I listened closely even though I already knew how this one was going to end. I’d run the same con.
Deluski carried on, his voice getting deeper and harder to hear, as if he were telling the story of how somebody close had died. “He gave me the container number and told me where to find it. It was right where he said it would be, locked up tight and sitting close to the water. I hooked it to a tugboat I’d rented, and I pulled it off the pier and let it sink just like he said. You see what he was thinking?”
“He wanted to make the drug dealers think somebody hauled their container away.”
“Right. They’d go searching the river, looking for a big boat, and while they were off doing that, he’d go back with a small fishing boat and dive for the O. I thought he was a genius.”
“But?”
Deluski’s voice continued to lose volume. I had to lean in to hear him. “But when he dove down to the container, he found bodies inside. A whole family. He showed me pictures of them. A man and woman. Three kids. All drowned. They were trying to get off-planet. A barge was going to come by and sneak them into the spaceport as cargo. I’d sunk the wrong container.”
Deluski was practically shaking. He had to know the truth. I looked him in the eye, my face as sober as my words. “The whole thing was a con. That container was empty. It’s still down there. Still locked up tight.”
“I know.” His voice was solemn as an undertaker’s. “I eventually figured out it was all bullshit. But at the beginning…” He let out a sigh. “At the beginning, I thought it was real. Wu helped me cover it up. I owed him, and I started doing regular jobs for him. By the time I realized I’d been had, I was in too deep. I still remember those pics. Those kids still feel real to me. Fucked me up good.”
I swallowed what was left of my drink and slapped my glass on the bar. A story like that required a good belt. Hard to believe I used to pull that con myself. Some cruel-ass shit.
Right in front of us, a couple sat pressed together on a sofa, lips mashing, hands exploring. Helluva place for a conversation like this. To the rest of the Maze’s clientele, Deluski and I probably looked like a good match. Like we’d just had a moment.
Over in the corner, I caught the offworlder watching me. I shot him a nasty stare. Asshole. Offworlders were all assholes.
Deluski’s story was common enough. Decent kid catching some bad breaks. Ground up like so many others in the mill of corruption that was KOP.
“Wu screwed you,” I said. I wanted to see what he’d do if I gave him an easy out. “Everything that’s happened since wasn’t your fault. You had no choice.”
“Wu was a grade-A prick, no doubt about it. I’m not sorry he’s gone. But…” He shook his head. “But I had choices every step of the way. Some of the things I’ve done…” His voice trailed into dust.
The kid was the real deal. Man enough to put the blame right where it belonged.
We stood in silence for a while, lost in thought. My arm itched. I poked at the bandages through my sleeve, dug my fingernails into the fabric to get a little relief.
He broke the silence, barely, his voice hardly a whisper over the bar’s din. “I’m going to burn in hell.”
“Tell you what. When you get there, you ask for me and I’ll show you around.”
He chuckled and patted my shoulder. “Thanks, boss. Now tell me, what are you after in all this?”
I gave him the only answer I had. “I don’t know.”
He threw a nonchalant wave of his hand. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”
I seized on the statement. “What makes you so certain?”
He thought before answering. “Listen, I was Wu’s man for a time, and later Ian’s until you killed him and took us as your own. That’s three bosses I’ve had, and all three of you were power-hungry bastards, but you were the only one who understood that power comes with responsibility.”
I arched a doubtful eyebrow.
“You ran KOP. You and Chief Chang. You two were dirty as hell, everybody knows that, but you never stopped running a police department.”
“You give us too much credit.”
He shrugged off my comment. “All I know is the city ran a lot better when you were in charge.”
“Quit blowing smoke up my ass. You can be honest with me.” A fly buzzed by my face. I took a swipe at it but came up short. Damn missing hand.
“I was being honest.”
Time we quit pussyfooting. Time to put it out there. “You telling me you wouldn’t stab me in the back if you had the chance?”
His jaw held firm, his eyes tightening in the corners. “You referring to the vid?”
Of course I was. Killer KOPs. “Wouldn’t you cut my throat for a chance to destroy it?”
