Ex-KOP

by Warren Hammond

  Horst didn't even notice. “I can't believe your nerve, Mr. Mozambe. You think that killing my employees is the best way to create an opportunity for yourself?”

  I put down the glass I was drinking from and looked him square in that pasty face. “Listen to me, and listen to me good. Ian pinched my wife's air hose until she turned blue. That's why he's dead. Nobody pulls that kind of shit on me and lives. I don't care if he was your damn son. Got it?”

  Liz was looking at me with wide-open eyes. Ian must not have told her about that particular air-hose-cinching sin of his.

  “Is that how the law of the jungle works?” Horst said with a wisecrack grin.

  “He threatened my wife, and now he's dead. Call it whatever the hell you want.”

  “Okay, Mr. Mozambe,” he said. “So let's say that I accept the fact that you're a vindictive son of a bitch. Surely, you can't think that absolves you of all your behavior. I've lost my in with Koba's police force and—”

  I interrupted him. “You haven't lost anything. You have me.”

  “What standing do you have with KOP? You're retired.”

  “Have the police come to talk to you? They haven't because I have plenty of standing. I say leave you alone, they leave you alone. Ian was just a detective. He was nothing compared to me. I used to run that place. I have friends all the way up and down the ranks.”

  He closed his eyes for a second and sighed before speaking again, making it very obvious to me that he was running short on patience. “My police contacts are hardly all I've lost due to you. Yuri Kiper has gone missing. Do you know how valuable he was? His kind of talent was rare.”

  “That wasn't me,” I said. “I don't know what happened to him.”

  “And I lost six customers on that barge. Do you know what kind of dampening effect that's going to have on my business? It's only been a day, and I'm already suffering almost fifty percent cancellations.”

  “That's temporary. Business will bounce back.”

  Horst was shaking his head. He wasn't buying it.

  Liz set plates in front of us. Fish over rice.

  “Ah, this looks wonderful, Liz,” he said.

  That it did. She'd made some kind of an herbal sauce that had been drizzled over top. “Ian taught me how to make it,” she said. “It was one of his favorite dishes.”

  Horst cut into his with his fork. “The fish looks perfect.” It was a whitefish, light and flaky near the edges and translucent in the middle. He scooped up a piece and lifted it to his nose. He took a deep whiff, the pallor of his cheeks matching the color of the fish's rare center. He slid the bite through his thin lips. “Delicious,” he said.

  I cut into mine, pulling a piece free with my fork. I took one last glance at Liz, who was looking at me blankly. It would look strange if I didn't eat. I had to trust her. I lifted it to my lips, putting my trust in the conversation we'd had that morning. …

  I'd taken a seat in Liz's armchair. She'd tried to close the door on me, but I insisted that she let me in. Her apartment was a disaster. Brandy empties littered the floor. Three distinct piles of crumpled tissues on the sofa. Next to the door was a short stack of plates from the downstairs restaurant with crusty-looking food scraps squeezing out from between the layered ceramics.

  She was wearing nothing but her robe. Her hair looked unwashed and was pillow-pressed on one side. She was watching me, waiting for me to say something.

  “I'm sorry about your brother.” I opened.

  “No, you're not. You're glad he's dead.”

  I rolled with the punch. “You're right,” I confessed. “But I am sorry to see you hurting like this. I know how you must feel.”

  “Bullshit. You have no idea how I feel.”

  “I just lost my wife,” I stated matter of fact.

  “I didn't know you had a wife.”

  “I do. I did.”

  “When?”

  “Three days ago.”

  “How did it happen?”

  “She jumped off a bridge a few months ago. She was paralyzed and wanted me to take her off her respirator.”

  “Was she terminal?”

  “No.”

  “She wanted to die?”

  I nodded.

  “Why?”

  “Her father abused her, and she never got over it.”

