KOP Killer

I marched to shore. The anticipation of violence coursed through my body. Reaching the riverbank, I kicked off my shoes. Couldn’t make a quiet approach with them squishing.

I pursued. I felt no pain in my arm. Couldn’t feel the pebbles under the soles of my bare feet. My face burned hot like it was still baking in the glow of the lase-blade, my soul crazed with a fire that my soaking clothes couldn’t cool.

I could see them now, the SOBs, walking shoulder to shoulder just a short ways ahead, but on the opposite side of the busy street. I started across, dodging cars and bikes, pushcarts and pedestrians. I tightened my grip on the sack. The coins felt plenty weighty.

Pedestrians dodged out of my way as I ran the last couple steps toward the one who had held the gun on me. My left arm took a wide, hooking swing, the sack of coins bearing down on his head. He turned around just in time for the sack to pound him on his right ear. He crumpled to the pavement like a rag doll.

The one with the panama hat reached for his weapon. I sank the sack into his gut. His blade and hat tumbled free as he collapsed to his knees. He was still sucking air when my next blow took him in the shoulder. The sack exploded on impact, a shower of coins crashing to the pavement. He tried to stand, coins shedding off his back, but hardly made it halfway up before I clubbed him back down with my stump.

Harsh, stinging pain shot up my arm. I brushed it off, just like I brushed off the shouting from behind me, the onlookers’ protests hardly penetrating my senses. I kicked him in the gut, stomped his ribs, worked him up and down. I dropped to one knee and leaned over him, water from my hair dripping on his face.

The questions spilled out of my mouth. “Who are you? How do you know Mota? What kind of shit is he into? Do you know Wu and Froelich?”

He couldn’t respond, his eyes bleary and bewildered. I tried to bring him back with a slap to the cheek, but he was too far gone, eyes rolling up in his head. I stood and evil-eyed the crowd encircling the scene. “Don’t fuck with me!”

Some took off. Others stepped back. Nobody looked me in the eye.

I bent over and raided the bastard’s pockets. Cigs. Cash. Rubbers.

And a badge.

Wet pants chafed my thighs. The soles of my feet stung like they were crisscrossed with cuts. Insistent throbbing nagged my arm. I’d busted something open in there. My empty shirtsleeve was stained crimson and dotted with clinging flies.

I made it back to the docks.

Shit.

Somebody had made off with my shoes.

I glanced at the clock while the barber counted my soggy bills. I’d been in the barbershop for over an hour now. A cut. A shave. Fresh bandages for my arm. I’d sent the barber’s daughter on a gofer run. New shoes. New pants. Yet another new shirt.

The barber finished counting the pesos. “That’ll do. Glad we could help you today, but you really should get that arm checked by a doctor.”

I walked out. Wasn’t in the mood for advice. I crossed the street and went down a set of damp, mossy steps into a basement bar. The room was long and narrow, coffin-like. The bar ran down the right side, nothing more than a rigged-up series of old doors laid end to end and suspended from the ceiling by a collection of ropes. No room for tables.

I took the stool on the end and ordered a brandy. The bartender reached for a bottle sitting on a shelf hung from a wall that glistened with sweat.

“How about a phone?” I asked.

“Gimme a minute.” She stepped away to attend to two empty-glassed customers who sat at the far end.

I sipped my drink. Just a little sip. I didn’t come to get drunk. Just needed to take the edge off, make it so I could think straight.

I pulled the shield out of my pocket and held it up to the light. YOP. Yepala Office of Police. Yepala was farther upriver than Loja. Five hours by boat. A town deep inside warlord territory.

I rubbed the badge with my thumb. Yepala cops. Christ.

I’d left them on the pavement. Fucked them up pretty good. To get out of there, I’d had to plow my way through a circle of concerned civvies. A do-gooder tried to stop me, a little man who said something about how I wouldn’t get away with what I’d done. I shoved the sap to the ground, where he had the smarts to stay.

Then I saw his kids. Two young boys, one already crying, the other about to. I hoped they’d learn the right lesson, that their father was courageous. Principled. But they were just as likely to grow up thinking their dad was a pussy. Knocked to the ground by a one-armed man and afraid to fight back.

That was the way of things on Lagarto.

I set the badge on the bar and stared at its shiny surface. Instead of sending a couple common thugs, Mota had sent cops to do me in. Yepala cops. I couldn’t make sense of it. If there was one thing this city had in abundance, it was thugs and dirty cops. Why outsource the job to YOP?

Unless they already had a relationship. Unless whatever Mota, Froelich, and Wu were into also involved those two cops. I remembered the night we’d broken Jimmy’s legs, how Wu and Froelich didn’t show because they were upriver at a monitor fight.

Or maybe they were doing business in Yepala. What kind of business, I could only guess.

The bartender returned with a phone. I called Maggie. No answer. I talked to her voice mail. “Hey, Maggie, it’s me. It’s Juno. We need to talk, okay?”

I set the phone on the bar, next to a doorknob that poked up like a mushroom.

What the fuck was I doing? That was what she was going to ask me. I was going to have to tell her all about the mission. It made so much sense a few days ago. Start with a small crew and work my way up. Soon I’d have all of KOP under my control. I’d done it once. I could do it again.

But that was before two of my crew got decapitated. Before I ordered Jimmy’s legs broken. Before I realized Mota was going to fight me to the end. Before I lost my hand.

Before I chased Maggie away.

Shit, and now I’d even injected myself into the nightmares of two teary-eyed kids.

A teen entered carrying a heavy washtub. He waddled forward, and with a clunk, set the washtub on the floor. He pulled off the tied-on plastic bag that served as a lid so the bartender could have a look. Clumped white mash soaked in a pool of clear liquid. I could smell it already, the familiar burn of shine climbing up my nostrils.

The bartender took a tin cup down from a shelf and used it to scoop up a sample, which she set in front of me. “Try this and tell me what you think. I don’t drink anymore.”

I tilted the cup up to my pinched lips and carefully sucked alcohol out from the mash. Shine blazed a path along my tongue and down my throat, the heat running all the way down to my stomach.

“Good,” I said, remembering a time when shine was all I could afford.

She had the teen drag the tub behind the bar while she got some money together.

I took another pull. Pure fire with metallic overtones. Tasted just like my gun.

The memory of it made me want to spit. Gun barrel on my tongue. Finger on the trigger. I’d almost done it. Almost. So what was keeping me from eating my piece right now? It seemed like a fine time. Before I paid for my drink.

But those cops had scared me on that dock. I was afraid of dying. That had to mean I wasn’t done, didn’t it?

I snatched the phone back up and tried Maggie again. Still no answer. Tried Josephs instead.

“Who is it?” came his gruff voice.

“It’s Juno. Maggie there?”

“Yeah, but she doesn’t want to talk to you.”

“Put her on.”

“You deaf? She doesn’t want to talk to you.”

I wasn’t taking no for an answer. I spoke superslow, carefully enunciating each word. “Put… her… on.”

A beleaguered response came back. “Hold on.”

What was I going to say when she came on? I scrambled for something as the seconds ticked nervously by.

The connection went dead.

Shit. She hung up on me. Maggie had hung up on me. Shit. Shit. Shit. I slapped the phone down on the bar, sent the hanging wood door swinging on its ropes.

“Woman trouble?”

I sucked down the rest of my brandy. “Gonna need another one of these.”

I watched the amber liquid fill my glass. It’ll be okay, I told myself. Maggie will come around. Just needed a little more time.

And if she didn’t…

I couldn’t worry about that. Not now. I had to focus on the immediate. I imagined Mota with Wu, Froelich, and two Yepala cops, all of them standing around a stack of scratch.

I clutched my glass tight and took a hearty swig. Mota, you pretty-boy son of a bitch. What are you up to?

I’d lost the files-drowned in the river-but I remembered the name of Lizard-man’s first vic. Franz Samusaka. Died dickless with a tat on his cheek.

The taxi dropped me curbside. Actual curbs in this neighborhood. Sidewalks too. No foot-tramped paths of dirt running through walls of weedy growth. Here, the walls were man-made, brick and mortar with spirals of barbwire on top.

I rang the bell next to the gate. A voice came through the speaker. “Yes?”

“I’m here to talk to Samusaka.”

“Mister or Missus?”

“Whoever’s in.” I waved my stolen YOP badge for the cam.

The gate buzzed, and I pushed my way through. Floodlights lined the pristine walkway, colored tile with unbelievably bright white lines of grout running in between. Must be somebody’s job to scrub away the mold every day.

The grounds were large, walkways snaking off in various directions, leading to guesthouses or garden houses or bathhouses or whatever other kind of houses rich people invent for themselves. Straight ahead was the main house, a brandy-era mansion of austere stone and iron. Deluski said Samusaka was an oil man. The resurgence of the internal combustion engine had done wonders for the family bank account.

A housekeeper in a blue dress with a white apron met me at the door. “You’ll have to wait in the study. Mrs. Samusaka is entertaining guests. I’ll let her know you’re here.”

I followed the housekeeper down a long, broad hall with a gold chandelier overhead and marble slabs underfoot. Below the staircase, a door opened of its own accord, and she ushered me through.

Left alone, I wandered the small room, my shoes sinking into luxurious carpet. One wall was taken up with bookshelves stacked with leather-bound volumes, another with photos of oil pumps working the scorched dunes to our south.

A globe turned slowly on a desk. Lagarto’s bottom three-quarters were dominated by the color of toasted bread, mountains and valleys all the same dead-leaf brown. Oceans broke it up with sprawling, rippling splotches of aquamarine. The globe’s top was textured with a lush green that swayed as if in a breeze.

I reached a finger for the jungle, expecting to poke right through the hologram’s surface, but the globe was real, the ruffling jungles soft like felt. I traced the Koba River’s snaking path and my finger came away wet. Fucking magic, what offworld tech could do.

A woman appeared in the doorway. Black hair hung straight down to her shoulders. Stern eyes sat in deep sockets. A necklace draped from her neck, a diamond pendant hanging from a gold chain, her dress cut just low enough to give it proper room to sparkle.

“Mrs. Samusaka?”

“Yes. I’m Crystal Samusaka.”

“I’m Detective Mozambe with KOP. I was hoping we could talk.”

“I’m very busy right now.”

I smiled and gestured at the chair. “Which makes me appreciate the time all the more.”

She sat and crossed her legs, her knees poking out from under the hem of her dress.

I sat on a small sofa. “I’d like to talk about Franz.”

“He died in August.”

“Tell me what happened.” Starting vague is best when you don’t know what you’re looking for.

She squinted at me, the resulting crow’s-feet the first sign she was old enough to have an adult son. She took in my shades, the empty right sleeve, the bar-fight bruise on my forehead. “Who are you? You’re not a cop, are you?”

“I used to be.”

“What do you have to do with my son?”

“I’m looking into his death.”

“Why?”

“I think he was murdered.”

Her squint narrowed to the point where I couldn’t see her eyes. “This isn’t funny. It’s time I get back to my guests.” Despite her words, she didn’t move.

“Do you believe the official story that he ODed?”

She stared at me, lips pursed, arms crossed.

“Did he have an opium problem?”

Nothing. Her left foot tapped at the air.

“Listen,” I said. “You could really help me out by being open with-”

“You want money, don’t you? This is some kind of scam.”

“I don’t want any money. What I want is the truth.”

“You want truth? Then tell me who you really are. How did you know my son? What was he to you?”

I took a deep breath. “My name is Juno Mozambe. Like I said, I used to be a cop.”

“And now?”

“Now I’m a businessman.”

“What kind of business?”

“The kind you can’t talk about,” I said with finality. She wouldn’t get any more.

She fingered her necklace, pinched the pendant between her fingers. “I should throw you out.”

“But you want to know what happened to your son. You don’t believe he overdosed.”

