by Mark Zubro
“No problem.”
Mike and Joe decided to walk down to Bir’s cubicle and find out if there’d been any results from Gek’s examination.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Cak walked out of Bir’s room as Mike and Joe approached. Cak stopped in the doorway and watched them walk down the hall.
“We’d like to see you in my cubicle in about half an hour,” Mike told him.
“If this has anything to do with the murder, I won’t do it.”
“Won’t?”
Cak said, “That’s right. You have no police or judicial status here. We should have a formal investigation from the central government. Sanctioned by a committee and done by someone who has more than no experience in these matters.”
“Joe’s a cop.”
“With no implants so that’s meaningless.”
Joe said, “You mean you should be investigating?”
Cak drew himself up. “As a lawyer, I am certainly more qualified than either of you. I’m sure Mike would like to add investigatory powers to those he presumes to have already, but he is not absolute dictator here. Besides which you are both quite fallible. No matter how much power is in that magic aura, no one is going to follow you blindly or implicitly obey your whims.”
Joe said, “Nor are you in charge.”
Cak’s mean, piggy little face turned meaner and piggier, which Mike hadn’t believed was possible.
“Legally,” Cak began.
Joe cut him off. “Legally, horseshit. I’m tired of you throwing ‘legal’ around in the colony. All your laws, all your legal protection, all your two-bit mumbo-jumbo didn’t save us from being collected into camps and sent here.”
“No, that was your fault. You and your husband arriving in this part of the galaxy caused that.”
Mike spoke up. “Prejudice didn’t start with me. All your legalistic fairytale castle that was supposed to protect us didn’t work. We’re here, at a major level of nowhere, and by prison colony rules, I am the law.”
“Traitor. Collaborator.”
“You haven’t been able to see how I’ve worked to set up a rational law system within the rules while we’ve been here. You’ve only been able to see that I’m in charge, and you’re not. You and Karsh.”
Joe added, “All our snotty gay lawyers couldn’t do shit to save us, and now you want to be in charge. Well, fuck you, and all lawyers too.”
Cak sniffed. “I doubt if you know what you mean or what you’re doing. You’re not a lawyer.” He pointed at Mike. “You’re just a waiter with a weapon which hasn’t done anyone except yourself a lot of good. And for yourself not that much because you’re still here.”
Mike said, “Let me explain something so even you understand.” Mike’s voice began to resonate in the hallway. “You, Cak, are undoubtedly one of the premier assholes in this or any other universe.”
Cak got up close enough to Mike’s face to set off Mike’s aura. Cak moved back a fraction of an inch from the blue. He said, “Our situation is hopeless. We’re all going to die. There are no children. There may be an infinite supply of gay people as we will be born and found out, somehow, or come out and be damned, but there will be no legacy.”
Mike said, “I thought I’d give living a life of decency and kindness a try. What legacy do any of us leave except the love and kindness we’ve left behind? With or without kids, if we’ve left the world a little better than we found it, or been a little gentler, I figure that’s all we can do.”
Cak made a move to leave. Mike got in front of him. “You’re not leaving until I finish.” Mike saw defiance and fear in Cak’s eyes. “It’s about time you heard this.” Mike began to gather steam. “You constantly obstruct everything that’s going on in this colony. You’re always complaining. If something is black, you want it white. If it was changed to white, you’d complain because we changed it. What’s worse, in private conversations with me, you’ve said things, agreed to things, but then as soon as we’re in front of a group, you say and do just the opposite. Now, maybe that’s common lawyer practice, but among the rest of us mere mortals, that’s called double dealing and lying. As far as I’m concerned, you’re shit.”
With a snarl Cak rushed at him. Mike had expected a verbal battle, not physical violence, not from Cak. He was momentarily caught off guard. But his blue aura arose and Cak couldn’t get near him. Cak was driven back. He waved his fist at Mike and swore.
Mike turned his back on him and walked into Bir’s room. Joe followed.
