand went spastic within the confines of my pocket. Maggie led me out to the sound of Nguyen’s tech-amplified laughter.
I felt shell-shocked from my run-in with Nguyen. She’d gone from moving O to moving slaves, and she wasn’t shy about letting people know it. I dropped Maggie at her hotel. Seeing all the offworlders coming in and out, I once again marveled at how rich she had to be to afford that place.
I headed home for dinner with Niki. I was looking forward to seeing her. I felt bad about being gone so much. Since I’d stopped my enforcing, we’d spent a lot more time together, and I wasn’t used to going this long without seeing her.
My phone rang. The young girl from the dock dropped into the passenger seat. She looked at least a year younger than her real self-overdue for a holo-update.
“Is Mdoba back?”
“He was,” she said. “But he’s gone again. He took his boat out on the river.”
Thanks for nothing. “Call me when he gets back, okay?”
“Yep.” She disappeared in a flash.
I pulled into the drive and entered the house. I found Niki sleeping on the sofa. “Hey, Niki. It’s me.”
Silence.
“Niki?”
More silence. An empty pill bottle sat on the table.
My mind slid six years to another episode. In an instant, I remembered a blue-skinned Niki breathing shallow, and then the sirens and the stomach pumps. Not again! I flew to her side, checked her pulse. Both my hands shook. Her pulse ran strong and regular; her color was good; her skin felt warm to the touch. I let out the breath I’d been holding and sucked at the air. Ever since that night six years ago, I’d always think the worst. No OD tonight; she’d just double or triple dosed to get to sleep. I’d been neglecting her.
Niki’s mini-relapse complemented my total one with foreboding clarity. My life was running full speed in reverse. I was running around fists first, doing Paul’s bidding, and chasing the hot skirt in some kind of pathetic attempt to recapture my youth. Looking at Niki, my Niki, I could see the ridiculousness of it all.
My galloping heart was slowing to its normal beat. I brushed Niki’s hair off her face and listened to her breathing. I sat on the floor and rubbed my too-sore knuckles. I’d see this case out, because Paul needed me, but then I would be done. I’d quit the force altogether. It was time to put all my energy into Niki. We still cared about each other. We could make it work again.
Niki barely woke when I picked her up. I carried her to bed, whispering soothings in her ear.
I was munching a sandwich when Paul called. Holo-Paul sat across the table from me. “How are t
hings going?”
“Are you alone?”
“Yeah, we can talk. Catch me up.”
It was hard to know where to start. “Sanders Mdoba is the son of a bitch that tipped off Ali Zorno about our witness.”
Holo-Paul looked delighted. Real-Paul sounded pissed. “Mdoba?
"Shit!”
“The kid’s blood is on his hands, Paul. We still don’t know who told Mdoba about our witness, other than it must be a cop. We tossed his boat, a rusted-up number in Phra Kaew. We found vids of Vlotsky’s father and four other board members caught with their dicks out. He blackmailed them into approving a business license for Carlos Simba’s shipping company, Lagarto Lines. He had Vlotsky’s kid killed to keep him in line. He’s moonlighting for Simba.”
“Bandur is losing control. I can’t believe Simba flipped somebody that high up. Does Sasaki know?”
“No, I didn’t tell him. I was afraid Mdoba was working under Sasaki’s orders.”
“What’s this shipping company about?”
“They’re shipping slaves to the mines, Paul. Simba sells them to Universal Mining. We found a man today who sold his daughter to Simba. It’s only one instance so far, but when we start combing through all the missing persons cases, we’ll find lots more. Guess who the middle man is?”
Paul replied, “Mai Nguyen.”
Surprised, I said, “How’d you know?”
“I’ve been digging into Mayor Samir’s funds. There are connections between him, Nguyen, and Simba all over the damn place.”