“How would you know?”

“Because you’re still here.”

She dropped the pendant. “Tell me how you knew my son.”

“I didn’t. But somebody’s killing people, and I think he started with your son.”

“This killer, he killed somebody close to you?”

“Somebody I was responsible for.” I leaned forward in my seat. “Did your son have a drug problem?”

“He liked to party. He was only twenty-two. Nothing wrong with that at his age. But he wasn’t an addict. When the police found him and told me how he died, I refused to believe it. For a long time I refused to believe it.”

“But you eventually accepted it?”

“Until now. If this is some kind of scam, I swear I’ll-”

“It’s not. Where did he like to party?”

“He mentioned a place called the Maze a few times.”

“Did you know about the tattoo on his cheek?”

“He didn’t have a tattoo.”

“He did. It was the kind you can turn on and off. Two interlocked snakes in a circle, each one eating the tail of the other. Do you know what that’s about?”

“No.”

“Was your son gay?”

She rubbed the pendant, her face a blank mask. She uncrossed her legs and crossed them the other way.

“Mrs. Samusaka? Was your son gay?”

“He might’ve been.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means just what I said. I didn’t pry into his private affairs.”

“Can you think of anybody who would’ve wished your son harm?”

“No.”

“What about your husband? He have any enemies?”

She shook her head no.

“This could be important,” I said.

She dropped the diamond pendant and picked it back up.

“I’m not trying to poke into your husband’s business, but I’d like to check out his enemies, see if any of them could’ve killed your son.”

“My husband doesn’t have enemies.”

“C’mon, Mrs. Samusaka, he’s a very successful businessman. You and I both know there are no angels in business.”

She looked down and smoothed the hem of her skirt. She was shutting down. My instincts said push. My instincts always said push. I leaned in as far as I could, my ass on the edge of the sofa. I upped the urgency in my voice. “Tell me who his enemies are. Who did he screw over? Tell me.”

She stood. “I will not be bullied by a stranger in my own home. You need to go.”

Not before I exhausted my arsenal. “If you loved your son, you’d tell me.” That’s right, lady. No fucking shame.

The low blow had the desired effect. Her cheeks turned red. Same with the skin under her necklace.

I stayed in my seat with the hope of coaxing her back into hers. I softened my tone. “I’m sorry I said that. I’m really sorry, but I get carried away sometimes. Listen, in business, people get screwed, right? I’m not a cop anymore. I don’t care who your husband screwed over or why. I only care about how it relates to your son’s death. Please sit and talk to me.”

I’d done it just like my fuckhead father used to do my mother. Hit her hard, then go sweet. Abuse then apologize.

I waited for her to spill. She was hiding something.

She gestured at the door. “Good-bye, sir.”

I stubbornly crossed my arms. I wasn’t going anywhere.

“It’s time for you to go.”

I stayed, my ass cemented to the sofa.

With a huff she walked to the door and went out.

I stood to follow, ready to chase her through this house if I had to. I reached the hall and did a double take when I found the housekeeper waiting right outside the door. Had she been out there the whole time? “This way,” she said curtly.

A man rushed toward me from down the hall, tailored pants swishing over his legs. Mr. Hudson Samusaka. “Who are you?”

The housekeeper responded eagerly. “He was asking about Franz.” Damn snoop. “I called you right away.” Damn brown-nosed snoop.

“Yes, Paulina, you did the right thing.” He dished the compliment like a pat on the head. Crystal Samusaka stepped over to stand next to her husband.

“Answer my question,” he demanded. “Who are you?”

“He says he’s-”

“I’d like to hear it from him, dear. ” He grabbed his wife’s wrist and gave it a tug. She lowered her head and meekly took her place a half step behind him. The housekeeper was already positioned slightly behind. She knew her place.

“I came to talk about your son. I think he was murdered.”

“Who do you think you are coming to my home, my home, and bothering me with this garbage?”

“I was just-”

“I don’t want to hear it. Get the hell out.”

I opened my mouth to protest some more but could see the futility of it. Hudson Samusaka held his head high, nose aimed upward, chin jutting like he was completing a chin-up. Like he’d spent his whole life keeping his head above us riffraff.

He tapped his ear, activating some kind of communication device. “Who let this joker in here? I want him out, you hear me?”

Defeated, I headed for the door.

“Where are Kripsen and Lumbela?”

Deluski scratched his nose. “They got called in on riot duty.”

“Again?”

“Half of Villa Nueva went dark an hour ago.”

“Fucking blackouts.” I shook my head and looked up at the sign above the door. MAZE. The name of this club was all I’d managed to weasel out of Samusaka’s mother. That was one touchy family. The rich were naturally suspicious. All that money to protect. Giant nest eggs resting in a forest full of starving vultures.

Maggie should’ve been there with me. Wealthy as she was, she would’ve known how to put Samusaka’s mother at ease. How to deal with Samusaka’s prick of a father. Maggie’s family was old money. Brandy-era plantation owners. She knew the ways of the rich.

We should be working together.

Deluski lifted his shirttails, a pair of lase-pistols tucked in his belt. “I brought an extra like you asked.” He handed a weapon over, and I tucked it into my waistband. You never knew when those Yepala cops might show again.

Deluski pulled open the door, and we stepped inside. Heads turned. Men’s heads. A dozen or more gave us the eye. I could practically hear the pings of gaydar. This was Franz Samusaka’s favorite hangout. I was tempted to call his mother and cinch it for her. Your boy liked outies, not innies.

I scoped the room. Crammed tight with tables and booths, the place was near full, and uniformly male with a few fag hags thrown in. A small dance floor jammed to club music, sweat-streaked faces bouncing and swerving in a melee of arms and legs and pheromones.

I led us forward, not really knowing what I was looking for. We meandered through tables, drawing a multitude of stares. Appraising stares. Who-the-fuck-are-you stares. Stares that said, fresh meat.

I stopped at a table of five, flashed my YOP badge, and raised my voice over the music. “Did you guys know Franz Samusaka?”

Quintuple no.

“Marvin Froelich? Emil Mota?” More negatives. I moved to another table. Same questions, same responses. Deluski went off to question the bar. Old-fashioned police work.

I canvassed from table to table. “Ever seen a tat with two snakes in a circle? How ’bout an offworlder with a steel trap for a hand?”

I wandered up a short set of stairs into a second room-sofas and settees, mood lights, and opium smoke. This room had its own bar, little more than a window cut into the wall. I stepped up and ordered a brandy from the shirtless bartender, dropped a generous but soggy tip on the bar. “Did you know Franz Samusaka?”

“We don’t kiss and tell around here.” He nabbed the bills and abruptly turned his back to wash glasses in the sink.

Brandy in hand, I turned around and leaned against the bar, my eyes soaking up the scene. Gay porn on vid screens. Sofas loaded with entwined twinks, frenching and fondling. Flames milled around, libidos in overdrive. Flirtatious winks and waves ricocheted off the walls. Shit, there were more pup tents in here than in Tenttown.

I spied an offworlder in the near corner, inside a circle of admirers. His shirt was unbuttoned, hairless pecs and tight abs on display. He had a brandy in one hand, and he held the other out front. Some caterpillar-like creature snaked through his fingers, coiling and uncoiling, slithering and sliding. Always in motion. Some kind of genetically engineered pet.

One of his admirers held up a thumb and the offworlder transferred the creature. Fluffy fur wrapped the thumb, then wound back and forth between outstretched fingers. Delighted shrieks sounded over the bar’s hubbub.

The offworlder finished his brandy, and his gaze turned toward the bar, his eyes snagging on my stare. He stepped out from his group and came my way, his legs scissoring inside nut-hugger pants. Despite the still air, the back of his shirt flapped like he was walking into a breeze. His hair blew too, long raven-colored hair that whipped in fictional wind. Vain bastards with their high-tech bullshit.

“I saw you watching me. Do we know each other?”

“No.”

“In that case, I’m Angel. And you are?”

“Straight.”

He lifted a brow. “Forgive me if I doubt that, the way you came in here acting so butch. It’s quite the look you’ve got going there. Badass shades. A bump on your forehead like you’re a tough boy.” He took hold of my empty sleeve. “Oh, and this is a nice touch. Where’s your hand? Is it detachable?”

I leaned back to pull the sleeve from his hand. “You been coming here awhile?”

“You could say that.”

“Ever know a guy named Franz Samusaka?”

“Maybe. Why do you want to know?”

“I’m looking into his death.”

“You police?”

I lost patience. Not sure I had any in the first place. “Did you know the fucker or not?”

He acted taken aback, his lips forming a playfully exaggerated O. “You’ve really got that rough-boy act down, don’t you?”

“Not an act. Did you know him?”

“No.”

“Then fuck off.”

I watched the chill overcome the charm, twinkly eyes going dark, disarming smile going flat. “As you wish,” he said. “I’ll leave you be after I get my drink.”

I went back to scanning the room. A couple sat scrunched together on an ottoman. One was holding a jar up to the light. I could see something small and black inside. He unscrewed the lid and tapped the glass facedown against his palm in an attempt to dump out the object. Whatever it was, it held tight to the side of the jar. He and his partner giggled like teenagers until it finally popped loose.

The offworlder I’d told off brushed past me, his brandy glass now filled. He stopped to look back at me. “You know what you need? A good fuck.”

I pretended like I didn’t hear until he moved off. Asshole offworlder was used to people bowing at his feet. I studied the couple on the ottoman. One of them was picking at the black object with his fingers, trying to get hold of something. Finally succeeding, he pulled it free and made a show of holding it up high. It dangled from his fingertips-black and oily. And wiggling.

A snail, I realized. He’d pulled it from its shell, and now he closed the snail in his fist and squeezed, black juice oozing out from between his fingers and down his hand. Holding his hand over his open mouth, he let the thick black drops fall to his outstretched tongue.

He popped what was left of the snail into his mouth and chewed, an oily drop running down his chin. His lover swiped away the drop with his index finger, and they smiled at each other, the snail eater grinning inky teeth.

Deluski appeared at my side. “Get anything?”

“Did you see that?”

“Yeah. I watched somebody eat one in the other room. A guy told me it’s an aphrodisiac.”

The couple stood and walked to the back, then through a curtain, briefly exposing a set of stairs that led up to what I figured to be some private rooms.

“You think it works?” I asked.

“Hell no.” He laughed. “You know how people make up stories to sell worthless crap.”

“Learn anything?”

“I got a couple guys to admit they knew Samusaka, but that’s as far as it went. You?”

“Dead fucking end.”

“What’s our next move?” Deluski seemed eager, totally digging his first crack at playing detective. The kid impressed me. Made me think he might be worthy of being my number two. Might be.

I asked, “You ever tell me how you got sucked into this?”

“Sucked into what?”

“Into this gang. What’s left of it anyway.”

He rubbed his chin. “It started with a girl.”

“A girl?”

“Yeah. I wanted to impress her, show her I could take care of her. She had this ex who kept bothering her. You know the type, the clingy kind that can’t let go. I went to see him, wanted to talk some sense into him.”

“You give him a beat-down?”

He nodded, his eyes looking distant. “I didn’t want to. I really tried to talk to him, but all the guy understood was fists.”

“Some people are like that,” I said, thinking I might be one of those people.

“Yeah, well, this guy turned out to be Wu’s cousin, and he went to Wu for help. That’s when Wu came to me and told me that he could get me fired. All he had to do was file a report.”

“Unless?” With Wu there was always an “unless.”

“Unless I did a job for him. He had this whole plan of how he was going to steal a shipment of O. He had a tip that a container had just come in, and it was sitting in one of the abandoned shipyards. What he wanted me to do was knock it into the water. There’d be no guards, he said. That was the way these guys liked to operate.”

Already, his story sounded familiar. “Guards would just attract attention.”