  Liz teared up. And watching her, the emptiness inside me took hold. I felt tears in my own eyes. I wanted to let it out. I ached to let loose. Liz and I could help each other. We could share our pain, and maybe together we could find a way to make it bearable. I opened my mouth, not knowing what I'd say. I made a false start, the first part of an unknown syllable hanging in the air. I didn't know what to say. I didn't know how. …

  And then it passed. The moment was gone, vanished as mysteriously as it had come. And I was glad it was gone. I could never let myself get involved with Liz. She was broken in a way that couldn't ever be fixed. It would be like Niki all over again. I wiped my cheeks and sniffled my nose clear.

  Liz had the tissues out, and she offered me one.

  I declined.

  She blew her nose. “Tell me how Ian died and don't give me any of that hero bullshit they said on the news.”

  I was in a haze, thoughts of Niki clouding my mind. Still, I managed to answer her question. “I shot him.”

  “Was it in self-defense?”

  “No. He didn't even know I was there until it was too late.”

  “I hate you.”

  “I know.”

  “You made me help you find him.”

  “You did what was right, Liz. He and Horst killed that girl. He'd become a monster. There was no saving him.”

  “He wasn't always like that, you know.”

  I was still in a haze. Her words were coming at me through layers of fog. I forced myself to think of Adela, the way she died. I summoned the anger, letting it fill the empty hole in my soul. I let the anger burn off the fog and sharpen my mind. I came here for a reason, and it was time I stopped letting things like sappy feelings get in the way. Horst was going to pay, and Liz was going to help me.

  “What was Ian like before?” I asked, humoring her.

  “He was shy and sweet.”

  Shy? Maybe. Sweet? Never. The way I saw it, Ian was a sadistic bastard with a hard-on for his sister, a weak, disturbed girl who couldn't set any boundaries—mothering him, protecting him, fucking him. To her, it was all the same thing. But I didn't contradict her. I let her remember her brother however she wanted.

  “He wasn't cut out for police work,” she said. “He was going to quit.”

  “When was that?”

  “Right before he met Horst. That was about a year ago. Horst took him under his wing when he found out he was a cop. Ian was really taken with him. You've seen how charming Horst can be. Ian would've done absolutely anything for Horst.”

  “Did Horst know the two of you were related?”

  “No. He just thought we were childhood lovers who would still see each other now and again. I should've never introduced Ian to him. Ian was confused and vulnerable. He had no confidence in himself, you know what I mean?”

  “I do. I remember what Ian was like when he first joined KOP.”

  “Then you know,” she insisted. “He wasn't always the person he was at the end.”

  “I know,” I said, consoling.

  She cried again. I hugged her. I patted her shoulder. I wiped her tears away. I held her and waited, my mind drifting to Horst. … Arresting him was out of the question. He could contradict my version of events on the barge. He could say that Ian was alive and heading for the Zoo the last time he saw him. Maggie couldn't be known to have anything to do with Ian's death. She needed to be kept clear. Just the implication that she was somehow investigating Ian was enough to stain her as a rat for the rest of her career. I couldn't let that happen. Maggie's image was and would always remain true blue.

  Liz pulled away when the tears stopped, and I moved back to the armchair,
giving her a minute to just be.

  “I'm sorry about your wife.” She said it so sincerely that I was taken aback. The hollowness inside me was suddenly all-consuming. Tears were about to overflow the dam I'd propped up. I wanted to tell her about Niki, about how I tried to save her and how I wasn't any good at it. I wanted to tell her about what a good a person Niki was and about all the times she'd tried to save me from my drinking and my enforcing. I wanted to tell her how much I loved Niki, the way she'd cut the buttons off my shirts and replace them with snaps, the way she would smile at my jokes, even when they weren't funny.

  This was my opportunity. …

  Fuck it. I didn't deserve her consolation, or anybody else's.

  For a long while, we didn't talk, each of us alone with our own thoughts. I worked hard at corralling my emotions. When I felt like I'd finally managed to pen them up, I broke the silence. “I want to talk about Horst.”

  “I don't,” she stated.

  “All right,” I said. “Then just listen. You tell me if I get any of it wrong. Okay?”

