KOP Killer

April 20, 2789

This was my turf now. Mine.

I stood at the head of the alley. Smoke billowed from fire pits, the flames licking at slow-turning ’guanas on spits. Neon signs blinked overhead. Hookers danced in the street, their eyes hidden behind lizard masks, their tits bouncing free. A five-piece band at the far end pounded out a heavy beat beneath a BIG SLEEP ’89 banner. Offworld teens drank and groped and drank some more. I breathed deep of air scented with perspiration and opium.

Mine. Nobody could stop me.

I weaved into the rollicking crowd, sliding past sweat-slick flesh, my face whipped by hair from dancing hookers. Some whore tried to shove a mask in my face. I pushed her away.

Every door in the alley was propped open for the steady stream of mostly male offworlders. On a day like today, a hooker could score a new trick every ten minutes. The Big Sleep was a hot time for offworld kids on their school breaks to come down to Lagarto’s surface with their bottomless pockets and insatiable libidos.

I looked up at the ash gray sky. Weak light trickled down. The darkness would be upon us soon.

I navigated past tubs full of shine, through a floating set of fornicating holograms, up a short set of well-worn steps, and found myself stuck at the end of a line of kids jamming the door. One yelled over the music, “Let’s get up to the roof. The sun’s about to drop.”

His buddy shook his masked head. “You go. I’ll come up later.”

The first one stepped out of line and tossed his drink to the ground. He kicked off his sandals, and just like that he was on the wall, crawling upward, gecko style. I stared while he picked his way through a tangle of power cords above the door. He cleared the last of the pulsing neon and quickly scurried up three stories, past clotheslines and patches of creeping vines, finally disappearing over the top.

Fucking offworlders. How do they do that shit?

I bulled my way inside, ignoring the protests. The foyer was packed with disrobing offworlders. Seeing their impossibly perfect bods, a chill came over me. There was something creepy about these kids, how they looked too perfect to be real, like a room full of mannequins come to life. Not an ounce of flab. Not a single strand of back hair. Not one pimple-plagued ass.

The teens at the head of the line were completely naked. They waited patiently with projection units pressed against their temples, pornographic imagery beaming directly into their brains. Every minute or so, a whore would come by and grab one of the erect from the front of the line. The limpers had to wait. No time for foreplay. Not today. Today, the whores would keep the johns moving in and out as fast as possible… in more ways than one.

Time to reclaim my turf. I turned left and stomped through a pile of clothes. A lizard mask crunched under my right heel, glittery scales popping free from the plaster. I pushed through a curtain made of strands of strung monitor teeth that clacked and chattered at my entrance.

Chicho sat at his desk. It had been almost two years since I’d seen this pimp. He hadn’t changed. He had the same pinched lips, the same sharp nose, the same rodent eyes peering through a pair of wire-rims.

“Juno?” he asked. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m back.”

“What do you mean, you’re back?”

I stepped up to his desk, piled with holographic ledger sheets. “It means from now on, you pay me. Just like the old days.”

“This isn’t a good time.” He looked down to read a ledger.

I gave his desk a swift boot, startling the glasses right off his face. “I’m talking to you.”

His eyes had opened so wide that white showed all around the black beads at their centers. “What’s your problem?”

Had the holo-ledgers been made of actual paper, I would’ve swiped them to the floor. Instead, I settled for pressing my fists into the desktop and leaning way down to get in his rat face. “You pay me now.”

“You can’t boss me around. You’re not a cop anymore.”

“No?” I lifted my right knuckles off the desk, and my hand immediately started to shake like it always did. Nerve damage from an old run-in with an offworlder. Using my bobbing index finger, I drew an imaginary shield over my heart. “What do you see right here?”

“I don’t know. A badge?”

I grinned wolfishly, showing molars and everything. “That’s right, Chicho. A badge. You want KOP to leave you alone, you pay me every month. I don’t get my money, and we’ll shut this shithole down. Got me?”

“What’s wrong with your hand?”

The question took me aback-not the question itself, but the fact that he was asking it in the middle of a fucking shakedown. As if he had no fear.

Puzzled, I stayed silent, letting my scowl do the talking.

When it became clear I had no intention of answering, he exhaled like he was trying to find the patience. “Listen, I pay Captain Mota for protection now. What do you expect me to tell him next time he comes to collect?”

“You let me take care of that pretty boy.”

“Um, okay. Whatever you say.”

I didn’t like his sarcastic tone. This was going all wrong. He should be scared. I caught his eyes flicking to the right and back. He’d just looked past me to the door, like he was expecting somebody. The bastard could have a panic button somewhere under his desk. My skin prickled.

I rushed to the door, arriving just as the lizard-tooth curtain began to part. I threw a right at what I guessed to be a face. The impact was painful-a monitor’s incisor got caught between my knuckles and my target. Whoever the bastard was, he disappeared behind the rattling strands of teeth. I reached for my piece but my shaky right failed to grab hold. The muzzle of a lase-pistol came through the curtain while I continued to fumble for my weapon, hopelessly incapable of a quick draw. Fucking hand. I backed up, hands raised, my right bobbing out of control.

Following the lase-pistol through the curtain came a slight wrist, then a forearm, and then came the rest of her. Fuck me. A woman. You don’t hit women, asshole. Hitting women was for cowards like my wife-beater father.

A thin red mark underscored her left eye. A crimson drop broke free and trickled down like a tear. The left side of her face was visibly reddening, quite a feat considering how overly rouged her cheeks already were. “What the fuck?”

Dammit, Juno, what did you do? “Sorry,” I said lamely. “I didn’t know.”

“What didn’t you know?” She held the weapon firm in one hand, like this wasn’t her first time. With her other hand, she swiped at the blood, painting the back of her hand with a broad red smear. She made like she was going to wipe it on her skirt, a number so skimpy that it barely qualified as a mini, but she thought better of it and let her hand hang by her side.

“I didn’t expect a woman.”

“So what?” Her eyes creased at the corners, her forehead wrinkled in anger. She stepped up and jabbed the lase-pistol into my ribs. She was short, and looking down at her, she was nothing but hair and cleavage. A toxic mix of hair spray and perfume assaulted my nostrils, and I had to turn my head to find clean air. Without warning, she rammed a knee into my crotch.

I doubled over, my lungs heaving, my face burning, my forehead breaking out in an instant sweat. There’s nothing like nut pain.

I dropped to my knees, and she pulled my weapon from my waistband at the small of my back.

Chicho must’ve been staring at me, his rodent eyes delighting at seeing me down. How many times had he fantasized about this? Month after month, year after year, I’d taken his money, and there was nothing he could do. Fuck with me, and the Koba Office of Police would’ve put him out of business. I used to run that place, me and Paul Chang. I was the chief’s right hand, his enforcer. It had been my job to keep the money coming in, and to do that I had to keep everybody on the far side of the law in line-pimps, pushers, smugglers, gene-traders, bookies, bootleggers, fences…

And cops. Especially the cops.

I was the strongest of the strong-arms, a heavy-fisted, skull-cracking beat-down artist with a mean streak. The most ruthless enforcer KOP ever saw. But I’d fallen a long way since Paul was killed by rivals. I’d lost my badge. I’d lost my wife. And here I was, doubled over and blowing like a preggo in labor.

I heard Chicho’s voice over the agony. “I’m going to do you a favor, Juno. We go back a ways, you and me, and I’d hate to see you get yourself hurt, understand? Get out of here now, and I won’t tell Captain Mota about this. Piss me off any more, and you’re on your own.”

The woman bouncer stood over me aiming two lase-pistols-one of them mine-at my head. Looking up, I caught an up-skirt view that I couldn’t enjoy in my busted-ball condition.

“Who is this geezer?” she wanted to know.

Chicho was about to answer when a voice at the door said, “Drop it.” A uniformed cop came through the monitor-tooth curtain, his standard-issue drawn.

The woman let the lase-pistols slip out of her fingers.

Shit! I raised my hands to protect my face. One gun smacked the back of my left hand and tumbled harmlessly to the side. The other bounced off my jaw with a painful thunk.

“Nice.” I glared at her.

She gave me a smart-ass grin.

Taking the weapons as my own, I slowly stood, my hand smarting, my package aching. The things I do… “What kept you?”

Officer Marek Deluski shrugged. “I didn’t know you needed help.”

Hunched over the way I was, I had to crane my neck to see the kid’s eyes. They looked truthful, but I couldn’t say for sure. I could picture the dumb shit staying outside and peeking through the curtain, secretly enjoying watching me get my huevos scrambled before coming to the rescue. This new squad of mine had a serious loyalty problem.

Now that I was back in control of the situation, this was the perfect time to exact a little retribution. I thought about shooting the pimp somewhere nonfatal, maybe in the knee, or maybe frying a hole through one of those fancy offworld shoes on his feet.

But I didn’t do that shit anymore. Even after taking a groiner.

I forced my torso upright with a groan, my face frozen in a nasty leer. The woman tried to keep her tough-girl act going, but with the tables turned, I saw fear under those long, mascara-caked lashes.

I looked into Chicho’s eyes. “You ready to quit this pissing match and talk business?”

Chicho crossed his arms, a sour expression of defeat on his face. He glanced at Deluski’s weapon then sat on his desk, his ass dropping through the holo-ledgers.

“Truce?” I asked.

He gave me a nod.

I tucked my lase-pistol back in my waistband and passed the other weapon back to the female bodyguard. She thanked me, a sign that our little spat was already forgotten. That was the way things were in the muscle business. There were times to carry a grudge, and there were times to have a short memory.

I gave Deluski the eye, and he holstered his police-issue.

To Chicho, I said, “I’m back in business. I’m taking this alley again.”

After a theatrical sigh he said, “C’mon, Juno, you can’t be serious with this. Captain Mota’s not going to let you steal his territory.”

“It’s not his. He’s the one who stole it from me. I owned this alley for twenty years. The way I see it, Mota’s just been looking after it for a while.”

Chicho rubbed his jaw. “Listen, don’t take this the wrong way, but you gotta know your time is past. You were one hard-nosed collections man, I’ll give you that, but times have changed. I mean, look at you. What happened to you anyway? You look so thin.”

“I’m on a diet.”

“You need to eat, friend. You don’t look good. You get that wife of yours to cook you up a nice meal.”

My heart lurched at her mention. “Niki died.” I could only mutter the words.

“What?” His face looked a little less rodent, a little more human. “How did she die?”

“She just did,” I non-answered.

“Shit, that’s a tough break.”

I had no words. I just stood there.

“Where’s she buried?”

My voice barely audible, I said, “Out in the jungle.”

“You didn’t put her in a cemetery?”

“What’s it to you?”

He looked offended. “What if I want to send flowers?”

“Why? You didn’t even know her.”

“It’s common respect. Somebody dies, you send flowers. Why’d you bury her in the jungle?”

“That’s what she wanted,” I said, hoping to end this line of conversation.

“She got a marker?”

I gave him an annoyed shake of my head.

“Why not?”

I felt the pressure building. “Who do you think you are, asking me this shit? It’s none of your fucking business.”

“Jesus, you don’t need to get all worked up. I’m just trying to figure out where to send the flowers. I wasn’t accusing you of anything.”

I didn’t know whether to be ticked or touched. “Just fucking forget the flowers.”

He shrugged acceptance. After an uncomfortable silence, he asked, “So you want to take over protection duty?”

I nodded.

“Tell me how a washed-up cop is going to keep KOP off my ass?”

A cheer went up outside. The sun must’ve just dropped. The Big Sleep had begun, the first seconds of three weeks of darkness now ticking by.

“My word is still good over there,” I lied.

He gave me a skeptical stare.

“Paul Chang and I ran that joint for twenty years. Chang was the greatest chief this planet ever saw, you know that. They’re still loyal to me. Me and Paul’s memory. I tell them to leave you the hell alone, they’ll leave you the hell alone.”

“You still got that kind of pull?”

“Listen, I know how fucked up KOP has gotten since Paul was killed.”

“Chief Chang wasn’t killed. He ate his gun.”

“Paul would never kill himself.” I pointed my shaking finger at my heart. “I was there. I know what happened.”

He shrugged his shoulders and offered an unconvinced, “Whatever you say.”

I wanted to shove the truth down his throat and force him to swallow. But I hadn’t come here to argue about Paul. I’d come to continue my slow climb back to the top of KOP.

“Listen,” I said. “We’re on our second chief since Paul. The mayor and the new brass are clueless. Nobody’s running the show, which means KOP is splintering into a thousand little pieces. Everybody can see it, and that’s exactly what’s got people wishing things could go back to the way they used to be. Cops are turning to me to unify KOP again. I remind them of a better era. Tell him, Deluski.”

“He’s right,” said the young uniform. “Juno’s got standing. Everybody says so.”

Chicho nodded his head, like he was believing the lies. “Okay, so tell me why I should make the switch. You gonna charge less than Mota?”

“Ten percent less.”

I could see the pesos dancing in his eyes. Greedy bastard. Time to hook him deep through the gills. “That’s the rate I’m offering to everybody else,” I said. “But maybe I can arrange a special rate for you.”

“I’m listening.”

I bet you are. “You get all the other pimps and madams in this alley on board, and I’ll give you a year for free.”

Chicho’s beady eyes churned. “Make it two years, and I won’t limit my influence to just this alley. I got connections with snatch houses all over this city. I can make you fucking rich.”

“See, there’s the reason I came to you first.” I gave him a broad smile. What I’d said was the truth. Chicho was an operator of the highest order. Those dark eyes were always crankin’ on one angle or another.

“I think we can do business,” he said. “But I’ll tell you, saving only ten percent might be a tough sell. These people are taking a risk making a switch like that. I know you think you can handle Mota, but that guy can be vindictive when he wants to be.”

“You don’t have to worry about Mota. When I talk to him, he’ll back out.”

“You have that kind of influence over him?”

“We have a history,” I said without elaborating.

“Okay, I hear you, but I still think it’ll be a tough sell. A lot of these people were glad to see you gone.”

“You’ll have to be persuasive.”

“I can try, but you could make it a lot easier, couldn’t you?”

I let that hang in the air for a moment. “Fine. I’ll charge twelve percent less than Mota.” I knew he was scamming me. He’d sell them at ten and pocket the difference.

“Now you’re talkin’.” The pesos in his eyes were spinning. He held up a finger. “But wait… how do I convince them that you’re pulling the strings over at KOP? These people are a suspicious bunch. Don’t get me wrong now, I trust you just fine, but these people aren’t always easy to please.”

“You tell them to watch out their windows tonight. I’ll be out there with a crew of detectives and unis guarding this alley. That’ll be proof enough.”

“Why do we need you guarding the alley?” His face darkened with realization. “Don’t fucking tell me.”

I nodded. “Riots.”

The alley was silent except for the buzz of hungry flies and the rustle of geckos scavenging through the garbage. The crumbled asphalt, littered with brandy empties and crushed lizard masks, reeked of spilled shine and vomit. The party was over. The whores had closed their legs and then their doors. The band had exhausted its playlist and moved on. And the offworld youth, they’d taken their debauchery elsewhere.

Alone with only two of my crew members, I paced the alley crosswise, back and forth, my hands in my pockets, my jaw clenched, my shirt ruffling in the jungle breeze.

My new crew numbered five, which meant three of my boys were late. Deluski was here, of course, and Wu had just arrived, but the others were dragging their feet, a sure sign of insubordination. They’d be here soon, I told myself. They had no choice. I owned those assholes. Yet they took every opportunity they could to make me sweat. I checked the time. Only ten more minutes before the lights went out.

The Lagarto Power Authority was shutting the power down regularly now. They simply couldn’t keep up with our increasing energy demands-so they claimed. Everybody knew the real reason. A hundred years of deteriorating equipment and outright mismanagement had finally taken its toll. Our energy capacity was on the decline, just like everything else on this planet, especially the standard of living. Electricity rationing was just the latest punch in the face for a planet that had already taken a full ten count.

For two weeks now, the city had suffered through rolling power outages. And when the lights went out, so did the riffraff: criminals and opium heads; unemployed and undereducated; anarchists and militants; disaffected youth and the hopelessly impoverished. Night after night, they’d mobbed the streets with unbridled anger. Their vicious, uncontrolled rage would spread like wildfire and they’d leave nothing but tornado-like paths of destruction in their wake.

Because of the riots, the power authority stopped broadcasting the times and locations of the blackouts to the public, and instead notified only the police. The theory was that the bad elements from all over the city wouldn’t know where and when to gather. So far, the practice hadn’t proven to be very effective. Apparently, every neighborhood had plenty of homegrown bad elements to get shit going without needing imports.

I checked the time again. Seven more minutes.

“The others will be here,” said Paolo Wu, his downturned brows tugging at the scar under his hairline. “Froelich said he’d bring at least ten unis with him. We’ll keep this alley secure.”

I gave the hommy dick a nasty stare. “He should’ve been here an hour ago. If you humps can’t be reliable then I have no use for you.”

“Don’t get your sack in a twist. They’ll be here.”

I paced like a caged tiger, my temper on a slow simmer, my energy positively toxic. On my next pass, I made sure to veer into Wu’s space, forcing him to get out of my way. The little brush-back was a not-so-subtle reminder of who was the alpha.

If those assholes didn’t show soon, the whole deal could fall through. I’d told Chicho there’d be a crew of cops out here. A crew. Two cops and a past-his-prime enforcer didn’t qualify. I needed a show of fucking force to bluff the pimps and madams into believing I was pulling the strings at KOP.

Kripsen and Lumbela finally entered the alley. That made four out of five. The recent arrivals were in full riot gear-helmets, full-length body shields, shocksticks, and cans of fireline hanging on their belts.

“Where the fuck have you been?” I demanded.

Freddie Lumbela looked down at the ground. “We couldn’t get away.”

“Bullshit.”

“They just deployed us,” he said defensively. “Until ten minutes ago, we were trapped on a fuzzwagon with the rest of the unis who got called in on crowd control. We snuck away the first chance we got.”

“Anybody see you leave?”

“I don’t know.”

“What kind of answer is that?”

“An honest one.”

I shook my head and started pacing again. These stiffs were fucking worthless. And where was Froelich with my force of ten?

Kripsen chimed in. “What do you expect, Juno? We’re on duty. We can’t just walk away whenever we want. At some point, people are gonna notice.”

“Will any riot police be coming this way?”

“I doubt it. Our orders were to guard the banks around the corner. This block’s expendable.”

“There been any changes in the schedule?”

“Nope. Blackout in five minutes.”

I made eye contact with Wu. “Where the hell is Froelich?”

“I don’t know, but he’ll be here.”

“What did he say when you talked to him?”

Wu rubbed the scar on his forehead, a broad groove that ran from one temple almost to the other. The way I heard it, he got the scar from standing too close to a competitive knife fight, one of those betting matches they run under Koba’s many bridges. “I didn’t talk to him,” he said. “I left a message.”

“You telling me your partner doesn’t take your calls?”

“Jesus, Juno, I called him four times, okay? He didn’t answer. What the fuck do you want from me?”

A serious loyalty problem. That was what I had. That was why I was so hot to secure a revenue stream. If I could fatten their wallets, they’d start thinking working for me wasn’t so bad. As it was, they were doing it because they had no choice. This crew had gotten into some bad shit a couple months back, some really bad shit. They fucking stank of it. They’d conspired with offworlders. They’d betrayed their own people, selling them off to be killed by offworlders who wanted to play executioner.

These assholes were traitors. Rat bastards, every one of them.

They hadn’t been the brains of the operation. Hell no. These humps didn’t have that kind of smarts, and they’d proven it when they’d let me catch them on film. The Killer KOPs. That was what I called my little documentary. It wasn’t a very long movie, barely three minutes, but still a pretty good flick.

Set in an abandoned warehouse, it starts when five cops enter through a cockeyed door and come face-to-face with one of their co-conspirators, a pudgy little local on the verge of squealing their devious deeds to investigators. The Killer KOPs are nervous and fidgety, you can see it on their faces. Wu keeps rubbing at that scar of his, and Deluski stands in back, shifting from one foot to the other. They’re desperate, see. Their traitor bosses are already dead, and they’re out to cover their tracks.