“Right. They thought it was better to just leave their shit out in the open. There were so many shipping containers on that pier nobody would stumble upon the opium unless they knew where to look for it.”

I listened closely even though I already knew how this one was going to end. I’d run the same con.

Deluski carried on, his voice getting deeper and harder to hear, as if he were telling the story of how somebody close had died. “He gave me the container number and told me where to find it. It was right where he said it would be, locked up tight and sitting close to the water. I hooked it to a tugboat I’d rented, and I pulled it off the pier and let it sink just like he said. You see what he was thinking?”

“He wanted to make the drug dealers think somebody hauled their container away.”

“Right. They’d go searching the river, looking for a big boat, and while they were off doing that, he’d go back with a small fishing boat and dive for the O. I thought he was a genius.”

“But?”

Deluski’s voice continued to lose volume. I had to lean in to hear him. “But when he dove down to the container, he found bodies inside. A whole family. He showed me pictures of them. A man and woman. Three kids. All drowned. They were trying to get off-planet. A barge was going to come by and sneak them into the spaceport as cargo. I’d sunk the wrong container.”

Deluski was practically shaking. He had to know the truth. I looked him in the eye, my face as sober as my words. “The whole thing was a con. That container was empty. It’s still down there. Still locked up tight.”

“I know.” His voice was solemn as an undertaker’s. “I eventually figured out it was all bullshit. But at the beginning…” He let out a sigh. “At the beginning, I thought it was real. Wu helped me cover it up. I owed him, and I started doing regular jobs for him. By the time I realized I’d been had, I was in too deep. I still remember those pics. Those kids still feel real to me. Fucked me up good.”

I swallowed what was left of my drink and slapped my glass on the bar. A story like that required a good belt. Hard to believe I used to pull that con myself. Some cruel-ass shit.

Right in front of us, a couple sat pressed together on a sofa, lips mashing, hands exploring. Helluva place for a conversation like this. To the rest of the Maze’s clientele, Deluski and I probably looked like a good match. Like we’d just had a moment.

Over in the corner, I caught the offworlder watching me. I shot him a nasty stare. Asshole. Offworlders were all assholes.

Deluski’s story was common enough. Decent kid catching some bad breaks. Ground up like so many others in the mill of corruption that was KOP.

“Wu screwed you,” I said. I wanted to see what he’d do if I gave him an easy out. “Everything that’s happened since wasn’t your fault. You had no choice.”

“Wu was a grade-A prick, no doubt about it. I’m not sorry he’s gone. But…” He shook his head. “But I had choices every step of the way. Some of the things I’ve done…” His voice trailed into dust.

The kid was the real deal. Man enough to put the blame right where it belonged.

We stood in silence for a while, lost in thought. My arm itched. I poked at the bandages through my sleeve, dug my fingernails into the fabric to get a little relief.

He broke the silence, barely, his voice hardly a whisper over the bar’s din. “I’m going to burn in hell.”

“Tell you what. When you get there, you ask for me and I’ll show you around.”

He chuckled and patted my shoulder. “Thanks, boss. Now tell me, what are you after in all this?”

I gave him the only answer I had. “I don’t know.”

He threw a nonchalant wave of his hand. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

I seized on the statement. “What makes you so certain?”

He thought before answering. “Listen, I was Wu’s man for a time, and later Ian’s until you killed him and took us as your own. That’s three bosses I’ve had, and all three of you were power-hungry bastards, but you were the only one who understood that power comes with responsibility.”

I arched a doubtful eyebrow.

“You ran KOP. You and Chief Chang. You two were dirty as hell, everybody knows that, but you never stopped running a police department.”

“You give us too much credit.”

He shrugged off my comment. “All I know is the city ran a lot better when you were in charge.”

“Quit blowing smoke up my ass. You can be honest with me.” A fly buzzed by my face. I took a swipe at it but came up short. Damn missing hand.

“I was being honest.”

Time we quit pussyfooting. Time to put it out there. “You telling me you wouldn’t stab me in the back if you had the chance?”

His jaw held firm, his eyes tightening in the corners. “You referring to the vid?”

Of course I was. Killer KOPs. “Wouldn’t you cut my throat for a chance to destroy it?”

The corners of his mouth lifted, a sly smile forming. “Absolutely.”

I reflected a wily grin back at him. Kid had some balls. Definite number-two material.

“Screw this place,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”

We beelined our way out the back exit, down some stairs and up a short alley to the street. The Maze’s front entrance stood just a couple meters away. Misting rain drifted down from the starless sky, and caught in the glow of passing headlights, formed temporary galaxies of twinkling light.

I sucked deep on O-free air. “Let’s hit some more gay bars. We need to find a connection between Froelich and Samusaka besides their taste in tattoos. Call Kripsen and Lumbela. See if they can ditch riot duty. We could use two more bodies.”

“Can’t call them. You know the regs. Police radio only.”

“Call them anyway. They’ll answer for us.”

“KOP disables their personal phones during riot duty.”

“Since when?”

“Since a few riot cops got calls from their families and abandoned their posts to protect their homes. Duty first. Want me to call Dispatch, see if I can get a message to them?”

“Yeah. Have them call us first chance they get.”

He placed the call, and a hazy KOP holo-logo appeared in the mist. For an investigation like this, the person I really needed was Maggie. Kripsen and Lumbela were piss-poor substitutes.

A woman came out of the Maze, an offworld woman, full lips, man-eater eyes, her hair a fountain of brown ringlets that splashed over her shoulders in a rippling cascade. She stood under the sign, cobalt-blue neon bathing her fair skin. She looked up into the mist, a blue halo forming around her face. I hadn’t seen her inside. Must’ve been on the dance floor.

I paid no attention to what Deluski was saying to Dispatch. My eyes were riveted. There was something familiar about this woman.

She came my way, tight pants, loose shirt, her eyes meeting mine. She winked like she knew me.

And I knew her. But from where?

She stepped past me, her dewy hair sparkling in the beam of a streetlight.

It hit me. The hair. That same abundant flood of curls streaming across Mota’s pillow. I hadn’t realized she was an offworlder at the time. Too dark. How she knew me I didn’t know. She was totally asleep, her mouth hanging wide open when I had her and Mota in my sights.

Deluski hung up, the KOP logo blinking out of existence. “That didn’t sound right.”

“What?” I asked absently, my mind weighing what was the better move. Confront her or follow her?

“According to Eddie at Dispatch, Kripsen and Lumbela just got pulled off the riot. They were sent to the Cellars.”

She crossed the street. I started walking.

Deluski followed. “Did you hear me? They were sent to the Cellars.”

She turned left at the end of the block. I hastened my pace.

“Boss?”

I crossed the street and ran up to the corner. I peeked around just in time to see her get into a cab. Shit.

“Who is she?” asked Deluski.

I waved my one and a half arms in an effort to hail a ride. No fucking cabs. I looked to my left and already her taxi was lost in a swarm of taillights. I dropped my arms. Fuck.

“Who is she?” repeated Deluski.

“Mota’s girlfriend.”

“Seriously? I thought he was gay. You think she turned him straight?”

I rubbed my jaw. I couldn’t pin Mota down. The bastard kept finding new ways to surprise me. Screwing one of my boys. Siccing a pair of Yepala cops on me. And now an offworld squeeze.

“Did you hear what I said about Kripsen and Lumbela?”

A fly plunked me in the forehead. Damn things were pissing me off.

“Boss?”

“Yes, dammit. I heard you. They got routed to the Cellars.”

“Does that sound right to you? Who gives a shit about the Cellars? Nobody lives in there. No businesses either.”

“Did Dispatch give a reason?”

“Eddie said vandals were spotted in the area.”

“Nothing strange about that. They get a call from a citizen, they have to send somebody.”

“Not when there’s a riot going.”

Again, a fly kamikazeed me. Dammit! I swatted at the little shit, once, twice. A cab pulled over. “Fucking move on!” I shouted at the driver.

The driver leaned her head out the window. “Why did you wave me down?”

“I was swatting at a fly.”

She called me an asshole and pulled away. Unbelievable.

“Maybe the riot is over,” I said.

“That’s just it. Eddie said Villa Nueva’s still dark. The riot’s in full swing. It’s a bad one too.”

Deluski had a point. Why peel a pair of officers off a riot when you could send somebody else?

“Think it’s a setup?”

Dread sprouted in my gut. I could feel Mota’s hand behind this. I could feel it, his fingers itching at my spine.

Our taxi dropped us at the edge of the darkness. The driver refused to go any farther. Said she couldn’t take chances like that.

I took off my shades, stuffed them in a pocket. “You ready?”

Deluski pulled his piece. “Let’s do it.”

I drew my weapon, and we ran into the blackout, Deluski in the lead. He had the flashlight we’d bought off the driver. I’d go without. My hand was already full.

I couldn’t lose Kripsen and Lumbela. I’d already lost two men. No more.

No fucking more.

The Cellars were ten, maybe twelve blocks away. The street was empty. Deserted. I stayed close on Deluski’s tail for the first block, but my lungs were far from equal to his. “Slow down,” I wheezed at his back. He complied, dropping his speed from young buck to old fuck.

I kept my eyes aimed at the ground and followed the bobbing beam of his flashlight, getting in the rhythm when he stopped short. I smacked into him, my face bouncing off his shoulder, the taste of blood in my mouth.

“Sorry.” He swept the flashlight beam left and right. “Don’t we have to turn here?”

We stood in the center of an intersection. He three-sixtied the beam, hitting all four corners: shoe store, fruit stand, rubble from a collapsed building, another fruit stand. I knew where I was. I’d been here a few nights ago, on my way to the Punta de Rio, the restaurant where I’d met Maggie. “Ahead another block, then left to the river.”

“Got it.” He was off.

I hustled to catch up, then settled back into the pace. Misting rain didn’t keep me cool, and sweat broke on my forehead, in my pits. We made the turn, our footfalls echoing in the silence like ticks of an old clock on a sleepless night.

Block after block, we approached the river, the nicer parts of Villa Nueva falling away behind us, brick and asphalt giving way to clumps of weeds and brush, the air heavy with the smell of wet mulch. This patch of urban jungle was once a bustling port, a buzzing, booming link of the supply chain from the long-gone brandy era.

Deluski’s flashlight flitted over the signs of neglect: glue jars huffed clean; used rubbers tossed from car windows; bottles and cans; cig butts and O pipes. We hurdled vines, dodged shrubs, stomped through knee-high grass, coming ever nearer to the Cellars.

Deluski slowed. He swept the flashlight beam across an angled plane of greenery. Starting from ground level, the plane sloped upward, rusted metal showing through in places. This was the roof, one side of a massive A-frame that sheltered a man-made inlet big enough to hold a barge.

We ran alongside, seeking a usable entrance. Deluski stopped to aim the flashlight at a pair of doors lying flush with the ground, his beam settling on a locked chain running through the door handles, the links knotted with roots and vines. This place was condemned a decade ago. A deathtrap. Supposed to be sealed up.

We moved on, passing two more properly chained entrances before reaching a pair of doors flapped upward, a bolt cutter lying on the ground. I could see the first steps of a long staircase that I knew tunneled into the earth, down, down, down to the Cellars, a series of cavernous rooms buried beneath the inlet.

We started our descent, my piece clutched tight, too tight, like I was trying to hold on to a slimy fish. A fly buzzed my ear. My stump had to be bleeding again, must’ve bumped it without noticing. No other way to explain why the damn pests had been dogging me since the gay bar.

Already, the air felt cooler. The Cellars were designed to provide a constant temperature year-round, each meter of depth providing further protection against the scorching Lagartan summer. Perfect for brandy’s long-term aging process.