  She didn't say anything, but she looked like she was listening. The trick was to get her thinking about Horst, about how he corrupted her brother. I wanted her to blame Horst for Ian's death. Not me, not herself, but Horst.

  “Ian was a good guy,” I said as if I meant it. “Sure, he was screwed up, but he didn't hurt anybody. That incident with your old boyfriend was just a mistake. He thought he needed to protect you. His heart was in the right place. Since you were children, his heart was always in the right place. He wanted to be a chef, right? He didn't want to get mixed up in any of this. It was Horst that did it to him. It was Horst that got him hooked on steroids, wasn't it?”

  She nodded absently.

  “He turned Ian into what he was. Horst is a user. He uses people when they can be helpful to him and throws them away when they're used up. He didn't care about Ian. He only wanted what Ian could give him as a cop. He convinced Ian to stay with KOP when everybody knew it wasn't right for him.”

  Again, she nodded.

  “You used to hook at the Red Room, right?” I paused briefly, and she nodded. “You had no choice. Your father kicked you out on the street. How else were going to support yourself? You hated it. All prostitutes do. Sometimes you could rationalize it away, but deep down you hated it. All those needy johns and their hang-ups. That's how you met Horst, isn't it? He used to bring his kinky clients to the Red Room.”

  I got yet another nod.

  “He told you he wanted you to star in his movies. You jumped at the chance. You thought he was saving you from prostitution. But now you know that wasn't true. If he'd really wanted to save you, he would have given you a job in his tour company. You'd be living a normal life, answering phones or doing paperwork in his office. But that's not what he did with you. He made you degrade yourself on camera. It's nothing you hadn't done before, but if he really cared, he wouldn't let you be seen like that. He wouldn't be making money off it.”

  She didn't respond, but I could see she was still listening.

  “He latched onto your brother,” I said. “Not because he cared about him. Not because he cared about you. He saw how vulnerable Ian was, and he took advantage of him. Horst doesn't like getting his hands dirty. He told your brother how important he was, but Ian meant nothing to him. Ian was just his fucking janitor. He just needed somebody to clean up all his shit. If it wasn't for Horst, your brother would be alive right now. He'd be taking chef classes.”

  Her eyes were locked on mine.

  “Am I right?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said, clear and concise.

  “Horst killed your brother, Liz. He didn't actually pull the trigger, but the brother you knew was already dead. Horst took the soul of a good kid and corrupted it. He killed your brother when he turned him into a murderer.”

  She was staring into my eyes, her expression cold and sober. I had her convinced. I could see it on her face. Not that it took that much convincing. She'd probably already come to the same conclusion. It was Horst's fault. Everything she was feeling, all that pain, all that anguish, all Horst's fault.

  She wanted to believe it. Horst was an easy scapegoat, a way for her to avoid having to look at her own role in Ian's stunted development. She still wanted to think the best of her brother, and telling herself that Horst made Ian do the things he did made it easier to think that way.

  I leaned forward. “Horst killed your brother, Liz. He needs to pay. Help me make him pay.”

  Her eyes took on a feral quality. “I'll help on one condition.”

  “Name it.”

  “I get to do the bastard in myself.”

  I felt the fish on my tongue, its flavor seeping down into my taste buds. I didn't want to chew, but I did. I bit down and released a burst of flavor. I chewed slowly, not wanting to swallow even though I knew that if she'd decided to kill me instead, it was already too late.

  The fish was good, and I concentrated on eating instead of talking. It could take a couple minutes yet.

  Half of Horst's fish was already gone. “What do you think of the fish?” he asked.

  “I think it's fantastic.”

  “So how do you think this job interview is going so far?”

  “I think it's going well,” I said.

  “I hate to correct you, Mr. Mozambe, but I have to tell you that you're failing miserably. What I see in front of me is a man who has lost me a great deal of money. You haven't convinced me you can make it up to me yet, and I sincerely doubt you'll be able to at all. But I'm feeling generous. This marvelous fish has me in a good mood, so I won't cut off our talk just yet. I'll give you at least until d-dessert.”

