“But this is all theoretical, isn’t it?” I asked. “You can’t pin that body in the database on our killer with any certainty.”
“True. But I thought you might find it interesting that he had a tattoo on his cheek.”
My doubt evaporated. “Two snakes?”
“Two snakes,” he confirmed. “Just like Froelich’s.”
Abdul was on to something. Theory solidified into fact. “We need an ID on that stiff.”
“The name is Franz Samusaka.”
“Where was he found?”
“I’ll send you the info. The first responders found his death suspicious enough to call in Homicide, but the hommy dicks ruled it an accidental overdose.”
“You think they were covering it up?”
“It’s likely. This is KOP, right?”
“Who were the detectives?”
“Froelich and Wu.”
Fucking figures. Those two beheaded assholes were pissing me off with this convoluted bullshit.
“You want me to keep Samusaka out of my report?”
I told him yes. Keep Rusedski in the dark. The lieutenant was too close to Mota to be trusted.
“I’ll see you day after tomorrow, Juno?”
“For what?” I made no effort to hide my confusion.
“Robert’s graduation party.”
Right. Paul’s son was about to graduate from the Academy. Paul’s widow was going to throw him a party after. “Let me get back to you.”
“You don’t sound very sure.”
I wasn’t. “Later, Abdul.”
After a quick thank-you, Maggie let him off the hook. Then her emerald eyes turned on me, their radioactive glow making it clear she wouldn’t be doing the same for me.
“You said Captain Mota did Froelich.” Her eyes burned hot in the dim light.
“I said he might have done it.”
“You don’t accuse a cop unless you’re sure,” said Josephs. “You let that scar-headed Wu shoot his mouth off about Mota at the Beat. Now that Wu’s dead, what are people gonna—”
Maggie stopped him. “That’s not the issue here. If Mota didn’t kill Froelich and Wu, then he’s got no stake in this. So what’s his beef with you, Juno?”
“Beats me.”
“Yeah,” said Josephs. “What the fuck?”
I tried to shrug it off like I didn’t know.
Maggie kept at me. “Why is Mota poking his nose in this case? Why is he spreading rumors about you?”
“How should I know?” I tried to say it straight, nonchalant, but my voice betrayed me, a defensively high pitch giving me away.
Josephs stepped toward me. “Don’t play innocent. Talk.”
“Talk,” echoed Maggie with her uranium stare.
I tried to conjure my enforcer’s face, a shield of pure steel to keep out the radiation. It wouldn’t come, my inner enforcer running for cover. “Fine! Fucking fine. You want to know? I took over his protection business.”
Maggie closed her eyes and shook her head.
“What protection business?” asked Josephs.
“Mota was taking money from the snatch houses in the alley near Floodbank.”
“When you say you took it over, you mean you bought him out?”
I shook my head no. “I did it old-school.”
“You and what army?”
“Me and my crew.”
“Don’t fucking tell me. Froelich and Wu?”
“Them and a few others.”
“You that hard up for cash?”
“It’s not about the money.”
“Then what is it?”
I looked at Maggie. She was pacing again.
“Well?” asked Josephs.
“KOP has to change,” I said.
“What does that have to do with it?” He turned to Maggie. “What’s he talking about?”
Maggie stopped pacing to look at me, her expression unreadable.
I repeated my defense. “KOP has to change.”
She turned on her heel and walked away.
twelve
APRIL 24, 2789
“YOU think he uses a saw? Or maybe he chops the head off with an ax or something?”
“Can you shut up with that shit?” said Deluski.
“Don’t you want to know how he’s going to do us?” asked Lumbela. “We’re next.”
I rubbed my arm, a dull ache creeping through the pain blockers. “This isn’t helping.”
It was long past midnight. Other than the occasional drunken giggle or groan, the whorehouse was quiet. The four of us were in my room, Lumbela and I sitting on the bed, Deluski on the floor, Kripsen leaning against the wall, the slow-burning cig in his hand matching the expression on his face.
“We can’t assume he’s after all of us,” said Deluski. “Wu and Froelich were partners. It could be just the two of them he targeted. It’s probably somebody they put away who just got sprung. Plus Juno said the killer might’ve done another one before Wu and Froelich. Far as we know, that body didn’t have anything to do with us.”
I leaned forward. “Listen to me, boys, I can’t say if we’re targets or not, but we’re not going to sit back and wait to find out. As long as Mota keeps butting into Wu and Froelich’s investigation, we can’t trust KOP to catch this guy.”
I sharpened the edge in my voice. “This fucker killed two of ours, you hear me? He slaughtered Wu’s wife, his little girls.”
“And he took your hand,” said Kripsen.
“And the son of a bitch took my hand.” I made a chop with my abbreviated arm. “Whether we’re targets or not, we’re going after this freak. You with me?” I met them eye to eye, one at a time, soliciting nods of agreement.
I had them. I could see it in their faces. Gone was the resentment they’d harbored against me. I wasn’t their blackmailer anymore. I was their leader, the guy who’d made it through scrapes way worse than this. I was the one who could keep them alive.
