“I mean she disappeared. She went missing. The police got on it, but they never found her. If you ask me, she was lookin’ at a life of taking care of her half-baked brother all on her own, and she took off. Can’t say I blame her.”
“Can you think of anybody else Kapasi may have associated with?”
“No, that’s it.”
I hung up after getting the brother’s name, Sanje Kapasi. I already had the address.
Maggie arrived with coffee. She was dressed smartly, loose-fitting blouse over color-coordinated ironed pants. Her clothes were too good for a cop, but not fancy enough to betray how rich she was. “Good morning, Juno,” she said with a casual smile, her hair still damp from a morning shower. She was pretty, there was no denying it. I had to remind myself of how easy it was to look that good with her kind of money. To her, getting nipped, tucked, lifted, and lipoed was as easy as getting a haircut.
“Morning, Maggie. Thanks for the coffee.” I took the coffee with my left and took a sip—too hot. I wanted to take off the lid and get it to cool faster, but there was no way to do it without spilling. I’d just have to wait a while.
We chartered a boat to take us to Loja, two hours upriver. The river was the fastest way. There were no good roads to Loja; the damn things would get overrun by jungle so fast that the government couldn’t keep them clear.
Loja was founded at the junction of the Koba and Vistuba Rivers. It was only a fraction of the size of Koba; still, it was the second largest city on Lagarto. In its glory days, it was a bustling port, but now it was just a hollowed-out husk of a city. The smart people migrated downriver by the boatload and left that second-rate town to rot.
The Army would be interrogating Jhuko Kapasi by now. No way we’d get to see him, but with any luck we’d be able to get something out of the brother, find out what kind of rackets he was into. Jimmy Bushong’s story repeated in my mind. Jhuko Kapasi: hustler ex-con, running games in the Army and selling O to his lieutenant. One night he took six POWs out in the jungle and came back without them. His lieutenant was so incensed that he sent the whole unit into combat with sabotaged weapons. And now that lieutenant was dead, lipless.
And somehow the mayor was involved. Paul’s instincts were rarely wrong. My hands clutched. I felt juiced, back in the game. Paul needed me to connect this to the mayor. One way or another, I’d do it. Who the fuck does the mayor think he is, making a play for KOP? That’s Paul’s turf.
Maggie and I sat on mildewed cushions and rode slowly away from the dock. Buoys bobbed on either side, guiding the way. Once in deeper water, the driver opened up the throttle and turned into the current. The sun rose but was quickly overtaken by thick clouds from the east. The city gradually faded behind us, and we were alone on the river, leaving a wake of black-green water rolling into the reeds and mangroves of the riverbank.
I sprayed on a thick coat of bug spray and relaxed into the cushions, settled in for the ride.
“Juno, can I ask you something?” I could barely hear Maggie’s voice over the motor’s roar.
“Yeah.”
“Are you dirty?”
I hesitated—damn it. Then I looked at her expectant eyes: second mistake. “Yeah, I’m dirty.”
She looked disappointed.
“We all are, Maggie. You will be, too.”
Deafening rain pounded onto the rusted tin roof of the boat as we pulled up to the Loja wharf. We hurried through the stinging downpour, past the rusted-out robotics and ducked into a café. A good time to have breakfast and wait out the showers. We ordered a flatbread with honey drizzled on. It’d be easy to eat with my left.
Maggie said, “You’re wrong.”
“About what, Maggie?”
“Me becoming dirty.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“I didn’t get into police work for the money.”
“Then why did you?”
“I want to help people.”
“Help people? You should be a teacher.”
“I don’t like kids.”
I smiled at that. “I don’t like them either.” I looked out the window. “Looks like the rain is slowing down.”
Maggie wouldn’t drop the subject. “Just because KOP is corrupt doesn’t mean it has to stay corrupt.”
“Give me a break, Maggie. KOP will always be corrupt.”
“How can you say that?”
“Until the city starts paying us more than the pimps and pushers, it will always be corrupt. It’s the natural order.”