Inside, two other men stood near the body. Gek said, “I’m finished with him. Please take him to the temporary morgue we’ve set up near the entrance.” The men covered the body and carried it away.
In Bir’s tiny room Mike leaned against the wall. He said, “I shouldn’t have lost my temper.”
Joe said, “It’s understandable.”
“Was I wrong?”
Joe said, “We’re all under a strain. A good kid has just been murdered. It’s a bad time.”
They looked at Gek who said, “As far as I can tell, Bir was relaxed and unsuspecting when the explosion took place. The notion I have from inspecting the body and then examining the area around the cave-in is that the guy set the charge, took off, hid in some side passage, and then quietly joined the throng that arrived.”
“What about the sexual residue?” Joe asked.
“The cum in his pubic hair was Bir’s own. The cum on his pants and in his rectum was someone else’s.”
“One someone else or many someone else’s?”
“I don’t have equipment sophisticated enough for that. I don’t know.”
“He’d just been fucked before he died?”
“Within fifteen minutes, all the sets of cum were fresh. He also bled a little from the rectum.”
“Meaning?”
“Any number of things. He could have had a hemorrhoid that was irritated by the fucking. The guy doing it could have been rough. Bir’s partner might have had a huge cock and tore something.”
“Were there other signs of violence on the body?” Joe asked.
“No bruises or signs of attack. I checked his finger nails for traces of flesh from his partner or partners. Nothing. I couldn’t find any signs of drugs in his system or anything else noticeable or abnormal.”
Joe said, “Doesn’t tell us much.”
“He was a hustler,” Mike said. “Krim told me so a little while ago. He also said that Bir preferred to be a top.”
Gek said, “That I wouldn’t know about.”
Mike and Joe headed to their room. Mike sent Karsh a message to meet them.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Karsh was standing just outside Mike and Joe’s cubicle. They did not greet each other. They stood in the hall to talk.
Joe said, “We were told you were one of the last people to see Bir alive.”
Karsh stood silent and sullen in the middle of the hall.
“Is that accurate or not?” Joe demanded.
Karsh remained defiant, lips shut tight.
Joe gazed at him. “This could get exceptionally dull and boring if we’re the only ones talking.”
Karsh tone was frosty. “As you pointed out in your message, I have to be here. You can make that happen, but you cannot make me speak. You can harass me, pick at me, make fun of me, do what you want, but I will remain silent.”
“Don’t you see, Karsh,” Mike tried to sound reasonable. “Keeping silent serves no good purpose. I know you don’t like us. Okay, fine. I’m sure the feeling is mutual, but there’s a murder to solve here. It doesn’t pay for any of us to be stubborn.”
“I’m not stubborn.”
Mike realized what he said and how he said it was a mistake. “I only meant,” he began.
Karsh exploded. “What you meant! Ha! I doubt if you know what you mean or what you’re doing in this investigation. You’re not a lawyer. You’re just a waiter. You don’t understand.” He waved a dismissive hand at Joe. “And y
ou! You’re a joke. An ex-cop without an implant. How does it feel to be incompetent? Oh, wait that’s what you always were. Yes, we all know the story of why you were sent after Vov. It was just luck that you beat him. It’ll be the last…”
Karsh reached out a hand as if to strike Mike whose blue aura flashed.
Karsh screamed, “It hurts, please stop. It hurts.”
Mike took out his communicator and lessened his aura.
In a few moments, Karsh stood up very straight. “You’re a fucking bully. You’re worse than straight people, worse than the people who put us here. No wonder nobody here likes you.”
Mike said, “Save your personal social commentary for someone who cares to listen.”
Karsh’s face twisted in anger. “I’ll get you for this.”
“I’m sure you’ll try,” Mike said. “Now answer. Were you with Bir last night?”
“Yes.”
“What did you talk about?”
“Nothing.”
“Look,” Mike said, “if I have to do this like pulling teeth, it will take us all night. The sooner you give all your answers the sooner you can leave. Look at it that way. Now just tell me what went on.”