The corners of his mouth lifted, a sly smile forming. “Absolutely.”
I reflected a wily grin back at him. Kid had some balls. Definite number-two material.
“Screw this place,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”
We beelined our way out the back exit, down some stairs and up a short alley to the street. The Maze’s front entrance stood just a couple meters away. Misting rain drifted down from the starless sky, and caught in the glow of passing headlights, formed temporary galaxies of twinkling light.
I sucked deep on O-free air. “Let’s hit some more gay bars. We need to find a connection between Froelich and Samusaka besides their taste in tattoos. Call Kripsen and Lumbela. See if they can ditch riot duty. We could use two more bodies.”
“Can’t call them. You know the regs. Police radio only.”
“Call them anyway. They’ll answer for us.”
“KOP disables their personal phones during riot duty.”
“Since when?”
“Since a few riot cops got calls from their families and abandoned their posts to protect their homes. Duty first. Want me to call Dispatch, see if I can get a message to them?”
“Yeah. Have them call us first chance they get.”
He placed the call, and a hazy KOP holo-logo appeared in the mist. For an investigation like this, the person I really needed was Maggie. Kripsen and Lumbela were piss-poor substitutes.
A woman came out of the Maze, an offworld woman, full lips, man-eater eyes, her hair a fountain of brown ringlets that splashed over her shoulders in a rippling cascade. She stood under the sign, cobalt-blue neon bathing her fair skin. She looked up into the mist, a blue halo forming around her face. I hadn’t seen her inside. Must’ve been on the dance floor.
I paid no attention to what Deluski was saying to Dispatch. My eyes were riveted. There was something familiar about this woman.
She came my way, tight pants, loose shirt, her eyes meeting mine. She winked like she knew me.
And I knew her. But from where?
She stepped past me, her dewy hair sparkling in the beam of a streetlight.
It hit me. The hair. That same abundant flood of curls streaming across Mota’s pillow. I hadn’t realized she was an offworlder at the time. Too dark. How she knew me I didn’t know. She was totally asleep, her mouth hanging wide open when I had her and Mota in my sights.
Deluski hung up, the KOP logo blinking out of existence. “That didn’t sound right.”
“What?” I asked absently, my mind weighing what was the better move. Confront her or follow her?
“According to Eddie at Dispatch, Kripsen and Lumbela just got pulled off the riot. They were sent to the Cellars.”
She crossed the street. I started walking.
Deluski followed. “Did you hear me? They were sent to the Cellars.”
She turned left at the end of the block. I hastened my pace.
“Boss?”
I crossed the street and ran up to the corner. I peeked around just in time to see her get into a cab. Shit.
“Who is she?” asked Deluski.
I waved my one and a half arms in an effort to hail a ride. No fucking cabs. I looked to my left and already her taxi was lost in a s
warm of taillights. I dropped my arms. Fuck.
“Who is she?” repeated Deluski.
“Mota’s girlfriend.”
“Seriously? I thought he was gay. You think she turned him straight?”
I rubbed my jaw. I couldn’t pin Mota down. The bastard kept finding new ways to surprise me. Screwing one of my boys. Siccing a pair of Yepala cops on me. And now an offworld squeeze.
“Did you hear what I said about Kripsen and Lumbela?”
A fly plunked me in the forehead. Damn things were pissing me off.
“Boss?”
“Yes, dammit. I heard you. They got routed to the Cellars.”
“Does that sound right to you? Who gives a shit about the Cellars? Nobody lives in there. No businesses either.”
“Did Dispatch give a reason?”
“Eddie said vandals were spotted in the area.”
“Nothing strange about that. They get a call from a citizen, they have to send somebody.”
“Not when there’s a riot going.”
Again, a fly kamikazeed me. Dammit! I swatted at the little shit, once, twice. A cab pulled over. “Fucking move on!” I shouted at the driver.
The driver leaned her head out the window. “Why did you wave me down?”
“I was swatting at a fly.”
She called me an asshole and pulled away. Unbelievable.
“Maybe the riot is over,” I said.