“That’s not true. The city can stop hiring people like you and start hiring cops who care more about serving the people than lining their pockets with a little cash.”
“Now you sound like Mayor Samir.”
“At least he’s trying to do something…clean things up.”
“You think the mayor’s clean?”
“Of course.”
“Trust me, there’s no such thing as a clean politician.”
“How can you say that?”
I just shook my head. She’ll learn.
She wouldn’t let it drop. “Hey, I know the government isn’t perfect, but they try to do the best for the people.”
“If they wanted to do the best for the people, they wouldn’t have sold off the Orbital and the spaceport to a bunch of offworld corporations. They sold out Lagarto for their own profit. This planet would be sitting pretty by now if we were running the mining operations.”
“That happened a long time ago, and they had no choice. They needed to get the government out of debt.”
“They had a choice, and they chose their own interests over ours.”
We sat silently for a few moments, then she said, “All I know is I’ve met the mayor a few times. He seemed genuine to me.”
“Friend of your parents?”
“Acquaintances. My mother supported his campaign.”
Figures. She couldn’t find out we were hunting the mayor. She was liable to run to her mother. “What about your father? Doesn’t he support the mayor, too?”
“My father’s dead. Murdered during a mugging. They executed the son of a bitch that did it.”
I creaked out an apology as I began to understand why the rich girl had gone into police work.
“It was a few years ago,” she said. “I was just a teenager.”
“Do you miss him?”
Maggie’s raised eyebrows voiced a silent, “What do you think?”
“Sorry. Stupid question,” I said with the sad realization that to me the answer to that question wasn’t at all obvious.
Maggie said, “I especially missed him last night. My mother can’t stand it that I’m a cop. I made the mistake of calling her last night to tell her that I got my first case. You should’ve heard the way she laid into me. It’s that kind of crap that made me move out before I could find a proper place. I figured living in a hotel was better than listening to her every night. If my father was still around, he’d be able to settle her down some. He was good at keeping her off my back. He wouldn’t be happy with me being a cop either, but he’d respect my decision.”
“Why does being a cop make your mother so upset?”
The bread arrived, steaming and golden brown. Maggie broke it down the middle, careful not to burn herself. “She wants me to work for my brother in the family business.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“Yeah, but she wants my brother to be in charge of everything. I’m just supposed to do all the grunt work while he gets to make all the decisions.”
“Because he’s a man?”
“That, and he’s older. Listen, I love my brother, but I’m not willing to take the backseat.”
“Do you think you would do a better job than he would?”
“I doubt it.” Maggie pushed a piece of bread through a puddle of honey at the plate’s edge. “You used to be partners with Chief Chang?”
“Twenty-five years ago.”
“Is he dirty, too?”
/>
“Whoa, you’re getting into dangerous territory now.”
“So he is dirty.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“No, but you didn’t deny it. Are the rumors true about Chief Chang and the Bandurs?” Maggie looked at me with her blue, blue eyes.
“You’ve got no sense asking me a question like that. If he was dirty, how do you think he’d react if he found out you’re checking up on him? Trust me, Maggie; you don’t want to go down that road.”
“If I’m going to work with you, I think I should know who you are, where your loyalties lie. How else can I depend on you?”
“As far as this case goes, my only priority is to catch Lieutenant Vlotsky’s killer. Nothing else matters.”
“I’m not sure that’s good enough for me.”
“It’ll have to be.”
We asked the waitress for directions to Jhuko Kapasi’s neighborhood—close enough to walk, which was good since cabs were hard to come by in Loja.
It was still misting when we left. It felt cool on my face. Water flooded the intersections. An occasional car splashed through with a salamander’s tooth of clearance over the high water. Shopkeepers swept brown water off the walks with wide brooms. When the sun broke through, steam rose off the asphalt, and sweat ran down from under my arms.