“We met in my room about 10:15 or 10:30. We met on the average of once a week. We didn’t talk much. We seldom did.”
“Why’d you meet?”
“What do you think? Are you that naïve?” Karsh shot him a dirty look, turned away.
“It was a regularly scheduled meeting?”
“Like clockwork every week.”
“That’s odd.” Mike spoke his thought aloud.
“Why odd?” Karsh asked.
“He was watching porn tapes earlier.”
Karsh looked bemused. “That’s news to me. Like I said, he came every week. I did him favors for him to do me favors. It was the only sexual outlet I had besides my own right hand.”
Karsh was far from a beauty. Maybe Bir had watched porn tapes to get himself in the mood for having sex with an unpleasant client.
Karsh said, “No one would go with me. It’s never been easy for me to get partners. It’s always been that way.”
“You’ve always paid for it?” Joe asked.
“Yes. Does knowing that make you happy?” Karsh sounded at the angry edge of bitter. “You good-looking people, you don’t know what it’s like. The rest of us try to relate to someone and we get nothing. We’re not pretty enough, or we get rejected. And spare me your pity. I know my personality has a lot to do with my lack of relationships, maybe everything to do with it. Well, maybe I’ve tried to change. It’s too hard for me. I can’t. So I pay for it. It’s a way not to feel lonely. A way to feel connected to another human being, even if it was only for a few minutes. Besides,” Karsh finished, “the kid was great at it.”
“Oh,” Mike said.
“You didn’t know?”
“I never had sex with him.”
“I thought you were friends.”
“We were, but we weren’t fuck buddies.”
“Oh. Everyone thought you were.”
“Mike has me,” Joe said.
“People have open relationships.”
Joe said, “We don’t. I didn’t know there was hustling going on in the colony until today.”
“And I suppose you’ve never paid for it, have you?”
Both Mike and Joe shook their heads.
Karsh said, “So we had sex. It took about fifteen minutes, maybe ten, maybe twenty, around that.”
“Did you do anything to him?”
“What do you need to ask that for? You get your jollies hearing about it?”
Mike kicked himself mentally. “Sorry. We found cum that wasn’t his on the front of his pants and in his rectum. Plus he’d had an orgasm in the few minutes before he died.”
“That wasn’t me. I’m a bottom. Bir and I didn’t even kiss. We barely touched. He came in. I got fucked. We coordinated swapping time in his schedule. He left. We said about six words to each other. Mostly consisting of, ‘I’m coming – thanks – goodbye’.”
Joe asked, “You didn’t know where he was going?”
“No.”
“Or who any of his other clients were?”
“He was known generally as hot sex in the colony, but I can’t tell you who he went with. He never told me. Try checking who worked his times.”
Joe continued the questioning. “Did he seem nervous, upset? Did he do or say anything unusual?”
“I didn’t notice. I was horny. I was only interested in having an orgasm. I did. He left. That was it.”
“What’d you do after he left?”
“I read from when he left until I heard the alarm go off.”
Joe said, “No one saw him leave your room.”
“You mean he died in a cave-in in my room? Did I miss something? Are you that stupid?”
Joe kept his voice even. “He was seen entering, so we can confirm that. I’d like to be able to confirm the end time as well.”
“I’m surprised anyone saw him entering. In that new section I’m in, there are only one or two inhabited cubicles. The men don’t like to live there because the computers aren’t hooked up yet.”
Karsh stared at them, arms folded, exuding defiance. Could Karsh have followed the kid and killed him? What reason would he have? Would Bir have told him about the wood? Mike doubted that. And why kill the kid over that even if Karsh knew?
Joe asked the central question. “Did you kill him?”
Karsh surprised Mike by remaining calm and saying, “No. What reason would I have?”
“Okay,” Joe said, “that’s all for now.”