“That’s just it. Eddie said Villa Nueva’s still dark. The riot’s in full swing. It’s a bad one too.”
Deluski had a point. Why peel a pair of officers off a riot when you could send somebody else?
“Think it’s a setup?”
Dread sprouted in my gut. I could feel Mota’s hand behind this. I could feel it, his fingers itching at my spine.
fifteen
OUR taxi dropped us at the edge of the darkness. The driver refused to go any farther. Said she couldn’t take chances like that.
I took off my shades, stuffed them in a pocket. “You ready?”
Deluski pulled his piece. “Let’s do it.”
I drew my weapon, and we ran into the blackout, Deluski in the lead. He had the flashlight we’d bought off the driver. I’d go without. My hand was already full.
I couldn’t lose Kripsen and Lumbela. I’d already lost two men. No more.
No fucking more.
The Cellars were ten, maybe twelve blocks away. The street was empty. Deserted. I stayed close on Deluski’s tail for the first block, but my lungs were far from equal to his. “Slow down,” I wheezed at his back. He complied, dropping his speed from young buck to old fuck.
I kept my eyes aimed at the ground and followed the bobbing beam of his flashlight, getting in the rhythm when he stopped short. I smacked into him, my face bouncing off his shoulder, the taste of blood in my mouth.
“Sorry.” He swept the flashlight beam left and right. “Don’t we have to turn here?”
We stood in the center of an intersection. He three-sixtied the beam, hitting all four corners: shoe store, fruit stand, rubble from a collapsed building, another fruit stand. I knew where I was. I’d been here a few nights ago, on my way to the Punta de Rio, the restaurant where I’d met Maggie. “Ahead another block, then left to the river.”
“Got it.” He was off.
I hustled to catch up, then settled back into the pace. Misting rain didn’t keep me cool, and sweat broke on my forehead, in my pits. We made the turn, our footfalls echoing in the silence like ticks of an old clock on a sleepless night.
Block after block, we approached the river, the nicer parts of Villa Nueva falling away behind us, brick and asphalt giving way to clumps of weeds and brush, the air heavy with the smell of wet mulch. This patch of urban jungle was once a bustling port, a buzzing, booming link of the supply chain from the long-gone brandy era.
Deluski’s flashlight flitted over the signs of neglect: glue jars huffed clean; used rubbers tossed from car windows; bottles and cans; cig butts and O pipes. We hurdled vines, dodged shrubs, stomped through knee-high grass, coming ever nearer to the Cellars.
Deluski slowed. He swept the flashlight beam across an angled plane of greenery. Starting from ground level, the plane sloped upward, rusted metal showing through in places. This was the roof, one side of a massive A-frame that sheltered a man-made inlet big enough to hold a barge.
We ran alongside, seeking a usable entrance. Deluski stopped to aim the flashlight at a pair of doors lying flush with the ground, his beam settling on a locked chain running through the door handles, the links knotted with roots and vines. This place was condemned a decade ago. A deathtrap. Supposed to be sealed up.
We moved on, passing two more properly chained entrances before reaching a pair of doors flapped upward, a bolt cutter lying on the ground. I could see the first steps of a long staircase that I knew tunneled into the earth, down, down, down to the Cellars, a series of cavernous rooms buried beneath the inlet.
We started our descent, my piece clutched tight, too tight, like I was trying to hold on to a slimy fish. A fly buzzed my ear. My stump had to be bleeding again, must’ve bumped it without noticing. No other way to explain why the damn pests had been dogging me since the gay bar.
Already, the air felt cooler. The Cellars were designed to provide a constant temperature year-round, each meter of depth providing further protection against the scorching Lagartan summer. Perfect for brandy’s long-term aging process.
We descended one step at a time, our movements deliberate, careful, nervous, weapons aimed at the black shadows hiding ahead of the flashlight beam. My lungs protested the stale air; legs quivered from overuse; eyes stung with salty sweat.
