The mayor spoke with a politician’s rehearsed tone. “Sorry we can’t talk. We’re on our way out. We’ll be placing our anonymous call in ten minutes, so you won’t want to dillydally.”
I watched the three of them leave, Tipaldi carrying a box brimming with tech equipment—Bandur’s books.
I called out for Paul, knowing there’d be no response. “Paul!” My stomach felt like it had collapsed in on itself. I took deep breaths to keep from vomiting. I crawled on all fours, my arms and legs shaking. I made it to the bar and took a look behind. Matsuo Sasaki and Ben Bandur were lying on the tiled floor, one blackened hole in the back of each head. They’d been done from a kneeling position—execution style.
I grabbed a bar stool and pulled myself up. Music was playing—some kitschy lounge tune.
“Paul! Where are you? Paul?”
I saw him. I went to him, crossing the room on wobbly legs. I said to him, “I’m sorry.” He didn’t answer. He was sitting in an egg-shaped chair that floated over the floor, lase-pistol in his mouth, his brains slagged across the eggshell back of the chair.
I was home, on my sofa, watching the report for what must be the tenth time—Jessie Khalil on the street holding an umbrella, her hair sprinkled with just the perfect amount of rain. Her hair was wet enough to show how she was toughing it out in the elements to bring us the story, yet not so wet that her salon ’do lost shape.
“I am here at the home of Benazir Bandur, son of the deceased Ram Bandur reputed crime boss.”
“His son Benazir…”
“…has denied any involvement in criminal enterprises. A denial that is now proved unequivocally false.”
“It was early this morning that police were given an anonymous call stating that a shooting had occurred on these premises. It is believed that the call came from somebody on the house staff. When police arrived on the scene, they were confronted with a story so shocking that—”
Niki came out of the bedroom. She slept late this morning—pain-pill hangover. “Why didn’t you come to bed?”
I didn’t answer.
I made room for Niki on the couch.
Jessie Khalil reported on. “…Koba’s honored police chief for the past ten years was removed from office by Mayor Samir. Last night, the mayor’s office announced that it was going to file an indictment this morning formally charging Chief Chang with multiple counts of racketeering and conspiracy.”
“As you all know, Mayor Samir has made the elimination of corruption in the Koba Office of Police his highest priority since he was elected. We are prepared to take the first step in that direction by filing charges against former Chief of Police Paul Chang, who we allege is guilty of racketeering, corruption, conspiracy, and participating in a criminal enterprise. Former Chief Chang was relieved of his duties immediately when we secured our key piece of evidence, the testimony of police informant Juno Mozambe. Detective Mozambe and Chief Chang were partners many years ago, and Detective Mozambe is set to testify in court against his former boss.”
Niki’s hand slid over to hold mine.
“In a bizarre twist, those charges will no longer need to be filed. Based on the initial findings of the Koba Office of Police, it appears that former Chief Chang came to the home of Benazir Bandur and killed both him and his associate, Matsuo Sasaki, before turning the weapon on himself.”
Niki’s fingernails dug into my palm.
Jessie Khalil rattled on. “Here’s acting Chief of Police Diego Banks.”
“Our initial findings indicate a murder/suicide. It has come as a total shock to me personally as well as to so many of our finest officers that Chief of Police Paul Chang was conspiring with Benazir Bandur, one of our city’s most despicable criminals. It appears that Chief Chang was enraged upon learning of his impending indictment, and he took out his anger on the criminals who had led him down this path. He came to this residence and murdered both Benazir Bandur and Matsuo Sasaki. Uncertain of his imminent life in prison, he sadly took his own life.”
“The mayor is expected to make a statement later this morning, so be sure to stay with us. We will continue to bring you updates as soon as we have them. This is Jessie Khalil reporting for Lagarto Libre.”
