Ex-KOP

by Warren Hammond

  “Sounds good. How much?”

  Maggie showed me the numbers.

  I was surprised at how low the numbers were. “That's cheaper than I thought it'd be.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah. I thought it'd be at least twice that.”

  Maggie looked at me quizzically until it dawned on her. “The prices are in offworld dollars, Juno.”

  “Holy shit.” I tried to do the math, multiply by two hundred and add ten percent … “Holy shit, Maggie. You can't afford that.”

  “My mother can.”

  I shook my head. Maggie and her mother butted heads all the time. First and foremost on the list was the fact that Mrs. Orzo didn't like her daughter being a cop. “You hate that woman.”

  “Not entirely. You have a better idea?”

  I stole a look at my watch. It was almost midnight. Time to meet Ian at Roby's. “Yeah,” I said.

  eleven

  NOVEMBER 32, 2788

  ROBY'S gladiator-bouncer recognized me and opened the door as I approached. Just inside, a waitress offered me a towel, which I declined. I was liable to break into a nervous sweat at any minute, and my rain-soaked face and hair would do a nice job masking it.

  Into the main room, the first thing that hit me was the drumming, slow and methodical. Over the beat, a violin whined in a spooky key. The tables were jam-packed, and people were standing along the walls, all of them watching the stage show that featured a man in a hooded black robe wielding a lase-bladed axe. Fucking A. There's the murder weapon, right there. That or one like it. On the chopping block was a lamb, held down by a pair of blood-spattered girls wearing virginal white. The drumming was getting more insistent as the executioner circled the lamb. Every couple steps, he'd stop and wave the axe back and forth over the lamb, letting the laser light from the axe's edge tint the lamb's wool bloodred. I ran my eyes over the audience, the whole lot of them looking like they were about to cream their pants. What a bunch of crap. My guess was the “executioner” was really just the local butcher, and the girls were likely his daughters. The way I saw it, the whole family was probably making a fortune dressing up to do their everyday job in front of a bunch of sick-fuck offworlders.

  I made for the side room. My stomach felt toxic. That kid, Raj, he'd seen me at the cameraman's. If he'd talked to Yuri and said he'd seen me, Yuri would've gone to Ian and told him that a cop with a bandaged hand was snooping through his vids. And if that was the case, the gig was up. Ian would know I was screwing him, taking his money and going double-agent on him, reporting everything I knew to Maggie. This time, there would be little reason to believe that Ian would stop at my fingers.

  I took the measure of the back room—cops all over the damn place, with a few offworlders mixed in. Horst was there, our mystery offworlder, sitting with Liz at the autopsy table, talking to her over a holo-cadaver. I looked Horst over, his slicked back hair, his porcelain skin, searching for signs of the serial killer within. Liz spotted me and winked. I nodded in her direction then crossed the room, looking for Ian. I found him with Hoshi in a secluded booth. Upon seeing me approach, Ian put up a finger, telling me to give him a minute.

  I stopped and looked around, trying to find a spot to wait, and saw Liz get up out of her seat and pull out a chair for me. She was dressed more conservatively tonight, black heels, black hose, black skirt, and a white top. I didn't move. She waved her hand, gesturing for me to come over. I shook my head and cocked it in Ian's direction, letting her know I was waiting. She pointed emphatically at the chair she'd prepared for me, and I suddenly became very compliant.

  I weaved through the tables, mentally making note of every cop face I saw. There was Froelich, Kripsen, Deluski, Yang, Wu, Lumbela … I catalogued every one of them, remembering which ones I'd seen here the last time. I reached Liz's table and sat down in the seat she'd prepared for me. I was sitting to Liz's right, across from the offworlder.

  He looked at me across the midsection of the bisected holo-cadaver. “Good to see you, Mr. Mozambe,” he said.

  I gave him a half smile in response.

  “I understand you and Ian have come to an arrangement.”

  “That's right.”

  “I'm glad to hear it. He says you could be useful.”