The bottom was near, a tall, arched doorway emerging from the dark like a tombstone, the last two stairs submerged in floodwater. I stepped down, ankle-deep water filling my shoes, the spaces between my toes. We took the last stair, cold liquid soaking our calves. Deluski swept the beam from side to side. Brandy casks sat on rusted shelves, rows and rows of them bathing in still water. We entered a tunnel of tipped shelves. I had my eyes peeled, my ears dialed in. Shattered casks poked out of the water like shipwrecks.
We sloshed to the row’s end. The water was now above our knees, my already exhausted legs resisting the extra work. Up ahead, Deluski’s beam found a lift, one of many that were once used to lift casks to the surface, where they could be loaded onto a barge docked in the inlet overhead.
We about-faced and started up another row. Casks towered overhead, water dripping from cracks in the ceiling, plinks and plunks echoing all around. I tried to shut out the fear of the ceiling giving way, river water crashing down on our heads in a violent torrent.
Water crept up my thighs, every centimeter a shock to my never-cold Lagartan skin. We stopped at the foot of a metal monster, long arms reaching out, the robotic stock picker frozen with rust and crusty mold.
“This is going to take forever,” I said. “They could be anywhere down here.”
“They might not be down here at all. They could’ve gotten scared off. If we smelled a setup, they could’ve too.”
Deluski’s phone rang. My heart jumped at the sudden ringing. Shit! To free up a hand, he tucked the flashlight under his arm, making everything but a small, rippling circle of light on the water go dark.
“Fucking silence that shit.”
“Sorry. Forgot. Call’s coming from a blocked ID.”
I felt a twinge in my gut. Something was up. “Answer it.”
“It’s a vid.”
“Live feed?”
“Yeah.”
“Turn off the outgoing vid before you answer.”
“Got it. No holo-projection down here. We’ll have to watch it on my screen.”
I dragged my rubbery legs through the water until I stood shoulder to shoulder with him. “Go.”
Dim yellow light jittered across several racked casks of brandy. The camera was as dizzying as the lighting, bouncing, weaving, until finally it
steadied on two men, my men. They were both on their knees, water up to their waists, faces sagging with resignation. A third man stood behind them, panama hat tilted down to keep his face in shadow. A lase-blade fired up, its red glow casting the scene in hellish fire.
No!
Panama took hold of Kripsen’s hair and sliced his throat. Flash-fried blood misted upward among puffs of curling smoke. Kripsen’s eyes rolled up in their sockets, blood streaming, life draining.
Blood pulsed in my temples, my face on fire. FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!
Panama shoved Kripsen forward. A splash of water kicked up at the camera, and the camera jumped. “Fucking watch it,” came a voice with a pissy attitude.
I knew that pretty-boy voice. Mota. With no conscious thought, my arms came to my face and started to knead, the butt of my weapon digging into one cheekbone, the butt of my right arm into the other.
The screen shook in Deluski’s quivering grasp.
Kripsen wasn’t moving. He was doing the dead man’s float.
Bile stewed in my gut. We were too late. Too damned late. Lumbela was about to die, and we were powerless to stop it. The Cellars were too big. They could be anywhere within this network of interconnected underground warehouses. We’d run out of time.
Lumbela’s hair was in Panama’s grip, head tilted back, Adam’s apple bulging, eyes pleading, begging. The blade scorched and charred its way through skin and muscle and windpipe. Panama let go of his hair, and Lumbela briefly splashed under the surface before slowly rising to the top.
Deluski didn’t speak. But I could hear him breathing fast through his nose, the sound raking in and out.
Panama wasn’t done. He turned the floaters over, their blank eyes staring, throat wounds gaping, mouths hanging open and filled with water. Panama pulled Kripsen close and reached a hand toward the wound. Kripsen’s still face went underwater as Panama worked his fingers inside his throat. He pulled his hand out, bringing Kripsen’s tongue with it. He left it like that, red flesh poking from a mouth that wasn’t a mouth. A Lagartan necktie.
I wanted to scream, but they were down here somewhere. Possibly near. Mota and Panama. They were going to pay.
Panama moved in to dress up Lumbela.
KOP Killer Page 13