Wu pulls his piece. The porker knows too much, and they can’t trust him to keep quiet. Wu fires, and the beam of his lase-pistol burns through hair and skull and brain. A piece of the porker’s head comes free and falls to the floor.

It’s done. Deluski is staring at the corpse, his jaw gaping, his face ashen. Lumbela and Kripsen grab the de-lidded corpse by the arms and legs, and Deluski holds the door as they haul it out into the rain. Wu gives a look to Deluski, his finger pointing to the scalp on the floor. Deluski, the low man in their little cop clique, steps over to the porker’s lid and pinches a lock of hair between forefinger and thumb. He lifts it off the floor and rushes out with his arm extended, like he’s carrying a rat by its tail. Wu and Froelich are the last to leave, the pair of hommy dicks disappearing into the pouring rain.

Roll credits…

Like I said, not a bad flick. I harbored no illusions about these bastards-bad men through and through. But I knew a thing or two about bad men. Bad men could be useful. I was on a mission to take back the police department, and a mission like that required the accumulation of power. And if I had to start with these five misfits, so be it.

Instead of turning my movie over to KOP, I kept it for myself. And when I’d screened it for the five of them, they became mine.

I checked the time again-any second now. Where the fuck was Froelich with my ten unis?

Wu kicked at a gecko. “How long is this thing going to take? I need to call my wife and tell her when I’ll be home.”

“You kidding me?”

“She worries when I don’t come home on time.”

“Fucking unbelievable,” I muttered loud enough to be heard. I couldn’t be bothered with this shit. “Tell her you won’t be home. Tell her to use a vibrator.”

His scowl made the scar on his forehead dip. “Some husband you must’ve been. No wonder she decided to off herself.”

Without thinking, I snatched hold of his shirt and yanked his scarred face up to my own. “You watch your fuckin’ mouth!”

Wu was grinning in my grasp, enjoying the fact that he’d gotten to me. What he’d said was true enough. I had been a bad husband. And had I been a better one, Niki might not have done herself in.

But that didn’t mean I was accepting opinions on the matter, especially from Paolo-fucking-Wu.

A door opened and the woman bodyguard came out. Maria was her name.

She froze when she saw me. I must’ve looked ready to kill. Probably because I was. Snapped back to my senses, I remembered that we were likely being watched from the windows above. I released the bastard. It didn’t look good to have anybody see us fighting among ourselves. With a self-satisfied smirk, Wu brushed at the stir of wrinkles my fist had left on his chest.

“I came to help,” said a tentative Maria. “Where do you want me?”

Before I could answer, the lights went out.

Looking up, I tried to calm myself by taking a moment to look at the thousands of tiny pinpricks of light twinkling in the sky. That was the good thing about these power outages. You could see so many stars when the city lights went out. The only good thing.

“Um, can I ask a question, boss?” asked Lumbela.

It took me a few seconds to respond. “Talk.”

“What’s the plan?”

“We wait.” A riot was about to start. Of that I had no doubt. The only question was whether the storm would drift our way.

I stepped out of the alley and into the street. Weeds bent under my shoes. This street was overdue for a good scorching. The Lagartan jungle was a persistent bastard. Inch by inch, street by street, the weeds and vines slithered across the pavement and up the walls, relentlessly seizing territory from a lazy population. You could slash it, and you could burn it, but you could never stop it. Once the roots dug in, you couldn’t get rid of the shit.

I heard my crew complaining behind my back. No matter. They could bad-mouth me all they wanted. My roots had already dug into them.

I looked off into the darkness and listened. I could hear people above me. They were leaning out their windows and venting their frustration. This was a city that had had enough.

For ten minutes, maybe longer, I waited, my senses tuned to the nervous energy all around me. People milled about, curiosity seekers and troublemakers, their voices anxious and agitated. I heard the sound of crashing glass in the distance. I caught a whiff of smoke from an unseen fire. They were getting right after it tonight.

Running footsteps. I flicked on a flashlight and caught sight of a young punk sprinting my way. “They’re coming!” he yelled. “They’re coming.”

Forgetting we had a gal in the mix, I called to my crew, “We’re on, boys!” I aimed my flashlight at Kripsen and Lumbela. “You two set up a fireline right here at the alley mouth.” Fireline was cheap but effective. You just squeeze out a thick bead of gel and light it. It would burn hot, and it would burn tall. With it, you could create a firewall of the literal variety.

Freddie Lumbela shook his black head, his skin a few shades darker than your typical Lagartan brown. “No can do, boss.”

I shined the flashlight directly into his face. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

He used a hand to shade his eyes. “These cans of fireline are used up. This is the fourth riot we’ve worked this week.”

“You couldn’t swap those cans for new ones?”

“KOP ran out. They’re getting more shipped in next week.”

“Yet you two decided to keep carrying empties around?”

“It’s in the regs for riot gear. We’re required to carry fireline.”

Holy hell, where did I find these humps? I played my flashlight across their tense faces. This would be so much easier if I had my ten uniforms.

“Okay. Here’s how we’re going to do this. I want a single line. Spread out wall to wall to cover the alley mouth. Nobody gets into this alley, got it? Use any force necessary. And you two put some flashlights on the ground and aim ’em up at us. We want people to see us when they come barreling around the corner.”

“Hey, guys,” said a voice holding a flashlight up to his face. Froelich. “I’m not too late, am I?” His shaved head was beaded with glistening sweat, like he’d really raced to get here. He wasn’t breathing hard, though. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was just trying to make it look good, stopping off on the way to dump a cup of water over his head.

“Where are my uniforms?”

“Just a minute behind me.”

I told him to get in line. No time to ream out the late bastard.

I took my position, Maria to my right, Wu to the left. I leaned toward Maria and took a sneeze-worthy blast of perfume up the nose. “You know you don’t have to stay. Chicho doesn’t pay you enough for this.”

“I’m staying.” Her voice was firm enough to put any argument to rest.

Things were heating up on the street. I couldn’t see much, but I could hear plenty-hustling feet, fierce shouting, more shattering glass. Lase-fire crackled upward, a red beam stretching seemingly up to the stars themselves. I pulled my lase-pistol from my waistband and clutched it tight in my left. I pressed the weapon against my heart, where everybody would see it. I tucked my shaky right into my pocket to keep it out of sight. Damn thing was a nuisance.

We held our ground as the voices thickened, more and more of them all the time. People tried to stay clear of us, but it was getting harder as the sheer size of the crowd forced their collective movement wide. Kripsen and Lumbela stayed active with their shocksticks, and Maria took to waving a lase-blade from side to side.

People flowed past like a river of angry white water. Our line held firm as the crowd inched closer and closer. Aiming at the ground, Deluski squeezed off a long burst of lase-fire, scoring the pavement with a searing stream of heat, forcing the tide to dance back to a safe distance.

Six of Froelich’s uniforms finally arrived and filled the gaps in our line. Still not quite the show of force I was hoping for, but it was enough to convince the eyes watching from above I still held sway over KOP.

My plan was finally coming together.

A pair of teens charged. Wu drove the butt of his weapon into the face of the one on the left. The teen staggered backward, his hands to his face, blood oozing out from between his fingers, and then, just like that, he was sucked back into the angry tide, disappearing in the dark of night. I blocked the other teen with my body. He threw a punch at me, the eyes in his flash-lit face aflame.

I took the blow on my cheek and felt the sting of the shot, but I knew it was nothing serious. The kid had no meat on his bones. I swung my piece and caught him on the ear. At impact, the feral quality in the kid’s eyes instantly disappeared. It was like the demon that had possessed him was suddenly exorcised. Just a scared child now, couldn’t be more than thirteen or fourteen. I couldn’t let him stand there. We needed to keep this area clear so we wouldn’t get overrun. I shoved him backward. Had no choice. He lost his balance and fell under what seemed like hundreds of feet.

A fire broke out in the spice shop across the street, the madness of the mob scene now illuminated by a hellish, flickering glow. I looked for the kid, but couldn’t find him. I hoped he’d managed to pick himself up.

Already, I knew the kid’s face would stick with me. I had a helluva photo album going in my mind, the mementos of a lifetime of brutality. Over the years, the faces’ features had faded, all of them meshing and mixing into little more than a brown-skinned blur, but their expressions… I remembered their expressions-shock, fear, disbelief, hatred, humiliation…

Begging faces. Bleeding faces. Broken faces.

Quite a gallery.

I’d never escape the violence. It was clear by now that I was damned to spend the rest of my days repeating the pattern over and over. Served me right. A bastard like me didn’t deserve anything better.

I just had to trust that some good would come out of my mission to take back KOP. It might take years, but when I succeeded, Maggie Orzo would become chief. My on-again-off-again partner wasn’t corrupted like the rest of us. A chief like her would make a difference. I couldn’t let myself doubt that. Not ever.

And besides, I couldn’t imagine my life without the mission. With no Niki and no mission, I’d be left with nothing but emptiness.

I looked up and down our line. Kripsen and Lumbela were holding their ground, acting like real pros. They’d had plenty of practice the last couple weeks. The rest of my crew were doing the same, finally proving their worth. Even Maria looked confident. Chicho had scored himself a winner.

I tried to process what my eyes were taking in: a gang of punks with clubs, a woman with a baby cradled in one arm and a stolen chicken flapping in the other, an old man swinging a lase-blade at geriatric speed. Looters were everywhere, their arms overflowing with swag.

Shit started to rain down from the windows above the street, bottles and plates, chairs and lamps, all of it crashing down to the pavement from three, maybe four stories up. They were trying to protect their homes by heaving whatever they had handy down on the rioters’ heads. The mob scattered. People ran for cover, tripping and trampling.

I’d never seen anything like this. The scene before me was so… so raw.

I felt an unusual spark down deep, down where the emptiness was centered. I puzzled at it for a while, wondering what it was. It grew stronger, this strange feeling gaining power inside me. I felt it emerge from the murky depths.

It spoke to me. It was calling me, drawing me into the madness.

Not since Niki died had I felt anything so pure. I let myself indulge the feeling. Magnificent relief washed over me. Gone was the guilt and the self-pity. Gone was the pain. Gone was the burden of the mission.

I couldn’t believe I’d missed it all these years. The secret to life was so simple. All this time, all I’d had to do was surrender.

Dizzy with euphoria, I dropped my piece and stepped out into the glorious insanity.

Heading into the eye of the storm, I stole a look over my shoulder. My bewildered crew members watched me go. Nobody made a move to stop me. They didn’t care if I got myself killed. I’d be doing them a favor.

I’d be doing myself a favor.

My senses were alive, my skin tingling. I felt the winter breeze pull at my hair. I felt the battered pavement under my soles. It was beautiful, really, the way the pits and ripples dipped and arched, like somebody had made a sculpture just for the feet to appreciate. Shattering ceramics sprayed my legs. I turned toward where they exploded. Even in the low light, they looked like starbursts. The last few stragglers stumbled about, some of them bloodied, all of them covering their heads. A brandy bottle exploded nearby, the spray jumping high enough to dot my cheek. I smelled cinnamon and cumin and anise, the flaming spice shop exuding odors like a magnificent stew.

I closed my eyes, savoring the aroma.

I reached for the sky, inviting the worst, and waited for the end.

April 21, 2789

A launching spacecraft rattled the windows. My lids peeled open. I was on my sofa, and curiously, I was still alive.

How long had I been here? The emptiness had hold of me now. It wasn’t so bad, really. I couldn’t feel anything when it held me. I just wanted to sleep. In fact, I should be sleeping right now. I closed my eyes and shut out this godforsaken world.

My phone jingled. Had to be Maggie. I’d blocked all other calls.

I wondered if it was day or night. It didn’t much matter, but I was curious. The Big Sleep could really screw with your sense of time.

I let the phone take a message. Maggie’s holo lit up the room. I could see colors moving through my eyelids.

“Juno, it’s me. It’s Maggie. Hey, I’m running late for dinner.”

Nighttime. Definitely nighttime.

“Listen, can we push it back a half hour? Let me know.”

Right. Dinner. Forgot about that. Lucky she called or I would’ve been a no-show. I fumbled for the phone, and in order to keep my half-asleep voice under wraps, I texted a response: No problem. And then I unblocked other calls.

I checked the time. Fuck me. Even with the extra half hour, I didn’t have much time to get ready. I dropped my feet to the floor and stretched my arms up for the ceiling, my muscles aching, my head still swimming with the tail end of a fading buzz.

I lifted myself off the sofa and stumbled down the hall without looking at the bedroom door. I didn’t go in there anymore. Too much Niki in there-clothes, shoes, jewelry, hairbrushes with long strands of black hair trapped in the bristles, her hair. And the smells, the perfumes and creams and lotions. No, I didn’t go in there anymore. I couldn’t.

Making it to the can, I watered the mold-lined bowl, then stepped into the shower and started rinsing away the stink of an all-night booze binge. A bandage washed off my bicep. I looked at the gouge on my arm. Not bad. It should heal up nicely if I could keep it clean. Amazing that was the only damage. Deluski and Lumbela were the ones who’d saved me. Lumbela paid the price, his melon taking a hit from what looked like a flying teacup. The resulting spray of shattering ceramic peppered my arm, one shard taking a good slice.

I remembered them pulling me back to the alley, both of them ducking, me walking upright, lost in a world of my own.

Upon reaching the alley, I remembered catching a whiff of Maria’s perfume, and it was as if somebody had cracked smelling salts under my nose. Snapped out of my desperate trance, I slowly became aware of my wide-eyed, white-faced crew.

Stunned and confused, I had no idea how to feel. Happy I’d been saved? Angry they’d interfered? Even now, I still didn’t know what to make of the episode. But standing there in that alley, with flashlights in my eyes, hearing a chorus of “What the hell’s wrong with you,” I’d had to cover quickly. So I made up some shit that made it sound like I’d just put them through some kind of sick-fuck loyalty test.

Figured it was better than letting them know I was a sick fuck.

I doubted they bought it, but I told myself it didn’t matter. It wasn’t like they could quit and join some other cop clique. They were property. My property.

I should’ve known they’d come to my rescue. Had I been thinking straight, I would’ve realized they had no choice. I’d told them more than once that if anything ever happened to me, their little hit flick would air for the public.

I turned off the water, grabbed a musty towel and walked naked back to the living room. I kept my clothes there now. I found a pair of white pants that almost looked fresh. As for shirts, I saw none that wasn’t balled up, piled up, or left for dead.

I peeled back the flaps of a box I’d pulled from the bedroom closet before closing the bedroom door for the last time. Old shirts folded and stacked. I chose a pullover-style short-sleeve. Buttons were a bitch with my shaky right. I shook out the folds, and a pair of sunglasses fell free. Strange. I didn’t remember owning any sunglasses.

They were probably a gift. Niki used to buy me tons of shit I didn’t want. I’d probably never worn them. I’d just stuffed them in some drawer, where she eventually found them and jammed them in this box of forgotten crap. I was such an asshole. She’d gone through all that effort to buy me something nice, something she thought I’d like, and I’d dismissed the gesture. Would it have killed me to wear them a few times?

She must’ve been confused when she found them. Why hadn’t I put them in the car? Or brought them to work? And then she must’ve realized that I didn’t want them, that I’d rejected her gift. That I’d rejected her.

My gut was rolling over, my eyes stinging. Fuck this bullshit. I didn’t have time for this sorry-ass crap. Just get the fuck over it already. The mission. Think about the mission.

I moved into the kitchen and grabbed the empty brandy bottle from the table. It had been three-quarters full last night. No wonder I still felt partly loaded. I put the empty back in its crate with the other empties and set the crate out on the balcony with all the booze crates.

Exiting out the front, I went down the steps and headed into the courtyard, jungle vines grasping at my ankles. I’d really let the place go to hell. I was tempted to grab my sickle, if I only knew where it was. I’d probably left it leaning against a wall someplace and now even it had been overtaken by the sprawling growth.

I stomped and kicked my way out to the street. The road was clogged with cars and bikes darting through the gaps. The air tasted of exhaust. This was the only planet I knew of that used fossil fuels. When you can’t afford to import good tech, you do what you can, and that included reviving centuries-old technologies like the internal combustion engine.

I decided to hoof it so I could walk off the last of my buzz. I didn’t like Maggie seeing me drunk.

I rounded the corner and spotted a group of kids under a streetlight. Their clothes were filthy, same as their faces. I watched one of the young teens squirt a bead of industrial glue into a plastic bag before holding the bag over her nose and mouth. I walked past as the bag ballooned in and out below her faraway eyes.

My phone rang.

Captain Emil Mota.

I’d intended to pay him a little visit after the riot. He needed to know he’d been replaced. But that riot had really fucked me up. When it was over, I couldn’t have crawled into a bottle any faster.

Evidently, he’d gotten word another way. “Yeah,” I said into the phone.

Holo-Mota skimmed alongside me as I walked, and like all the holos used by the phone system, he had this ridiculous, pasted-on, ultra-happy attitude. Phone holos were incapable of matching the speaker’s mood. Nothing but broad smiles and twinkly eyes. One of the crueler jokes played by offworlders on us poor and simple folk.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” His sour tone clashed with the sugar-coated holo floating alongside me. Cheap-ass holograms.

“That alley’s mine again,” I said, matter-of-fact.

“But you’re not a cop anymore. You can’t do this.” The fact that he was whining instead of demanding was a good sign, a sign that this would be as easy as I’d hoped. This hump was still afraid of me.

“Don’t fucking tell me what I can’t do.”

He didn’t respond for a few. Memories must’ve been running through his mind. Memories of him strapped to a chair, me standing over him, my fists pummeling that pretty face of his, his sharp, long-lashed eyes going puffy, that primly refined nose swelling up to double size.

My stomach twisted under the brutal truth of my enforcer’s past, the guilt ripping me up like it always did. But I had no choice except to forge ahead. I put some extra steel in my voice. “You remember what happens to people who defy me, don’t you?”

“But protection money is for cops.”

As if there were a rule written somewhere.

As if rules mattered on Lagarto.

“Protection money is for protection,” I said. “Where were you last night when that neighborhood burned? You weren’t earning that money so they hired somebody else. You got what you deserved, so quit your bitching and stay the hell out of my territory.”

I hung up, relieved that I’d managed to stay in don’t-fuck-with-me character for the duration. I couldn’t afford to let attacks of conscience throw me off my game. I had to stay focused. It was all about the mission.

I owned that alley outright now. Mota wouldn’t fight me. The guy was a political animal, smart as hell, and a real up-and-comer at KOP, but he was also a pretty boy, the kind who shied away from street duty, a born bureaucrat best suited to public relations.

I’d been surprised from the outset that he’d entered the protection racket. Never would’ve thought a guy like that had the balls for it. Strong-arming wasn’t his style. But as a captain, even a captain of the bullshit PR division, he could order around as many well-hung unis as he wanted.

I crossed the street, my eyes blinded by headlights, my feet chasing away dozens of geckos feasting on some kind of roadkill. I crossed a makeshift footbridge over lazy canal water flowing underneath.

No, he wouldn’t call my bluff. I was sure of it. He wouldn’t want to risk another beating. Those memories were still fresh in his mind, probably fresher in his than mine. A decade had passed, but shit like that never goes away.

Back then, he was a desk jockey working the KOP lockup. Paul Chang had put him in charge of collecting buyouts for petty crimes. You want to get your friend or loved one released before charges are filed with the Koba Office of Justice, you come make an offer. Cash only.

Smart as he was, Mota had a real knack for scoring maximum coin. So smart that he thought he could skim a little for himself. Who would know? He thought he could stay a step ahead of Paul.

He couldn’t.

Enter me and my two fists.

Phone rang. Mota again. “What?”

“I won’t let you do this,” he said, like he’d found a spine. “That alley’s mine.” He’d probably spent the last five minutes psyching himself up for this. “I’ll haul your ass in if I have to.”

I laughed. “You’ll haul me in? What kind of threat is that? You wanna hear a threat? You keep this shit up, and I’ll bash your fucking face in. Again.”