Niki rested her head on my shoulder. I ran my fingers through her hair. I felt her tears on my neck. For me, the tears wouldn’t come. I squeezed a data chip in my hand and thought about the job I had to do.
thirty
NOVEMBER 4, 2787
I SAT on the roof of my house, watching the stars as lizards skittered around, soaking up the night sky with me. I took a hit of brandy straight from the bottle. The alcohol did a pretty good job of numbing me. I’d try to quit tomorrow; maybe I’d feel better.
I raised the bottle to Paul. Sorry, old friend. I should have known. Prosecuting Paul would have been ugly. He’d known too many people who could’ve created problems for Simba and the mayor. The corruption investigation was just a cover. They were planning to murder Paul all the while and sell it to the public as a suicide. They set me up. They used me to give their murder/suicide story credence. I was their tool, the pawn in a scheme to take over KOP and the Bandur organization. It played perfect in the news: Chief Chang had been angry and depressed; he’d just gotten fired; he’d been on his way to jail. The clincher: his old partner was going to squeal on him.
The stars glistened tonight, clear skies and a cool breeze. Tonight was the night. Maggie thought we should all be together. She’d invited Abdul, Niki, and me over to get a chance to see her new place. I’d told her no, not tonight. Tonight, I wanted to get drunk. Tomorrow, I’d be retired for good—just me and Niki from here on out. Nothing to do but sit back and watch the havoc I’d created these past months….
I’d gone to Paul’s house immediately after finding his body. I got a one-hour shoulder soak from Paul’s wife when I broke the news to her. She was worried about their youngest son. “He’s only a teenager; he needs a father.” I stayed with her until her sisters arrived.
Before I left, I had Pei open Paul’s safe. I took the data chip, Paul’s copy of Bandur’s books. It was part of the original deal struck between Paul and Ram Bandur. They had open access to each other’s activities. It was the only way they thought they could trust each other. Nobody knew about the copy besides Paul, Bandur, Sasaki, and me. Now I was the only one left.
I paid out three months’ worth of collection money for a hot computer system. I didn’t want to rent time on the Orbital’s systems because one of their surveillance worms could’ve sniffed out my activity. I bought the system off an old fence I used to collect from. The hump knew I’d lost my badge and jacked up the price on me. He gave me some shit about the shoe being on the other foot.
I spent three days scrolling through records, looking for anything that I could use against Simba, the mayor, or Nguyen. I wanted them all to pay for what they did to Paul…what they did to me.
Three days of brandy-swilling eyestrain passed before a name caught my eye—Manuel Hidalgo: trained engineer with a drug habit and gambling debts over six figures. I checked his background. He was once part of a public relations program instituted by one of the offworld shipping companies to employ Lagartans on their freighters. He flew for seven years before his O habit got out of hand, and he was cut loose.
I tailed Hidalgo for a week. He was turning tricks for five hundred a romp. He was being pimped by one of Bandur’s people who now reported to Koba’s new crime boss—Carlos Simba.
Hidalgo wasn’t seeing any profit from his skin sales. Every peso went toward his gambling debt. According to the books, they were steadily raising his interest rate. After four years of back-alley blow jobs, he’d only reduced the debt by three percent. He’d be so old by the time he paid it off, he’d be gumming cock.
I thought he might be perfect for my plans. I evaluated his abilities: He couldn’t afford to pay for O anymore, but instead of turning to glue huffing he’d kicked the habit—promising. He was overcharging
his tricks and pocketing the difference, hiding the cash in the hollowed-out heels of his pumps—clever. He was taking a big risk by shorting a pimp. It was considered a capital offense—gutsy. One word summation: potential.
Niki, Abdul, Maggie, and I finished off the paella. I poured just half a glass of brandy for myself. I was getting to the point where I could half-glass my way through a bottle in no time. I wasn’t the only one; Abdul was keeping pace. It was taking a two-drink minimum for either of us to forget feeling sorry for ourselves and get conversation turned to the good times we’d had with Paul. Maggie was the willing listener, our excuse to tell the stories one more time. “You ever heard about the time Paul…?” Niki laughed at the right times, as if it were the first time she’d heard any of the stories.