  I half smiled again, the two half smiles equaling far less than a whole one. He stared at me, waiting for me to say something, but I had nothing to say. Liz moved uncomfortably in her seat.

  What the—? The holo-cadaver moved. I jumped back, almost falling over in my chair. Horst was laughing, as were the customers at the neighboring tables. The cadaver was pulling the stitches out of its chest. Its eyes were still closed, and it looked plenty dead except its hands were pulling the stitching free in one long strand. I moved from startled to embarrassed to pissed, only stopping on embarrassed for a fraction of a second. I glared at Horst as the people at the nearby tables, having had their fun at my expense, returned to their conversations. Horst was still laughing, loud bellowing laughs that were amplified far beyond anything natural. The corpse pulled its ribs wide like doors to a cupboard and started playing show-and-tell with its organs.

  I looked at Liz, who had a be-a-sport expression on her face. I tried out a full smile to show I had recovered, but it probably came out more like a full grimace.

  I tried to picture Horst as the barge serial. Seeing him gleefully grinning at me, across this flayed corpse, his skin a full shade paler than the cadaver's, with hair blacker than oil, and eyes blacker still … It wasn't hard to imagine, not at all.

  The waitress arrived with a plate of spit-roasted 'guana, and the holo-corpse disappeared. She set the plate in front of Horst on the cold steel table.

  “Ah, now that looks delicious,” he said as he waved the steaming scent in toward his nose. He peered at me through the steam and must've caught some steam of a different kind coming off my face. “You're not upset are you? It was just a joke.” He stabbed his fork into the 'guana's flank and twirled a piece of meat free. He dipped it into the spiced juices and offered it to me.

  I shook my head.

  He dipped again before putting it in his mouth. “I love Lagartan food. You can't get anything like it in space. You can get the same spices, and you can find iguana meat in the specialty stores, but it's never the same. I'm always raving about the food, but you bring somebody to a Lagartan restaurant up there, and they think you're crazy. Half of them can't stomach the idea of eating reptile. And the half who can are repulsed by the sight of these creatures. They don't look like Earth iguanas, they say. Sure, there are a few adventurous ones who are willing to take a taste, but most of them say it's nothing special. I try to tell them it's different down here. It's so fresh. I bet this iguana was alive only an hour ago. Up there, your meat probably gets frozen and unfrozen two or three times before you ever get to stick a fork in it.”

  I nodded like I cared. Most offworlders were repulsed by our cooking. They'd see a 'guana on a plate with the head still on, and they'd get all queasy. Horst was one of the rare ones who'd fallen in love with the food. Even then, he'd probably only done so because he got to eat in all the nice restaurants where they made an effort to make the cuisine offworld-compatible. The average Lagartan survived on an unappealing diet of un-spiced fat and gristle over rice.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder, and Hoshi leaned in, telling me Ian was ready for me.

  I got up without another word. Liz smiled at me and Horst nodded as he pulled a piece of bread apart for dipping.

  I headed for Ian's table. Already, I could feel my face flushing with nervousness. Get a grip! I took deep breaths through my nose as I reached the booth and dropped into Hoshi's vacated seat. “She went to see the cameraman,” I said.

  “So I heard.” Ian had ice in his voice.

  I leaned forward, my hands on the table. “She didn't get anything out of him, but the guy's a miserable liar. She doesn't believe a word he said.”

  Ian nodded. I couldn't get a r
ead on him. I waited uneasily for him to say something. He sipped his brandy … then bit his lip … then ran his fingers through his hair. …

  He knows. I angled my feet toward the door, ready to make a break for it.

  “I'm disappointed in you,” he said.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “I'm paying you to get that cunt off my ass, and I'm not getting any results.”

  “The hell you aren't. You'd still have a camera in your hair if it wasn't for me.”