We descended one step at a time, our movements deliberate, careful, nervous, weapons aimed at the black shadows hiding ahead of the flashlight beam. My lungs protested the stale air; legs quivered from overuse; eyes stung with salty sweat.

The bottom was near, a tall, arched doorway emerging from the dark like a tombstone, the last two stairs submerged in floodwater. I stepped down, ankle-deep water filling my shoes, the spaces between my toes. We took the last stair, cold liquid soaking our calves. Deluski swept the beam from side to side. Brandy casks sat on rusted shelves, rows and rows of them bathing in still water. We entered a tunnel of tipped shelves. I had my eyes peeled, my ears dialed in. Shattered casks poked out of the water like shipwrecks.

We sloshed to the row’s end. The water was now above our knees, my already exhausted legs resisting the extra work. Up ahead, Deluski’s beam found a lift, one of many that were once used to lift casks to the surface, where they could be loaded onto a barge docked in the inlet overhead.

We about-faced and started up another row. Casks towered overhead, water dripping from cracks in the ceiling, plinks and plunks echoing all around. I tried to shut out the fear of the ceiling giving way, river water crashing down on our heads in a violent torrent.

Water crept up my thighs, every centimeter a shock to my never-cold Lagartan skin. We stopped at the foot of a metal monster, long arms reaching out, the robotic stock picker frozen with rust and crusty mold.

“This is going to take forever,” I said. “They could be anywhere down here.”

“They might not be down here at all. They could’ve gotten scared off. If we smelled a setup, they could’ve too.”

Deluski’s phone rang. My heart jumped at the sudden ringing. Shit! To free up a hand, he tucked the flashlight under his arm, making everything but a small, rippling circle of light on the water go dark.

“Fucking silence that shit.”

“Sorry. Forgot. Call’s coming from a blocked ID.”

I felt a twinge in my gut. Something was up. “Answer it.”

“It’s a vid.”

“Live feed?”

“Yeah.”

“Turn off the outgoing vid before you answer.”

“Got it. No holo-projection down here. We’ll have to watch it on my screen.”

I dragged my rubbery legs through the water until I stood shoulder to shoulder with him. “Go.”

Dim yellow light jittered across several racked casks of brandy. The camera was as dizzying as the lighting, bouncing, weaving, until finally it steadied on two men, my men. They were both on their knees, water up to their waists, faces sagging with resignation. A third man stood behind them, panama hat tilted down to keep his face in shadow. A lase-blade fired up, its red glow casting the scene in hellish fire.

No!

Panama took hold of Kripsen’s hair and sliced his throat. Flash-fried blood misted upward among puffs of curling smoke. Kripsen’s eyes rolled up in their sockets, blood streaming, life draining.

Blood pulsed in my temples, my face on fire. FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!

Panama shoved Kripsen forward. A splash of water kicked up at the camera, and the camera jumped. “Fucking watch it,” came a voice with a pissy attitude.

I knew that pretty-boy voice. Mota. With no conscious thought, my arms came to my face and started to knead, the butt of my weapon digging into one cheekbone, the butt of my right arm into the other.

The screen shook in Deluski’s quivering grasp.

Kripsen wasn’t moving. He was doing the dead man’s float.

Bile stewed in my gut. We were too late. Too damned late. Lumbela was about to die, and we were powerless to stop it. The Cellars were too big. They could be anywhere within this network of interconnected underground warehouses. We’d run out of time.

Lumbela’s hair was in Panama’s grip, head tilted back, Adam’s apple bulging, eyes pleading, begging. The blade scorched and charred its way through skin and muscle and windpipe. Panama let go of his hair, and Lumbela briefly splashed under the surface before slowly rising to the top.

Deluski didn’t speak. But I could hear him breathing fast through his nose, the sound raking in and out.

Panama wasn’t done. He turned the floaters over, their blank eyes staring, throat wounds gaping, mouths hanging open and filled with water. Panama pulled Kripsen close and reached a hand toward the wound. Kripsen’s still face went underwater as Panama worked his fingers inside his throat. He pulled his hand out, bringing Kripsen’s tongue with it. He left it like that, red flesh poking from a mouth that wasn’t a mouth. A Lagartan necktie.

I wanted to scream, but they were down here somewhere. Possibly near. Mota and Panama. They were going to pay.

Panama moved in to dress up Lumbela.

“Turn it off,” I said. “We’ll fry the fuckers on their way out.”

Deluski understood. He was already moving, heading back toward the staircase, his legs high-stepping through the water. I was right behind him, doing a sloppy imitation, bumbling and stumbling, my stride a splashy sort of scramble.

The water shallowed nearer to the stairs, my gait taking on a semblance of normalcy. Deluski used the flashlight to help me pick a spot behind a cask that had a good line of sight.

“You set?” he asked.

“Yeah. Don’t shoot until I do.”

“Got it.” He splashed away, light jouncing for a minute then extinguishing when he found his spot.

My feet and ankles were still in the grip of cold water, an aching numbness taking hold. Wet pants chilled my legs. A water-splashed shirt clung to goose-bumped flesh. Focus. I held my piece tight in my left, my eyes searching for a break, any break in the pitch black dark. They’d come this way. They had to.

Mota and Panama. I’d passed on my chances to kill each of them. Kripsen and Lumbela had paid the price for my stupidity, the ultimate price. My once-fearsome crew was now reduced to one.

I clenched my jaw to keep my teeth from chattering, wiggled my unfeeling toes. Mota had been asleep when I had him in my sights. Asleep. All I’d had to do was squeeze the trigger. But I was weak. Soft. Felt sorry for the piece of offworld ass spooning alongside him.

And Panama? I’d left him beaten and bruised but all too alive. Fuck.

I tried to take satisfaction from the fact that Panama’s YOP partner didn’t show on the vid. I’d clocked that bastard over the head good. That SOB probably still wasn’t seeing straight.

I let my piece hang by my side. Didn’t want a tired arm. I’d have plenty of time to take aim as they approached. The sound of dripping water pinged hollowly off the walls. I ignored the fly buzzing around my head. Focus.

Neckties. Panama gave my boys fucking neckties, the calling card of the jungle warlords. I couldn’t wait to fry the fuck out of him. Mota too. Despite the chilled bones in my shoes, this time there’d be no cold feet.

Yepala was General Z’s territory. The general was famous for employing an army of children. Decades of war had taken its toll on the adult population so now he drafted children.

But what was the connection between Mota and General Z? I remembered the picture: Mota, Froelich, and Wu standing around a pile of cash. Opium money? It was possible.

But would General Z order the murder of two Koba police? That was a risky move for the warlord. A move as ballsy as that could provoke a nasty backlash from the Lagartan army.

So perhaps Mota and Panama weren’t conspiring with the warlord at all. Yepala was on the edge of the general’s territory, a place where nonopium trade and commerce were freely permitted. Those two SOBs could be operating an independent business inside the general’s territory.

I saw a light ahead, and I put thoughts of drugs and warlords out of my mind. The light blinked in and out as they passed behind one obstruction or another. Then it split into two lights.

Mota and Panama.

Panama and Mota.

I raised my piece, my heart quickening its pace. They were mine. Darkness was my shield. I was invisible, a ghost with a gun.

Mota and Panama. Panama and Mota. They made slow, sloshing progress. My finger was on the trigger, waiting, anticipating.

Ready.

A phone rang. One of theirs. “Who the hell is that?” asked Panama, his voice distant but audible.

“It’s him again,” said Mota. “It must be important. Hello?”

Not yet, I told myself. Be patient. Let them get nice and close. Close enough that I couldn’t miss, even with the left. No need to rush it. They couldn’t see me. Couldn’t see Deluski.

Not yet.

Their lights went out. Their silhouettes disappeared. The sound of splashing water.

What the fuck?

I resisted the urge to open fire. Couldn’t give away my position. I had to stay between them and the door. As long as I did, the upper hand was mine. Only one way out of here.

Water dripped. The fly buzzed. My breath pumped in and out. Otherwise, quiet. Total, absolute quiet.

The phone call. Whoever the bastard was he had tipped them off. Ambush up ahead. But who? How?

The air came alive with red fire. My eyes went blind, bright light overwhelming me. An oven blast struck my cheek, eyelashes curling, skin burning. I dropped down, taking cover behind the cask, my body in a crouch, my ass dipped in the water, face pressed into the wood.

I could feel the cask shake as lase-fire ripped into it. Smoldering wood chips rained on my head, and smoke filled my nostrils. I looked left, my vision fuzzy and blurred. Through the haze, I could see return fire coming from Deluski’s position, the beam terminating in a confusing red-black smear.

How did they know where I was? Fucking heat sensors. Had to be.

A chunk of wood bounced off my shoulder. My cover wouldn’t last much longer.

Fall back to the stairs. Cement and rock would hold better than rotten wood. I sank into the cold water, stretched my legs out so my torso went all the way in. Good luck finding my heat signature now. I took a second to locate the staircase in the deep-red glow of lase-fire, then I sucked in a breath and dropped in my head. Underwater, I scrambled for the stairs, doing a swim-crawl. Water exploded around me. Microcurrents struck me like punches, wild surf tinted bloodred with lase-fire.

Hot water scalded my face, my ankles, my gun hand. I turned back, paddling, crawling, lunging. My head struck something hard. I came up and sucked air as I tapped around with my weapon, the sound of hollow wood answering back. Another cask. I pulled myself upright, my back leaning against my new cover.

Bastards saw me. Even when I went underwater. Shit.

Lase-fire erupted from the staircase, momentarily silhouetting Deluski’s crouched form. He’d managed to fall back unhurt. All their fire was focused on me.

It was me they could see. Not Deluski. How?

From behind, I heard splashing. They were closing. Deluski searched with his flashlight and took some potshots, but the splashes came closer.

I couldn’t stay here. But I was farther away from the stairs than I’d been on my first try-no chance in hell I’d make it. Deluski’s position was more and more vulnerable with our enemies’ every wet step forward.

I had to move.

“Run!” I yelled at Deluski. I didn’t stick around for a response. I took off in the opposite direction. I held the trigger down, squeezing off a long burn and chased the light. Stinging with exertion, my legs fought the water, my knees kicking up spray that flash-fried in the lase-beam.

The lift. Its shaft ran up to the surface. There had to be a service ladder or staircase nearby. Had to be.

The water deepened, now up to my thighs. I dropped in and swam. A beam sizzled by. I dove deep, my stomach scraping the floor as I stroked forward through the black water, my lungs on fire, my eyes seeking the lift. Flashes of red light penetrated the dark, but couldn’t penetrate deep water.

I came up for a puff of air, the back of my head catching a steamy spray, scalp on fire. I went back down, cold water extinguishing, soothing. I hit something with my stump, pain ricocheting up and down my arm. I came up for another puff, afraid to surface for more than a sip.

Air. I needed more air.

I steered left, edging closer to toppled shelving. I picked my way into a gap alongside a cask, splinters digging, my weight centering underneath me. I stood upright and sucked air, my piece taking aim.

Fire came at me, two beams tearing at the cask. Couldn’t fool those fuckers for a second. I aimed at the beams’ source and returned fire. Their beams went dark. I jerked the beam around, attacking the black with a fiery scribble.

I heard splashes. Couldn’t see shit. I fired off another burst. “Stay back, motherfuckers!”

The splashes stopped. I kept up the fire, stalling for time. I needed oxygen before the next big push.

The sound of sloshing, swooshing strides started back up. They were on the move again, and they were close. Too close. I needed more time. More air. But I had to go. I burned off a burst in the direction of the lift, red light illuminating a door to the right of the lift entrance. A stairwell. Had to be.

Better fucking be.

Not far. I could do it in one breath. I could. I filled my lungs full and dove under. I made frantic frog strokes, my stomach skimming over the floor, bubbles blowing out my mouth, red light blinking in and out. The door. It was all about the door.