Holo-Mota stayed silent.

I needed to keep pushing. His little bout of courage had to be quashed. “The chief used to like you, you know. When he sicced me on you, he told me to go easy. Nobody will be holding me back this time.”

“You got some nerve mentioning the chief,” he countered. “You ratted him out when he needed you most. You’re nothing but a two-bit snitch.”

My temples pulsed. My feet picked up their pace, my shoes clomping angrily on the pavement. Holo-Mota stayed on my wing, his apparition floating alongside.

Snitch. Squealer. Rat. I’d heard the accusations before. I’d been hearing them in my head since the day Paul was murdered.

Paul’s enemies used me to bring him down. They threatened my wife. They forced me to turn on him. They used me to get him fired. And then they killed him and sold it as a suicide.

“I’m no rat,” I said through grinding teeth. “I was set up. Everybody knows that.”

“You caved. All that tough-guy bullshit is just an act.” He was on a roll, his tone getting more confident with every word. “Down deep, you’re just a pussy, and everybody knows it. Cops aren’t afraid of you anymore. They laugh at you. You’re pathetic, you hear me? You’re just a washed-up boozehound. A shaky old man crying over his lost love.”

I let him finish, my cheeks burning, my temper building. Then I uncaged the enforcer inside me. “You talk to me like that again, I’ll kill you.” I’d stopped walking, my eyes aimed at the sweet smile on Mota’s holo-face.

As he let seconds tick by, the headlights of a passing car momentarily shined right through him. Then he said, “Fucking try it.”

Fucking Mota. I twisted the napkin in my lap, wringing it into a cord, tighter and tighter.

I was sure he’d back down. No way would he call my bluff. That pretty-boy pencil pusher had no business running a protection racket.

Fucking Mota.

The Punta de Rio was packed, every table occupied, wait staff making the rounds, a crowd of offworld tourists milling in the lobby. The menu was expensive, but so were Maggie’s tastes. This place was the go-to spot for anybody feeling nostalgic for Lagarto’s brandy era, back when barges carrying brandy fruit used to dock right outside to unload their cargo. The decor was nautical, antique anchors and tow ropes, fishnets and brandy barrels. Windows ran around the circumference, all of them opened wide to let a pleasant breeze float through. Outside, I could see a well-lit derelict riverboat that had been refurbed into a museum.

I sipped my tea. Maggie was talking, had been for a while now, saying something about her promotion to squad leader. The words entered my ears but not my mind. I couldn’t focus, my buzz now fully dissipated to be replaced by a vicious headache. I needed a hit in a bad way. Every drunk knew the best cure for a hangover was more booze.

But not in Maggie’s presence. She’d once admitted I was a father figure to her, and a father ought to set a good example.

“This is already way tougher than I thought.” She swept back the dark hair that had fallen over her emerald eyes. I still wasn’t used to the eyes. They used to be blue, but she’d had them changed out. Rich as she was, she could afford to get them swapped with the seasons. These were her winter eyes, she’d told me.

“Those guys don’t respect me.” She shook her head.

Despite missing most of what she’d said these last few minutes, I got the gist with that final statement. “It’s only been a few weeks. You have to give it time. They’ll learn how capable you are. Just like I did.”

She smiled, her teeth sparkling as bright as her eyes. With a mischievous grin, she said, “Yeah, you were pretty slow to catch on, weren’t you?”

All I could do was nod. It hadn’t taken me long, though. Not long at all. Her type was rare. Paul Chang was the only person I’d ever known who could match her intensity, drive, and purpose. She was on a mission of her own, a mission to bring order to this city, to make it a place where justice ruled, where people could count on the police for protection. She was determined to make it a place where she wouldn’t have found her father alone on the street in front of their home, blood oozing from a charred wound in his chest.

She’d be chief one day. I’d see to it that nothing would stop her. Koba needed her.

Paul Chang and I had already taken our shot at changing this city, but KOP was corrupt, the levers of power smeared with shit. The only way for us to move up was to hold our breath and grab hold. Beat-downs and frame jobs. Cover-ups and payoffs. Forced confessions and back-alley executions. To seize control, we had to outcorrupt the corrupt.

By the time we reached the top, we’d become no better than those we’d replaced. Fucking classic how it worked out.

This time would be different. It wasn’t too late for Maggie. She had the capacity to play dirty when she had to. I’d seen it more than once. But her dark side had to stay under wraps. The dirty work had a way of soiling you, rotting you from the inside out. I knew that better than anyone.

The dirty work was my job, and mine alone.

The waitress arrived to refill my tea. I was starving. Where was the food?

I noticed Maggie looking at me funny. “What?” I asked.

“When were you going to tell me about the sunglasses?”

“What about them?”

“You have a black eye under there?”

“No. They were a gift.”

She rippled her brows. “You do know it’s dark out, don’t you? No sun for weeks?”

“I know.” I didn’t elaborate. “Tell me about Wu and Froelich.”

“Don’t try to change the subject. Are you going to tell me why you’re wearing them or not?”

“No.” Let Maggie think I had a coon eye. I didn’t care. “Wu and Froelich,” I repeated. “They been behaving?”

After a reluctant pause, “I guess so.”

“I told you they would.”

“They have no choice, Juno.”

“True. But at least you have two obedient squad members. The rest of hommy will eventually follow their example.”

She leaned forward, planting her elbows halfway to the table’s centerpiece. “You should’ve turned them in, the whole lot of them. They belong in the Zoo.”

“What good would that do? They wouldn’t survive a week in prison. This way you have a loyal following.”

“I don’t want them on my squad.”

“Yes, you do.”

“I can’t have bad eggs stinking up my staff.”

The food arrived. Grilled fish over rice with two ’guana eggs blanketing the top. The eggs looked overcooked, two slate-colored eyes staring out from a lake of white. It was as if the cook heard Maggie say “bad eggs” and fried some up to order.

“What’s with the eggs?” I asked the waitress.

“No sunny-side-ups during the Big Sleep. We do ’em all over-easy this time of year. The offworld tourists think it’s a kick.”

Offworlders. Fucking over this world wasn’t enough for them. Now they’d gone after my eggs.

“Wu and Froelich killed a man,” said Maggie as soon as the waitress stepped away.

Forgetting the eggs, I leaned toward her, keeping my voice soft, my tone strong. “Are you really going to make me go through this again? I have Wu and Froelich under my thumb, and they have their hooks into a whole bunch of uniforms. Add in Deluski, Kripsen, and Lumbela, and we have a whole squad. We can’t piss that away. You want to be chief someday, we have to take every advantage we can get.” I didn’t mention my new protection racket or how I would expand the new revenue stream into a river of police power. She wouldn’t approve.

Her phone rang, and she looked at the display. “I have to take this.”

I shook my head at her back as she stepped away. She couldn’t get to the top just by acing her goddamned performance appraisals. This was KOP we were talking about. She needed me. She needed what I could do.

I dug into my fish and eggs-tasty for the first few mouthfuls, but turning blah shortly after. My taste buds were like that these days. Everything I ate went from grand to bland in three bites or less. I pushed the fish around my plate, taking an occasional bite as I waited for Maggie to return.

The crackle of a bug zapper drew my attention toward the kitchen. The hostess carried a handheld, shaped like a carpet beater but made of wire mesh instead of cane. I watched her meander among the tables, picking flies and mosquitoes out of the air, each one incinerating with a satisfying spark.

A group of young offworlders stood to leave, their appearances morphing as I watched, their flawless skin going furry, teeth sharpening into fangs, noses elongating into snouts. The newly minted pack of werewolves thought they were hot shit, prancing out like supernatural show dogs. What a bunch of punks. Like we locals were supposed to be impressed by their high-tech bullshit. I looked at their vacated table, where they’d left behind a huge spread of barely eaten food. Wasteful bastards. At least the kitchen staff would eat well tonight.

Maggie came back, her heels clopping on the mold-spotted floor, her face bunched in frustration.

“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t think you’d mind if I started my dinner.”

She dismissed my remark with a brush of her hand. “I don’t care about that. It’s good to see you eating.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I have to go out on a murder.”

“Send Wu and Froelich.”

“They’re not answering their phones. That’s some thumb you’ve got them under. Now I have to go with Josephs.” She dropped pesos on the table. “We’ll continue this later.” She hurried across the dining room and out the door.

The waitress appeared. “What did you do to your date?”

I looked up. “I need a brandy.”

“She’s a feisty one, isn’t she?” She cocked her hip to one side and tugged at an earring. “What you need is a mature woman.”

“Brandy,” I repeated, practically snarling the word.

“Your loss.” Her hip snapped back into place, and she headed for the bar.

My phone rang. Maria the bodyguard. I listened to what she had to say, my teeth biting down on my lip.

The brandy arrived by the time I hung up. I slugged the glass down, hoping the spurned waitress hadn’t added a splash of saliva.

I waved for another glass of instant courage. I was going to need it.

Fucking Mota.

I leapt for the riverbank, one foot landing in the mud, the other splashing water halfway up my pant legs. I guess the skiff wasn’t as close as I’d thought. Next time, I’d have to remember to push up my shades for a better look before I jumped.

I waved at the skiff’s pilot and started scrabbling up the riverbank to the sound of the boat’s motor puttering for deeper water.

“Here,” said a voice.

Looking up, I saw a hand reaching over the embankment’s edge. “That you, Deluski?”

“Yep.”

Taking hold of his hand, I scrambled the rest of the way. “Kripsen and Lumbela here yet?”

“They’re just up the way there.”

“Good.” I fell in step with the young officer, one shoe squishing with every step.

Kripsen and Lumbela approached, both of them wearing white, loose-fit linens. Kripsen’s were too long in the legs, the short man’s cuffs dragging on the ground. Lumbela’s whites shone bright on his dark skin. They fell in alongside, the four of us now marching in a line.

“What’s up, boss?” asked Lumbela. There was a small bandage under his temple.

“Maria called. She said a uni’s been posted at the head of the alley, and he’s scaring all the business away.”

“Just one cop?”

“That’s what she said.” One cop. One. Mota was an amateur. After his little show of bravery on the phone, I’d expected him to make a move, but not one so feeble. He had no clue what he was up against. Like I said, he had no business running a protection racket.

“Anybody heard from Wu and Froelich?” I asked. “They won’t answer their phones.”

“They went upriver,” said Lumbela. “They like to bet on the lizard fights up there.”

“Why won’t they pick up?”

“Did you tell them they’d be on call?”

Is he serious? I actually stopped to stare at him.

“If they didn’t know they were on call, they might’ve turned their phones off.”

I was speechless. Genuinely speechless.

He caught on. “You expect us to be on call all the time?”

“Twenty-two-fucking-seven.”

“Okay.” We started moving again. “Good to know.”

We turned left. A bonfire raged in the middle of the street, making the air reek of smoke and ash, melted plastic and burned rubber. Several people worked the asphalt with fern-frond brooms, creating piles of debris left by the riot.

Silently, we marched from one ravaged block to the next. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Lumbela checking me out. I tried to ignore him, but he kept watching me instead of looking where he was going, his shoes scuffing and bumbling.

“What the fuck?”

“I–I was just wondering if you could see okay with those glasses?”

“I see fine.”

A pair of butchers wheeled a cart of monitor carcasses up to the closest fire. They each grabbed a pair of thick, stubby legs and swung the gutted lizard from side to side, counting one-two-three before heaving the carcass into the flames, where it landed like a heavy log, a cloud of sparks kicking up for the sky. We passed the cart as they grabbed hold of a second monitor. By the smell of it, the meat had been taken by the rot. The power was back on in this neighborhood, but not soon enough to save their unrefrigerated stock.

What a fucking mess this city was, the riots just the latest blight on an already spoiled fruit. It was hard to believe Koba once had thrived and bustled with energy. Those days were long gone, gone for generations.

Every step took us closer to where it happened. I remembered the way it felt when I’d let go, when I’d surrendered to the madness. Exhilarating. Pure. Totally insane. My stomach fluttered, and my feet felt light on the ground. I did my best to purge the strange emotions inside me. Now wasn’t the time.

I looked where the spice shop used to be-nothing but a pile of charred rubble. An old woman sat on the pavement outside and used a piece of paper to scoop spilled spice into a plastic bag, picking out pieces of glass in the process.

We stepped up to the lone uniform at the head of the alley.

“Hey, fellas,” he said. “That you, Juno?”

Son of a bitch. Not Jimmy.

“Shit, I knew it was you soon as I saw that hand of yours. Shit, man, why don’t you get that fixed? I bet them doctors can give you some pills or somethin’.”

I knew this kid. Jimmy Bushong. Ex-army and a fellow Tenttowner. I’d met him during the Vlotsky case and helped him get a post at KOP after he gave Maggie and me the inside dope on his army unit. “What are you doing here, Jimmy?”

“Jus’ followin’ orders. My sarge told me to stand right here by this alley. I asked him why, and he told me the order came from up the chain. Pretty fuckin’ weird if you ask me, but I ain’t complainin’. This shit’s way better than workin’ riot duty. This neighborhood sure got worked over last night.” He punctuated the statement with a whistle.

“You got that right.”

“What you guys up to? You come down to get some action?”

“How did you guess?”

“I ain’t goin’ to stop another badge. You go on in if you wants to. With me scarin’ the little action they’s gettin’ tonight, they ain’t busy in there. I bet you can get some discounts tonight. I’m talkin’ bargains galore.”

“I bet so,” I said with a lascivious leer. “We’re going to give those whores a helluva workout, aren’t we, boys?” I gave Deluski a guy-to-guy elbow.

Picking up on my lead, Deluski said, “Shit, they’re gonna have to sit on ice when we finish with them.”

The rest of my crew played their parts, horndog smiles all around.

I leaned toward Jimmy. “So how do you like the job so far? Been about a year, hasn’t it?”

“You know how it is, ain’t so much fun with all them riots and shit, but it’s way better than the army. Livin’ in the jungle, fightin’ them warlords.” He shook his head. “It ain’t no picnic, you see what I’m sayin’. I gotta thank you for gettin’ me this job, Juno. I sure do owe you one.”

“You don’t need to thank me. You earned your place. All I did was ask them to move your app to the top of the pile.”

“Shit, that ain’t nothin’ small. You done helped me, and I ain’t never goin’ to forget it.”

Lumbela asked, “You wanna come in with us, Jimmy?”

“No. I best stay out here.”

“It’s our treat.”

Jimmy was tempted. I could see it in his eyes. But he shook his head no. I liked Jimmy. Good kid. And probably a good cop.

Lumbela put his arm over Jimmy’s shoulder. “C’mon, man, nobody’s gonna know.”

“I hear you, but I gots a new girlfriend, see.”

“So? We won’t tell her.” Lumbela shook Jimmy’s shoulders in a big-brother way.

“I know, but she’s been real good to me, so I best stay out here.” Poor kid had no clue of the danger he was in.

With one arm already over Jimmy’s shoulder, Lumbela swung his other arm across his chest, completing the bear hug. Jimmy still didn’t get what was happening, not until Kripsen snatched his piece. “Hey, what the fuck are you doing?”

Lumbela and Deluski wrestled him into the alley. He was kicking and thrashing now. I looked up at the hookers peering down from open windows-lace and leather, poofed hair lit by flashing neon.

“Let go! Let the fuck go! Juno? Tell these fuckers to let me go.”

I wanted to let him go. I really did. But I needed to put an end to this pissing match with Mota. He’d called my bluff, and now it was time for me to call his. I had to send him a signal he wouldn’t forget. The mission didn’t allow for half measures or nice tries. The mission wasn’t for the timid. KOP needed to change. This broken world needed to change.

“Juno?” called Jimmy, his voice cracking, his eyes pleading. “Why you jus’ standin’ there? Fuckin’ help me!”

It hurt me to hear the innocent fear in Jimmy’s words. He was a fellow Tenttowner. He trusted me. My dinner threatened to come up.

I swallowed to keep my food down. “Break his legs.”

April 22, 2789

Midnight had passed. I couldn’t sleep.

I lay on the bed, my fingers laced under my head, listening to the sound of a bedframe scraping across the floor upstairs. Lumbela was really getting at it up there. Been going like this for ten minutes now.

I was in one of Chicho’s screw suites, lying on a bed with fresh sheets. I’d insisted on fresh sheets. And even with the clean sheets, I made sure to lie on top. And fully clothed.

I was pretty damn sure Captain Mota would stand down, but until I could be absolutely certain, I’d stay here. No point making myself easy to find. For that reason, I’d dumped my phone too. Last thing I needed was to get arrested.

I was less concerned for my crew-cops didn’t arrest other cops-but thought it best for them to lay low anyway. Deluski and Kripsen were bunking down the hall. And Lumbela was upstairs rearranging the furniture, making a goddamned racket. Fucking idiot.

Literally.

I turned on the lights. Geckos scurried and bedbugs scattered. An iguana stayed on the wall, a mane of spikes framing his face like military-inspired flower petals. His charcoal skin had turned fluorescent-pink along his spine like it always did during mating season. ’Guanas were especially brave this time of year. They’d leave themselves exposed for days in an effort to attract a mate, waiting in the starlight, their neon pink skin glowing with desire.

I wished my life could be so simple. Eat. Sleep. Fuck. If I could only be reduced to my biological urges. No love. No hate. No pride.

No guilt.

Using the room phone, I called a few fences I knew, waking them up until I found one who had a hoverchair in stock, one of those nice offworld models. I told the fence to send it to Jimmy’s room at the hospital. No, don’t put my name on it. Make it anonymous.

Jimmy. I could still hear the sound, the sickening crack of bone.

Fuck me. And fuck Mota for making me go this far.

Somebody knocked.

“Come.”

The door swung open. “I saw your light was on.” Maria held up a bottle of brandy. “Wanna drink?”

I nodded with enthusiasm. Sobriety was a bitch.

She stepped in, her hair and her mini both teased up to hooker heights. She pulled out a couple glasses from a rolltop liquor cabinet and poured. I took a deep swig, and sweet liquid fire burned down my throat. She sat on some kind of hammock apparatus that hung from the ceiling. Swinging, she snuggled herself into the folds, her ass hanging out through a hole in the bottom until she snapped a mesh flap in place.

I took another gulp, just about draining my glass. Damn, that was good. Looking at Maria nestled into that contraption, I mentally cycled through sex positions, trying to figure out how to use that thing.

I was stumped. And glad for it. Made me feel like I still had at least a drop of innocence somewhere inside me.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked.

Her left eye was decidedly puffy. I searched for other signs of bruising, but couldn’t see through the layers of foundation on her cheeks.

“Sorry I hit you.”

“Goes with the job, right? Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?”

“Taking over this alley.”

The ’guana stared at me like he was waiting for an answer. I pulled my shades from my shirt pocket and slipped them on, darkening the iguana’s pink stripe to the color of blood.

I looked at Maria, her brown-sugar skin closer to chocolate now. She gave me a puzzled look, but didn’t ask about the shades. “You’re not in it for the money, are you?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Look at you. Those are decent shoes, durable, but nothing fancy. You don’t wear a glitzy watch. You’re dressed in whites like any other joe. If you were about the money, you’d be showing off what you got. That’s what pimps do. Madams too.”

I downed the rest of my glass, stood and walked over to her for a refill. Damn, her perfume was strong.

“You should get that hand fixed.” She poured brandy into my wavering glass. “I know a doctor who works cheap. She does a lot of work on the girls around here.”

“Tit jobs?”

“Yeah. And other stuff.”

“What kind of other stuff?”

“Other stuff,” she repeated with a shrug. “I bet she could fix that hand.”

I took my place back on the bed. “Not interested.”

“She’s an offworlder. Or she used to be. She lives on-planet now.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I guess she likes it here.”

“So how did you end up working for Chicho?”

“He took me in when I was eleven.”

“You hooked for him?”

She nodded. “But I wasn’t very good at it. I was young, so I did well with the pervs at the beginning, but when my tits started coming in, I knew my time was limited. The other girls were prettier, and they knew how to work the johns better than me. I tried to compensate in the looks department by learning how to do my makeup and my hair real good like this.”