  He grinned menacingly. He was doing his best to ignore the little stutter at the end, but I heard it. The poison was already attacking his nervous system. He'd be completely paralyzed within a minute of the onset of symptoms.

  I tried to make my case again, my voice taking on a rambling quality. There was sweat beading on his brow. He hadn't figured it out yet. He thought he was just having some odd reaction to the food. Maybe the fish was bad. Liz crept out of the kitchen to the safety of the living room. I kept prattling on, not making much sense. He dropped his fork. I saw the terror in his eyes when he realized. I tossed the table. Plates and glasses shattered. He brought his hands up but they spasmed out of control. I threw a shoulder into his chest and knocked him over backward in his chair. He tried to bring his right hand up, laser claws emerging where fingernails used to be. I booted his hand, my shoe kicking up smoke when it made contact. I stepped on his other wrist, pinning it to the floor as needles came firing out his pinky. His legs wheeled around helplessly. He came at me with his laser-claw hand, but it swung so slowly that I easily managed to pin it down with my free foot.

  I stayed in position, standing on his wrists, waiting for the paralysis to take full control. He tried to shock me, but I was wearing the thickest rubber soles I could find. The electricity found the refrigerator instead and arced across the floor, a blue lightning bolt that blew the compressor and popped the refrigerator door open with a puff of acrid smoke.

  A more natural color came to his cheeks as his control over the tech that bleached his skin began to fail. It was disconcerting to see his skin looking healthier. His mouth hung open and drool began to run down his cheek. I got off his wrists, and they stayed where I left them. The only things that were still moving were his eyes, which were darting left and right. I had no idea if he was still aware of what was happening to him. The poison had taken hold and would stop his heart soon. “Ten minutes tops,” I'd been assured by the apothecary. “Even if he has blood scrubbers. You give him a big enough dose and there's no way he'll be able to purge the toxin fast enough. Those little salamanders don't look like much, but their venom can fell the biggest monitor you've ever seen in under ten.”

  The only way to beat an offworlder was to go low tech.

  “Bring him in here.” I heard Liz call fr
om the living room.

  I grabbed him by his shirt collar and dragged him across the linoleum out into the middle of the living room floor.

  Liz was waiting there in her dominatrix getup. She was holding a monitor-hide whip, and she was finishing off a knot, tying a barb to the end. She used her teeth to pull the leather tight. I took one last look at the offworlder, his limbs wrenched up into unnatural angles, his face locked into a horrified rictus.

  Even then, he looked more human than I'd ever seen him.

  I went to the door and stepped out an instant before I heard the first crack.

  thirty-two

  DECEMBER 7, 2788

  I WAS at Roby's. I'd decided to meet them on their own turf. It was morning, and the place was empty except for the six of us. I took my time looking them over. Their faces were marked with a mixture of anger and worry. There was lip biting. There were clenched jaws. There was plenty of leg tapping. I remembered Yuri's face when they killed him, when I let them kill him. I remembered the way he looked when he realized that nobody was going to save him. I was glad Maggie hadn't seen it. She didn't need that image in her head.

  This planet was a damn garbage dump, and Maggie was the lone flower growing in the middle of it. I'd make sure she had a nice patch of clean earth to grow in. I'd keep the trash from getting too close. I'd scorch the weeds that tried to take her sunlight. I'd squash the bugs that wanted to nibble on her leaves. She'd be allowed to do what was natural for her, which was to rise up and inspire an entire garden to take root.

  The five faces were looking at me, waiting. I'd already sent them all copies of the vid with instructions to meet me here today. For two days now, they'd been sweating it out, knowing that I had incontrovertible footage of them killing Yuri but not knowing my intentions. They were more than ready to listen to what I had to say.

  I was set on seizing back the power I'd lost. I had to start somewhere, and co-opting my own squad was a good place to start. I was quite certain Maggie wouldn't like it, but like it or not, KOP wouldn't just fall into her hands. It had to be taken.