“Besides, it’s about time you shits learned to do some police work. Did any of you know Froelich was gay?”
“Froelich wasn’t gay,” said Lumbela.
“He was.” I nodded with certainty.
“Really?” Lumbela’s eyes were wide open, the whites showing bright against his dark skin.
“No fucking way,” said Kripsen.
“He and Mota were seeing each other,” I said. “They were lovers.”
“Get the fuck out of here.”
“I saw the pictures.”
Deluski spoke up. “I knew he was gay.”
Kripsen flicked his ashes on the floor. “Bullshit.”
“No, really. You remember that friend of his who would come drinking with us sometimes, the thin guy with the gold tooth. I saw them holding hands.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“It was none of my business.”
The group stayed quiet for a few, lost in their own thoughts. Kripsen puffed on his cig. “This shit’s hard to believe. I mean, us and Froelich, we’d go chasin’ tail together all the time.”
“Ever seen him catch any?” I wanted to know.
Kripsen thought about it. “I figured he was shy.”
Lumbela threw up his hands. “Aw, shit, think of all the times we’d go piss on a wall, all of us whipping out our wangs. Fucking Froelich must’ve been checking us out.”
Kripsen laughed at him. “You are such a dumbass.”
“What?”
“You think he wants to peep when we’re pissing? There ain’t nothing sexy about a dick that’s pissing.”
A smirking Lumbela came back with, “How would you know when a dick is sexy?”
Are these humps for real? “Shut up already! Save this crap for another time. What’s important right now is to understand that Mota thinks we did Froelich. He thinks we killed his lover to send him a message.”
“He does?”
“Wouldn’t you? We broke his uniform’s legs.”
“But Froelich was o
ne of ours. We wouldn’t do one of ours.”
“What if Froelich and Wu were really on Mota’s side?”
Confused stares all around.
I elaborated. “Mota had something going with Froelich and Wu. They were in business together. Anybody know anything about that?”
They threw one another questioning stares. Nobody had answers, and their bewildered gazes eventually came back to me. It wasn’t surprising Wu and Froelich had frozen out these three. Why cut their share three extra ways?
What pissed me off was Wu and Froelich let me pick a fight with Mota without clueing me in.
“Here’s the deal, boys. While we were suspecting Mota killed Froelich, he was thinking it was us trying to intimidate him into backing down. Mota even threatened me, told me I was going to pay for Froelich.”
“Ironic,” said Deluski.
Lumbela gave him a sour face as if to say, Why the fuck are you bringing big words into this?
“Listen to me,” I said. “We’re exposed on this. If Mota finds out I was at Wu’s crime scene, he will become more certain than ever that I was the killer. The evidence will lead away from us, sure as shit, but the task force might be coaxed out of following the real trail. It all depends on how much sway Mota has over the investigation. The sooner we bring the real killer down, the sooner we clear our names, and if we are the serial’s next targets, the sooner we make ourselves safe.”
Kripsen blew a cloud of smoke. “What’s the plan?”
Ghost pain made me wish I could rub my right hand, my right wrist. The best I could do was keep massaging my shoulder. “I need one of you to write down names of all the people you guys have fucked over. You bastards have done some ugly shit. I need to know who might be looking for retribution. I want that list before I wake up in the morning.”
Lumbela pointed a thumb at himself. “I can do that.”
I turned to Kripsen. “I need you to get down to the Office of Records and pull Froelich and Wu’s case files. You know as well as I do that some things don’t make it into the public record, but it’s a good place to start. Comb through those files and write down anything that could be related.”
I turned to Deluski. His eyes looked older than they had a few days ago. “I need you to go down to the morgue to see Abdul Salaam. You know him?”
“Yeah.”
“Tell him I sent you. Get paper copies of everything he’s got.”
“Paper?”
“I don’t want anything electronic. Until we get the Mota situation under control, I’m too hot to get on the grid. I need you to work up a history on that body with the tattoo. I want to know everything there is to know about him.”
“Got it,” said Deluski before erupting in a broad smile.
“Something funny?”
“No.” His grin turned sheepish. “It’s just—”
“It’s just what?”
“I was just thinking. It’s almost like we’re real police again.”
There was hope for this one. “Like real police,” I acknowledged. “Now get out of here so I can sleep.”
They headed for the door. I lifted my aching arm and swung it back and forth, hoping a little movement might bring some relief.
“You gonna be okay there?” asked Deluski from the doorway.
Damned if I know. “I’m fine.”
“What kind of lizard did he turn into?”
“What does that matter?”
“Monitor? Iguana?”
“He didn’t turn into an actual lizard, you know.”
“More like a man in a lizard mask, I know. But were there any markings? Stripes or ridges?”
“Stripes. Rust red stripes.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know. Two, maybe three. Who cares?”
“Ridges?”
“Fucking quit bothering me with this shit.”
“You sure you don’t need something for that arm?”
“Yes, dammit. Now get the fuck out.”
“Good night, boss.”
The door swung shut. I lay back and let my head rest on the pillow. I stretched my arm out alongside my body. Shit, that hurts. It was going to be a long night.
