Abdul finished cleaning out the maggots and started applying gel to the body wounds.
I leaned in close; the blood stench just about knocked me over. “Stab wounds.”
The old coroner stopped and wiped his face off with a rag. The top of his bald head was still speckled with perspiration. Some drops broke loose and ran down his face, reminding me of a windshield the second after the wipers sweep it dry. “I count fourteen to the torso. Three slash wounds to the throat. Killer grabbed him from behind, dragged the blade across the throat right, left, right. Nobody would have heard a thing.”
“Makes the killer right-handed?”
“That’s right, blade in the right hand…pull to the right, push left, then pull right again. Like a saw. Here’s the first incision. Notice how the skin is torn here, not sliced. The blade was dull.” He pulled the edges of the wound open. “See the windpipe, there? Barely scratched on the first swipe. The second and third slices cut deeper. It was a long blade, maybe thirty centimeters. Our vic must’ve been dead inside a minute or two. Then the killer stabbed him repeatedly and cut up his face.”
Maggie Orzo asked, “Can you determine what kind of knife was used?”
“I can’t tell you for sure, but when I get him to the morgue, I’ll be able to measure the wounds precisely and compare them against every kind of knife I can find. There are no burns, so he didn’t use a lase-blade. My guess is a plain ol’ butcher knife.”
Josephs returned with a bowl of soup from the stand down the street. We all turned to look at him. He was up to something. It was way too hot for soup.
Kim looked stupid-suspicious. “What you got there?”
“Menudo.”
Oh shit. Here we go.
Josephs stood over the body and started to dig in, sweat dripping off his nose into the bowl. Maggie the rook seemed wobbly.
Josephs carried on, acting superfriendly. “Where are my manners? Anybody want some? You have to like tripe. Some people don’t like it. It’s stomach, you know. I love it. Let me see if I can find some.” He fished with his spoon. “Ah, there’s a big chunk. Anybody want it? No? Okay, suit yourselves.” He slurped it in then talked with his mouth full. “Mm, not the best tripe I’ve ever had. A little on the chewy side. You have to prepare it just right.”
That did it. She took off, hurrying for the door to the Lotus. She didn’t make it far before she bent over and groaned up her breakfast.
Yuan Kim was livid—just lost five thou, and that wasn’t even the worst of it. Mark Josephs was not the type to let you forget it. Josephs laid a shit-eating grin on Kim…only the beginning.
Maggie Orzo finished barfing and wiped her chin. She looked back at us. I tried to quit smiling, too late. Her sky eyes burned into me. She headed into the Lotus to find a bathroom.
I didn’t know what the hell Paul was thinking teaming me up with her. I didn’t care who the rich girl’s parents were. I wanted her out.
three
I SCOPED the area. The blood trail started by the door with just a few drops. I thought it through: The killer must’ve hidden behind the cooling unit and waited for Lieutenant Dmitri Vlotsky to come out of the Lotus. Then he snatched him from behind and sliced his throat straightaway. There wasn’t much blood at the door—too easy for somebody to spot. The perp dragged Vlotsky down the alley, quick, before he was seen. Then he stuck him fourteen times and cut his lips off. Next, he took Vlotsky’s money and split.
It didn’t play as a robbery. Muggers killed out of necessity. They usually didn’t use knives, and when they did, they used lase-blades, not butcher knives. It wasn’t that lase-blades cut that much better—a sharp knife could kill you just as well—but lase-blades were so much more intimidating. Imagine your vic was watching you swing the tight beam of a lase-blade through the air. He’d hear the crackle of humidity flash-frying as it came in contact with the blade. Flies attracted to the light would pop off the blade’s edge like black popcorn. Your vic would be feeling mighty compliant by now. There was no way a mugger was going to use a regular old knife. The vic might’ve started thinking he had a chance if he fought back. Definitely not a robbery. Besides, muggers didn’t take their victim’s lips with them. What would a pair of lips bring on the black market anyway?
Conclusion: Our killer was either a hit man trying to throw us off course with the mutilations or a genuine psycho…or both.