I wanted to laugh.

“But even then, I couldn’t compete. So I had to find another way to make myself useful.”

“And you chose security?”

“Why not? I still get to beat men off. I just do it a different way now.” She gave me a mascara-caked wink, her lashes coming together like two rakes. “You never answered my question. You’re not doing this for the money, are you?”

“No.”

“Then why are you doing it?”

“It’s complicated.” I had nothing more to say on the subject. I sipped my drink, uncomfortable silence taking hold.

“That was some riot,” she said after a while.

“Yeah.”

“You just about got yourself killed, you know.”

“I know.”

“What were you thinking? The sky was fucking falling, and that’s when you decided to stroll on out?”

“You ask too many questions.”

“You remind me of some of the girls around here.” She poured herself another. “I’m talking about the ones who drink and drug and fuck like they’re on a mission.”

“What kind of mission?”

“I wish I knew. It’s like they’re out to kill themselves, but they don’t have the guts to just slash their wrists and be done with it. Is that who you are?”

“No. I’m on a different kind of mission.”

“That’s what they all say.”

I tiptoed out, trying not to wake Maria, who was conked out on the sex swing. I hadn’t slept all night. My haunted thoughts wouldn’t allow it.

I found an empty room with a phone and tried to set up a conference call with Wu and Froelich. Wu answered. Froelich didn’t. I’d have to wake up that asshole in person. I told Wu to meet me at Froelich’s boat. It was time I took those two homicide bastards to task. Fuckers thought it was okay to go out gambling and not answer my calls? That shit was going to stop.

I strolled out the door and through the riot’s wreckage, my shades dimming out some of the details. This duller form of reality suited me fine. The morning was hot. A southern breeze carried scorched air from the vast southern deserts that suffocated so much of this planet. Lagarto’s only oasis was here in the jungles of the northern pole. If you could call this lizard-infested, riot-ravaged, poverty-stricken, mold-spotted city an oasis.

I chartered a skiff and rode the Koba River. A single lightbulb swayed on the end of a wire that hung from the rusted roof, golden light oozing out across black water. Pairs of monitor eyes reflected out of the darkness, accusing me with their cold, reptilian gazes.

Arriving at the dock, I handed the pilot some bills and climbed a ladder to the pier. I wandered the stalls, passing tables full of fresh fish on ice and racks of gutted ’guanas on hooks.

Spotting a small tub full of squirming salamanders, I stopped to order a taco. I stood by as the cook skewered two ’manders and dunked the squirming pair into a jar of peppery batter. They came out completely coated, their battered legs and tails wriggling as they went into the fryer. Next, she held a flatbread in one hand and used the other to spatula on a thick swath of aromatic paste made from local spice. My stomach growled as she spooned on the riverfruit salsa. Then came the sprinkle of bitter cloverweed leaves. I waited as the fryer bubbled, the smell of grease and wood smoke making my mouth water. Finally, she pulled the skewer out of the fryer, crisped ’manders impaled on the end. Folding the flatbread into a taco, she used the bread to pinch the golden-brown critters off the slender rod. “Hot sauce?”

I nodded, paid up, and bit through the flatbread, crunching on the ’manders in the center. Tangy. Must be juveniles. The older ones tasted muddy.

Wu stepped up just before I took another bite, and I decided to take a bite of him first. “Hey, asshole, you left us hanging last night.”

“Sorry, but me and Froelich, we were upriver-”

“I don’t want to hear it.” I chomped into my taco, hot sauce dripping out the other end. I walked as I chewed, forcing Wu to follow.

“Kripsen and Lumbela filled me in on last night,” he said.

“Did you thank them?”

“For what?”

“For doing your job.”

“What? Now I’m supposed to be the leg breaker?”

“You and Froelich should’ve been there. And you motherfuckers better quit dodging my calls.” I chomped off another bite and kept at him, my words slurred. “I thought you were supposed to be the badass of this gang, but when the serious shit comes down you’re nowhere to be found.” I licked hot sauce off my lips, my tongue on fire. “You know what you are? You’re a pussy.”

He grabbed my arm and pulled me up close, our noses almost kissing. “You take that back.” His temples were pulsing, the scar across his forehead darkening.

“Pussy.” I grinned while I chewed, daring him to try something. His nostrils flared, and his lips pinched down so tight that they resembled the scar on his forehead. He didn’t take a swing. He couldn’t. I pressed my taco hand into his chest and pushed him out of my way, leaving a grease stain over his heart. If he didn’t like being called a pussy, then he better grow a pair and do what he was told.

I was walking again. My appetite was gone, but I forced myself to take one more bite before tossing the scraps into the weeds with the candy wrappers and broken bottles. Wu trailed behind me, but not far-I could hear his shuffling footsteps. Sulking bastard.

“This it?” I pointed my bobbing finger at a listing barge. Froelich had once told me how some of the lower compartments flooded decades ago, making the old junker sit cockeyed in the water.

“Yeah,” Wu mumbled as he stepped up alongside me. “His place is on the second deck.”

“Let’s wake him up.”

We climbed the long gangway, and reaching the top, we started across the slanted decking, our shoes sinking into spongy moss. We ducked through a bulkhead and went up a set of rust-eaten metal stairs that-due to the barge’s tilt-sat at an awkward angle.

“Heard from pretty-boy Mota?” asked Wu.

“No. But we don’t have to worry about him anymore. Not after last night.”

“Good. You know he’s a fag?”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“Around.”

I kept one hand on the sweating steel wall as we headed down a long corridor that leaned heavy to starboard. My shoe slipped and I went down, my knees crumpling, my left side smacking into the deck. Christ.

Wu laughed, the sound of his delight echoing up and down the corridor.

I slowly stood and evaluated the damage. One ankle felt a little gimpy, and my hip would surely bruise, but no more than that. “What the hell happened?”

“You fucking fell.”

I pushed my shades up to the top of my head and studied the floor. There’s the culprit. I reached down to touch a glob of yellow goop that had been smeared under my shoe. I held my fingers to my nose for a smell. “Fly gel.”

“Somebody must’ve spilled.”

The gel killed flies and eggs. Lagartans used it to clean cuts and abrasions. Without it, an open wound would be squirming with maggots inside five minutes. Lagartan flies acted fast. And they were damn good dive-bombers, expert at dropping their eggs from the air.

“There’s more up there,” said Wu.

We followed the sporadic trail of drops to a door painted sloppily with the name FROELICH.

“Did Froelich cut himself last night?” I asked, uncertainty creeping up my spine.

Wu shook his head no and opened Froelich’s door. I followed him in, my hand on my piece. He flicked on the lights. The cabin was small-bed, kitchenette, toilet-and from the entry, it slanted downhill to the left.

The nightstand had been toppled, contents spilled on the floor. Oils and lubes. Condoms and cock rings. My eyes turned to a splatter of gel that marked the far wall, more gel on the floor underneath, and then a trail leading behind the bed, as if somebody had thrown something against the wall, where it fell, then rolled down the slanted decking.

Wu and I stepped slowly around the bed, following the trail to a severed head. Coated in fly gel, it rested where the wall met the floor, a vertebra poking out from a savagely chopped neck stump. I toed a gooey ear with my shoe, rolling the head faceup.

Hemorrhaged eyes stared from behind the gel mask. His mouth was agape, the black hole clotted with gel.

Froelich.

“No,” said a shocked Wu. “No fucking way.”

I pulled my shoe away, and Froelich’s head rolled face-down, his vacant gaze aimed at the floor but angled to one side, his nose acting like a mini-kickstand. What was that on his cheek? A tattoo?

I squatted down for a closer look. A ring of interlocked snakes, two of them, each one swallowing the tail of the one in front. Where did that come from?

“No fucking way,” repeated Wu, shaking his head slowly from side to side.

Froelich was dead, reducing my crew by 20 percent. My gut was heavy with dread. Events were reeling out ahead of me, and I had no way to rein them back in. I’d lost control.

Mota. Had I misjudged that pretty-boy son of a bitch? I couldn’t believe he’d take it this far. Would he actually kill one of my crew? A fellow cop?

Wu’s face was as pale as my own, his scar a faint pink line. “He was my partner,” he said, his voice barely audible.

I sat on the bed’s crumpled sheets and tried to see it another way. Maybe it wasn’t Mota who did this. Froelich had enemies, lots of them. It might not be my fault. It might not have anything to do with me. That tattoo on his cheek was some weird shit, wasn’t it?

And why kill Froelich? Cop killings brought too much attention. Killing me was the smart move.

Unless Mota couldn’t find me.

Or he was crazy.

“What do you mean you don’t know?” Maggie’s hands were on her hips, her jaw jutted. We stood in a private corner of the barge’s deck, behind one of the cranes, isolated from the hommy dicks and the med techs. I leaned on the rail, the deck’s listing slope making it the only comfortable way to stand.

I hid behind my shades. “I don’t know anything about this.”

“Don’t give me that. Talk.”

I didn’t know what to say. That I was back in the protection business? That I broke a good kid’s legs last night? That I already got one of my crew killed?

Wishing it all away, I looked out at the river, at the black water flowing gently in the starlight. I tuned into the way the barge swayed with the silent current, my mind syncing with the lazy rocking. Maggie asked another question, but I wasn’t listening. The river. It was calling me. The mad spark lit inside me. I recognized it this time. I felt reality leaking away, and I let it go. Gladly.

I stared straight down at the water. It stared back. Smiling, inviting. All I had to do was jump this rail. After a quick drop, the river would welcome me with a burst of spray, a celebration of liquid confetti. I’d drop below the surface and let her hold me in her cradling hands. Sinking, I’d let her carry me in her cool flow until she ushered me away from this world.

A finger poked my arm. “Talk, dammit. What do you know about this?”

I was transfixed by the water. Seduced. I didn’t want to break the trance.

“I’m talking to you, Juno.”

The trance crumbled. Dizzy, I gripped the rail and willed my melting knees to lock.

“Juno?”

I ripped my gaze off the water the way you rip off a bandage. Reality was back, the spark extinguished.

“What’s wrong with you?”

I glared at her, my eyes burning straight through my shades.

“Seriously. What’s wrong?” She reached for my hand, warm fingers making contact. “You’re scaring me.”

Hearing the fear in her voice, I felt a shift inside, chafing annoyance once again getting overwhelmed by the guilt and gloom. I couldn’t handle this shit, emotions cycling like mad, moods swinging like hyper monkeys. What the fuck was wrong with me? “I’m okay.” I tried to sound believable. “Really, I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not. Jesus, look at you. You look like you’re about to pass out.”

“I’m fine. I don’t see a severed head every day, okay? It’s got me a little screwed up.”

“Oh, no, you don’t.” She smacked my hand. “Don’t pull that shit with me. You and I both know you’ve seen worse.”

I didn’t want to bullshit her. I really didn’t. But coming clean was out of the question. This whole fucking thing could be blowing up in my face, but I had to keep it contained as best I could. And to achieve containment I had to keep her out.

She waited for an answer. I had to say something. Something that would explain why my fingers were gripping the rail like a lifeline. Something believable.

I started into another line of bullshit, but it caught in my throat, nothing more than a mangled syllable coming out my mouth. I tried again, but couldn’t spit it out, another false start dying before I could utter it.

Maggie’s sharp eyes shone in the lamplight, her bullshit meter on full alert. I sighed, my posture deflating, my ego wilting.

“I miss Niki.” I adjusted my shades, the shades Niki had given me. Underneath, my eyes misted as painful seconds drifted by.

“I know you do. She was carrying too much weight to keep living.”

Yes, she was. For the twenty-five years we’d been together, she tried to stay afloat. She really did. But the weight dragged on her ankles like an anchor until she couldn’t swim any longer. There were things in life you just couldn’t shake, and being raped by your father was one of them.

Footsteps approached from behind. “There you are. I’ve been lookin’ all over for you two.”

Just what I need. Josephs. Mark Josephs. Maggie’s newest partner and a grade-A asshole. I rubbed my chin to cover my quivering lower lip.

“Juno, you old dog, what the fuck have you done this time?”

“He and Paolo Wu found Froelich,” answered Maggie.

I cleared my throat and tried but failed to sniffle my nose clear. Using my index finger, I stabbed away a tear that leaked out from under my shades.

He leaned in to get a closer look at me. “What the fuck? You cryin’?”

“No.”

“Cryin’ over Froelich?” He threw up his hands. “You gotta be fuckin’ shittin’ me. Why you gettin’ all weepy over that dickhead?”

“Fuck off.”

“I’m just askin’.”

“Leave him alone, Mark,” said Maggie.

“What’s today’s date? I’m gonna mark my calendar. The day Juno Mozambe cried. This shit’s historic.”

A different type of spark ignited: anger. I was well acquainted with this kind. “Fuck off,” I said, my shaky right strangling the rail.

Josephs held up his hands in mock surrender. “Whoa, don’t get your titties twisted now. I’m just lightenin’ the mood. Bringin’ a little cheer like I always do. Why are you always so serious?”

I told myself to relax. Let it go. Just let it go. I peeled my fingers off the rail and shoved them in a pocket. I shifted my feet, muscles uncoiling, and even tried a smile.

“That’s better,” he said. “You gotta quit bein’ so touchy. Don’t be a bitch now.”

My nerves jingled and my eye twitched. I was ready to pummel this stiff. That was what I needed, a good fucking fight.

Maggie put a hand on Josephs’s shoulder. “Listen, Mark, why don’t you let me talk to Juno alone?”

“No.” He pulled his shoulder away. “We’re gonna do it together. We’re supposed to be partners, right?”

“I really think it would be better if you let me handle it.”

“Fuck that. If you didn’t wanna work with me, you shouldn’t have asked me to be your partner.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Her face screwed in disgust. “Nobody else would have you.”

“That ain’t it at all. It’s not that they don’t like me. Those dickheads don’t want to be outshined is all.” He flashed his pearlies. “Nobody likes to be fiddle number two.”

Hang in a little longer, I told myself. All I had to do was answer a few questions. No big deal. Then I could move on. I could find a bar and drink until the emotions stopped swinging. Drink until I couldn’t feel. “Fucking ask your questions already.”

Josephs hit Maggie with a self-satisfied smile, like he’d just won a prize. The bastard was like a jungle tick the way he loved to get under your skin.

“What are you waiting for?” she asked him.

He turned to me. “How did you find Froelich?”

“Wu and Froelich went upriver last night to do some betting on the monitor fights. Wu wasn’t sure if he made it home okay. We tried calling him this morning and he didn’t answer, so we came down here to check on him.”

“That it?”

“That’s it.”

“What’s the deal with that tattoo on his cheek? You ever seen it before?”

“No. The killer must’ve stamped him.”

Maggie asked Josephs, “What’s the status on the search?”

“The unis tell me this boat’s clean. We think whoever did this did it somewhere else, then dunked Froelich’s head in fly gel to preserve it before bringin’ it here.” To me he said, “Now why don’t you tell me where you fit in with Wu and Froelich.”

“We’re buddies.” Poker face.

“Fuckin’ bullshit. You got some shit goin’ with them two, and you’re gonna tell me what it is.”

“We’re just friends. Pals.”

“We got a dead cop. We can’t let that go unanswered. You know that. If you three were into some shit, you gotta let me know. You back to your old tricks?”

Maggie chimed in. “You know who did this, don’t you, Juno?”

Possibly, I thought with locked lips.

“A cop is dead,” said Josephs. “Fuckin’ decapitated. You understand how much pressure’s gonna come down on us? If you know somethin’, you can’t keep us in the dark. You can’t.”

I felt the pressure, their combined heat bearing down on me. But I held strong. “I told you everything I know.”

Maggie seized my wrist. My heart started it was so sudden. “Don’t you dare shut me out.” She raised an accusing finger, aimed it at the spot between my eyes.

“Trust me,” I said. “You don’t want any part of this. Leave it be.”

“Part of what?”

“I can’t even say for sure it’s related.”

“Talk.”

I didn’t like the way she was looking at me, her brows dipped in a deep V, her lips pursed, her pretty face gone sour. Her pointing finger felt like a drill aimed at my skull.

My resolve broke like I was a two-bit snitch. I wanted to keep her clear, but this was Maggie, my very last connection to the world.

“A badge,” I said, the words bitter on my tongue. “Froelich might’ve been killed by another badge.”

Maggie’s drill of a finger went limp.

Josephs’s face went blank, any vision of a clean case shattered. “Christ. The instant I saw you I should’ve known we were fucked.”

Josephs was old-school KOP. A pimp kills a cop, and it’s time to stomp some pimp ass. An O-head kills a cop, and it’s open season on every junkie who has the bad sense to sleep in an alley. A cop kills another cop? That’s a fucking minefield.

“Fuck me,” he said. “Don’t tell me he’s brass. He better not be brass. Is he brass?” He hung on the answer.

I nodded.

“Fuck! I hate you, Juno. You know that? I’ve always hated you.”

Their phones rang, both at the same time. A holo blinked into existence just beyond the rail. Captain Emil Mota’s feet floated high over the water. “You two running this investigation?”

“Yes,” they responded.

“I just got a tip. A credible tip. I want Juno Mozambe brought in for questioning.”

I flew through holo-Mota, diving for the river, my shades gripped in my left. My hands punctured the water, next came a slap to the top of my head, and then I was under. I plunged deep below the surface, my ears feeling the pressure. I kicked deeper, waiting for the mad spark to ignite inside me, hoping it would come so I could end this miserable existence.

No such luck.

It was cold down here. My ears hurt and so did my strained lungs. Not so rapturous after all.

I needed oxygen. Aiming straight up, I flutter-kicked for the surface. Breaking through, I sucked air into my lungs. I couldn’t believe this shit. Damn river spat me out. Bitch didn’t like the taste of me.

I looked up. Maggie was there, looking down at me, her expression unreadable from this distance. She gave me a wave. Josephs was there, too, flipping me a double bird.

Holo-Mota reappeared as Maggie must’ve called him back. She’d hung up with him as soon as he mentioned my name. From there, things had gone quick, her saying I better get out of here, Josephs saying they couldn’t just let me walk away with all these cops wandering the pier, and me solving the problem by swanning overboard.

Soon they’d be telling Mota how they’d just tried but couldn’t find me. I must’ve already left the scene. No, they didn’t know where I’d gone. Now what was this tip all about?

I scanned the ship’s rails. I couldn’t see anybody but Maggie and Josephs. Nobody else had seen me. I quietly breaststroked away, aiming for a set of docks just downriver.

Water dripped from my clothes, forming a puddle on the tile floor. I shivered under the blasting aircon. From behind a long row of glass cases, a sharp-eyed woman stared at me with one brow cocked in puzzlement.

I held out my shades, drops of river water falling onto the glass counter. “Sorry.” I tried to wipe off the water, but wound up smearing it around. Under the glass, rows and rows of earrings and necklaces glinted through the resulting blur.

I unfolded my sunglasses so she could see how one stem had bent when I hit the water. Through chattering teeth, I asked, “Can you fix this?”

I lay on the bed, wearing a brand-new set of cheap whites that I’d bought with some soggy pesos. My good-as-new shades covered my eyes.

Maria sat in the sex swing, her bare feet on the floor, her toenails painted pink to match her bra, which peeked out from under a tit-hugger top. My wet clothes hung from the cables that supported the sex swing. So did my drying pesos, two dozen bills clipped on like tiny flags, each held in place by a nipple clamp posing as a clothespin.

We didn’t speak. She seemed to sense I wasn’t in a conversational mood. My mind was grinding and churning, processing and plotting. Mota had overplayed his hand. The guy was a suit, and suits had no business poking around in a murder investigation. Not when they worked in PR. Shoving his weight around with Maggie and Josephs was an overreach. They didn’t report to him.

I never doubted Maggie and Josephs would let me go. Tense as things were between Maggie and me, we had a history. And Josephs, he was an everyday cop, and everyday cops had a long tradition of anti-suit sentiment. He’d let me go on principle. The SOB didn’t like being told what to do.