I hit the wall and peered up, the door handle briefly blinking into existence as a burst of lase-fire tore into the door. I stayed crouched below the surface and dropped my piece to free up my only hand.

Desperate for air, I made a quick snatch, my hand darting out of the water to grab the door handle. I yanked down and pulled at the door, but it wouldn’t budge. Fuck. My fingers stung with searing heat-another flash of lase-fire setting water to a boil.

Ignoring the pain, I tried a push instead of a pull, and the door swung open. I slipped inside, remembering to reach back for my piece before pushing the door closed. I stood and sucked air, foul, fetid air that tasted sweet as hell.

I opened fire, a cloud of steam bursting out of my weapon. Red fire lit the small space. Stairs. I started up, then stopped and turned back to fry the door handle. I hit it with a sustained burn, the rusted metal quickly taking on a red glow.

I waited for the door handle to turn, waited for the fried-flesh scream that would accompany it, a vicious smile on my face. It didn’t turn. But they must’ve arrived by now. Yet the door handle didn’t turn. I took my finger off the trigger, and I heard the sound of water splashing against the door. Fuckers were throwing water at it, trying to cool it off.

How did they know?

A fly buzzed my ear. You’re still with me, are you?

Oh shit. The fly.

I swiped at the little fuck, then sizzled off a burn, but couldn’t hit the bob-and-weave bastard. I’d been bugged.

I hustled up the stairs, my lase-pistol lighting the way. I made it up three flights before hearing the door open below. I kept going upward, water squeezing over the lips of my shoes. I was spent. Aching-chest, toasted-muscle, ready-to-vomit spent.

But I kept going. Up and up and up.

I heard them clomping and grunting. Mota and Panama. Panama and Mota.

I kept firing my pistol at the ground, the red glow illuminating the stairs. I hit the next landing, turned around and started up another flight. Flight after flight, I kept moving, refusing to quit. Fuck Mota. Step, step, step. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I burst out a door into open space. I was inside the A-frame, the large, barge-sized inlet lying before me. I ran for the water, the inlet’s mouth sitting to my right, the river just a few meters away, lights twinkling on the far shore. The fence was my last obstacle, a chain-link job that stretched across the inlet’s mouth to keep out boats.

I heard the door crash open behind me, but I was already airborne, the lase-pistol flying from my fingers, my body aiming for the water. I splashed in and kicked downward. The fence wouldn’t go down to the bottom, I was sure of it. This was Lagarto. We did everything on the cheap.

I kicked down, pressure in my ears. I grabbed the fence with my good hand and pulled myself deeper. I ducked under, metal scraping my back, the current grabbing hold.

I stroked upward, and popped up to the surface for just a second before going back under, a beam missing high and wide.

Free. Fucking free.

April 24–25, 2789

I swallowed river water, mud-flavored muck sliding down my throat. I fought to stay afloat while a stitch shanked me between the ribs. My arms and legs begged me to give in. I vomited again. Small fish came for the free food and surrounded me in a flip-flop frenzy.

The riverbank was visible, a dark shadow that underlined the burned-out, blacked-out port of Villa Nueva. The grim sky of the Big Sleep hovered overhead like a giant hand primed to push me under.

The current was slow but persistent. Unrelenting. My adrenaline tank was empty. My swim stroke was dangerously labored. The river told me to quit. She whispered in my ear, told me she could take away my pain.

You can’t have me. You spit me out, remember?

She got mean. Told me I was a curse, a blight on this world. She told me my touch was the kiss of death. Kripsen and Lumbela. Froelich and Wu. Wu’s wife and daughters. All dead.

Even Niki, she said. Your wife killed herself to get away from you. Give in. Do everybody a favor.

Bitch had a point. But I couldn’t afford the luxury of death. I had responsibilities. I had to set things right with Maggie. I had to avenge my crew, Wu’s little girls.

I choked down another unintentional gulp of river water and swung my stubborn left arm over again to slap the water with an open palm. I took yet another knife at the water with my half-arm. One after the other, stroke after stroke, my eyes always on the shore.

My feet made contact with the bottom, my shoes finding traction in the silt. The cramp in my side kept me hunched as I waded through floating garbage. I trudged forward, my body rising out of the water. I picked my way into jungle brush, solid ground now underfoot. The stitch in my side started to unthread and the defeated river could only shout insults at my back.

I emerged from a thicket onto an empty street at least a dozen blocks downriver from the Cellars. I spat bile. My spent body felt ready to collapse.

A buzzing sound grazed my ear. Damn fly was a persistent bugger. It must’ve operated off a combination of motion sensors, heat sensors, DNA sensors, and whatever other kind of sensors would keep it on my ass.

Mota and Panama could still see me. They would come for me. They would.

I swung a tired arm at the fly, but it was far too fast and agile to be swatted away.

An idea lit inside my mind. I ran. The fly followed.

Streetlights flickered into life, the hum of restored electricity sounding all around me. Windows lit and neon glowed. Now that the blackout had ended, heads poked out of doors, faces searching for signs of trouble. They watched me run, their strange stares a perplexed mix of curiosity and fear.

I checked over my shoulder. Nobody followed. Nobody but this damn fly.

A toenail scraped uncomfortably in my soggy shoe. My thighs stung as they chafed in wet pants, and my lungs heaved in and out, in and out.

I’d been bugged. How? When? I forced my weary mind to go back in time. Fucking concentrate.

Mota’s girlfriend. The fly had been with me since she tossed me that wink outside the gay bar. Offworld skank bitch whore.

I checked over my shoulder again. Still clear.

People came out of their homes. Neighbors milled about and shopkeepers checked for damage. I spied the Punta de Rio up ahead, the same restaurant where Maggie and I had eaten. Despite the late hour, their clientele was just now filing out the door. They must’ve stayed inside for the duration of the blackout. Safer to ride it out inside.

I raced to the entrance. Legs exhausted, my ungainly steps clapped against the pavement. People moved out of my way, alarm in their eyes.

I rushed inside and dodged a waiter who tried to tell me they were closed. I weaved past empty tables with burning candles and tips waiting for pickup. Busboys yelled at me, told me to stop, but I charged through their demands, my eyes tunneled on the back office. I burst through the door, startling the manager, and scanned the shelves: canned goods and holo-time sheets. There it was.

I paid no heed to the agitated protests and grasped the handheld bug zapper I’d seen the waitress use a few nights earlier. Where are you, you little bastard?

Spectators went silent in their confusion, the manager, the busboys, all of them wondering what the fuck was wrong with me. My eyes caught on a black dot buzzing in zigs and zags. I powered up the zapper and swept the racquet-like end toward the dancing dot. Electricity popped in a blue flash. The racquet jumped from my grasp and a starburst of smoking, spiraling cinders drifted down.

I was back on the street, hoofing as fast as stiff legs would allow. The bridge wasn’t far. A car came around the corner. I ducked behind a stoop and peeked through a cluster of vine leaves. The car crept by: a panama hat rode in the passenger seat.

The car rolled toward the restaurant. Mota and Panama were going to check on my last-known location.

I gave it a few before coming out. I’d picked up a hitchhiker from the vines, felt it crawling and brushed the bug from my hair. My scalp screamed in protest, like I had a wicked sunburn under my hair, sun in the form of lase-fire and steamed water. A second burn stung my cheek, and my half-arm screamed too, ghost pain gripping me like a too real, invisible fist.

Fucking hell of a night.

Deluski and I were too slow. The image of Kripsen and Lumbela showed bright in my mind, the necktied bastards sticking their tongues out at me. I could see Wu’s little girls, innocent young things who would never again know joy or love.

Mota, Panama, and that psycho lizard-man. They’d all left their mark on me.

I’d brandish the scars like banners, lift them high as I carried them into battle. I was on a mission.

Numb legs carried me onto the bridge. I looked down at the river, streetlights illuminating an eddy, silent water spinning, meandering, wandering. Me, I was walking in a straight line.

“I didn’t quit!” I called to her.

She didn’t answer.

I wouldn’t be intimidated. This was still my turf. It was important to be seen. I strode right up the middle of the alley. My sore feet clomped with purpose, half expecting to be fried apart.

I trod past a group of hookers on a smoke break, all girl talk and garter belts. I looked over their heads, saw that Chicho’s office light was on. Good. I wouldn’t have to wake up that stiff. I was short on cash. And short on time. Mota and Panama would eventually come here looking for me.

I tried to take Chicho’s stairs quickly and almost fell, my tired legs having to be coaxed along. I stepped through the door, a shiver of relief rippling up my spine. I’d made it in alive.

I took a quick peek into the tiny barroom to see if Deluski was inside. The kid would know to meet me here after we’d been split up. But the barroom was empty. I told myself not to worry. He was probably upstairs somewhere.

A pair of young offworld johns with just-got-laid grins came from the back, a hooker on each elbow. They eyed me with concern, the missing hand, the damp clothes, their faces saying it all-don’t tell me you shop here too? Arrogant bastards were worried that they’d just dunked their toothbrushes into the same glasses I made a habit of rinsing in.

I gave them a wink before walking past and pushing my way through the curtain of monitor teeth. Chicho sat at his desk, tallying holo-receipts. Didn’t he know how late it was? In a big house brimming with big tits, big numbers were his only aphrodisiac.

“Tax time,” I said.

His eyes went straight to the part of me that was missing. “Where’s your hand?”

“Got it fixed so it doesn’t shake anymore.”

He studied my face, looking for a sign, any sign, I was joking. My gaze was pure steel. Stainless.

He shook his head, beady eyes incredulous. “You are one crazy-ass son of a bitch, you know that?”

I stood on the spot where Maria had given me a nutter. Seemed like a long time ago. Still felt bad about punching her. “Time to pay up,” I repeated.

“It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?”

“I saw your light was on. I have a busy day tomorrow. Figured I’d get a jump on things.”

He didn’t look ready to drop the missing-hand thing. His eyes had returned to the empty space hanging by my hip. He opened his mouth like he was going to ask a question, but a glance at my biz-only face talked him out of it. “How do you want it?”

“Cash.”

He whistled as if to say, tall order. “I don’t have that kind of scratch lying around. I can probably scrounge some up from tonight’s till. The rest will have to wait until I can hit the bank tomorrow.”

“Fine.” I didn’t want to bring up Mota, but I had to know if he and Panama had come around. My heart ticked up a notch as I tossed the question his way. “Heard from Mota?” I held on to my stone face while hanging on the answer.

“Nope.”

I acted like I’d expected that response, my voice cocksure. “See, I told you not to worry about him.”

Nodding, he said, “That you did, Juno. That you did.”

This was going better than expected. Mota hadn’t made his reappearance yet. He’d eventually try to reclaim his racket, no doubt about that, but the bastard probably had the good sense not to come to Chicho until after he’d snuffed me. Cleaner that way.

For the time being, Mota’s silence worked to my advantage. This little partnership between Chicho and me was still new. Fragile. If Mota started making waves, fears would have to be calmed, hurt feelings would have to be salved, and knowing Chicho, new rates would have to be negotiated.

But this was shaping up nicely. A sweet little collect-and-go.

Except Chicho was still sitting there, as in not hustling to get my dough. He kept nodding his head, eyes crinkled like he was thinking on something important. “Hey, did you know the cops who got axed?”

Shit. I kept my response minimal. “I knew them.”

“Two of them. Their heads cut off.” He scratched his chin. “I saw their pics on the news, thought I recognized one.”

So much for a quick collect-and-go.

“The one with the scar. Wasn’t he here for the blackout the other night? One of your boys, wasn’t he?”

I couldn’t deny it. He knew.

He moved up in his seat. “The other one. Was he one of your boys too?”

I nodded.

He slapped his desk. “Fucking hell. What kind of operation are you running?”