Maggie turned the discussion serious. “I’ve been going through the missing persons files. I came up with seven more likely slaves. That makes thirty-six so far.”
Abdul said, “You have to stop nosing around, Maggie. Somebody’s going to notice.”
“I can’t just do nothing. They’re running slaves and they’re getting away with it. Doesn’t that upset you?”
“Not as much as seeing you get killed.”
“What else am I supposed to do? The mayor has it in for me. Chief Banks won’t let me do any important work. Now he has me doing background checks on academy applicants. And that’s in addition to the traffic violations work he’s got me on. Their strategy to make me quit is becoming abundantly clear. They’re loading me up with so much work that I can’t possibly keep up, and then they’re going to start filing dereliction-of-duty reprimands on me. I can’t stand doing goddamned busywork.”
Maggie ran her hands through the hair behind her ears and talked directly to me. “When are you going to help me take over KOP?”
Niki’s hand moved under the table to my knee and squeezed, signaling a tug of the leash. I was happy to comply. “It can’t be done.”
“Why not?”
“It just can’t.”
Maggie asked Abdul the same question. “Why not?”
Abdul looked at me. “Yeah, Juno. Why not?” The two of them were ganging up, applying the pressure.
My brandy was getting low. I added a dash to my glass. “First of all, you’re a woman. KOP has never even had a woman captain much less a woman chief. Second, you’re not ruthless enough. You have to be vicious. You don’t have it in you.”
“That’s why I need you.”
I couldn’t say, “I’m not vicious anymore.” Not with the scheme I was planning. If went through with it, I’d reach new heights of ruthlessness and viciousness. I couldn’t let myself worry about the moral implications. I was on a mission—destroy the six of them: Mayor Samir, Chief Banks, Carlos Simba, Mai Nguyen, and double-crossers Tip Tipaldi and Yuan Kim. They had to pay for what they did to Paul. They had to pay for using me. They especially had to pay for underestimating me by leaving me alive. There was no time to help Maggie. She’d have to take care of herself.
I said, “If you’re so bored at KOP, I have a job for you.”
Maggie looked skeptical, “What’s that?”
“I need financial workups on Simba, Nguyen, and Chief Banks.”
“What for?”
“I don’t want to say. Can you do it?”
Maggie tried to bargain with me. “You have to agree to help me first.”
“You don’t want me. You said you want to do it clean. You’ve got the wrong guy.”
“I have the right guy. You can be rehabilitated.” She said the last part with a smirk.
Abdul laughed aloud. Niki joined in. Abdul and Niki were right. There was no hope for me. I was a real bastard; that was all there was to it. There was no way I could ever redeem myself for the things I’d done. I couldn’t get caught up in Maggie’s dreams for a better Lagarto. I’d already tried to make Paul’s dreams for Lagarto come true, and Lagarto was no better off. Once my scores were settled, I was going to try harder to make Niki’s dreams of a normal life come true. There was still time with Niki.
“I can’t do it, Maggie.”
She relented. “What kind of financial information do you need?”
“I need to know the worth of their assets, cash flow—anything you can get your hands on.”
While I waited for the financial workups, I had time to get one name crossed off my list.
I knocked back an entire bottle waiting outside Yuan Kim’s place until the early AM. The house used to belong to his father, Chen. He’d passed it on to Kim when he’d retired from the force and moved out of the city. It was a middle-to-upper class neighborhood. Most yards were jungle-trimmed immaculate.
I watched his door through the prickly leaves of a shrub. I swatted mosquitoes to pass the time. I didn’t wear bug spray. I didn’t want some passerby picking up my scent. Bites covered my hands and neck. I must’ve lost a liter of blood. I drank brandy as an itch reducer, an orally ingested calamine lotion. No sign of Kim. He still hadn’t come home—must’ve found somebody to service the snake tonight.
I needed to get moving before people started to wake up. I crawled out of the bushes and crept up to the house. Both doors were locked. I decided on a window entry. The basement window looked like the best bet—low to the ground, plenty of jungle cover.