But Mota would keep pushing. He was already trumping up a bullshit tip to turn KOP against me and my boys. KOP was too fractured for his plan to work in full, but he didn’t need complete success. Shit, all he needed was a single kiss-ass. Just one trigger-happy uniform with designs on currying suit favor and I was fucked.

Whether Mota killed Froelich or not, he had to be corralled. And fast.

But he hadn’t responded to my threats. Or a pair of broken legs.

I knew what I had to do. It was the only way to get the mission back on track. There was no other way to be sure my new protection business would succeed.

The competition had to be eliminated.

I had to kill him.

I tried to tell myself I shouldn’t feel guilty. I ran tired, old rationalizations through my head. Things like, It’s his own fault for not backing down. Or, Anybody stupid enough to buck me isn’t worth the air he breathes. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. You fuck with a monitor, you get an assful of teeth.

I had a million of them, but none helped, the familiar pit of guilt-tinged self-loathing making my stomach ache.

I had to kill him.

There it was.

“You met my sister yet?” asked Maria, her lashes gunked up with so much mascara that her lids and upper cheeks were dotted with semicircles of mascara tracks. I couldn’t see the bruise I’d given her. Whether it had faded or had just been covered by a few coats of foundation, I couldn’t tell.

“No.”

“She works here. She’s got a pretty face. She’s gonna do good at this.”

“How old is she?”

“Fifteen, but she looks older. Most people think she’s seventeen or eighteen. I’ve been saving up to get that doctor I was telling you about to do some work on her.”

“I thought you said she was pretty.”

“She is. She’ll get regular business, but we have to think long-term. Most of these girls don’t think like that. They spend their money as fast as they earn it. They never think about what’s going to happen when their tits start sagging. What are they going to do then?”

Somebody less jaded would’ve told her to get her sister the hell out of here. The girl was only fifteen. It wasn’t too late to get her back in school.

Instead, I told Maria her sister was lucky to have her looking out for her.

“She’s a smart kid. Someday we’re going to start our own house. If we’re really good about saving our money, we can do it in ten years or so.”

“You think a new set of tits will earn her that much?”

“It’s not just the tits. She’s gonna get some work down below, too.”

“What kind of work?”

“This doctor can insert motors and stuff down there so she can give her johns a ride they won’t forget.”

“Motors?” I asked, disbelieving.

“Not that you can see. They’re all internal, small little things. But they’re powerful as hell. I mean they’ll vibrate your wang off. And there’s other settings, too.” She counted fingers. “There’s roll, and jerk, and squeeze, and twist. Oh, and they lubricate.”

My jaw was on my chest. Robo-fucking-snatches? “Guys dig that shit?”

She nodded emphatically, her teased hair bowing up and down like a tree in a windstorm. “I know a girl over at the Red Room who got the procedure. She has to turn ’em away. Now I admit there’s some who aren’t into it. She says she gets johns who come in for a curiosity fuck and never come back, but she also says there’s tons more who won’t do regular girls anymore. She has a waiting list.”

“How long have these things been around?”

“Not long. Offworlders have had ’em for years. I don’t even know how long. But they’re new on Lagarto. As far as I know, that offworld doctor was the first to offer the procedure down here.”

“Does Chicho have any girls who have one?”

“Why? You wanna try it out?”

Surprised at the question, I stuttered a no.

She cocked her head to one side like she was confused by my reaction. “I think I’m starting to get you.”

“You are?”

“You’re one of those sentimental types, aren’t you? You can’t separate sex from love. Big and bad on the outside, but soft and squishy on the inside.”

Soft and squishy? Try twisted and tortured.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she said. “I wasn’t trying to insult you. I think it’s sweet, really.”

Christ. Don’t tell me she’s coming on to me, this ex-hooker with the big hooters, and the big hair, and the big perfume.

The room’s phone rang.

I answered quickly, jumping at the chance to escape this conversation. Deluski appeared, the badge on his holo shining extra bright. “It’s Wu, boss, he just went into the Beat.”

Any relief I felt was instantly erased. I was up, shoving my feet into my shoes. “I told you guys to lay low. Why didn’t you stop him?”

“We tried, but he wouldn’t listen. He’s in there looking for Mota.”

April 22–23, 2789

I hustled from the back of the cab. Deluski waited on the curb outside the longtime cop bar. A flickering lamp blinked across his youthful face. Together, we barged through the double doors. The place was quiet. Unusually quiet.

Heads turned our way, uniforms and brass, badge bunnies and bartenders.

Wu stood by the bar, crocked off his ass, swaying to and fro, a bottle in one hand, a half-full glass in the other. “Where are you?” he shouted, the words sloshing out his mouth. “Where is that fucking faggot?”

The crowd gave him plenty of room. Other than some hushed muttering, nobody spoke. They appeared to be waiting for his tirade to run its course. Any normal night, a guy disrupts everybody’s good time and somebody would’ve dragged him out back for a thumping. But Wu had just lost his partner. They were in a generous mood.

Wu brought the bottle to his lips, forgetting the glass in his other hand. He tipped his scarred head back for a swig, and his body followed, back arching, feet backpedaling-but still drinking-until he smacked into the bar. Glasses jumped, and bar stools tumbled.

I wished I could laugh like some in the crowd, but my heart was racing, my pulse double-timing. I scanned the clientele, searching for threats, searching for agents of Captain Mota. Did he have a crew like I did? Was his influence bigger than I thought? He wanted me brought in for questioning. How far had the word spread? How many of these jokers were ready to smooch some suit ass?

I spotted both Kripsen and Lumbela. They looked relieved to see me. I gave them each the eye. Let’s do this thing.

I approached the bar, Deluski riding shotgun, Kripsen and Lumbela joining from the sides, a four-man show of force.

“Where is he?” yelled Wu. “Where is that bastard? I just wanna ask him some questions. I wanna ask him if he killed my partner.”

We passed cop tables, brandy in glasses, tin cups full of shine. Badge bunnies watched us pass, their faces painted with rouge and lipstick. The hairs on my neck prickled, and sweat broke on my brow.

I stepped straight up to Wu and took a fistful of his collar. “Let’s go.”

I turned and made for the door, my boys fanning to the sides, me dragging Wu along. My boys walked with purpose, their hands on their pieces, putting out a pure don’t-fuck-with-us vibe.

Wu’s garbled protests sounded behind me. Dumb fucking undisciplined piece of shit. He’d put us all at risk tonight. His drunken posturing was a colossal show of stupidity, though I had to admit he couldn’t have stumbled into a more effective means of putting out word that Mota might’ve killed Froelich. True or not, the accusation would pass from cop to cop on whispered breath until the whole of KOP was infected.

I eyed the last couple tables. I felt a tug on my improvised leash, fabric slipping through my fingers. Wu tried his escape, but I recovered in a hurry, my hand seizing a tighter hold on his collar. Buttons popped off his shirt as he tried to pull free. Stumbling, he went down, his body falling on top of the brandy glass in his left hand. The muffled crunch of glass made me wince.

I yanked him upright. His hand was bloodied, his pants torn. He held the bottle tight to his chest with his other hand like it was a baby. I told him to heel by giving his collar a rough yank. The door. I had to get him out that door.

Wu threw the bottle. Heads ducked to a chorus of startled screams. The bottle exploded against a wall by the door. A shower of brandy and glass rained down on a table of cops and their dates. They jumped up in unison, the women looking at their stained dresses in disgust, the men aiming steamed stares at us.

Christ. The men were approaching.

I glanced at Wu, at the fear creeping into his eyes-he knew how bad he’d fucked up. A group of four brandy-splashed beat cops met us, their chests out, their nostrils flared, testosterone flowing strong. Three more cops joined from another table, one of them a woman.

“That boy’s gonna apologize,” said the one in front.

My crew stood their ground, their hands gripping their undrawn weapons. I let go of Wu and stepped up to meet the uniform in a cop face-off. Nobody in my crew was going to fucking apologize. I’d never allow us to look so weak. I didn’t care how in the wrong Wu was. He was one of mine.

“Tell him to apologize,” said the uni.

Four on seven. Make that eight now that another cop had joined their ranks. I took my sunglasses off, folded them, and shoved them in a pocket. I pulled my piece out of my waistband real slow and deliberate. With the handle pinched between thumb and forefinger, I held it up in my swaying hand.

This was what I needed. A good fucking fight, consequences be damned. If Mota had one of his agents in the crowd, so be it. My enforcer juices couldn’t be tamed.

Somebody came and collected my weapon. And everybody else’s too. The air hung heavy with anticipation. Badge bunnies hopped away. Suits hung in the corner, spectating from afar. A pair of uniforms joined our side, and I recognized them as a couple of late arrivals from the riot. Two of Wu and Froelich’s boys.

A bartender yelled from behind the bar, “Take it outside. You want to be welcome in here afterwards, you take it outside.”

The stiff opposite me turned his head to talk to his newly formed gang. “Yeah, let’s move it outside.”

That was when I hit him, dropped the fucker with a right to the jaw. I ran over him, my shoe stomping his balls on my way to bull into the next hump. I drove my shoulder into his chest and ran him backward until we tumbled over a table, and the gates of hell broke loose behind me.

The gates of glorious hell.

I was on my back taking shots to the face, my hands covering and taking the worst of it. I tried to buck the bastard off me, but my strength was sapped. Nothing to do but take it. He snuck one through my guard, my head going dizzy.

“You can’t hurt me,” I spat. Another fist came down. “That all you got?”

Somebody pulled him off, telling him it was over. “Easy. Take it easy,” said a voice.

I couldn’t see straight. Too much blood in my eyes. I wiped my face with my shirt. Hands picked me up and ushered me toward the door. I bumbled over collapsed tables and broken chairs before being ejected out to the street. Finding a lamppost to lean on, I rubbed my eyes clear and took a long look at my scraped and already swelling knuckles. I grinned. I could still throw a punch.

Looking down, I found Deluski and Kripsen sitting in a patch of weeds, their lungs heaving, their faces bloodied like mine. Behind them Wu lay passed out with geckos crawling all over him. I swept at the flies buzzing around my head. The smell of blood must’ve been driving them mad.

Lumbela was across the way, his arm draped over the shoulder of the uniform I’d dropped, the two of them laughing. The uniform’s girl stood nearby, arms crossed, her impatient foot going tap, tap, tap. That stiff had another fight coming later tonight. I laughed, deep and hard. I’d forgotten the joy of genuine laughter.

Somebody handed me a can of fly gel. “You’re gonna need this.”

“Yeah. Was that you pounding my face?”

“That was me.” He flexed his fist. “You got one hard face.”

I scooped out a gob of gel and slathered my brow to kill any eggs that were already there. “See any other cuts?”

He tilted my head back in the lamplight and gave me a good once-over. “I don’t think so, but I can’t tell for sure.”

I rubbed gel over my knuckles. “Good fucking fight.”

“Shit, yeah.” He patted my shoulder and brought the gel to Deluski and Kripsen.

I walked over to them. “Can you guys get Wu home?”

“You bet, boss,” said Kripsen.

“Let me borrow your phone.”

Kripsen handed it over. It took me only a few seconds to get the address before I tossed the phone back to him. Fun as it would be to buy everybody a round, it was time I shoved off.

I found my piece in a pile of weapons on the walk and tucked it into my waistband.

“Where you going, boss?” asked Kripsen.

“I got something I gotta do. You guys get Wu home.”

Suddenly remembering, I reached for my shirt pocket. Good. My shades were still there. I pulled them free and gave them a look. They’d made it through just fine. Smiling, I slipped them on.

I started hoofing, purpose in my gait. I didn’t care that my head ached, didn’t care about my ribs and knuckles either. I wore the wounds like badges, something to be proud of. I’d kicked some ass and tagged myself a fucking force.

I didn’t want to think about where I was going. I wanted to enjoy the moment. Good fucking fight.

I was back.

Nobody would care that I’d taken a beating at the end. What they’d remember was me not backing down. They’d remember how I threw that nasty sucker punch, how I’d stomped that hump’s nuts.

Confidence surged through me. The tattered mission was restored, achievable. I’d take back KOP. My will was too strong. My desire was too great.

I was putt-putting the river on a rented skiff, a breeze drying the blood on my face.

I was very aware of the fact that nobody had made a move against me at the Beat. Even when I was down, catching facefuls of knuckles, nobody tried to arrest or kill me. That told me Mota’s influence over KOP was minimal. Captain or no, he couldn’t turn the police against me. He was a middle manager, a bureaucrat, nothing more. He didn’t send a crew to guard the alley last night. The best he could do was to get a single uniform posted. A clueless uniform. Jimmy.

I wasn’t going to feel bad about Jimmy. Not tonight. I was serving a higher purpose. Together, Maggie and I were going to change this city.

Mota was just a bump in the road. A temporary hurdle. And I was going to end this thing tonight. I was going to kill the bastard.

I angled the boat into one of the many canals built when Lagarto’s brandy trade was the agricultural envy of the Unified Worlds. I passed houses on stilts, drawn curtains and dark windows. An offworld flyer rose into the Big Sleep’s perpetually black sky. Unusual for this neighborhood. Not many offworlders ventured into the residential districts. The dumbass had probably got lost and decided to get his bearings by taking an aerial view. The flyer banked left and headed for the river, buzzing rooftops with its ear-rattling shriek.

I ducked my head as I passed under a low bridge, viny growths scraping through my hair. I turned left and entered a broad canal. Both banks were lined with stilted homes jutting over the water. I couldn’t stop myself from remembering: Niki grew up not far from here. She’d still lived with her parents when Paul and I staked out their home. Back then, Paul and I were young guns hot to make a name for ourselves by nailing a big-time drug dealer, Niki’s father.

Hour after hour, day after day, we’d spied through the windows, watching her brush her hair and read her books and change her clothes. I fell for her. It was as simple as that. I fell, and fell hard.

The earliest days were the best. We each had our demons, but we were still young and stupid enough to believe that our love for each other would conquer all. I didn’t need to stop my enforcer’s ways, and she didn’t need to face the ugly truth that her son-of-a-bitch father had raped her.

But the happy days didn’t last long. The shit we were carrying kept getting in the way, so we broke up and reunited, broke up and reunited, over and over until we each found a way to contain our demons. For me, the secret was booze. For her, pills.

But even then, the demons never stopped nipping at our souls. They took tiny, little bites, nibbles so small we didn’t even notice them until our hearts and souls had been completely devoured.

She’d had the good sense to escape her torment by leaving this world. And me, I was still here. Why, I didn’t know.

Mota’s house shouldn’t be much further. Afraid of making too much noise, I turned off the motor and let the boat coast to a stop before grabbing a pole. I stood in the stern and stabbed the water, driving the pole deep down into the mud, and propelled the boat with a shove. Quietly, almost silently, I moved toward my destination.

Stroke by stroke, I made my approach. Monitors lurked in the water, their reflective eyes watching me pass.

I stopped.

This was it. Mota’s place. Light from a neighbor’s outdoor lamp penetrated enough of the shadows to let me see his back wall. Weighted by the relentless strangle of jungle roots, the porch had partially separated from the rest of the house and hung down in the water.

I’d expected something nicer. Looked like Mota’s intensely manicured image didn’t extend to his house.

The bedroom light was on, shadows shifting on the ceiling. He was home. I poled the skiff to the opposite side of the canal and drove it as far as I could into a thicket of mangrove. I sat down and waited for the light to go out. I’d do him in his sleep.

I’d be the prime suspect. Thanks to Wu, my feud with Mota had been well advertised. And it wouldn’t take much asking around to learn of my new protection racket. They’d come for me. A cop killer.

Did it matter that Mota might’ve killed a cop himself?

I doubted it.

Were this the old days, I wouldn’t sweat it. Back then, I had protection at the highest level. Between Paul and the Bandur cartel, I had free rein. I was untouchable. Bulletproof.

Shit, Mota never would’ve challenged me in the first place.

Damn that SOB. Why couldn’t he have stood down like he was supposed to?

The guy had grown tougher than he used to be, a bona fide badass. But had he gone so bad he could’ve chopped off Froelich’s head? That shit was savage.

The timing of it was hard to contradict. Froelich must’ve died just hours after I ordered the breaking of Jimmy’s legs. Who else could it have been?

I told myself it didn’t matter. Either way, Mota had to die. The mission required it.

My face hurt. I probed my features with my fingers. They felt strange, like I was wearing a puffy mask. My side ached, like somebody had shoved a shiv between my ribs. Despite the pain, I had to smile. Good fucking fight.

The bedroom light went out. My heartbeat moved up a tick. I checked the time. I’d give it a half hour, let him get into a deep sleep first. Let him dream his last dream.

I spent the next thirty concentrating on how I was going to beat the rap. The obvious move would be to frame Wu. After that stink he raised tonight, he’d be an easy mark.

But he was one of mine. That dumb, scar-headed asshole was one of mine.

I twisted my brain, trying to figure a way. All raps were beatable. There was always a way. And I was a fucking master, a frame-job maestro. Evidence was my paint, crime scenes my canvas. The perfect scam was out there. I could find it if I just concentrated. Think, dammit. Just think…

Fuck this brainy shit. I’d kill that dickhead and take his body with me. I’d take it out to the jungle and find a nice private place to dump it. The jungle made quick work of corpses. Geckos and ’guanas. Beetles and maggots. Give it a couple days, and he’d be mulched into shit.

I poled the skiff out from the mangrove and crossed the narrow canal, pulling up to his dilapidated back porch. Broken posts sat atop bent pilings, the collapsed floor half submerged. I tied the boat to a loose beam.

I pushed my shades up onto my forehead. I needed to see. Carefully, gingerly, I stepped onto the porch. Floorboards creaked. The rooftop swayed. Shit. I froze, my heart pounding, my throat dry, my teeth clenched tight. I reached for my piece, my ears waiting for the sound of approaching footsteps, my eyes zeroed in on the bedroom window.

Nothing.

Breathing easier, I moved toward a window, not the bedroom window, but the one on the opposite side of the door. This section of the porch was underwater. I stepped slowly into the drink, taking care to keep from slipping on river muck. Cool water seeped into my shoes as I popped the screen and crawled silently through.

I was inside. A rush came over me. I was unstoppable. A fucking force.

My inner enforcer was in charge now.

I slunk down a hall, water squishing in my shoes, the bedroom door my target. I carried my piece two-handed to keep the shaking under control. Mota didn’t know what was coming. Wakey, wakey, pretty boy.

The bedroom door was open. I filled the door frame, my piece trained on the bed, bathed in the blue glow of a holo-clock. Mota’s fine features were an unearthly mix of radiant light and shadow. He snored loud, deep sawing echoing off the walls.

I looked to his right. From under the crumpled sheet, thick black locks spilled across the pillow. Mota wasn’t alone. And he wasn’t gay. She slept with her mouth wide open, a model’s face caught in an ugly pose. My piece shook in my hands. I had to fry them both. No witnesses. Whoever she was, she had to die.

I tried to level my weapon.

Tough luck, lady.

Wrong place, wrong time.

Shit fucking happens.

I was on a mission, dammit. KOP needed to be conquered. This world had to change.

I couldn’t steady my hands, my aim wobbling out of control. Sweat stung my eyes.

I had to kill them. The mission required it. I couldn’t blink. Paul and I never blinked when we took KOP so many years ago. Fucking do it.

But she was an innocent. You don’t hurt women, Juno.

Conflicting urges yanked at me like a pair of monitors tug-of-warring over a fresh kill. My knees shook, and my heart pounded explosive beats. I couldn’t make myself pull the trigger. But Mota had to die. He wouldn’t stop until he turned KOP against me.

Pull the trigger, Juno.

But my trembling finger wouldn’t move. She was innocent.

And with every second of hesitation, I felt the mission crumbling away. I wasn’t up to the job. I could see that now. I didn’t have what it took. Not anymore.

I spun away, out of the door frame, and pressed my back against the wall. My lungs heaved for air. Must’ve been holding my breath.

I moved down the hall, away from the snoring, into the living room and slumped onto the couch. This whole thing was a joke. I couldn’t take over KOP. I wasn’t even a cop. What was I thinking?

Why did I even care? This world was beyond saving. People were mostly assholes anyway. I shouldn’t even give a shit.