Never let your mark see weakness. I shrugged it off like it was no biggie. “So I lost a couple. What you getting all worked up about?” Two dead crew. Ho-fucking-hum.

“Mota do that shit?”

“Hell no. It had nothing to do with him.” And that was the truth. I kept the fact that he’d offed my other two dead crew to myself. If I was lucky, those bodies would stay underground for a good long while.

Chicho didn’t look convinced.

“Those were serial killings. They say that on the news?”

“They hinted that way but didn’t say for sure.”

“It wasn’t Mota.” My voice was chock-full of conviction. “I told you I took care of that pretty boy. You’ll never hear from him again.”

Chicho angled his head slightly so he could look at me sidewise with mistrustful eyes. “You on the level?”

I shouldn’t have to justify myself to this pimp. I let some anger seep into my voice, a little righteous indignation. “You’ve known me for how long?”

“Too long.”

“Try twenty years. Twenty long years. All that time, I’ve always been straight with you. So get the hell over whatever bullshit has you doubting me, and get me my damn money.”

“I put my neck out for you, Juno. I’ve got this whole alley singing your praises. Better protection at a cheaper price and all that. How’s it going to look if this shit gets out? You know what happens if people lose confidence in their protection? They’ll stop paying.”

“So don’t tell them Wu and Froelich were mine. Keep your trap shut, and you won’t have to worry about it.”

“They were here.” His voice rose as he stood. He took a step toward the window. “They were right outside that goddamned window. Any of the pimps or madams in this alley could’ve seen them, and I don’t have to tell you how recognizable that scar-headed motherfucker was.”

“Those pimps or madams mention him to you?”

“No.”

“Then nobody recognized him. Quit your bellyaching.”

He stepped back behind his desk and leaned in. “I’m trying to sell your services to a half dozen houses outside this alley. What am I supposed to say when they ask why your boys are dying left and right?”

I could see it now, what he was doing. He was trying to put me on the defensive. Trying to seize the upper hand in our partnership.

Not going to happen. I took a big step toward his desk, big enough to bump it with my thigh. We stood face-to-face, the desk holding us apart. “You tell them my rep speaks for itself.”

“Not fucking good enough.” He punched at the air. The desk standing between us seemed to shrink. “I’m putting my name on the line for this.”

“You quit that shit right now!” I chopped at his desk with my good hand. “I came to you with a gift, dammit. I could’ve brought the same deal to anybody, you hear me? But I came to you, you stupid prick. I thought you’d have the smarts to take proper advantage.”

“Fuck that. Don’t act like you did me a favor, like you took a chance on me. I took a chance on you, you dumb fuck.” He was working himself into a fit, his hands jerking around, his words coming out in a blustery blast. “You were nothing when you came in here a few days ago. Just a burned-out ex-cop. A sad-sack widower. You were nothing. Nothing! ”

I felt spittle land on my face. His red-faced mug was ready to burst. His voice got real low. “You want to get paid, you show some appreciation.”

There it was. Prick just made his play, talking to me like I was his employee, like I was his muscle. He’d figured it out. He’d seen the ragtag group I’d put together, figured out that my influence over KOP was mostly a mirage. He’d seen hints of weakness, and he was going to wring it for all it was worth.

He thought I’d fold, thought I needed this gig in a bad way, thought I needed it to feel important. He figured me for desperate, desperate enough to give him control of this racket in order to stay on his good side.

But I knew this SOB, knew what made him tick. Thanks to me, he was going to collect a piece of every trick turned in this alley. Every dick sucked. Every pussy fucked. A piece of every last buck.

He’d been sitting here in this office for days now. I could picture it, him working through the projections, charting it out, the zeroes added to his bottom line giving him a hard-on. Hour after hour, he’d been salivating over those zeroes, fawning over them like he could screw them.

He was hooked. I knew it. Through-the-gills, jonesing-for-a-fix hooked. Look at him, his eyes greedy as they were beady.

Time to set him straight.

I pulled off my shades so he could get a good look at my eyes. Ice. “Apologize.”

“What?”

“For talking back to me. Apologize and make it sweet before I replace your ass.”

I stepped through the curtain, big-ass wad of cash in my damp pocket. Deluski and Maria waited in the lobby. “We heard you were here,” said Maria, her V-neck top cut low enough to show the top edges of a lacy bra, breasts squeezed up and in. Her eyes were dominated by eye shadow, deep blue swaths coming down like gaudy drapes with each eye blink. “We were worried.”

I smiled and-not wanting to send the wrong signal-patted her shoulder buddy-to-buddy style.

Deluski gave a relieved grin. “Glad to see you made it, boss.”

“Same here.” I held him with a suspicious eye, knowing that in his case, the concern might not be so selfless. Killer KOPs would’ve gone public had I died.

“Sorry it went down like that.” He dipped his head. “I didn’t want to leave you to fend for yourself.”

I gave him an appraising look. His brown eyes hung heavy in their sockets. He raised his brows, but they weren’t strong enough to lift the weight of a long night. The guilt seemed genuine.

“Don’t sweat it. I ordered you to run. You did right.”

A skeptical smile. “What happened down there?”

“I ran like hell.” I stepped in close, leaned forward so nobody but Deluski and Maria would overhear. “We can’t stay here any longer.” I asked Maria, “Know anybody with tight lips who can put Deluski up tonight?”

“What about you?”

“I have to go see somebody, but I’ll have to crash eventually. Can you get a place with room for two?”

She bit her lipsticked lip. “I’ll come up with something.”

“When you find a place, take Deluski over there. Then call the Iguana King Hotel and leave the address for Joe Chin.”

“Who?”

“Just tell them a Joe Chin will be checking in tomorrow.”

She nodded her head, understanding.

I put my hand on Deluski’s shoulder. “Wherever she brings you, stay there until I come for you in the morning.”

Things settled for now, I went out the door.

Maggie. I had to see Maggie.

Morning. The traffic-both foot and wheel-told me so. I’d been sitting on these steps for hours, waiting for her to come out. Didn’t want to wake her up. She was plenty pissed at me as it was.

Rain came down in a constant patter. Water streamed out from a pipe under my feet and ran down a cement gutter before disappearing into an underground pipe. The courtyard was secluded, trees and vines trimmed and shaped, the jungle tamed into a garden. Damp moss filled the air with mustiness.

The door opened behind me. She came halfway down the steps and turned to face me. “What are you doing here?” A porch light lit her face, but her voice was anything but bright.

“We need to talk.”

She looked down at me, at my rumpled clothes, my up-all-night eyes. “No, we don’t. I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.”

“Like what?”

“Don’t play stupid. You know exactly what I’m talking about. And take off those damn sunglasses.”

I semi-complied by pushing the glasses up to the top of my head. My scalp hurt like hell.

“What were you thinking?” Her voice was amped with impatience.

“I fucked up.”

“You think?”

“I didn’t know Mota would fight me. I thought he’d crumble.”

“You are unbelievable.” She shook her head. “You really don’t get it, do you?”

“Get what?”

She kept her voice low. “You still think this is a problem of execution. You think you picked the wrong protection racket to take over. Christ. It ever occur to you that taking dirty money is illegal?”

“What do you want me to say? I’m sorry?”

“An apology isn’t going to do it. Good-bye.” She rushed down the stairs, took the first step into the rain.

I couldn’t let her go. “I did it for you,” I called before she got far.

She spun on me, her face flushed, brows stabbing downward.

I stayed seated but forged ahead, undaunted. “I was trying to build a power base. You can’t be chief without-”

“Stop!” She jumped on my words and stomped them into the ground. “Don’t you dare put this on me. You fucked up. You. ”

“I was trying to-”

“Shut up! Just shut the hell up.”

I shut up. My insides hung heavy. I couldn’t stand to see her angry, couldn’t stand that I’d brought that ugliness to her face. The creases marring her forehead, the squint-wrinkles spoiling her eyes, the thorny little lines surrounding crimped lips, they were all my work, all of them strokes from my black paintbrush.

She was so angry I saw myself in her face, my ugly side reflecting back at me. I wanted to crawl into a hole.

Fix it, Juno. You have to fix it. I told myself I could, that it wasn’t too late. She hadn’t left. She hadn’t given up on me. Not yet. “One question.”

She stayed silent, glaring.

“What did you see in me?”

Her brows quirked as if to ask, What the hell are you talking about?

“When we first met, when we first partnered up, what did you see in me?”

She stepped out of the rain, up onto the bottom stair, droplets in her hair, water dotting her face.

I needed an answer. “What did you see?”

“I saw a broken man trying to fix himself.”

I rubbed my stump. “So what’s changed?”

“Everything. You’re going the wrong way. Can’t you see that?”

“My head’s been a little screwed up.”

“A little?”

“My intent was right, Maggie. My intent was right.”

She started to protest, but I stopped her by holding up my left hand. I wouldn’t let her talk me out of it. My intent was right. It was true. It had to be true. How else could I live with what I’d started, the shitstorm I’d unleashed?

I needed her to see. To understand. “You saw more in me than that.”

She folded her arms, her green eyes wary.

I pressed. “When you learned who I was, my history, why didn’t you drop me as fast as you could?”

“Because I could see you didn’t want to be that person anymore. I thought you wanted to redeem yourself.”

“I did. I do. You know damn well that’s why I wanted to take KOP back. You know I wanted you to change it, to make it better than the clusterfuck Paul and I left behind. But that’s only half of it, isn’t it? Enough with the redemption story. Tell me the other reason.”

She came up two steps so she could look down at me again. “Stop twisting things. What you’re doing is wrong. You took over a protection business. You’re pocketing prostitution money.”

I didn’t like that tone, that holier-than-thou, white-horse-riding tone. I leaned way forward, my ass coming up off the step, my floored soul coming off the mat. “Of course it’s fucking wrong.” I spat each word. “But doing right isn’t enough. Not for this screwed-up world. It’s never been enough.”

My voice got loud, words stampeding from my mouth. “You think I enjoy being me? You think this shit is easy?”

She backed away, the heat in my voice knocking her down a step.

“I pay the price,” I said. “Fucking every day, I pay the price. But I do what it takes. If I have to, I’ll paint the fucking streets with blood. You know why?” I clenched my fist, pounded it on my leg. “Because doing right doesn’t change anything. Because doing right isn’t worth shit!”

My wad shot, I dropped back down to my seat, my face on fire, my body shaking, my soul standing tall.

Maggie stared back at me, her stern face giving away nothing.

“It’s a taker’s world,” I said. “A taker’s world.”

We watched each other, pieces said, guts spilled. I didn’t need to say the other reason she kept me around. She knew damn well what wasn’t said, that she saw in me something she lacked. Something she needed to get where she wanted to go. The capacity to go all the way, to sink the knife to its hilt, to slice the throat all the way through to the bone.

She needed a vicious bastard like me.

But she showed no forgiveness in her green eyes, no give at all. She was right, and I was wrong, and with this quiet stare, she was making sure I knew exactly what she thought.

I’d said what I had to say. I stayed silent, wondering if this was it. If this was where our paths forked.

I refused to believe it. We’d been through too much together in the short time we’d known each other. Our bond was too strong, our codependence too great.

“I can’t have you running a criminal enterprise.” Her voice was rock certain. “Quit the protection racket.”

“I can’t let Mota take it back.”

“Why not?”

I took a long time answering, the last ounce of pride I had left making me reluctant to reveal the depth of my mistakes. “He killed Kripsen and Lumbela.” There. I’d said it.

She closed her eyes and shook her head. Her jaw dropped like she was about to speak but nothing came out. She tried again but managed only a stutter. I’d knocked the words right out of her.

“He cut their throats. He’s working with a pair of Yepala cops. I put one in the hospital, I think, but the other one gave my boys neckties. Mota, Wu, and Froelich were running some kind of business in Yepala, something far bigger than a protection racket. We have to find out what it is.”