Maggie Orzo came back out to the alley wearing a clean shirt. She looked less sick but no less steamed. She was working up to saying something.
I cut her off before she could give me some shit about how I needed to respect her as a cop. I didn’t want to hear it. “We have to canvass the area. You ready?”
She answered with an off-guard, “Yeah, I guess so.”
A welcome gust of cool greeted us upon entering the Lotus. Rose had dry shirts at the ready—classy place. I dipped behind a screen, stripped my shirt off, and dropped it into a hamper. I washed my face in a basin of fragrant water that had flower petals floating on top. I toweled and made a rare check in the mirror. My hair was low-tide receding and frothing white at the edges. My slightly darker than average skin and barely kinked hair were the last remnants of my diluted African blood. I looked more Latin than African. Most everybody on Lagarto looked Latin, though many had a little Asian or a little European mixed in. We were all mutts of one sort or another.
I slipped one of Rose’s white short-sleeves over the sturdy shoulders I’d inherited from my wife-beating coward of a father. I labored over the buttons with one hand—fucking ridiculous. Niki had taken all of my own shirts to my tailor and had the buttons replaced with snaps.
A houseboy grabbed the hamper when I came out from behind the screen. From experience, I knew he’d have my shirt laundered and ready for pickup in thirty minutes.
Rose wore a wrinkled sarong, and her lipstick was uneven. I’d never seen her look so scattered. She was usually done up nice, if a bit overdone. “Oh, Juno. I am so glad to see you.”
“Hi, Rose. You’ve met Detective Orzo?”
“Yes, of course. You’re looking much better, dear. Would you like some tea?”
“Yes, we’d like that,” I answered.
Another houseboy bolted off.
She led us into her staging area, where she would serve her clients tea and sweets. The room was decked out in rugs and antiques. The Lotus was only for the refined palate. The air in the room choked with the smell of soaked-in perfume. My new partner and I sat on wooden chairs with embroidered cushions, the johns’ seats. We were sitting opposite a floor-to-ceiling two-way mirror looking into the empty showroom. Its chairs, sofas, and game tables all faced this way.
Rose flopped into her seat with an uncharacteristic lack of grace. “Are you going to handle this, Juno?”
“Yes, I am.” I didn’t say, “Yes we are.” This was a one-man show, and the sooner Maggie Orzo realized that the better.
“Thank god! I did not like those other two officers one bit. They came in here like they owned the place and started asking questions of the help. The help. I especially don’t like that young one with the glasses, not at all.” She directed herself to my new partner and said, “Now you stay away from him, dear—nice girl like you. He told me to hand over my books! Who does he think he is?”
I soothed with my voice. “It’s okay, Rose. I took over the case. They left a few minutes ago.”
“Oh, that is such a relief. Those two, they have no business sense. You know what I mean? They’re not like you, Juno. You always know how to handle things—isn’t that right?” She was scared to death that word would get around that one of her customers was murdered right outside her door—bad for business.
I said, “I’ll get Jessie to take care of it. We have an arrangement. She’ll know how to play it.”
Jessie Khalil was the top reporter for Lagarto Libre. The Libre was the only media company on Lagarto. It ran the newspaper and the vid station. They had a fifteen-minute news program that
aired four times a day; it was their only show. They filled in the rest of the day with decade-old offworld programming. Jessie could handle the story and leave the Lotus out of it. She’d bend stories in my favor. In exchange, I’d pass her juicy tidbits on offworlders—drug possession, sex with prostitutes—the usual shit. The public would eat it up. It brought the high and mighty down to our level.
Rose let out a sigh of relief. “Thanks, Juno. I was really worried, but as soon as I saw you come through the door I thought, ‘It’ll be all right, Rose. Juno is going to take care of you. He always knows what’s best.’” To Maggie she said, “You can learn a lot from him, dear.”
Maggie Orzo was confused, not sure what just went down. “I’m sure I will.”
The houseboy arrived with tea. He served us Arab style. He poured the tea from a metal teapot into glasses instead of cups.