With total certainty, I knew the mission was dead. Dead, dead, dead.

So was Niki. My Niki.

And Paul.

I realized I was dead too. My body just didn’t know it yet.

I wanted the mad spark to come. The crazy sensation that could sweep me away from this world. I tried to summon it- come out, come out, wherever you are. It didn’t come. Even it had abandoned me.

I held up my lase-pistol and studied it in the dark. This gun was all I had left.

I brought the barrel into my mouth and sucked on the metal composite, my finger fondling the trigger.

Still, the mad spark wouldn’t come. Fickle bastard.

Do it anyway. Just fucking do it. I came here tonight to end this, and I still could. Pull the trigger.

A tear trickled down my cheek. I couldn’t breathe, not with my nose running and my mouth stuffed with metal. Just do it already. My lungs felt ready to burst. I was getting light-headed. Dizzy. Do it!

I pulled the weapon out of my mouth. Fucking coward. That was twice you couldn’t pull the trigger.

I sank deeper into the cushions and dropped my shades down over my eyes. I listened to snoring from down the hall. I didn’t know how long I sat there. One minute? Ten? An hour? I couldn’t tell. But I stayed put until long after the tears dried and my nose cleared.

I still tasted metal. I licked my shirt to scrape the taste off my tongue.

A phone rested on the coffee table. Mota’s phone. He must have left it there when he went to bed.

I called Maggie, holo-free. I got voice mail, hung up, and tried again.

I was numb. From head to toe, nothing but numb. I called her again. And again.

She picked up, her voice a middle-of-the-night croak. “Yes, Captain?”

I kept my voice down. “It’s me, Maggie. It’s Juno. I’m using Mota’s phone.”

“Why are you using Mota’s phone?”

“I trashed mine, didn’t want to be tracked.”

“Where are you?” Her voice turned urgent. “Why are you whispering?”

“I’m at Mota’s place. In his living room.”

A pause. “What?”

“I came to kill him.”

“Jesus Christ. What’s wrong with you?”

“I really fucked up, Maggie.”

“You killed him?”

“No, he’s in bed, sleeping. He’s with somebody. I couldn’t do it.”

“Can he hear you?”

“I don’t know. He’s snoring pretty loud.”

“Get out of there. Now, Juno.”

“I started something I can’t finish.”

“Are you moving?”

I stood up. “I am now.”

“Good. Now keep moving.”

“Did you hear me before? I started something I can’t finish. I really screwed up.”

“No fucking kidding.”

I couldn’t sleep. I lay in the dark. Blinking neon splashed the far wall. A loud groan came through the wall behind me. Somebody was getting their money’s worth. At this hour, he must’ve paid for an all-nighter.

I’d managed to sneak in without waking Maria, who was crashed in the sex swing, her big hair catching every strobe of neon in its net and briefly lighting up firefly style before fading to black.

Despite Maggie’s insistence, I’d refused to go to her place after leaving Mota and his girlfriend sleeping in their bed. It was the middle of the goddamn night. I couldn’t intrude like that. I’d intruded enough when I woke her.

I’d meet her in the morning. I’d survive the night without doing something drastic. Starting early, she and I would talk it out. That was what she said. That was enough to keep me going.

I watched the window light up with the crimson glow of neon, then blacken with the dark of night, on and off, back and forth, no telling which would eventually win my soul.

I laughed at myself, at what a fuckup I was.

Maria woke. “When did you get in?” She rubbed her eyes.

“An hour ago.”

She yawned and stretched her arms. “I’ve been waiting for you. I wanted to warn you that a couple guys came looking for you earlier.”

“Who?”

“They didn’t say. I think they were from upriver.”

“How do you know?”

“One was wearing a panama hat, one of those cheap ones they make out of straw.”

“What did you tell them?”

She adjusted her position in the swing. I didn’t know how she could sleep on that thing. “I told them I hadn’t seen you.”

“They say why they were looking for me?”

“No.”

Nice. Now a pair of strangers were after me. They’d have to take a fucking number. “Does Chicho know?”

“I didn’t tell him.”

We stayed quiet for a while. She dropped a foot to the floor and used it to rock herself, red light slashing across her face with every flash from the sign outside. “You know Chicho’s already bringing in protection money from the other snatch houses.”

“I figured.”

“If I were you, I’d ask to see his books. He’ll short you if you don’t keep on top of him.”

“You think his books are accurate?”

“Yeah. That man keeps track of things. He’s smart that way. I’ve been asking him lots of questions. I gotta know how to do numbers to run my own house. It’s actually…”

I stopped listening and pulled Mota’s phone from my pocket. It still worked. He must not have noticed it was missing yet or he would’ve ordered it wiped. The bastard was probably still snoring away.

I opened the pics folder, and the first shot materialized over the bed. I squinted at the bright light until I slipped on my shades. Mota stared at me with a pearly-toothed grin, hat square on his head, badge shined bright. It was his graduation photo. I moved to the next pic, and the next. Mota waving from the deck of a boat. Mota posing by a new car. I jumped from pic to pic: Mota, Mota, Mota.

He liked to take pictures of himself, hundreds of them, the holo-slide show floating above the bed: Mota rubbing his chin, pensive-like; hands on hips with a faraway look; leaning on a door frame, looking oh so casual. He had all the poses down.

Maria was still talking, going on about her plans for the future. I motored through Mota’s photos, tossing her an occasional “uh-huh” as if I were listening.

What’s that? I stopped and moved back a pic.

“Find something?” she asked.

I stretched the holo-pic’s edges in order to enlarge the image. It was a street market, rugs and wood carvings under jury-rigged tents. Mota stood in the foreground, his arm over the shoulder of another man, a man with a shaved head and a round tattoo on one cheek. Fucking Froelich.

Froelich and Mota? I checked the file’s time stamp. Six months old.

But that couldn’t be. Froelich never had a tattoo. I thought the killer must’ve stamped him when he chopped off his head. I zoomed in to get a closer look at the two interlocked snakes, each one eating the other’s tail.

“What is it?” Maria asked.

I spun the 2D image her way.

“Isn’t that one of your crew? The one who showed up late?”

“Yeah. But he didn’t have that tattoo.”

“You know they make ’em so you can turn ’em on and off, don’t you?”

“They do?”

“Offworlders been doing it forever. You’ve seen how they can shift their looks. But now locals can do it too. They can’t afford to get the works like offworlders do, but a little tattoo isn’t that expensive. They even make some that are animated.”

I started back into the slide show, the next bunch of pics all candids of Froelich, some with the face tat, some not. And then came a string of shots of Froelich and Mota posing together. How weird was that? If I didn’t know better, I’d think they’d been dating.

“Lovers,” she said.

“You think so?”

“Definitely.”

“Wu told me Mota was gay, but I didn’t buy it. He sleeps with women.”

“How do you know?”

Remembering the woman in his bed, I said, “Trust me.”

“Maybe his snake don’t like just one kind of hole.”

I navigated pics, dubious of the gay lover theory until a shot of the two of them kissing clinched it.

I was stunned. Floored.

One of my crew had been dicking my enemy.

The streets were waking up, vendors hosing sidewalks, farmers wheeling pushcarts loaded high with spiralfruit and cilantro. Stooped porters labored by with sacks of grain strapped to their backs. The Phra Kaew market would open soon.

The Mota and Froelich slide show cycled through my head, pic after pic, my brain snagging on one picture in particular, this one of Mota, Froelich, and Wu, brandy glasses raised to the camera, standing behind a table stacked high with cash. As if discovering Froelich and Mota were sword fighting each other wasn’t shock enough, there was Wu, consorting with the enemy. The pic was dated the twenty-first. The night Wu and Froelich ignored my calls. When they claimed to be upriver watching monitor fights.

The night Froelich got his head cut off.

My gut stung with the realization that long before I’d come onto the scene, Mota had penetrated my crew, and maybe in more ways than one.

I had to know how deep.

Wu lived in this neighborhood with his wife and kids. I was going to brace that hungover shitbird. I’d throw the wife a few bills and tell her to treat the kids to a nice breakfast. Then I’d get after that son of a bitch.

I thought this would be easy. I’d picked on Mota for that very reason. I thought he’d go down without a fight. I didn’t know he’d toughened up. I didn’t know he was screwing one of my boys.

I didn’t know shit.

Mota’s phone chirped in my pocket.

I pulled it out and checked the display. The call was holo-free, and whoever it was, they’d blocked the name. I picked up but didn’t say hello.

“Who is this?” Mota’s voice.

“Who the fuck do you think?”

He stayed quiet for a few. “You broke into my house.”

I didn’t respond. No way I was going to admit it over the phone.

“You can’t intimidate me, you hear me?” His voice rose in pitch. “You’re going to pay for Froelich, you bastard. You’re going to pay.”

The phone went dead. Wiped.

I’ll pay for Froelich? How was he going to blame me for that? He couldn’t possibly think I killed him, could he?

The answer came in a sickening flash. If Mota and Froelich were lovers, he just might think I offed his boyfriend to intimidate him.

Jesus.

Mota and I were on a collision course. I could see that now. I’d started something that couldn’t be stopped. No way to undo it. No such thing as do-overs. It didn’t matter that I’d lost the will to fight, that I wanted out. It wouldn’t end before one of us was dead.

I needed Maggie. I couldn’t trust myself. I needed somebody with a level head, somebody who could see straight. Somebody who could call me on my shit. Somebody who had a moral compass that wasn’t spinning in circles. Maggie.

But first, Wu.

I turned right. A narrow alley closed all around me. Light slanted out from workshops on either side, illuminating the alley with a weave of dim beams. I passed basins filled with clothes soaking in dyed water. Up ahead, a pair of women dumped a tub. A rush of crimson water came running down the stained pavement. I moved to the side and let the tide roll past. They dumped another tub, and this time it was yellow water-smelling of saffron-that ran past and found its way into a storm drain.

I walked through a battered gate and up a set of mossy wood steps that led into a short tunnel. As I walked, I ducked beneath hanging moss that tickled my face as chittering lizards gave me an earful. I skipped up another short set of steps at the tunnel’s end and entered a courtyard surrounded by apartments, the patio freshly torched and dusted with ash. A tree stood in the center, its branches hanging low, weighed down with ripening brandy fruit. I walked up four flights to the top floor and around to the opposite side. I looked down at the treetop, leaves rustling in the breeze.

I rapped on Wu’s door, then waited a few before giving the door another pounding. His wife must’ve gone out early with the kids, probably walking them to school. Good. I kicked the door this time, giving it some extra boot. Wake the fuck up.

A thought tickled. This was the Big Sleep. No school on a holiday.

I tried the knob. Not locked.

I stepped inside, my hand on my piece, my heart already bumping my ribs. Putrid air assaulted my nostrils. Two tipped lamps rested on the floor with dented lampshades, angles of light slicing the walls. Dirt from a toppled houseplant ground under my shoes. I held my lase-pistol out front and followed its quivering lead into the kitchen; dishes in the sink, a drippy faucet, a sweaty fridge spotted with mildew. I backed out and peeked into a bathroom with chipped linoleum and musty towels.

A droning buzz drew me into a dark bedroom. The air was rank. I fumbled for a light switch and flicked it on. Toys sat on the floor. Bunk beds stood against the wall. Don’t fucking tell me.

Flies swarmed over the beds. No. I stepped forward, repeating the word no in my head with every footfall. Flies bounced off my face and plinked off my shades. Small forms rested under the sheets of each bed. I peeled back one of the sheets, and the image before me seared into my brain as if a hot branding iron had entered through my eyes. Pink PJs squirmed with geckos. Her hair was speckled with maggots, a plastic barrette on one side.

As bile rose in my throat, I lifted the other sheet. Another girl, another abomination.

I exited the room, my shaking piece still taking the lead. I moved down the hall, thick patches of black flies marking the floor and walls. They took off when I stepped near, briefly revealing spills of blood before resettling.

The master bedroom was bustling with activity. Flies swarmed. Geckos scavenged. ’Guanas fed on a naked body that lay on the floor. Wu’s wife. I moved in close. The stench was so bad I had to breathe through my mouth.

I tucked my piece under my arm and clapped my hands loud. Lizards scattered. Flies went airborne. I pushed up my shades and took in the unfiltered horror.

She’d been stabbed several times with a lase-blade. The wounds were charred and partially cauterized. I clapped again, then picked up a stubborn ’guana by the tail. Its body twisted, and its legs reached, and its bloodied mouth snapped at the air. Her breasts were gone. Not eaten. Gone. Cut off. Her chest butchered by jagged wounds. Same with the vagina, a roughly etched triangular wound marking the place it should be.

Unlike the stab wounds, the mutilations weren’t charred. Killed by lase-blade, then butchered with a knife.

I dropped the iguana on the floor, and it scrambled in for a bite of bicep. Light-headed, I forced myself to survey the rest of the room. Then a second bathroom. No sign of Wu.

I took another look at the body. Big mistake. My hand went to my mouth, and I hurried down the hall, my steps unsteady, my balance shot. I lurched into the living room, my world spinning, and dropped into a chair. I swallowed hard. Breathe. The air stank in here, but not as bad. I swallowed again.

I set my piece on my lap and told myself to get a grip.

Fuck.

I needed a phone. I had to call Maggie.

The front door opened. My heart leapt out of my chest. My hands jerked in surprise, my lase-pistol falling between my legs. A man stepped in, a stranger, not Mota. Not Mota. Dark eyes peeking through an unruly mop.

Spotting me, he did a double take. He had something in his hand, something round, something with hair. He held it by the lower jaw like it was a handle, his fingers hooked over the bottom teeth.

I grasped for my piece, my fingers curling around the grip.

He heaved the head at me, fly gel spraying loose, a spinning blur of hair and ears and neck stump coming my way. Being seated, I couldn’t dodge it, but I slowed it with a forearm before it caught me in the chest, gobs of fly gel splattering my face.

Wu’s scarred head landed in my lap, empty eyes staring, stretched mouth hanging open unnaturally wide. I was up, the head tumbling free, bouncing off the coffee table and rolling across the carpet.

Jesus.

I squeezed off a burst, the air catching fire. The beam crackled into the door frame, melting the paint and scorching the wood underneath. I corrected my aim, sweeping to the right, but too late. He’d already gone.

I hurdled one of the fallen lamps and rushed out the door fast, too fast to make the turn. I hit the railing, my shades flying off my head and down into the courtyard. Shit. The railing gave, just enough to make me think I was going over, metal scraping and rattling, but holding. He was almost to the stairs. I took another shot, a jittery beam missing high and wide-couldn’t shoot for shit.

I tore after him, my veins coursing with adrenaline-fueled fire. He killed those girls. I hit the stairs. My feet barely made contact as I hurtled down the four flights. Just as I hit the courtyard, I saw him disappear into the tunnel. I kicked up clouds of ash as I ran, my heart pounding in my ears, my chest heaving for oxygen. I sped into the tunnel, his footsteps sounding ahead of me, my face whipped by mossy growths. Out the other side, I dropped down another set of stairs and turned into the alley. Skidding on wet pavement, I went down, my left elbow taking the worst of the impact. I slid through dyed water, my whites staining red and yellow. I scrambled back to my feet. Where is he?

One of the women I’d passed earlier pointed at an open door. I sprinted past pedestrians who hugged the walls, colored water splashing and spraying. I barreled through the door and up a long staircase, then into a narrow room filled with two long rows of sewing equipment. Wheezing, I scanned the room.

Machines hummed. Scissors clipped. Lazy fan blades spun overhead.

Where was that prick? That monster who murdered children in their sleep.

I stalked down the aisle. People slowly noticed me, their machines stopping midstitch, the room getting quiet. Wide eyes stared at me and my quivering lase-pistol. Dyed water ran down my leg. Flies clouded around me. Must’ve cut myself when I wiped out.

I scoped faces, left and right, seeking and searching. He had to be in here somewhere. The only other door was closed, latched from the inside with a hook and eye. No open windows. I studied expressions. Somebody must’ve seen him. All eyes were trained on me, all but one pair. A man who sat close to the door, eyes aimed down at a wheeled bin next to his worktable.

I got you now. I moved toward the bin, getting in close where I couldn’t miss, shaky hand or not. I could see him now, his head and chest poking out from a pile of cloth scraps. I crept up, steadily closing. He hadn’t seen me. He was looking at the worker, his finger making the shush sign over his lips. I stepped closer, my piece extended in front of me, ready to fry the fucker.

He saw me. He was young. Not a kid, but young. Eighteen? Twenty? His blocky chin was peppered with razor stubble, his nose long and blunt. Brown eyes sat in the sinkholes of his face, and his hair ran wild as the Lagartan jungle.

He watched my piece shake out of control. He measured his chances, gears cranking behind his eyes. Don’t even think about it. I marched the last few steps, leaned over and slowly edged the wavering weapon toward his face, planting the barrel on his left eye.

He made himself small, trying to shrink deeper into the bin. I added some pressure, driving the barrel deep into his eye socket. “Who the fuck are you?”

He slunk further down into the bin, his face cringing with fear.

I smelled glue. I thought there might be an open tube on one of the workspaces nearby, but then I saw the tube poking from his shirt pocket. The tube’s cap sat crooked atop a sticky mess of spillover. Bastard was a huffer.

I gave his eye a jab. “Start talking.”

Somebody appeared at the door. I glanced up: Maria. What was she doing here?

My forearm exploded in pain. My piece fell harmlessly from my fingers. From under the loose scraps, his hand had grabbed hold of me, but it wasn’t a hand. Metal teeth dug deep, down to the bone. Blood flowed. Flesh ripped. Nerves screamed.

I howled in pain, tried to pull free.

His face shifted. Skin turned charcoal gray. Ears recessed. Hair disappeared. A forked tongue tickled my nose.

I was in a full panic. I jerked and yanked but couldn’t break free. Blood sprayed, and muscle stripped off the bone. My free hand dug at his face, fingernails sliding over beaded skin.

The sizzle of a lase-blade passed by my ear and tore through the side of the bin. Maria took another swipe at him but the bin tipped before she could land the blade. I fell and hit the floor, my mangled arm popping loose.

Half buried by scraps of bloodstained fabric, I rolled onto my back, my ruined arm quivering with waves of unbelievable pain.

He ran for the far door, Maria in pursuit.

A puddle of blood spread from my arm, warm liquid soaking into my shirt. I felt sleepy. So sleepy.

“You awake?”

I grunted.

“The doctor will be back soon.”

My eyes were open but I couldn’t see, my vision blurred and clouded. I blinked, and blinked again, but couldn’t clear the haze.

“She’s going to fix you up,” said the voice.

I tried to speak but failed, my throat seizing.

“It’s okay, Juno. Really.”

Who was that? Where was I? I tried to sit up but couldn’t. Something was holding me down. I puzzled over what it was, but my cobwebbed concentration couldn’t figure it. I tried to sit up again and felt a band pressing into my chest.

Fear took hold. I pushed harder, my lungs constricting, my face flushing with effort. My arms, my legs… I couldn’t lift them. Straps dug into my skin.

“What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

I lost it, my blurred vision turning blood red. I jerked against the restraints. “Let me go,” I shouted, my voice suddenly working again. I thrashed about, straining to bust loose.

I felt hands on my shoulders, a soothing voice. “Relax, Juno. Stop. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

I kicked and twisted, pushed and pulled. The strap across my chest made it hard to breathe. It didn’t take long for me to run out of air, and then out of steam.

I smelled something. Perfume. Lots of perfume. So much that it almost drowned out the smell of antiseptic.

My vision began to clear. I could see Maria’s face, her eyes. “Get me out of here,” I said between heavy breaths. “Get these straps off.”

“Listen, Juno, I brought you to a doctor. Your hand got fucked up, and she’s going to fix it.”

I looked around. Whitewashed walls and industrial lighting. Maria leaned over me, her cleavage in my face, hair brushing my cheek. “It’ll be okay. She’s a good doctor. I was telling you about her before. Remember? She’s going to do some work on my sister as soon as I have the money.”

My hand got fucked up? What was she talking about?