Her dropped jaw stayed where it was.

“Mota’s got an offworld girlfriend who helped him try to knock me off. I have to find out who she is and where she fits in.”

She closed her mouth and rubbed her face with her hands.

I kept dishing it out, puzzle piece after puzzle piece. Mota and Froelich were lovers. Froelich and Samusaka had matching tats. Froelich, Wu, and Mota were all in business together. Samusaka was the gay son of an oil baron whose family was less than cooperative.

Somehow, it all fit together. The lizard-man serial killer too. It all fit together.

I told her I’d put the puzzle together, and when I finished, I was going to destroy it. I’d blow the whole thing up, and I’d watch the fragments burn. Wu’s little girls deserved no less.

She listened to every word, sharp green eyes taking it all in.

“I need your help.”

“Quit the protection racket.”

Frustration spilled into my voice. “You need a power base to be chief.”

She shook her head no.

“This is how it’s done.”

“We’re doing this different.”

“Dammit, Maggie, you think you can get to the top by doing a good job? You think they look at attendance records? ‘Boy, she’s punctual, let’s make her chief’? To be chief you have to take it. It’s a taker’s world.”

“I won’t do it like you and Paul did. I won’t climb over the backs of pimps and hookers and drug kingpins. I won’t be corrupted.” She leaned forward like she was about to throw a dart. “I won’t let myself turn into you.”

The dart drove deep. Pierced me in a place so deep that a shallow man like me ought not to feel it.

She crossed her arms. Emerald eyes bored in. “Drop the protection racket or we’re done.”

Her will was so much stronger than mine, her moral center more fixed. Judging by the look on her face, she knew she’d won, and now she was just waiting for me to figure it out. I’d come here to remind her of why she needed me, but she’d upended the thing. She’d done it so skillfully, so completely that my arguments floated adrift, meaningless.

Nothing to do but marvel at what I saw in her at the beginning.

I surrendered with a defeated nod of agreement.

Her green eyes softened, emeralds becoming less cold, less chiseled. She shook her head at me with a disapproving smirk, then sat down next to me, letting out a what-am-I-going-to-do-with-you sigh on the way down. “A taker’s world? Have a damn heart, will you? It wouldn’t hurt to give a little.”

She was right. Always right.

I ran my fingers into my hair and instantly regretted it, the root of every hair feeling like a sharp needle against my burned scalp. After a prolonged wince, I said, “You may never get there doing it your way.”

“I know.” She sounded sure. Like she’d made peace with it.

“I can’t let Mota take his racket back. Not after what he did to Kripsen and Lumbela. They were my responsibility.”

“Drop the racket after we bring him down.”

We kept quiet for a long time, content to be in each other’s presence, listening to jungle rain drum on the roof and the patio tiles, reunited in our mission for change.

Change. Whatever that was.

The skiff rode low in the water. A tourist vessel. We had cushioned seats under our asses, elbow rests for our arms. Overhead, a red-and-white-striped tarp stretched over a metal frame, ropes of light twining around the poles.

Deluski and I sat near the back, Maggie and Josephs a row ahead of us. Maggie kept one of the boat’s floodlights trained on the riverbank, her face focused, concentrated. Light skittered across trees and tangled foliage. Jungle overflowed the riverbank like bread raised over a pan’s lip.

The pilot’s gray hair was tucked under a tied scarf, her cheeks wrinkled and wind chapped. She held the throttle open, the skiff plowing a deep furrow in the black water. Josephs had told her we’d lost a boat last night. “Came unanchored or some shit,” as he’d put it. He told her we wanted to search the riverbanks to see if it ran ashore. He didn’t mention the real goal of our search: bodies.

A list of monitor fun facts hung from a crossbar, the requisite campy chomp taken out of the corner. Did you know Lagartan monitors have four rows of teeth? Did you know they can stay underwater for forty minutes? Did you know monitors have redundant hearts?

Two hearts. Maggie’s early-morning words replayed in my head, how she told me to have a damn heart. As if I didn’t have one. As if the lizards were up a deuce on me.

I looked over at Deluski, at his world-weary eyes. They didn’t suit a kid his age. A young cop like him should be enjoying himself, chasing tail and partying his nights away. Not searching the river for the beheaded corpses of his comrades.

I pulled the big hunk of Chicho’s cash out of my pocket. I roughly split it in two and handed half over. He looked at the dough, his eyelids broadening. “What’s this for?”

I leaned over so he could hear me over the motor. “You’re the only one left. You get their cuts now.”

He nodded, his mouth screwed to one side. “Mind if I give some to Lumbela’s sister? Lumbela’s been supporting her. She has young ones.”

I didn’t want the details. The shit I’d started was rippling outward, sewage spilling from one life to the next. I didn’t need to know where it all went. I had enough wrecked lives to my name. “It’s yours,” I told him. “Do what you want with it. Got a pen?”

He fished in a pocket and pulled one out.

“Write this down.”

He nabbed an advert for the tour company from a plastic holder attached to the side rail.

I recited the Net address first, then a set of credentials that would give him access to Killer KOPs.

He looked at the paper. “What’s this for?”

“Your movie. Destroy it.”

His head snapped up, his eyes locking on to mine. “This the only copy?”

I nodded.

He shook his head like he couldn’t believe it. “You fucking with me?”

“No.”

He stared at the paper, lips moving as he read it to himself.

“You’re free.”

I waited for him to show some appreciation. A nice big You’re a lifesaver would’ve been nice. Or maybe a little I’m so lucky you came into my life. I would’ve taken anything, even a simple thank-you. But it didn’t come. He just folded the paper and pushed it into his shirt pocket, his face frozen in thought. Maggie said I should give a little. She didn’t say anybody would thank me for it.

Deluski leaned forward in his seat, fingers laced tight together. Must’ve been killing him not to be able to destroy the vid file right this second, but he’d wisely dumped his phone after last night’s escape.

I sat back, told myself it didn’t matter if I got any thanks, told myself to enjoy the comfy ride. I looked toward the shore: a dock jutted into the water, lights bobbing on either side, grills flaming up, the smell of lunchtime fish drifting on the air.

“You laying me off?” asked Deluski.

I spoke without looking his way. “Stay on or not. Your choice.”

“I’ll stay on until this shit gets resolved. Then I don’t know.”

I nodded. Fine.

Maggie pointed at a buoy. The pilot took her cue and aimed the boat in the direction of her extended finger. According to the report, Franz Samusaka, the oil man’s kid, was found in an old house built over the marshy runoff between the city and the spaceport. I thought it possible the killer would reuse the dump site.

Wu and Froelich’s heads had been recovered, but that left a lot of corpse unaccounted for.

The skiff sliced into a narrow channel. I looked at the pilot. The nerves on her face were as plain as the wrinkles, her thoughts easy to read. Why would your lost boat go drifting in here? I calmed her fears with cash, a few bills hitting the mark.

We putt-putted through the dark, trees scratching the tarp overhead, hanging moss snagging on the vertical supports. A branch caught on the foremost pole and bent back like a whip, leaves scraping off before it slipped loose and slapped the next pole down. A dislodged gecko landed on the floor. Josephs pinned it under his shoe, picked it up and tossed the wriggler over the rail.

The channel widened. Maggie swept the floodlight left and right: tree trunks standing in still water, vines hanging down, fanned roots reaching into the water like green brooms. The motor churned through a patch of reeds, deep gurgles belching from the water. I leaned forward to peer over Maggie’s shoulder. Her digital pad showed a map of the exact location of where Samusaka’s body was found. We were close.

The marsh stayed connected to the river this time of year, shortly after the rainy season, when the water level was still high. But most of the year, it was a self-contained swamp, the narrow channel we’d just passed through becoming a bridge of land during the drier seasons.

Maggie guided the way with her gesturing hands as the pilot eased the skiff forward. The floodlight caught a post sticking out of the water, a bouquet of ferns sprouting from the top. Then another post emerged from the black, a second remnant of a long since collapsed dock. The pilot glided us alongside the sparse collection of pilings to a large, stilted house that stood at least two meters above the water.

“There.” Josephs pointed at a rope ladder dangling over the edge of a grand wraparound porch. The pilot idled the motor and let us coast the last bit to where Josephs grabbed the ladder. Holding us in close, he let Maggie start up first. Then went Deluski. I followed with my one-handed best. Going up wasn’t bad. Getting over the top was a challenge. Deluski had to drag my ass over by snatching hold of my belt.

Last, Josephs handed up a couple flashlights before starting the climb himself.

Maggie and Deluski ran the flashlight beams up and down the outer walls, illuminating peeled paint and furry moss. The place must’ve been something in its day, a vacation home built on a broad platform that had fared better than the dock since being abandoned who knew how many decades ago, probably when the spaceport was built so close.

We headed for the front door, the decking littered with brandy empties. I spotted a huffed-up tube of glue. Lizard-man was a huffer. I bent down and touched a finger to the spillover near the tube’s cap. It felt tacky. He’d been here recently.

I let Josephs bag the tube. If we were lucky, we might score a fingerprint.

Deluski stopped next to a hole in the floor and kept his light trained on it until we’d all safely passed. Josephs scraped open the single-hinged door. Inside, an old sofa sat in the middle of a large room, where there was more seating in the form of overturned crates and shine tubs. Curlicues of stripped wallpaper clung to the walls. So did the stink of stale booze.

This was a party den-tin cups and shot glasses, cig butts and O pipes, ashtrays made of cans sliced in half. A pile of shattered bottles sat under a broken-out window, the sill badly chipped and pocked. The local sport must’ve been throwing empties through the window from the couch.

Flashlights scanned the floor, where condom wrappers had gathered like fallen leaves. Deluski threw a light on a flickering poster strung from a dead chandelier, the strobing image some kind of music vid. “Teenagers.”

“Yep,” said Josephs. “Horny little bastards must come at night.”

Maggie aimed her light at a staircase. “Samusaka’s body was found upstairs.”

We stepped forward, floorboards creaking, and filed up the stairs. I felt the rumble before I heard it, a launching spacecraft shaking the steps under my feet. We topped the staircase, Maggie in front, Deluski right behind, Josephs and me in the back. The spacecraft’s roar intensified, walls shaking, our eardrums rattling with thought-piercing racket.

I plugged an ear against the deafening roar. I trailed in back, my nose wrinkling at the twinge of death on the air.

I followed the rest into a bedroom. The smell was getting riper, the screeching roar digging, drilling into my skull.

I scoped the scene, seized by the image before me. My jaws clenched and my innards twisted. The image overwhelmed me, my eyes protesting as much as my bombarded ears. Decibels drowned out all thought.

Two beheaded bodies were propped on a mattress. One on all fours, the other kneeling. Mounting. The bodies posed for an assfuck. They looked like mannequins, their skin shiny like polished plastic. But the smell. The smell left no doubt this was real flesh and bone.

The ship’s roar faded, replaced by a ringing in my ears. Drawing closer, I could see they were dickless, with meaty red gashes where their genitals should be. A meter-long spike ran through the two of them, pinning them together like a toothpick through a stuffed flatbread. It ran through the lower back of the kneeler, into the anus of the one on all fours, then protruded out the crotch wound, the single spike making a reasonable facsimile of both their missing hard-ons.

They wore their badges, the pins running through their right nipples. Froelich and Wu.

“What the hell are we dealing with?”

I didn’t realize I’d asked the question aloud until Josephs responded. “A fairy. One fucked-up fairy.” His voice sounded distant over the hollow ringing in my ears. “He actually cut their dicks off,” he said to himself as much as anybody. “Heads and dicks both. Beheaded ’em two times.”

My arm twitched with the firsthand memory of the killer, teeth sunk into my flesh, reptilian eyes reflecting back inhumanly.