Mike thought of saying ‘don’t leave town’ but under the circumstances he decided against it. Karsh would not be amused.
Karsh said, “I have a question for you.”
“What?” Mike asked.
“Did either of you kill him?”
Mike stared at Karsh who continued. “You were both close to the kid. Maybe one of you did it. Maybe you were jealous. Maybe he wouldn’t put out for you. Or maybe one of you was cheating on the other.”
“Leave,” Mike ordered.
Karsh didn’t move. “I have as much right to question your actions and your motivations as you have to question mine.”
Mike pointed down the corridor. “Get out of my sight.”
Karsh said, “You don’t like it when you’re the one being fucked over. Isn’t that too bad.” Karsh gathered his dignity and swung away from them. He stopped and walked a few steps then turned back. He wagged a finger towards Mike. “You’ll be sorry for the way you’ve treated me. You won’t be head of this colony forever. Even now if your little band of yes men didn’t always stick up for you like little puppets, things would be very different, and they will be. I can promise you that.” He left.
Mike sighed. More trouble in all probability is what that meant. He put it in the back of his mind. There was nothing to be done about it right now. He turned to Joe who looked as frustrated as Mike felt.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Mike was beyond tired. Joe gave a huge yawn. He put his arms around Mike and caressed his back, neck, and shoulders.
Mike sighed. “Thanks. We should get the last little bit done for tonight.” He turned to his computer console to key in Rix’s code then punched in a message that he wanted to see him. Rix was a homely seventeen-year-old who, even though he shaved twice a day, always looked like he had five o’clock shadow.
Before being put in a collection camp, Rix had grown up on a dirt poor farm on a backwater agricultural world. When he was two, his rearing father had left them. Rix had stayed on the farm to help support his mother and the eleven other kids. He never left home until they’d come to take him away.
Mike had heard him say, “I love my family but enough is enough. Here I have my own room. This is a paradise compared to that shack.” Mike found him to be one of the few genuinely cheerful members of the colony. He could on occasion be a
very genuine teenage pain in the ass. Mike shook his head wearily, twisted his torso to stretch the muscles more awake.
One more interview and he’d call it a night.
Rix showed up a few minutes later. His face was somber. The normally ebullient boy shuffled in, head down.
Mike said, “We’re sorry for your loss.”
“He was my friend.”
“We’re sorry it’s so late.”
“I couldn’t sleep anyway. I lay awake listening to the sounds of the guys sleeping.” The newer sections, besides having larger rooms, had them spaced farther apart. You could still hear your neighbors in the quiet of the night, but Mike thought of it as less than in an old 1940s prison movie on Earth.
Rix said, “I can’t believe he’s gone. It’s so awful. We were real close.” He looked up at Mike. “He looked up to you. He loved you like the dad he wished he had.”
Mike gave him a puzzled look.
“It’s true,” Rix said. “He told me so. He worshipped you, man. He told me once, and these are his exact words, ‘I wish Mike had been my dad. I can picture myself all cuddled up in those big strong arms listening to that deep voice murmuring a story or singing me to sleep, or having him take me places like real dads do with their sons’.”
Mike’s eyes blurred. In the rush of events he’d not had time to mourn. He looked at Joe. His husband’s eyes were misty as well. The three of them sat silent with their memories for several moments.
But Mike was near total exhaustion. In a few moments, he broke the silence. “What else did he talk about, not me, but in general?”
“Lots of stuff,” Rix said. “We talked a lot. He told me about being a hustler the first time we met. That kind of life didn’t seem to bug him. He had a lot of hopes and plans for this place. He wanted eventually to be in charge of one of the new sectors. He watched you all the time to learn how to be in charge of people.”
“He said that?”
“Sure. He wanted this place to be perfect, to be a gay paradise. He dreamt of a world where gay people would never have to fear heterosexuals again. I think his life may have been pretty violent at one time. He saw three friends beaten to death before his eyes. He hated straight people a lot.” Rix whispered, “I hate them, too.”