Memories came to me. Bad memories. The little girls. Wu’s butchered wife. Wu’s flying head.

Like an overflowing toilet, the foul memories kept bubbling up. The lizard-man. My arm. Muscle hanging off exposed bone.

Was that shit real?

I didn’t want to look, but I lifted my head off the pillow and let my eyes wander slowly down my right arm. Shoulder to bicep. Bicep to elbow. Elbow to forearm. Forearm to nothing.

I sucked in a breath. Oh hell. My hand was gone. Gone.

I implored Maria with my eyes. “Get me out of here.”

“It’ll be okay, Juno.”

“Untie me.”

“Don’t be scared. You’re safe here.”

“Let me go, dammit.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Fucking untie me!”

“Stop it. Just stop it for a minute, okay? Now tell me, does it hurt?”

I had to think about it. “No.”

“See? The doctor knows what she’s doing. She blocked your pain receptors.”

“Why am I tied down?”

“You’re a fitful sleeper. You needed a transfusion, and you kept pulling out the needle. As long as you stay hooked to that IV, she thought it best to keep you secured.”

“I’m awake now. Take off the straps.”

“Let’s call the doctor.” She jabbed at a button on the wall, pumping it several times. “Let’s see what she says.”

I looked at my arm. Bandages ran from the elbow down to where my forearm ended, about halfway to where my wrist should be. I bent my arm at the elbow. Bandages bunched and wrinkled. I bent it as far as the straps would let me and straightened it back out.

“I got you a good deal,” she said. “I know price probably doesn’t matter much to you since you’ll be hauling in plenty of protection money, but I still haggled her down good.”

Footsteps echoed from the hall, quick, efficient steps. The doctor walked in. “You only need to push the button once.”

“Yes, Doctor. Sorry.”

“What are you? A damn monkey?”

Maria’s eyes twitched at the verbal blow, but she stayed silent and lowered her gaze.

The doctor turned to me. She forced an offworlder’s smile, two rows of perfectly positioned ivory. Her black hair was shot with gray, and she sported glasses that gave her a bookish air.

She sat next to the bed, indifferent eyes giving me the once-over, her smile more like a sneer. “I’d shake your hand, but…”

Not funny. I didn’t try to hide the contempt on my face.

“No sense of humor? Don’t tell me you lost your funny bone in that hand.” The joke came laced with enough condescension to make it a put-down instead of a pick-me-up.

I wasn’t buying the bitch’s getup. Offworlders didn’t need glasses. They didn’t gray. And their skin didn’t wrinkle into crow’s-feet. This whole pseudo-schoolmarm look of hers was nothing but a bullshit attempt to make herself look doctorly.

She was a fake. Offworlders were all fakes, changing their looks on a whim, shifting and morphing. Chameleons.

“You cut my hand off without asking me. You’re a butcher.”

She brushed my complaint away with a swipe of her hand. “I’m going to attach an artificial hand for you. I picked out something special.”

“I want to see it.”

“And ruin the surprise? No. I don’t do work to order. I’m an artist. Don’t worry, when I’m finished with you, I guarantee you’ll be thankful.”

“She’s right,” said Maria. “She does amazing work.”

I was not a canvas. I had to get out of here now. “Untie me.”

She acquiesced with a nod and started unbuckling. “Do you know how lucky you are that Maria brought you to me instead of one of those filthy hospitals?”

Somebody appeared in the doorway, a teenaged boy with milky eyes on chocolate skin. “Would you like some tea, Doctor?”

The doctor’s head snapped around to look at him. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

He bowed his head and blinked his cataract eyes. “My apologies.” He walked away.

She turned back to me, her eyes rolling behind her glasses. “That boy has a lot to learn if he thinks he’s going to make it as my houseboy.”

Maria asked, “Can you fix his eyes?”

“Not if he doesn’t learn how to follow directions.”

She undid the straps. I breathed easier and easier with each uncoupling, and I sat up as soon as the last strap slithered off.

“Hold out your arm so I can change your dressing.”

I had my arm pulled in tight, hugged to my body. I didn’t trust her. I had to get out of here.

Maria gave me the eye. The doctor made a don’t-keep-me-waiting face. “You need fresh bandages. The wound has to stay clean or the rot will set in.”

The rot had taken my mother.

Reluctantly, I lifted my half-arm and let her start unraveling. I watched the layers peel off, steeling myself for my new reality. The last bandage fell free. My hand was gone, an empty space where it should be.

I raised my arm. It had a cap on the end, some kind of thick, plastic-like substance that sealed the wound, a dozen or more vinelike tendrils holding it on.

She was going to give me a new hand? A hand of her choice.

Fuck that.

I had to get out of here.

I held my arm out straight. It held steady. Didn’t shake anymore.

I could deal. I was plenty used to having only one good hand.

I could fucking deal.

With my mind made up, I sat still and let the doctor dress my arm with a fresh set of bandages. When she finished, I made my intentions clear. “Pull the IV. I’m leaving.”

“Not until I take measurements for your new hand.”

“Pull it.”

Maria tried to intercede. “You’re not thinking straight. She’s a great doctor. The best.”

I looked the doctor in the eye. I wanted to enjoy this. “She’s a hack. Tit jobs and robo-snatches. Artist, my ass. Real doctors cure the sick.”

The hack glared at me, cheeks burning, eyes smoldering, her carefully constructed doctor’s face not so doctorly anymore.

I held my left arm up and nodded at the IV. “Pull it.”

“Fine. Be a cripple.” She reached over my torso to my left arm and yanked the IV tube like she was starting a cheap outboard. I didn’t feel it. I could get used to this no-pain thing.

Maria watched the doctor go out the door before she got in my face. “What’s wrong with you?”

I nudged her back with my left and stood. A bead of blood formed on my arm where the needle had been.

“I’m going to kill you if you screwed this up for me.”

The drop broke loose and I swiped it away with my… my stump.

I was in my underwear. “Where are my clothes?”

“They were stained. I threw them away. Sit down and think it through.”

“Shoes?”

“Under the bed.”

I used my toes to pull them out one at a time and slipped them on. “My money and my gun?”

“In the drawer. Listen, why don’t you wait here while I go buy you a set of whites. It’ll give you a chance to think.”

I didn’t want to think. I wanted to leave before that bitch doctor cut off another part of me.

I walked out the door. Maria’s voice sounded behind me. “You can’t go out in your underwear.”

Looking left, I spotted the houseboy. “Where’s the exit?”

He pointed to a set of steps.

I took them down and threw open the door at the bottom. Greeted by a blast of party noise, I moved into the street, a jungle breeze kissing my skin, clouds of O smoke wafting on the black air. Music blared from a dozen open doorways, the combined sound mixing and mashing into a pulsing cacophony. The street was filled with a large herd of offworld kids bucking and braying.

Bangkok Street.

I refused to be bothered by the strange looks coming my way. I spotted a clothes counter down the way and made straight for it. As I cut through the herd like a wounded lion, everybody gave me plenty of room.

I glanced to my right. Maria’s big hair had fallen in lockstep with me.

Wearing more bandages than clothes, I stepped up to the counter. “Whites,” I said to the kid who had watched me approach with saucer eyes. He grabbed hold of a pincer device and used it to reach for some pants that sat on a high shelf behind a crowd of cheap BIG SLEEP ’89 T-shirts.

A full-length mirror stood between the counter and the dressing curtain. I forced myself to take a look. Bronze skin overrun by an unhealthy gray, like I’d been rolled in ash. I’d lost a lot of weight, my underwear hanging loose around my pelvis. When was the last time I could see my ribs?

A dead tree with a bough sawed off. That was what I was.

The kid tossed aside the pair of pants he’d pulled down after checking the size. “Too big.”

I looked at Maria, a frown on her face.

“What?” I asked, innocent-like.

“You better not have screwed things up for me.”

“I wouldn’t let that woman touch my sister.”

“Don’t you get it? She’s an offworlder. The local doctors can’t do the shit she does.”

“She’s a hack, and I won’t be her lab rat.”

“Dammit, Juno, she was going to help you. I got you a deal.”

“Who asked you?”

Anger flared in those mascara-lined eyes. “Who asked me? I saved your damn life.”

She was right. Without her, I would’ve bled out on the sweatshop floor. As unsure as I was that being saved was a good thing, I had to admit she’d tried to be a friend. For that I should show some respect. “You’re right. Sorry.” I cranked up the sincerity in my gaze until she acknowledged the apology with a smirk of acceptance.

The kid passed me a pair of white linen pants. I set my piece on the table, took hold of the waistband with my left, and shook out the folds. I slipped in a leg. “Were you following me?”

“Remember those two guys who came looking for you? I was worried they might be waiting for you outside, so I followed you until I saw you go into that apartment. At that point, I figured you were safe so I went and got some breakfast. I was eating eggs up at one of those rooftop places when I saw you go running underneath.”

I tried to slip my other foot in but couldn’t hold my pants correctly with the one hand. I let myself lean against the counter while I forced my foot into the pant leg. I tugged the pants up and started fumbling with the button.

“Jesus Christ, let me do that.”

I stood there like a four-year-old letting her button and zip me up.

“What’s wrong with you? You gonna go through the rest of your life with one hand?”

I chose not to respond.

“You know that cap is just a temporary, don’t you?”

I shook my head no.

“You can’t just leave it like that. And when those pain blockers wear off it’s going to hurt like a son of a bitch.” She caught the surprise on my face. “You really are a dumb shit, aren’t you? You wanna go back inside?”

I looked across the street at the door I’d exited a few minutes earlier. The door was unmarked, anonymous. I looked up at the second-floor windows, dark glass staring down. “No.”

The temporary cap would have to do for now. I had more pressing matters, like the fact that Mota hadn’t killed Froelich or Wu. There was a serial out there, a fucking lizard-man.

And one by one, he was killing my crew.

I clenched my fists but was half robbed of the sensation. Christ.

Time to move. “Where the hell is my shirt?” I snapped at the kid. “What you waiting for?”

He nervously cleared his throat. “Um, short sleeve or long?”

A piece of me was missing. I was unbalanced. Incomplete. Not whole.

I had to get it back.

But it was too dark behind this tree. Couldn’t see shit. Was it asking too much to get a little daylight?

I looked up, my gaze climbing through boughs and leaves, and settling four stories up on police tape wound around a railing. Right where I’d almost gone over this morning. Would’ve been quite a fall.

The courtyard patio was quiet, no sign of KOP. They’d probably wrapped the crime scene hours ago.

Gotta be around here somewhere. I roamed, my squinting eyes straining to see the ground. I kicked something, felt it through the toe of my shoe. I reached down with my right but came up short. Forgot. I switched to my left and pawed through ash and crisped leaves.

There. I blew out a sigh of relief and unfolded the glasses with a snap of my wrist. Lucky I hadn’t stepped on them. I held them up in what little light there was. They’d survived the fall intact, thanks no doubt to landing in a soft bed of ash.

I blew off the dust and slipped them on with a relieved smile.

I was whole again.

“Juno, you stupid hump, where the fuck are you?”

I picked my way back through the tree’s weeping canopy, the rustling ruckus serving as my answer.

Detective Mark Josephs approached from the patio entrance, Maggie following a few paces behind. “We got your message. Who was that who called us?”

“Maria. A friend.” I didn’t know what to do with my right arm. Hide it? Give an empty wave? I let it hang by my side. “Thanks for coming.”

The courtyard tree had me cast in night shadow. Maggie hadn’t noticed yet. “We spent a few hours working the crime scene upstairs. Wu’s wife and kids are all dead, butchered, but there may be a witness. Somebody took a couple shots at the killer and chased him down to a sweatshop before getting himself wounded and disappearing. We were ready to start canvassing hospitals when Lieutenant Rusedski pulled us off the case.”

“He say why?”

“He said a second dead cop makes this case too high-profile to run a regular investigation. He’s going to create a task force and run it himself.”

“You ask if Mota was behind the move?”

“No. I figured Rusedski just didn’t want me working such a big case.”

“Why not?”

“He doesn’t want to share the spotlight. He thinks I’m after his job.”

“Are you?”

“I just got a promotion.”

In other words, not yet.

I dropped the first bombshell. “Mota didn’t kill Wu.”

Josephs dropped his jaw. “The fuck you say? You said it was brass who did Froelich.”

“I didn’t say I was sure.”

“You shittin’ me? Dammit, Juno, that’s a helluva thing to be wrong about. How do you know he didn’t do it?”

“Because I’m your witness.”

“You were here?”

“I was inside when the killer came back with Wu’s head.”

“That was you in the firefight?”

“Yeah.” I raised my right. “Caught the short end of it.” Bombshell number two.

Maggie snatched me by my new short sleeve and pulled me out into the light of a patio lamp. She stared at the void where my hand should be. “Why aren’t you in a hospital?”

“It’s all fixed up,” I lied. “No big deal.”

“No big deal?”

“The thing didn’t work right anyway.”

Her voice gained volume. “Shit, are you crazy? We’re not talking about a broken phone. You lost your hand. Your hand! ”

I shrugged. I was getting used to the idea.

“Dammit, Juno, you should be in a hospital.”

“I can deal.”

“Are you kidding me? You can deal? Is that all you have to say?”

“Um, yeah.”

She popped me in the chest, a quick shot with her fist.

“What was that for?” I said with max indignation. “What do you want me to say?”

She turned away and started pacing, her angry heels muffled by a carpet of ash.

I looked at Josephs. “What am I supposed to say?”

Josephs shook his big, round head. “This is some fucked-up shit. Even for you.”

Maggie paced, left and right, back and forth. I stayed silent, letting her work it off. I didn’t know why she was so upset. I really didn’t.

“Does it hurt?” asked Josephs.

“I’m on pain blockers.”

With a sigh, Maggie stopped pacing and ran her fingers into her hair. She squeezed down on her long locks like she was wringing the agitation out of her face, forcing it all the way down into her tapping foot. “Tell us about the killer.”

I gave them a description. Tall. Skinny. Dark hair and darker eyes. Skin the color of dead vines.

“A local?”

“Right down to the ratty clothes. But this punk could shift. He became a lizard just before he clamped my arm.”

“A lizard?”

“Beaded skin. Forked tongue.”

“I don’t know many locals who can shift. Could’ve been an offworlder in disguise, couldn’t it? Maybe the killer goes native to blend in with us.”

“No, I saw a tube of glue in his pocket. He’s a huffer. Offworlders can afford better drugs than that.”

“If he’s too poor to buy good drugs, how did he afford the tech he needs to shift?”

“I don’t know. But trust me, the guy’s a local. He was too ugly to be an offworlder.”

“Did he bite you?”

“No. He grabbed me with his hand, but his hand had teeth. It was like being bit by a monitor, except the teeth were made of steel.”

Maggie’s phone rang before I could explain. Abdul Salaam’s holo appeared, bald head and thick glasses. I grinned at the sight of him. The old coroner was a longtime friend. “Have you seen Juno?” he asked Maggie without saying hello, the urgency in his voice at odds with the holo’s saccharine smile.

“He’s right here.”

“That blood from the sweatshop, the DNA says-”

“It’s his. We know.”

“He okay?”

I stepped up close to Maggie to get in range of her phone’s receiver. “Just a scratch, Abdul. Have you passed my ID up the chain?”

“Of course not. Not until I talked to you. Want it hushed?”

“Yeah. I’m getting enough heat as it is.” I tossed a deliberate glance in Maggie’s direction.

“No problem,” said Abdul.

That was what I loved about him-as dependable as he was loyal. A true friend. When Paul and I ran KOP, Abdul was our chief evidence manipulator, the king of faux forensics-ginned-up genetics, phony fingerprints, bullshit blood spatter…

When we needed a frame, he’d be ready with wood and nails.

“What else do you have, Abdul?” asked Maggie.

“I heard you and Josephs got pulled from the case.”

“True, but we’re going to keep at it awhile.”

“Because of Juno?”

“Yeah, because of Juno,” she said with subzero enthusiasm.

“I know how that goes. Have you heard the rumors floating around?”

“That Juno had something to do with Froelich’s death?”

“Yeah, and there’s another one going around that says Captain Mota in PR was responsible. I’ve heard it both ways.”

“They’re both false.”

“I figured as much. This killer’s a vicious bastard. At first I thought that after being stabbed, Maribela Wu was attacked by a monitor. The wounds where her breasts and vagina used to be look like bite marks, but what kind of monitor would target just those three locations on her body? So I measured the wounds, and they didn’t measure right to be bites.”

I knew what that was about. I broke in to describe the killer’s steel-trap hand-the way it came out of nowhere, the opposing rows of fanged metal. He was a biter instead of a chewer.

“You get nipped? Is that where the blood came from?”

“Yeah. The thing clamped down strong as a motherfucker.”

“You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine,” I said with more emphasis than necessary. I didn’t need Maggie chiming in.

“That steel hand sounds high-tech enough that it has to be an offworlder, don’t you think?”

“He was a local.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“It okay if I pass what you’ve told me along to Rusedski?”

“Yeah. The sooner we squash the rumors about me and Mota, the better.”

Maggie asked Abdul, “Ever seen a hand like that?”

“Maybe. I searched the database for bodies with similar bites. We get a lot of corpses that have been fed upon, but I filtered for people who were fed upon by bigger game.”

“Find any that were beheaded?”

“No. So either Froelich and Wu were his first victims, or he’s killed before but the decapitation is new.”

“Any with missing sex organs?”

Good question.

“Plenty, but I ruled out the ones that had been eaten all over. That left me with one male found naked with missing sex organs and minimal damage elsewhere.”

Josephs spoke up, a devilish smile on his face. “So unless those monitors suddenly developed a taste for sausage…”

I rolled my eyes. Asshole.

Maggie spoke into the phone. “How easy would it be to mistake our killer’s bites for monitor bites?”

“Pretty damn easy. Unless you had a reason to check for monitor saliva or the presence of one of the bacteria strains that live in their mouths, you wouldn’t know. Even though the bites I found on Maribela Wu were smaller than a typical monitor bite, you could mistake them for bites from an immature monitor, or maybe a really big iguana. Postmortem bites are common enough that you wouldn’t look that close unless you had a reason.”

“But this is all theoretical, isn’t it?” I asked. “You can’t pin that body in the database on our killer with any certainty.”

“True. But I thought you might find it interesting that he had a tattoo on his cheek.”

My doubt evaporated. “Two snakes?”

“Two snakes,” he confirmed. “Just like Froelich’s.”

Abdul was on to something. Theory solidified into fact. “We need an ID on that stiff.”

“The name is Franz Samusaka.”

“Where was he found?”

“I’ll send you the info. The first responders found his death suspicious enough to call in Homicide, but the hommy dicks ruled it an accidental overdose.”

“You think they were covering it up?”

“It’s likely. This is KOP, right?”

“Who were the detectives?”

“Froelich and Wu.”

Fucking figures. Those two beheaded assholes were pissing me off with this convoluted bullshit.

“You want me to keep Samusaka out of my report?”

I told him yes. Keep Rusedski in the dark. The lieutenant was too close to Mota to be trusted.

“I’ll see you day after tomorrow, Juno?”

“For what?” I made no effort to hide my confusion.

“Robert’s graduation party.”

Right. Paul’s son was about to graduate from the Academy. Paul’s widow was going to throw him a party after. “Let me get back to you.”

“You don’t sound very sure.”

I wasn’t. “Later, Abdul.”

After a quick thank-you, Maggie let him off the hook. Then her emerald eyes turned on me, their radioactive glow making it clear she wouldn’t be doing the same for me.

“You said Captain Mota did Froelich.” Her eyes burned hot in the dim light.

“I said he might have done it.”

“You don’t accuse a cop unless you’re sure,” said Josephs. “You let that scar-headed Wu shoot his mouth off about Mota at the Beat. Now that Wu’s dead, what are people gonna-”

Maggie stopped him. “That’s not the issue here. If Mota didn’t kill Froelich and Wu, then he’s got no stake in this. So what’s his beef with you, Juno?”

“Beats me.”

“Yeah,” said Josephs. “What the fuck?”

I tried to shrug it off like I didn’t know.