I worked at the lock for a while. Fuck it, I just broke the glass. I used a broomstick handle that I’d brought with me to knock the glass out and beat away the sharp edges. I climbed through, dropping my hand into a lizard’s nest. I got nipped, but luckily it didn’t break the skin—didn’t want to leave any blood evidence behind. I bumped around in the dark, sloshing through ankle-deep floodwater until I found the staircase and moved up into the bedroom.
I took the broomstick handle and taped it to my right arm. It was a perfect fit. I had prepped it by cutting it down to arm length. It was now attached to the outside of my arm, running from my shoulder to the back of my hand. I’d wrapped the tape extra tight around my hand, so it couldn’t move—left just my fingers free, so they could grasp my piece’s handle. I placed the gun in my hand. It held rock solid. I couldn’t sight for shit—wouldn’t matter. I’d take him at close range.
I sat on his bed, my hand tingling from the lack of circulation and mosquito bites. I heard keys jangling in the front lock. I got into position, standing in the door frame. When he rounded that corner, he’d just about run into me. I relaxed my body—just wait. I tuned into the sounds of Yuan Kim making his way around the house. My entire body sizzled with anticipation. He was in the kitchen. That was the fridge opening and closing. He’d be coming soon—keep breathing, nice and slow.
He came around the corner, unbuttoning his shirt. I took care of business with two shots—the first in the chest to bring him down, the second to the head. No “This is for Paul, you cocksucker.” No “Get on your knees and beg.” None of that bullshit. When you got a job to do, you do it—no room for ego. Make it quick and simple—no complications.
I stripped the tape from my arm with a hair-ripping jerk. Kim’s glasses were on the floor. I pulled my shirtsleeve over my hand, picked them up, and placed them on what was left of his fried head. I stuck them to the peak of his nose, so they wouldn’t slide down.
The sun was up already. I sat back on the bed. It was too risky to leave now. I’d have to wait five hours for nightfall. It was Kim’s day off; hopefully nobody would come looking for him.
The smell ripened fast. I rubbed a peppermint leaf paste onto my upper lip. The menthol odor did a fair job of masking—made it bearable. Lizards flocked up from the basement and down from the attic. Flies gathered outside the windows, bumping the glass, probing for an opening.
The phone rang a few times, but nobody came. Generations of flies hatched, fed, and swarmed around the house. The lizards eventually moved on, heavy stomachs dragging on the carpet. I raided his liquor cabinet, waited until the deep dark, and then I stepped over his remains and left the same way I’d come in.
Time to get my other plans rolling.
The room had an hourly rate, but I’d gone ahead and paid for the whole night. I lay sideways on the hotel bed with a rolled up a towel as a headrest. I didn’t want to touch the pillows. They were crawling with brown bugs. I didn’t even know what those things were. What a fucking hole this place was. It was the kind of place you’d go when anonymity was more important than amenities.
I was staring at the ceiling, well aware of the phone that sat within my reach. All I had to do was call.
A shiver of doubt ran through my mind. I was so sure a couple days ago. Killing Kim was easy. He deserved it. This was different. This involved innocents. Niki told me it was okay to go through with it. I could stop the slavery ring. It would be for the greater good. She was right, though I wasn’t naïve enough to believe that slavery would stop. But I could cripple the trade for years, maybe decades.
I sat up. Four hits of brandy brought my nerve back. I couldn’t worry about the guilt. You either have guilt or you don’t. I already had it. It wasn’t a cumulative thing. One more destroyed soul wouldn’t make a difference.
I made the call.
A holo of Manuel Hidalgo’s pimp appeared in the hotel room.
I asked for a male, straight hair, light complexion.
A half hour later, Hidalgo was at the door, secret-compartment pumps strapped to clean-shaven legs, miniskirt cut to skivvy-showing height, and at least two weeks of geological makeup applied layer over previous layer. He pranced in and lisped. “You pay up front, five hundred pesos.”
I pulled out forty thousand, set it out on the bed for him to see. I let my right show in full shaking glory.
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