The alliance between Mai Nguyen, Carlos Simba, and Mayor Samir solidified in my mind. “We’re getting close, Paul.” I was up out of my seat, pacing. “The Vlotsky hit looks like Simba’s doing, but the mayor must have a stake in the slave trade. Simba must’ve asked him to try and keep us from digging too deep.”
“Do you think that your Army guy has anything to do with it?”
“Yeah. I keep trying to discount him, but it’s too big a coincidence that he and Zorno were cellmates. Why?”
“Private Kapasi’s back on leave as of this morning. Once the Army heard the news reports that we caught Vlotsky’s killer, they decided the murder wasn’t Army related. He should have made it back to Loja this afternoon.”
“Hold on.” I froze Paul’s image and had the system dial up the little girl from the dock.
“Hello?” she said.
“Which way did he take the boat?”
“Upriver.”
I hung up and unfroze Paul. “I gotta go, Paul. Mdoba’s heading upriver. How much you want to bet he’s going to meet with Kapasi?”
I was already out the door. Holo-Paul followed me through the courtyard. “Get me proof, Juno. We’re running out of time.”
I sped to Maggie’s hotel, honking through the intersections. I tried calling, but she didn’t answer, so I left a message. What the hell was she doing?
I recklessly rounded the last corner, the hotel dead ahead. Hell with it. If she wasn’t there, I was going to Loja without her. I rolled the car up near the entrance and caught sight of Maggie getting out of somebody’s car. My heart involuntarily jumped in excitement. I kiboshed the feeling-I was a one-woman guy. I almost called out to her, but my instincts kept me silent. Whose car is that?
She walked through the double doors into the hotel. The car she’d exited was turning around. I swerved onto the street; I had to get close. The car drove right by me. The driver-Karl Gilkyson.
I braked, my mind in a stupor. I couldn’t think straight. Maggie and Gilkyson? I decided I had to ditch Maggie. I needed to swing the car around. I cruised into the hotel turnaround, getting stopped behind another vehicle with an open trunk. Two offworld tourists were supervising a group of bellhops on the proper way to carry their luggage. Like they’d never seen luggage that hovered.
Before I could pull all the way through, the passenger door opened, and Maggie dropped into the seat. “I just got your message. Why are we going to Loja?”
My brain went haywire on a conflicting mixture of being excited to see her and a double-crossed rage.
“They released Private Kapasi,” I said.
My skin slithered as I drove. I could be sitting next to the mayor’s plant. I tried to ice my firing thoughts with careful deliberation. A cop informed Mdoba about Pedro. Could it have been Maggie? Can’t be. She’d saved my life last night. She could’ve waited for psycho Zorno to slice me up before she came in. She didn’t have to come in at all. Better yet, she could have lost Zorno’s trail; she’d had plenty of opportunity to claim she’d lost him in the labyrinthine Floodbank corridors. She wasn’t the mayor’s plant-simply couldn’t be. My nerves cooled from a boil to a simmer.
What then? The mayor was worried about me. The mayor was making a play for her. He wanted her to start informing for him. He wanted her on his side. She probably told him to fuck off, but I couldn’t be sure.
The boat tore through the water. I paid extra for a high-powered fishing boat instead of a skiff-should cut the trip to Loja down by a half hour. We’d arrive well before midnight. I sat on a fish chest, my brain dazed by plots and subplots. My eyelids began to feel weighted. My barely open eyes blurred fishnets into what look like whip-wielding slavers.
Maggie’s voice sounded next to me. “I had a visitor today.”
I tried rubbing my face awake. “Who?”
“Karl Gilkyson. He brought me to see the mayor.”
I tried to keep a level expression. “What did you talk about?”
“He wanted me to tell him about our investigation.”
“What did you say?”
“That I was under orders from Chief Chang not to talk.”
“What did he say to that?”
“He just asked more questions.”
I was already feeling less suspicious of her. If she wanted to hide things from me, she’d be hiding them instead of talking about them. “Tell me more,” I said tentatively.