“Can you tell me anything about the victim, Rose?” I asked.
“Sure, Juno. Anything for you. I wasn’t going to tell those other two a damn thing; I simply don’t trust them. Your victim is named Dmitri Vlotsky. He was a nice boy. I don’t understand why somebody would do such a thing. Just horrible.”
I kept my right hand in my lap and drank with the left. That was strong tea, mint with lots of sugar. “He a regular?”
“Not so regular recently. He was in the Army, you know. But he came by whenever he was on leave.”
“How long has he been coming here?”
Rose set her tea down. The glass was full. She hadn’t touched it. “He first came when he was still in school. He couldn’t have been more than fifteen or sixteen years old. His father brought him in. Peter had been a loyal customer for years. He told me his boy Dmitri was dating a girl, and Peter had asked him if they were using condoms. Peter had high hopes for his son. You know how it is. He didn’t want Dmitri to knock this girl up. Based on the way Peter talked about her, I got the feeling that both he and the missus weren’t too impressed with her.
“Dmitri told his dad they weren’t having sex yet. Now, Peter figured she was a prude and said so, but Dmitri told him no, that she’d been with other guys. So Peter asked why she didn’t want to be with him, and Dmitri said she did want to be with him, but he kept putting her off. He told his father he’d never been with a girl before, and he was afraid he wouldn’t measure up to her exes. So then Peter asked him if she knew he was a virgin, and Dmitri said he’d lied to her, told her he’d been with lots of girls. He wanted her to think he was some kind of stud.
“Peter didn’t want his son to look like a novice, so he brought Dmitri down to Rose for some lessons. You should have seen Dmitri then…he was terrified, poor kid. His dad brought him in, introduced us, and left. I told him to pick a girl out. He went up to the window, and his eyes went straight for Lucy. She was lounging on that love seat, the pink one. You remember Lucy, Juno?”
“No.”
“No? Come on, Juno, gorgeous eyes, nice figure? Anyway, I asked him who he wanted, knowing all along he wanted Lucy. He wouldn’t answer; he was so scared. I sent Lucy up to one of the rooms, told her to be gentle, then sent the kid up. Peter brought him back three days straight. After a couple years, Dmitri started coming back on his own.”
“Was he alone last night?”
A lock of Rose’s hair fell onto her shoulder. She tucked it back into her disorganized mop. “Yes. He said his unit was on leave for a week and this was his second night back. He spent the first night with family. He told me all about how his father was doing. How he bought a car and a new house, as if I didn’t already know. Peter was just in here last week. Peter had told him he’d stopped coming here when he married Dmitri’s mother. He didn’t want to ruin the kid’s picture of a happy home. It’s a good thing Dmitri went into the Army and wasn’t around so much. I was worried that someday they would bump into each other in the hallway. Can you imagine that? Father and son. What a scene that would be.”
“What time did he leave?”
“Dmitri went for the works. He’d been out in the jungle for eight months. He must have left just after midnight.”
“Did your staff see anything strange?”
“I’ve talked to all of them. Nobody saw anything.”
“Who did you set Dmitri up with?”
“Kimi. Mohamed, go get Kimi.” Houseboy Mohamed took off on a run. Rose continued, “Dmitri was into the mature types like Lucy when he was a boy; now he likes them young. You know how men are.”
“Rose, I know you won’t like this, but I need a list of your johns from last night. I have to find out if any of them saw anything. I’ll be discreet.”
“I know you will, Juno. I’m not unreasonable. I want you to catch this monster. My girls and I are scared silly. It could have been any one of us out there.”
“Thanks, Rose.”
Kimi came in and sat next to Rose. Without any hooker rouge or hair spray, she looked the schoolgirl. Her skin was honey-brown, a lighter shade than most.
Rose stroked Kimi’s dyed-blonde hair. “Now, these officers are going to ask you some questions. Just tell them the truth, sweetie.”
Kimi nodded.
“You were with Dmitri last night?”
“Yes.”
“Was he acting strange?”
“No.”
“Afraid?”
“No.”
“Anything out of the ordinary?”
“No.”