  Ian snatched my hand, his fingers clamping onto my splints. I reflexively punched with my free hand, my fist glancing off the top of his head. My fingers screamed as I tried to pull my right hand free from his grip. I targeted my left again, aiming low, anticipating that he might duck. My broken fingers shrieked in agony as he squeezed down on them. I threw my punch, but he blocked it effectively by lifting and turning his shoulder into my fist's path. He started twisting my hand. My fingers mashed together, bones rubbing in exquisite pain. I tried to pull my hand free, but his grip didn't budge. The bastard was strong as hell. I wouldn't doubt if—in addition to shooting 'roids—he had some offworld tech installed under those biceps.

  “Stop fighting me, boy-o.”

  I stopped, my eyes blinded with tears.

  “You were supposed to tell her I was clean.”

  I tried to talk, but I'd gone mute, my mouth just opening and closing guppy style. He loosened his grip a tad, letting me speak. I looked at the other tables—everybody purposely averted their stares, except for Horst. He was looking right at me, chewing his food, his flawless face alight with amusement.

  Between heavy breaths, I said, “I did tell her you were clean. She didn't believe me.”

  “You're proving my point.”

  “What point?”

  “That I'm not getting my money's worth.”

  “I can't talk like this. Fucking let go of my hand.”

  He did.

  My eyes started to clear, and I could breathe again. I clutched my hand to my chest. Waves of pain ricocheted through my arm. “Listen to me, asshole, it was too late to try that Ian's-a-good-cop bullshit. Maggie knows you're dirty. She's been watching you for months. She wants that squad leader job, and she knows that she won't get it as long as you're around. She wants to bring you down, and she's not about to listen to me telling her that you're clean. Besides, me saying somebody's clean doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot to anybody who knows my history. I'm the fucking dirty cop poster boy.”

  Ian was listening to me, really listening. He didn't know I'd been at the cameraman's. If he did, he and his buds would've hustled me out the back exit by now, and I'd be on my knees, begging for mercy until they fried a hole through my temple. It hadn't occurred to him that I might stay loyal to Maggie. What did a punk like Ian know about loyalty? He thought I was just a mercenary, out for hire to the highest bidder. He thought that, for all those years, I'd been nothing more than a hired hand to Chief Chang.

  Confidence surged through me, making the pain in my fingers a touch more bearable. I waved a waitress over. “Get me a bottle and a glass. I want a glass, you understand me? Don't bring me one of those stupid-ass goblets.” She scurried off.

  Ian stayed silent, a vein bulging on his forehead.

  My hand was pulsing. “Fuck, that hurts.”

  That brought out a grin from Ian. “Tell me why I should keep paying you.”

  “Because we had a deal, that's why.”

  “The deal was that you were going to get Maggie out of my hair.”

  “I did.” I pointed at his widow's peak, where the camera used to be.

  He glared at me, not enjoying the joke at all.

  The booze arrived and I sucked down a pair of double shots, eager for the anesthesia to take effect. “The best I can do, Ian, is keep you a step ahead of her. We do that long enough, and she'll eventually give up.”

  Ian was still looking very displeased.

  I took another hit of brandy. “I'll be honest, Ian. There are things she won't tell me. She doesn't trust me entirely, but I can keep you out of her reach. You can't keep her from sniffing around. She's already onto your scent. But if you let me do my job, I can see to it she doesn't find anything. I'll be with her every step of the way, steering her away from your trail. She interviews somebody, I'm there turning the questioning around. She starts tracking something big, I ring you up so you can erase your tracks. I'm your fucking guardian angel.”

  “You expect me to believe that a washed-up enforcer can protect me?”

  “I protected Chief Chang for over twenty years. And his enemies were a hell of a lot scarier than Maggie Orzo.”

  I had him. He was nodding his head, seeing my reasoning. “I want this problem to go away,” he said.

  “It will. It will. It's just going to take some time. Now are you going to pay me or what?”

  Ian nodded and shrugged at the same time. “We'll keep our arrangement a little longer.”

  I gave him an annoyed stare until he actually called up his account and transferred the funds.

  Satisfied, I said, “Good. And if you touch my hand again, I'll fucking kill you.”