“Mayor Samir tried buttering me up, asking me about my family like he was all concerned about how they were doing. He talked about how good my mother looked when he saw her at the banquet.
“Then he asked about you-how I felt about partnering with you. I wanted to sound believable, so I decided to tell him I couldn’t stand you. When he asked why, I told him that you were dirty, a disgrace to KOP. He went on to ask me why I didn’t refuse to be your partner. I said that I had no choice; Chief Chang gives the orders. I have to play the game to move ahead.”
“Go on,” I said.
“Then he started asking how I felt about taking the chief’s orders. I said I didn’t like it, and that I’d heard the rumors about him and the Bandur cartel. Then when he asked if I believed those rumors, I told him that I was inclined to believe them, especially after I’d seen how dirty Chang’s old partner was.”
“Then what?”
“Next, he wanted to know how I’d feel about taking his orders instead of the chief’s. He offered me a deal. He wants me to snitch for him, be part of his anticorruption investigation.”
I was studying her closely, her voice, her body language. I could tell she was being honest with me. “What did he offer?”
“A fast track to a lieutenancy after Chief Chang’s forced out.”
“Do you still think the mayor’s innocent in all this?”
“Not anymore. He was pushing me hard to take the deal. When I finally told him I’d take it, he wanted to know all about the Vlotsky case. He has to have a personal stake in it.”
“What did you tell him about the case?”
“Just that we solved it.”
“Did he believe you?”
“I think so.”
Maggie had played him flawlessly, telling him things he already knew about Paul and me, getting him to think of her as an anticorruption zealot, and an ambitious one at that. She was a natural-maybe better than Paul.
“Why’d you decide to tell me about this?”
“Because you’re my part
ner.”
I grinned at that. She trusted me, and I trusted her. We were true partners. “Tell me something, Maggie. Why did you kiss my cheek last night?”
“I don’t know. I think it’s because you remind me of my father.”
If I had any romantic notions left, that put an end to them, once and for all. “Are we a lot alike?”
“Actually, you’re nothing like him. It’s the way you and I interact that reminds me of him. He and I never agreed on anything, but that never got in the way of us caring for each other. Even when we were dead set against each other, we always had this respect for each other. That’s the way I feel when I’m around you.”
I nodded my head, very glad I hadn’t made a move for her last night. I thought of Maggie and me having a father-daughter relationship and decided I was just fine with that.
Maggie said, “I want you to help me construct lies to tell the mayor.”
“So now you want to be my double agent?”
“No.” Maggie was wearing a sly grin. “I want you to work for me. ”
I laughed. “For what purpose?”
“To take over KOP. I’m going to be chief one day, Juno. Things have to change. Lagarto can’t go on this way. A clean police force can change everything.”
“What do you want with me?”
“Who better to help me take over KOP than somebody who’s already done it once?”
“Are you asking me to overthrow Paul?”
“Of course not, but he won’t want to be chief forever.”
“I don’t enforce anymore.”
“I won’t ask you to enforce for me. I want to do this clean.”
“That’s impossible. It can’t be done.”
“Is that a no?”
“Yes, that’s a no. I’m quitting after this case.”
TWENTY-SIX
The lights of the Loja pier appeared off the bow. I hung up with Niki. She’d called when she woke up, giving me the usual postbinge earful. “It’s late… Where have you been?…Paul doesn’t own you… I thought you told him you wouldn’t run his errands anymore.”
The understanding attitude she’d had this morning was long gone. I knew it wasn’t entirely about me. She was feeling bad about herself since her pill-popping relapse, and she was redirecting all that self-loathing at me. I came back with the standard excuses…“This time is different… Paul really needs me on this one… It’s almost over.” More bitterness than normal slipped into my voice-I was angry at her for scaring me by pain-pill binging and angrier at myself for neglecting her and then angry at her again for calling my neglect to my attention when I already knew. It wasn’t going to be easy getting things right between us.
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