Maggie kept at me. “Why is Mota poking his nose in this case? Why is he spreading rumors about you?”

“How should I know?” I tried to say it straight, nonchalant, but my voice betrayed me, a defensively high pitch giving me away.

Josephs stepped toward me. “Don’t play innocent. Talk.”

“Talk,” echoed Maggie with her uranium stare.

I tried to conjure my enforcer’s face, a shield of pure steel to keep out the radiation. It wouldn’t come, my inner enforcer running for cover. “Fine! Fucking fine. You want to know? I took over his protection business.”

Maggie closed her eyes and shook her head.

“What protection business?” asked Josephs.

“Mota was taking money from the snatch houses in the alley near Floodbank.”

“When you say you took it over, you mean you bought him out?”

I shook my head no. “I did it old-school.”

“You and what army?”

“Me and my crew.”

“Don’t fucking tell me. Froelich and Wu?”

“Them and a few others.”

“You that hard up for cash?”

“It’s not about the money.”

“Then what is it?”

I looked at Maggie. She was pacing again.

“Well?” asked Josephs.

“KOP has to change,” I said.

“What does that have to do with it?” He turned to Maggie. “What’s he talking about?”

Maggie stopped pacing to look at me, her expression unreadable.

I repeated my defense. “KOP has to change.”

She turned on her heel and walked away.

April 24, 2789

“You think he uses a saw? Or maybe he chops the head off with an ax or something?”

“Can you shut up with that shit?” said Deluski.

“Don’t you want to know how he’s going to do us?” asked Lumbela. “We’re next.”

I rubbed my arm, a dull ache creeping through the pain blockers. “This isn’t helping.”

It was long past midnight. Other than the occasional drunken giggle or groan, the whorehouse was quiet. The four of us were in my room, Lumbela and I sitting on the bed, Deluski on the floor, Kripsen leaning against the wall, the slow-burning cig in his hand matching the expression on his face.

“We can’t assume he’s after all of us,” said Deluski. “Wu and Froelich were partners. It could be just the two of them he targeted. It’s probably somebody they put away who just got sprung. Plus Juno said the killer might’ve done another one before Wu and Froelich. Far as we know, that body didn’t have anything to do with us.”

I leaned forward. “Listen to me, boys, I can’t say if we’re targets or not, but we’re not going to sit back and wait to find out. As long as Mota keeps butting into Wu and Froelich’s investigation, we can’t trust KOP to catch this guy.”

I sharpened the edge in my voice. “This fucker killed two of ours, you hear me? He slaughtered Wu’s wife, his little girls.”

“And he took your hand,” said Kripsen.

“And the son of a bitch took my hand.” I made a chop with my abbreviated arm. “Whether we’re targets or not, we’re going after this freak. You with me?” I met them eye to eye, one at a time, soliciting nods of agreement.

I had them. I could see it in their faces. Gone was the resentment they’d harbored against me. I wasn’t their blackmailer anymore. I was their leader, the guy who’d made it through scrapes way worse than this. I was the one who could keep them alive.

“Besides, it’s about time you shits learned to do some police work. Did any of you know Froelich was gay?”

“Froelich wasn’t gay,” said Lumbela.

“He was.” I nodded with certainty.

“Really?” Lumbela’s eyes were wide open, the whites showing bright against his dark skin.

“No fucking way,” said Kripsen.

“He and Mota were seeing each other,” I said. “They were lovers.”

“Get the fuck out of here.”

“I saw the pictures.”

Deluski spoke up. “I knew he was gay.”

Kripsen flicked his ashes on the floor. “Bullshit.”

“No, really. You remember that friend of his who would come drinking with us sometimes, the thin guy with the gold tooth. I saw them holding hands.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

“It was none of my business.”

The group stayed quiet for a few, lost in their own thoughts. Kripsen puffed on his cig. “This shit’s hard to believe. I mean, us and Froelich, we’d go chasin’ tail together all the time.”

“Ever seen him catch any?” I wanted to know.

Kripsen thought about it. “I figured he was shy.”

Lumbela threw up his hands. “Aw, shit, think of all the times we’d go piss on a wall, all of us whipping out our wangs. Fucking Froelich must’ve been checking us out.”

Kripsen laughed at him. “You are such a dumbass.”

“What?”

“You think he wants to peep when we’re pissing? There ain’t nothing sexy about a dick that’s pissing.”

A smirking Lumbela came back with, “How would you know when a dick is sexy?”

Are these humps for real? “Shut up already! Save this crap for another time. What’s important right now is to understand that Mota thinks we did Froelich. He thinks we killed his lover to send him a message.”

“He does?”

“Wouldn’t you? We broke his uniform’s legs.”

“But Froelich was one of ours. We wouldn’t do one of ours.”

“What if Froelich and Wu were really on Mota’s side?”

Confused stares all around.

I elaborated. “Mota had something going with Froelich and Wu. They were in business together. Anybody know anything about that?”

They threw one another questioning stares. Nobody had answers, and their bewildered gazes eventually came back to me. It wasn’t surprising Wu and Froelich had frozen out these three. Why cut their share three extra ways?

What pissed me off was Wu and Froelich let me pick a fight with Mota without clueing me in.

“Here’s the deal, boys. While we were suspecting Mota killed Froelich, he was thinking it was us trying to intimidate him into backing down. Mota even threatened me, told me I was going to pay for Froelich.”

“Ironic,” said Deluski.

Lumbela gave him a sour face as if to say, Why the fuck are you bringing big words into this?

“Listen to me,” I said. “We’re exposed on this. If Mota finds out I was at Wu’s crime scene, he will become more certain than ever that I was the killer. The evidence will lead away from us, sure as shit, but the task force might be coaxed out of following the real trail. It all depends on how much sway Mota has over the investigation. The sooner we bring the real killer down, the sooner we clear our names, and if we are the serial’s next targets, the sooner we make ourselves safe.”

Kripsen blew a cloud of smoke. “What’s the plan?”

Ghost pain made me wish I could rub my right hand, my right wrist. The best I could do was keep massaging my shoulder. “I need one of you to write down names of all the people you guys have fucked over. You bastards have done some ugly shit. I need to know who might be looking for retribution. I want that list before I wake up in the morning.”

Lumbela pointed a thumb at himself. “I can do that.”

I turned to Kripsen. “I need you to get down to the Office of Records and pull Froelich and Wu’s case files. You know as well as I do that some things don’t make it into the public record, but it’s a good place to start. Comb through those files and write down anything that could be related.”

I turned to Deluski. His eyes looked older than they had a few days ago. “I need you to go down to the morgue to see Abdul Salaam. You know him?”

“Yeah.”

“Tell him I sent you. Get paper copies of everything he’s got.”

“Paper?”

“I don’t want anything electronic. Until we get the Mota situation under control, I’m too hot to get on the grid. I need you to work up a history on that body with the tattoo. I want to know everything there is to know about him.”

“Got it,” said Deluski before erupting in a broad smile.

“Something funny?”

“No.” His grin turned sheepish. “It’s just-”

“It’s just what?”

“I was just thinking. It’s almost like we’re real police again.”

There was hope for this one. “Like real police,” I acknowledged. “Now get out of here so I can sleep.”

They headed for the door. I lifted my aching arm and swung it back and forth, hoping a little movement might bring some relief.

“You gonna be okay there?” asked Deluski from the doorway.

Damned if I know. “I’m fine.”

“What kind of lizard did he turn into?”

“What does that matter?”

“Monitor? Iguana?”

“He didn’t turn into an actual lizard, you know.”

“More like a man in a lizard mask, I know. But were there any markings? Stripes or ridges?”

“Stripes. Rust red stripes.”

“How many?”

“I don’t know. Two, maybe three. Who cares?”

“Ridges?”

“Fucking quit bothering me with this shit.”

“You sure you don’t need something for that arm?”

“Yes, dammit. Now get the fuck out.”

“Good night, boss.”

The door swung shut. I lay back and let my head rest on the pillow. I stretched my arm out alongside my body. Shit, that hurts. It was going to be a long night.

A knock came on the door. “Yeah?”

Maria poked her head in, more hair than head. “Those drugs wear off yet?”

“Yeah.”

“I got a bottle.”

“Now you’re talking.”

I didn’t want to open my eyes. My hungover head hurt. Same for my arm.

And that smell wasn’t helping. Like somebody was trying to smother me with flowers. Fake flowers. The kind of perfumey shit that comes from a can. I felt something on my chest. It wasn’t one of those straps from the doctor’s. This was warm. An arm.

My eyes opened. I was clothed. Maria was clothed too, her usual-skimpy and slutty. When was she going to learn she wasn’t a hooker anymore?

I remembered waking up when she’d told me she was tired of sleeping in the sex swing. I remembered wanting to object when she squeezed in next to me, but I didn’t object. Not when I felt her warmth against me. Not when I felt her nuzzle into my shoulder.

I was letting this relationship get too cozy. We’d have to have a little talk. She had to know I was a one-woman guy. I put on my shades. Niki’s shades.

I slipped out from under her arm and climbed out of bed. One-handed, I undid my top two buttons and wrestled my shirt over my head. I nabbed a clean one from the pile on the floor and put my arms through the long sleeves. Leaving it unbuttoned, I tucked my piece into my belt and stepped out of the room.

Closing the door behind me, I found a sheet of paper taped to the door frame. I pulled it off and scanned the list of names Lumbela had compiled. Not as long as I thought it would be. I shoved it into my ass pocket and moved down the hall, my left hand working the shirt’s snaps on the way. Lucky for me, it was one of the shirts Niki had modified by substituting snaps for buttons.

Hookers were lined up outside the showers. They looked domestic in their robes, their hair pillow-pressed into all kinds of hair spray horrors. I checked the time. Just past noon. Early morning for a whorehouse.

I snapped the last snap and wondered what to do with my right sleeve. Roll it up? Pin it up? Fuck it. I let it dangle like a limp dick.

I hit the stairs and strode toward the front door. I had to find Maggie, set things straight.

“Juno.”

I stopped. Marek Deluski approached, his uniform starched and pressed, a green folder pinned under his arm, a steaming round of fried dough in his hand. “Hey, I got those papers you wanted.” He held up the bread. “You want some? They’re making these in the kitchen.”

My rumbling stomach said yes. I followed him into the kitchen, the smell of warm bread wafting about magnificently. A pair of hookers worked the fryer. Rounds of golden bread were bubbling inside. The hookers wore aprons over their work clothes-fishnets down low, hairnets up top. Next to the fryer sat a pile of fry breads atop a wire rack. I took one, doused it in honey, set another on top, then folded them up like a taco.

I bit into them. They were crunchy and chewy at the same time. Sweet honey oozed across my tongue. So good! I really should eat more. I should schedule it. Three times a day like a regular person.

“Let’s walk,” I said between bites. “I gotta go see somebody.”

“Who?”

I blew off the question. “Did you go through the files?”

“Yeah.” He took the folder he’d been carrying and tucked it under my half-arm. “I took a cab over here so I could skim through them on my way over.”

“What did you find?”

“The dead guy who had the same tat as Froelich, he was rich.”

“Did you know him? Ever seen him with Froelich?”

“No. But Froelich didn’t make a habit of parading his boy toys around.”

Approaching the front door, I took a peek at the entrance to Chicho’s office. Fractured beams of light shone through the monitor-tooth curtain. He was in, and it was probably about time I collected my first payday.

But not now. Now I had more important things on my mind. “Did you know Froelich and Mota were lovers?”

“No. I didn’t even know they knew each other. How did you find out?”

“I saw pictures of Mota and Froelich together.” I followed Deluski out the door and down the stairs.

“Where did you get the pictures?”

“Mota’s phone. He had a picture on there of himself with Froelich and Wu, the three of them clinking glasses over a stack of cash.”

“That’s how you knew they were in business together?”

I nodded yes before taking another bite of bread. Half of it was gone already.

“How did you get Mota’s phone?”

“Stole it.”

“Damn. How did you pull that off?”

“Broke into his house.”

We left the alley. The street was pretty well cleaned up by now and open to traffic. Wouldn’t be long before all signs of the riot were erased. We headed for the river.

Deluski said, “What I don’t get is how the killer got Wu to go with him.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he went to Wu’s place to kill Maribela and the kids there in the apartment, but he took Wu somewhere else, killed him, and brought his head back.”

“Yeah?” I took another bite of bread.

“So how did he get Wu to go with him?”

After a bewildered pause, I said I’d been wondering the same thing, even though I hadn’t. Hadn’t even occurred to me. But Deluski was right. Wu must’ve been home when the killer arrived the first time. Otherwise, there was no reason to go there twice. Had the killer met up with Wu somewhere else and murdered him there, he could’ve done the wife and kids when he brought the head over.

But he’d been there twice.

Deluski continued. “I can’t figure it, boss. I don’t see Wu going with him. Can’t even imagine it. Not after what he’d done to his family.”

I popped the last piece of bread in my mouth and chewed on it awhile. I couldn’t figure it either.

Why hadn’t I started thinking on this earlier? This was some obvious shit, and I’d totally missed it.

We came to the river. Fishing boats were moored to moss-draped docks, and I could see a few pedestrians carrying ice-filled bags of whole fish, water leaking out the holes. I stepped up to the river’s edge and, keeping the folder pinned tight under my half-arm, I punctured a film of algae to put my left hand in the foul-smelling water. As I shook my hand to wash off the honey, a small patch of clear, agitated water formed around my fingers.

I pulled my hand out of the water, flicked off the big drops, and rubbed the rest into my pant leg.

Deluski asked, “So if this same guy killed that Samusaka stiff Abdul found in the database, then why didn’t he decapitate him too?”

This one I had thought through. “I figure he’s tired of being anonymous. After his first killing got passed off as an overdose, he wants to make sure everyone knows he killed Wu and Froelich. He wants credit.”

“Do you think that was why he killed them? Because they didn’t give him the credit he deserved for killing Samusaka?”

“I don’t know. That’s why we need all the info we can get on Samusaka. What did you find out?”

“That file I gave you is pretty sparse. You’ll have to look it over yourself in case I missed something, but it doesn’t say much except Franz Samusaka’s death was ruled an overdose. This was eight months ago. I did see his father is wealthy, though. Hudson Samusaka is an oil man.”

“You have time to dig some more this afternoon?”

“No. I’m already late for a function at the mayor’s mansion.”

“Guard duty?”

“Yeah.”

“You better get going then.”

“Later, boss.”

I watched him walk away. The kid was proving himself smarter than I thought. I wondered how he got hooked into this gang of misfits in the first place.

Gotta find Maggie. We had to talk. Recalling the way she looked at me last night made me feel like hands were kneading the fried dough in my stomach.

I needed a phone. And a ride. I aimed for the docks. I’d ask around, see if I could bum a phone off somebody. I stepped out onto the planking. Wood bent and whined underfoot. I heard something slip into the water, something big. Monitor.

Lights on strings swung in the gentle breeze as I passed empty boats, fishnets piled like dirty sheets, barnacled hulls scraping against pilings. I found a young fisherwoman sitting on an upturned bucket, her fishnet spread across her boat. She labored at the net’s edge with a needle and twine, attaching coins as weights. She had a burlap bag full of half-pesos, the ones with square holes cut in the center.

“A phone?” I asked.

Without looking up, she shook her head no.

I moved farther down the dock, setting my sights on a boat up the way.

From behind, creaky footsteps approached. Quick footsteps. More than one set. My heart kicked into a new gear, and I moved my hand to my waist, making ready to drop the folder and grab for my weapon.

A voice said, “Stop.” A lase-blade sizzled to life.

“What’s your name?” The voice was close, the crackle of the lase-blade even closer, too close for me to pull my piece without getting carved.

“Mark.” A dry-mouthed lie. “Mark Josephs.” I slowly turned around, my raging heart already running at a full sprint.

Two men. One held the blade up to my face, bright red light blaring through my shades. The other held a gun, the lase-pistol hanging lazily by his hip. He snatched the glasses off my face and tossed them over his shoulder before giving my mug a critical once-over. “It ain’t him,” he said. “He don’t look right to me. Mota said the guy would be a big bruiser. This shit’s skin and bones.”

Mota. These two worked for Mota.

“Look at the eyes, though,” said the one with the blade. “Don’t that look like him?”

With them both mesmerized by my big browns, I wanted to go for my piece, real slow so they wouldn’t notice, fry the bastards’ balls off before they knew what happened. But I couldn’t drop this folder in my hand without telegraphing my intention.

And I had only the one damn hand.

I was fucked.

Fear rippled up and down my spine. I leaned way back, away from the blade, my feet creeping backward of their own volition, my wincing backpedal taking me to the dock’s edge. I didn’t want to go down like this. Scared. Helpless. Weak.

Not like this.

“Who are you?” asked the one with the blade, a panama hat with a monitor-hide band on his head. The frayed straw brim cast his eyes in latticed shadow. He pressed a finger against the bar-fight bruise over my brow.

I let the fear show in my voice. Didn’t have to try very hard. “I told you. M-Mark Josephs. Who are you looking for? You want money?”

Their faces were hard, their sneers well practiced. They wore crisp whites that shone pink in the blade’s glow. These were the guys Maria warned me about, the ones from upriver who had come looking for me. Must’ve gotten tired of trying to find me and posted themselves somewhere outside Chicho’s.

“Who was that cop you were with?”

My face broke into a sweat, the heat of the blade burning my cheek without making contact. I wanted to move back, but my heels were nearly hanging off the dock’s edge. A river fly popped off the blade in a flash of light. Fuck. “I don’t know. We just met at a snatch house. I paid for an all-nighter, and he came in for a nooner, I think.”

The one on the right grabbed my dangling sleeve and felt around. “He don’t got a hand.”

“Mota said his hand would shake. Shaking hand ain’t the same as no hand. I told you it wasn’t him.”

Unconvinced, he asked, “What happened to your hand?”

“Got bit off when I was a kid. Monitor attack.”

“It ain’t him. We should get back,” said the one.

“What’s in that folder?” asked the other.

I tried to think fast, my mouth opening as if I had a lie ready. But nothing came out, my synapses firing blanks. “Um, see for yourself.” I lifted the folder but fumbled it away before he could take hold. Papers slipped free and fell to the water.

“C’mon, we gotta get back,” said the one.

“Yeah.” His partner took one step away then lunged at me and feinted a swing, the lase-blade’s fiery arc swiping in my direction but stopping short of making contact.

I flinched like a scared little gecko. Tipping backward, I tried to regain my balance, my arms flapping like a one-winged bird until I went over. I plunged into the water, briefly sinking before popping back up, my face covered in a film of river muck, one of Abdul’s case files stuck to my shoulder.

They laughed, the cocksure bastards. A grade-school bully kind of laugh. I stayed where I was, treading water, taking it like a bitch until they moved off.

I swam to a ladder, grabbed hold with the left, hooked the right over a rung and climbed. I felt my lase-pistol squeeze out from my waistband but couldn’t make a move to catch it without losing my grip on the ladder. Fucking thing plunked into the water a second later.

I hauled my ass up to the dock and immediately scanned the riverbank, my eyes searching for a panama hat. I caught sight of Mota’s thugs just as they disappeared down a street that led in the direction of Chicho’s alley.

I found my shades where they’d fallen and slipped them on. The smart move was to call myself lucky and move on. I was unarmed. And in more than one way. I should quit while I was ahead. Live to fight another day.

Just let them go.

I had the shakes. I told myself they wouldn’t last. The butterflies in my gut would soon settle. Everything was okay.

Just let them go.

But their laughter still echoed in my head, their damned mocking laughter.

The ’fraidy-cat shakes shifted into roaring rumbles of rage. The butterflies in my gut became angry jungle wasps.

Mota thought he could take me out with a pair of upriver thugs?

With my nerves ringing and my inner enforcer humming, I stormed up the dock, right up to the boat with the young fisherwoman. I jumped in, my feet thudding against the hull. Wide-eyed, she sucked in a terrified breath. The coin she was about to attach to her net slipped from her fingers and disappeared in the folds. I snatched the sack of coins. She didn’t protest. She knew better.