  Ian laughed. “You're unbelievable, boy-o. You sure got a pair on you.”

  “I'm serious.”

  “Sure you are,” he said, like he was talking to a child.

  I did my best to ignore the sarcasm. “I got something for you,” I said.

  “What?”

  “I was on Maggie's home system last night.”

  “How'd you manage that?”

  “I've been doing this kind of thing for a long time,” I answered without really answering. “Anyway, I found a set of files that have your name on them.”

  Ian became fully attentive. “What's in them?”

  “I don't know. They're encrypted. It'll take months to break them using Lagartan crackers, but I found an offworld company that can crack them open in less than thirty hours. It's going to cost you, though.”

  “How much?”

  “A lot.”

  “How do I know you're not just going to pocket my money?”

  I handed him a slip of damp paper from my shirt pocket. “That's the company's name and an account number. I've already uploaded the files to them. You pay them directly, and they'll start the decryption process.”

  “What's this other number?”

  “That's the price.”

  He raised his brows at me. “I can't afford that.”

  “I know, but I bet your offworld friend can.”

  He looked at me dubiously.

  “Listen, Ian, Maggie's been compiling dirt on you for months. Based on the file sizes, my guess is those are vid files. That camera in your hair might not have been the first.”

  Ian closed his eyes and shook his jar of a head. “I should just kill that bitch.”

  “You know that's a bad move right now,” I said, thinking fast, more lies taking shape in my mind. “She shows up dead, and her family will find those files on her system and start wondering why she was surveilling you. You'd be suspect number one, and her family's got the juice to get a serious investigation launched. Play this my way, and I'll keep you safe until you get that squad leader post. Then you can get her transferred out of homicide—problem solved.”

  Ian gave a begrudging nod. “I'll talk to Horst.” He crossed the room, placed his hand on Liz's shoulder and then began whispering in her ear.

  I stayed in my seat, thrilling on my scam. Not only was I getting Ian to decrypt the camerman's vid files for me, but I'd gotten the technician at the offworld company to agree to doubling the price and splitting the surplus with me. I'd get that spine paid for one way or another.

  Liz was up out of her seat and coming my way, leaving Ian and Horst to discuss my proposal. She took the seat across from me. “How's your hand?”

  The pain had receded except for an insistent throbbing coming from my pinky. “It's okay.”

  She helpe
d herself to my bottle, pouring a couple fingers' worth into her goblet. “Ian can be such a bully.”

  “What happened to him?” I wanted to know.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did you know him before?”

  “Yes,” she said after a pause.

  “Well, what happened to him? It's like he's a different person.”

  Her face changed. She looked over at Ian, where he was talking to Horst. For the first time, I felt like I was seeing her, the real her. She was watching her boyfriend, her eyes filled with longing, and not the puppy-love kind of longing. It was more the kind of longing you'd see on a widow's face.

  I said, “So you're not so thrilled with the new Ian.”

  She snapped her gaze back in my direction, as if my observation surprised her. “I didn't say that,” she said.

  “You didn't have to. Why do you stay with him?”

  “He means a lot to me.”

  “He means a lot, or he meant a lot?”

  “Both,” she said with more emphasis than necessary, like she was trying to convince herself more than me.

  “One of these days, somebody's going to teach him a lesson,” I said.

  “And you plan on being that somebody?” she teased.

  I didn't answer.

  The real her was already gone. The mischievous flirt was back in full force. She played with a lock of hair that hung alongside her face. “I guess you know a thing or two about bullies.”

  I leaned forward, wanting to be close to her. “That's right.”

  “You have firsthand experience, don't you?”

  “What makes you so interested in my past?”

  “I like cops.”

  “I'm not a cop.”

  “But you used to be.”

  “Why do you like cops?”

  She kept twirling her hair as she took a sip of brandy with her other hand. “Answer some of my questions first.”

  I nodded.

  “As the chief's enforcer, it was your job to keep other cops in line?”

  I nodded again.

  “And how did you manage that?”