“Did he talk to you?”
“A little.”
“What did he say?”
“He just talked about being glad to be back in Koba. He is a…was a captain in the Army.”
“He told you he was a captain?”
“Yeah. He’s been fighting the revolutionaries, and he told me how hard it is out there in the jungle, never knowing when the enemy is going to jump out at you. He killed thirty-three men on this tour alone.”
Lieutenant Dmitri Vlotsky was a big-time liar.
I took another sip of tea. “You were impressed?”
“Yeah, sure. I mean, with a guy like that I don’t really mind doing…you know…what I do.”
“Why’s that?”
“I don’t know. I guess it makes me feel…sort of…patriotic. You know, like I am, in my own way, helping them fight the war. You know, keeping Lagarto unified.”
“Did he talk about anything else?”
“No, just that he had a good time.”
“I’m sure he did. Can we look at the room, Rose?”
“Of course. Mohamed, show them the way, will you?”
Mohamed left us alone in Kimi’s room. The bed was in the center, encircled by candles on pedestals. Wax-drip stalagmites grew up from the floor beneath. Sunlight poured through wide windows that opened onto neighboring rooftops. The walls and ceiling were solid mirror all around. Blinding sunspots reflected around the room.
“What was all that about?” Maggie’s tone was accusatory.
I turned to look at her. She stood with her hands on her hips. Her eyes were squinted almost shut, and her jaw was clenched in defiance.
“All what?” I knew what she meant but asked anyway.
“Who’s Jessie?”
“She’s a friend of my wife’s.”
“What kind of friend? Who is she?”
I thought about it and decided to come clean. I must’ve felt guilty about laughing at her in the alley. “Jessie Khalil.”
“The reporter? You’re going to cover this up?”
“Who said anything about a cover-up? I’ll just get Jessie to make sure the news reports leave the Lotus out of it. They’ll say, ‘Lieutenant Dmitri Vlotsky murdered in an alley on the West Side.’ No mention of the Lotus.”
“Why would you want to protect that woman? It’s disgusting what she does here. Did you see Kimi? She’s just a kid.”
“We’re here for one reason only: to work a homicide. That’s it. Rose is a businesswoman. She wasn’t going to talk to us without getting something for it. It’s a busines
s transaction—nothing more, nothing less.”
“And you think that’s okay? She exploits those girls’ bodies for money.”
“What would you have done?”
“I would have arrested Rose and seized her books to get the list of johns. Then I would have talked to Kimi.”
“You think Kimi would talk to you without Rose’s say-so?”
“Hey, I know she’d be scared, but separate her from that witch, and I think she’d be thankful.”
“You don’t know that. The Lotus is first-rate. Rose takes good care of her girls. They’re all very loyal to her. Not everybody grows up rich like you. These girls have limited options.”
“That’s bullshit, Juno. The fact that they’re poor makes what Rose does to them worse. She takes advantage of their vulnerability.”
“Of course she takes advantage of them. What you don’t understand is that being taken advantage of and eating is better than going hungry with your virginity intact. And what about the vic’s family? You think they want people to know their son frequented whorehouses?” With that I climbed out the window, onto the roof.
Maggie followed, “What are you looking for?”
“I don’t know. The fire escape on the other side goes down to the alley. Our killer could have climbed up here to watch through the window.” I crossed the roof, swimming through the sticky-wet air. Insects dashed over the roof’s sunny spots, eating mold out of cracks and crevices while geckos sat still, clinging to the shaded portions of the walls, too hot to chase potential prey.
My scalp itched sweat; my skin itched mosquito bites. I wandered around, looking for the primo peeping position. This was it. It had a view of four windows and the alley, but more important, the eaves of a neighboring roof hung overhead—perfect for keeping in the night shadows.
I noticed a block of wood plugging a hole in the wall. I pulled the block out, exposing a rumpled magazine cover. Skin mags. I took one out and flipped through the pages—hard-core bondage. The edges were mildewed, and half the pages were spotted with fuzzy mold. When my hand started shaking, I gave the mag to Maggie.
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