We found Kapasi’s house. A falling-apart pigsty set behind a trashed-up yard. We climbed the caved-in steps to the door and tried knocking—no answer. I went in with Maggie right behind me. A blast of cage-rattling hisses and snaps scared the shit out of me. Maggie jumped and let out the smallest scream. I could feel my heart pounding in my ears. Caged lizards were stacked to the ceiling on every side. Some sat on their haunches clicking and spitting; others puffed out throat pouches and bobbed from side to side; still others watched indifferently as we tried to recapture our composure. Since Jhuko had been gone, and his sister disappeared, Sanje Kapasi must’ve decided to move his lizards up from the basement.
“Who the f-fuck are y-you?” Sanje Kapasi, Jhuko’s brother and ’guana keeper, appeared from behind a pen. He wore an unevenly buttoned shirt and falling-down pants. His oil-slick hair poked out on the sides, and his mouth hung perpetually open, revealing half a mouthful of brown-to-black teeth.
I said, “We’re the police, Sanje. We want to talk to you. We’re sorry we scared your lizards.”
“Th-that’s okay. I’m Sanje.”
“I’m Juno, and this is Maggie.”
“Hi, J-Juno and Maggie. I’m Sanje.”
I scanned the surroundings—no chairs. “Is there a place we can talk?”
“Yes, this is a good place to talk.”
“I was wondering if you had a place that is quieter. I’m not sure I’ll be able to hear what you have to say.”
“Okay, quieter, quieter.” He tottered down the hall, head bowed, arms held stiff at his sides. We followed him. The stench was incredible. Lizards crawled loose on the walls and ceiling. Dried excrement crunched under our feet. We entered the kitchen. A monitor, the heavyweight of fighting lizards, was chained to the stove. It was straining for a piece of maggot-covered meat on the floor. Its teeth were metal implants that snapped like a spring-loaded trap. In some places, its skin clung taut over rippled musculature. In others, it bunched into loose folds like a sheet on a used bed. A clumsy Sanje Kapasi almost tipped himself over kicking the meat into the dragon’s reach, where it was snatched up and swallowed whole.
I stayed a safe distance from the monitor. Maggie stayed safer by standing behind me.
“Thank you, Sanje. It is much quieter in here. Now we can talk.” Again no chairs. We’d have to interview him standing.
“Y-you’re welcome, Juno and Maggie.”
The kitchen was a lizard free-for-all. Scope the iguana bathing in the sink. Check out the tuatara sunning in the light fixture. I kicked a gecko off my shoe, sent it tumbling into the wall.
I refocused on the metal-mouthed monitor. There were burn marks on its sides, some healed over, some fresh. The floor was lined with hundreds of scorches. I asked Sanje what they were from.
“Oh, they’re funny. Here, watch, watch.” He grabbed a broomstick and poked at the monster, tapping its sensitive nose. The monitor’s claws extended in anger, two centimeter lasers burning black lines into the wood as it scrabbled to defend itself. “W-when he sleeps, sometimes he dreams and his claws come out, a-and he burns himself. It’s funny.”
I said, “We want to ask you some questions about your brother, Jhuko. Will that be okay?”
“Jhuko’s not mad at me anymore.”
“Was he here?”
“Yes, b-but the Army man came, and he took him away.”
“When did the Army man come?”
“Last night.”
“What about the night before last night? Was your brother here then?”
“No.”
“Where was he?”
“I don’t know. He w-went out.”
“All night?”
“All night. Yes.”
I added opportunity to our already established motive. “You said your brother wasn’t mad at you anymore. Why was he mad?”
“Because he told me he wasn’t.”
“I know, but why was he mad at you before?”
“That’s a secret.”
“It’s okay, Sanje. We’re police officers. It’s okay to tell secrets to the police.”
He balled his hands into fists. “N-NO! Y-you’re wrong. B-brothers d-d-don’t tell secrets.”
Maggie took over, talking like a mother to a baby. “It’s okay, Sanje. You’re right, brothers don’t tell secrets. Can you tell me about your lizards?”