A knock came on the door. “Yeah?”
Maria poked her head in, more hair than head. “Those drugs wear off yet?”
“Yeah.”
“I got a bottle.”
“Now you’re talking.”
* * *
I didn’t want to open my eyes. My hungover head hurt. Same for my arm.
And that smell wasn’t helping. Like somebody was trying to smother me with flowers. Fake flowers. The kind of perfumey shit that comes from a can. I felt something on my chest. It wasn’t one of those straps from the doctor’s. This was warm. An arm.
My eyes opened. I was clothed. Maria was clothed too, her usual—skimpy and slutty. When was she going to learn she wasn’t a hooker anymore?
I remembered waking up when she’d told me she was tired of sleeping in the sex swing. I remembered wanting to object when she squeezed in next to me, but I didn’t object. Not when I felt her warmth against me. Not when I felt her nuzzle into my shoulder.
I was letting this relationship get too cozy. We’d have to have a little talk. She had to know I was a one-woman guy. I put on my shades. Niki’s shades.
I slipped out from under her arm and climbed out of bed. One-handed, I undid my top two buttons and wrestled my shirt over my head. I nabbed a clean one from the pile on the floor and put my arms through the long sleeves. Leaving it unbuttoned, I tucked my piece into my belt and stepped out of the room.
Closing the door behind me, I found a sheet of paper taped to the door frame. I pulled it off and scanned the list of names Lumbela had compiled. Not as long as I thought it would be. I shoved it into my ass pocket and moved down the hall, my left hand working the shirt’s snaps on the way. Lucky for me, it was one of the shirts Niki had modified by substituting snaps for buttons.
Hookers were lined up outside the showers. They looked domestic in their robes, their hair pillow-pressed into all kinds of hair spray horrors. I checked the time. Just past noon. Early morning for a whorehouse.
I snapped the last snap and wondered what to do with my right sleeve. Roll it up? Pin it up? Fuck it. I let it dangle like a limp dick.
I hit the stairs and strode toward the front door. I had to find Maggie, set things straight.
“Juno.”
I stopped. Marek Deluski approached, his uniform starched and pressed, a green folder pinned under his arm, a steaming round of fried dough in his hand. “Hey, I got those papers you wanted.” He held up the bread. “You want some? They’re making these in the kitchen.”
My rumbling stomach said yes. I followed him into the kitchen, the smell of warm bread wafting about magnificently. A pair of hookers worked the fryer. Rounds of golden bread were bubbling inside. The hookers wore aprons over their work clothes—fishnets down low, hairnets up top. Next to the fryer sat a pile of fry breads atop a wire rack. I took one, doused it in honey, set another on top, then folded them up like a taco.
I bit into them. They were crunchy and chewy at the same time. Sweet honey oozed across my tongue. So good! I really should eat more. I should schedule it. Three times a day like a regular person.
“Let’s walk,” I said between bites. “I gotta go see somebody.”
“Who?”
I blew off the question. “Did you go through the files?”
“Yeah.” He took the folder he’d been carrying and tucked it under my half-arm. “I took a cab over here so I could skim through them on my way over.”
“What did you find?”
“The dead guy who had the same tat as Froelich, he was rich.”
“Did you know him? Ever seen him with Froelich?”
“No. But Froelich didn’t make a habit of parading his boy toys around.”
Approaching the front door, I took a peek at the entrance to Chicho’s office. Fractur
ed beams of light shone through the monitor-tooth curtain. He was in, and it was probably about time I collected my first payday.
But not now. Now I had more important things on my mind. “Did you know Froelich and Mota were lovers?”
“No. I didn’t even know they knew each other. How did you find out?”
“I saw pictures of Mota and Froelich together.” I followed Deluski out the door and down the stairs.
“Where did you get the pictures?”
“Mota’s phone. He had a picture on there of himself with Froelich and Wu, the three of them clinking glasses over a stack of cash.”
“That’s how you knew they were in business together?”
I nodded yes before taking another bite of bread. Half of it was gone already.
“How did you get Mota’s phone?”
“Stole it.”
“Damn. How did you pull that off?”
“Broke into his house.”
We left the alley. The street was pretty well cleaned up by now and open to traffic. Wouldn’t be long before all signs of the riot were erased. We headed for the river.
Deluski said, “What I don’t get is how the killer got Wu to go with him.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, he went to Wu’s place to kill Maribela and the kids there in the apartment, but he took Wu somewhere else, killed him, and brought his head back.”
“Yeah?” I took another bite of bread.
“So how did he get Wu to go with him?”
After a bewildered pause, I said I’d been wondering the same thing, even though I hadn’t. Hadn’t even occurred to me. But Deluski was right. Wu must’ve been home when the killer arrived the first time. Otherwise, there was no reason to go there twice. Had the killer met up with Wu somewhere else and murdered him there, he could’ve done the wife and kids when he brought the head over.
But he’d been there twice.
Deluski continued. “I can’t figure it, boss. I don’t see Wu going with him. Can’t even imagine it. Not after what he’d done to his family.”
KOP Killer Page 10