“Th-they’re my pets.”
She soothed with her voice. “What do you do with your pets?”
Sanje was already fully calmed. This guy has a quick switch—happy to furious and back in thirty seconds.
“I breed them and train them,” he said, beaming a rotten-toothed smile.
Maggie kept up the questions. “What do you train them for?”
“I sell some of them, but I keep the best ones.”
“What do people do with the ones you sell?”
“I keep the best ones.”
Maggie took a deep breath. “Tell me about your sister.”
“Isabel.”
“Yes, Isabel. What happened to her?”
“She went away.”
“Did she say where she was going?”
“No. Sh-she just went away.”
“What about your brother. Can you tell us about him?”
“He’s not mad at me anymore.”
“Why was he mad?”
“That’s a secret.”
Maggie gave me a frustrated look.
This was going nowhere. It was time to get things moving. “Listen to me, Sanje. We know you raise lizards for fighting. You know ’guana fighting is illegal, so we’re going to take your lizards away.”
“N-No. Y-you can’t d-do that!”
“We can, and we will.”
He pulled at his greasy hair. “NO!”
“We’ll take all of them away from you. We’ll make sure you can’t get any more.”
“No, no, no.” Sanje started rocking from foot to foot and beating his head.
I talked as I pulled my piece. “We’ll have to kill them, of course.” I aimed at the monitor’s head, trying to keep my wobbling hand steady.
Sanje rushed me.
I sidestepped and shoved him in the back as he passed, using his own momentum to send him crashing into the wall head first.
He fell to the floor with a rough thud. Sound erupted from under the floorboards, the growls and snaps of an unknown number of monsters like the one in my weapon’s sights. Sanje Kapasi pulled his hands away from his head. They came away bloody. Scalp wounds were always the best bleeders.
“Ow!…Ow!” he sniveled.
“That’s right, Sanje. We’re going to kill your pets, and there is nothi
ng you can do to stop us.”
“N-no, y-you can’t do that.”
“I’m starting with this one.” I made another show of aiming at the surgically enhanced monster, ready to fry it with one sustained burn. It had to be at least twice the size of any monitor I’d ever seen.
“No, don’t kill him! DON’T!” He started to cry. Tears ran from his eyes and snot poured from his nose.
“I’m gonna start with this one, but I’m going to kill them all, Sanje.” The monitor stared at me coldly unaware, testing the air with its tongue.
“Stop, Juno!” About fucking time Maggie stepped in, good cop to my bad.
“No. I’m going to kill this one right now!”
“No. Why can’t we tell Sanje to stop fighting ’guanas? He’ll stop if we tell him to. We don’t have to kill them.”
“Y-yes, I’ll stob,” he sobbed through clogged nasal passages.
I lowered my piece. “How can we trust him? He won’t even answer our questions.”
Maggie leaned in close, put her hand on his shoulder. “He’s right, Sanje. How can we trust you?”
“I b-bromise I won’t fight them.”
“Will you answer our questions?”
“Y-yes.”
I looked at Maggie, at the expression on her face. She was enjoying this. I put the lase-pistol back in my belt and tossed Sanje a musty towel, telling him to blow his nose and wipe the blood off. He wound up just smearing it all over.
Maggie baby-talked. “We want to know about your brother.”
“H-he’s not mad at me anymore.”
“Why was he mad at you?”
“I-I was s-stubid. He t-told me I was stubid.”
“What did you do that was stupid?”
“I didn’t give Vishnu the bill.”
“Who’s Vishnu?”
He pointed to the reprieved reptile.
“What kind of pill?”
“A w-white bill.”
“What does the pill do?”
“Makes him bleed and bleed.”
“I don’t understand. What do you mean it makes him keep bleeding?”
“When he gets cut, it makes him bleed and bleed and bleed.”
“An anticoagulant?”
Sanje just looked at her, his mouth hanging open.
Maggie asked, “Why did Jhuko want you to give the pill to Vishnu?”
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