Maggie moved up for a closer inspection. “How are they staying upright?” She was over the shock, her mind already reasoning, analyzing. She tapped one on the arm with her flashlight, a solid clink sounding back. “They’ve been dipped in something like varnish.”

Deluski rushed out. Nobody tried to stop him.

Josephs snickered. “Punk’s got weak knees.”

I didn’t let Josephs’s words penetrate as my mind struggled to inch forward, wheels slowly turning with the need to make sense of the senseless.

Froelich and Wu had been here before, in this very room. They’d investigated Franz Samusaka’s death and ruled it an accidental OD. They said his missing member was munched away by lizards postmortem. And they got a powerful family like Samusaka’s to accept it.

I couldn’t fathom why Froelich and Wu would cover for this cock-chop bastard. Why sweep away Samusaka’s murder with lies?

Froelich knew Samusaka. They had matching tats. Friends? Lovers?

Nothing made sense. Nothing.

“The killer craves attention,” Maggie said.

“Cocksucker’s got flair,” responded Josephs. “I’ll give him that.”

I nodded my head in silent agreement. The killer reveled in his work. He must’ve been pissed when his killing of Samusaka was passed off as a bullshit OD, his art tossed in the trash as idle scribble.

He wanted attention, wanted everybody to know who he was, what he was capable of. He’d been ignored before, and Froelich and Wu had to pay for showing such disrespect. He’d brought what was left of their corpses back to the site of their crime. And in doing so, he’d retroactively claimed credit for Samusaka. He was erasing all doubt, doing his best to get the attention he deserved. His head-tossing, child-killing, assfuck-posing best.

We’d returned to the living room, Maggie, Josephs, and I. We’d come to escape the smell, but the stink of my mutilated crew members stayed with me, in my clothes and nostrils.

Josephs shined a light through the window. “You out there?”

Deluski stepped into the beam, hand over his eyes. “Yeah.” His voice didn’t sound right, like he was out of breath. He wiped his cheek on his shoulder.

“You cryin’?” asked Josephs.

Deluski turned his back. The kid had finally cracked, like his newfound freedom had set him free to feel. I wished I could console him. But that shit wasn’t me.

Josephs swung his light on me. “Why are you and your boy cryin’ all the time? What kind of pussy-ass show you runnin’?”

I let his words pass through me. Not in the mood.

Maggie moved her light around the room. O pipes. Chewed leather shoes. An empty box of rubbers. “The killer must’ve spent significant time here. He’s dropped bodies here twice now. This place is important to him.”

“Maybe he was slumming here.”

“Or he’s a student. There’s a prep school ten minutes downriver.”

“Is that where you went?”

She put her phone to her ear and asked for San Juan Diego Academy. To me, she said, “No. It’s for the troubled kids. Uniforms and curfews.”

“Hey, boss,” called Deluski from the window. “Come check this out.”

I stepped over and leaned through the broken-out frame. I tried to get a good look at the kid, see if he was still crying, but couldn’t see more than a shadow. His light was aimed at a tree. “You see it? Right there on that branch.”

I saw it. An iguana, eyes reflecting like little pools of molten brass. Over the eyes stood row after row of don’t-fuck-with-me spines. The spines ran halfway down his back like a cape of thorns. “What about it?”

“Is that the kind of lizard the killer turned into? See the rust-red stripes on his cheeks.”

“No. Our guy didn’t have spines.”

“Do you remember how many stripes?”

I couldn’t remember. Didn’t want to. Steel teeth clamped down. Flesh ripping, tearing off the bone.

“Well?”

“Quit bugging me with this shit.”

“Don’t you want to know why he shifts into a lizard?”

I shook my head and swung around. Maggie was off the phone, waiting for me. “Franz Samusaka was a student at San Juan Diego Academy. Graduated two years ago.”

I bit my lip, gnawed on the new fact. This place was a hooky haven. A place for troubled kids to get in more trouble. The killer could’ve been Samusaka’s classmate.

Deluski rapped on the wall. “Somebody’s coming.”

I stopped breathing and listened, the distant buzz of an approaching outboard motor sailing through the broken window. Instinctively, I reached for my piece. But I had no piece. Or a hand.

Maggie and Josephs fared better, lase-pistols drawn and already moving for the door.

We stepped outside. Deluski kept his back to us. “I think there’s two boats.”

Josephs pounded his way to the porch’s edge. “Who are these bastards?”

Maggie pressed her flashlight into my chest. “Go inside. You too, Deluski. We’ll tell whoever it is that this is a crime scene.”

I squinted at the dark, my eyes straining to see the approaching boats.

“Go inside,” Maggie insisted. “We can handle this.”

Deluski headed inside; I still couldn’t see his face. He tugged my shoulder, and I let him guide me, allowed myself to be backpedaled inside the door. He pulled the door most of the way shut, and I stood with him, shoulder to shoulder, watching the boat lights through the cracked door until the lights disappeared under the plane of the porch. We moved to a window and stood on opposite sides. I watched and waited, broken glass under my shoes, shards pressing into my soles, jagged breaths puffing out my mouth. I kept my eyes zeroed on the rope ladder, half-hitches wrapped around rusted cleats.

Maggie and Josephs stood outside, their backs silhouetted by dim haloes. Maggie tucked her weapon into a pocket. Josephs dropped his to his hip and gave us a wave. I breathed easier. Whoever had arrived wasn’t a threat.

I could see Maggie and Josephs talking, their hands gesturing, but I couldn’t hear their voices, the sound swallowed by motors.

Engines silenced. The rope ladder tensed, rope scraping against the decking. Hands came over the porch’s edge, then a head, blocky features under wavy black hair. Lieutenant Rusedski, Homicide.

“It’s the good guys,” said Deluski, his voice solid, his emotional episode apparently forgotten. “Wanna go out?”

I weighed my options. I didn’t know where I stood with KOP. Mota had been telling lies about me, spreading rumors. The bastard had tried to implicate me in his boyfriend’s decapitation.

I half listened as Rusedski gave Maggie the biz: What are you doing here… I took you off the case… I should bounce you out of Homicide… you call yourself a squad leader…

Maggie took the punches with stoic poise. Josephs let her take the heat. Prick stood off to the side, doing the innocent bystander routine. Finally he spoke up, asked how Rusedski knew to come here.

The killer tipped them off. Called the tip line himself.

By this time, several med techs had climbed the ladder, piling up cameras and lights. Hommy dicks milled. They’d soon be ready to come inside. Lights flicked on, the porch bathed in eye-piercing bright white.

I had to make a decision: run away or face Rusedski.

KOP couldn’t be serious about me. Rusedski would have questions but nothing more. I couldn’t see it any other way. Mota’s rumor mill must’ve collapsed by now, blades falling off as Rusedski’s task force looked at the evidence. Witnesses had seen the killer eat my arm in that sweatshop. KOP would have sketches of him. They had his voiceprint too, now that he’d called in. They knew he wasn’t me.

Nothing to fear.

What else was I going to do anyway? No fucking way was I going to jump in the river again. She’d been a bitch to me.

I ducked and stepped through the window. Sore muscles creaked and moaned, made me regret my choice of exit.

My appearance silenced all conversation. Unis and med techs and hommy dicks looked at me, then the void where my hand should be, then at Rusedski, who hadn’t noticed me yet, back to me, then the rope ladder, people still coming up, eyes back on me.

I didn’t like the way they looked at me. Like I was a storm cloud about to ruin their picnic.

Deluski appeared alongside me. I gave him a questioning look. He seemed as confused as I felt.

Rusedski noticed me now, his eyes bouncing between me and the ladder. Hands came over the porch’s edge. Grabbing a cleat, a man pulled himself up the rest of the way. He stood straight, with a fine nose, expressive eyes, and a tailored uniform with a glistening badge under captain’s stripes.

My upper lip curled into a snarl, my hand into a fist.

Nobody spoke. Nobody moved.

The jungle closed in on me, its humming monotone scratching at my pulsing eardrums.

His lips curled into a smug smile.

I wanted to pound that nose. Drive a fist into his slick smile. I’d done it before, pulped that pretty face of his. Him tied to a chair, me teaching him not to cheat the chief. Teaching him four knuckles at a time.

But this wasn’t the time.

Mota came toward me. “Juno.” He extended his hand. “Truce?”

The bastard was putting on a show, acting like he was the bigger man. My jaw was squeezed too tight to speak. He and Panama killed Kripsen and Lumbela, pulled their tongues out their throats.

I felt eyes on me. Cops and med techs. Maggie and Josephs and Deluski.

And Mota-long lashes planted around bright whites. He stood there with his hand stretched out, taunting me.

I rushed him, planted my shoulder in his gut, drove my legs through the impact, and brought him down in a crunch of cracking wood. Shades hanging on one ear, I used my weight to hold down his squirming form. I wedged my stump under his chin and brought down my fist.

Fire exploded in my eyes, a thousand needles dipped in chili paste. I sucked wasps into my lungs. I couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe. I rolled off him and swiped at my eyes with my shirtsleeves.

Mota grabbed me by the hair. My burned scalp went electric with pain. On a gust of hot air, a whisper blew in my ear: “I’ll cut your throat next.” I felt it in my ear canal, the searing burn of chemicals. It was still on his breath, whatever he’d spat in my face.

He let me go and voices gathered. Hands grabbed hold and pulled me to my feet. I tried to cough out the wasps, wracking, stabbing, excruciating pain. I let myself be led, Maggie’s voice nearby. A shove sent me over.

The river took me. She kissed my eyes with cool water. I filled my mouth, let her rinse out the chemicals, cleanse the pain. River wasn’t such a bad bitch after all.

I strode down Bangkok, ’mander-on-a-stick in my left. I bit off a leg and crunched it down, hot sauce sizzling on my tongue.

Rusedski had been a pain in the ass. After I’d refused to go down to the KOP station, he kept me at the scene for three hours, asking his questions, grilling me on how I knew Froelich. And Wu. What’s with you and Mota?

Why are you wearing those sunglasses? You have an eye condition?

Three hours I’d had to put up with his shit, my face still burning with whatever Mota had spat in my eyes. I did a lot of coughing. A lot of tear dabbing. Even more stonewalling.

Three hours. I was there when he chased away Maggie, Josephs, and Deluski. I was there when Mota took off with a self-satisfied wink, and when they knocked the railing off the staircase so they could carry Froelich and Wu’s shellacked bodies down, somebody’s bright idea to carry them by their skewer, three dumb-as-hell med techs on each end of the pole, hauling Froelich and Wu down the stairs like they’d bagged big game on a safari.

Un-fucking-real.

I put the stick up to my mouth and bit off the shoulders along with half of the torso. I really did need to eat more often.

Bangkok Street was prepping for a long night of partying. Street vendors arrived on bikes, umbrella-topped grills in tow. Strippers headed to work, high heels dangling from their hands, skimpy numbers on hangers. Offworld kids sat in restaurants, shopped for souvenirs, and generally acted like the pampered brats they were. Debauchery would be coming soon.

I gnawed off what was left on the stick and dropped the splinter of Lagartan bamboo on the ground. I stopped for a bag of soda and sucked it dry as I watched the place across the street. The upstairs lights were on.

I borrowed a phone from a street vendor and called Josephs. The results on Lizard-man’s tube of glue were finally in. As I’d expected, Lizard-man hadn’t been careless enough to leave us the gift of fingerprints.

I had to find another way to ID him.

I looked at the door, the door I’d come out one hand less than when I went in. Lizard-man could shift. The fork-tongued fuck could turn his hand into a steel trap. And Lizard-man wasn’t the only one who had been enhanced. Mota had his mouth modified so he could spit liquid fire without burning himself in the process. Did that mean false lips and eyes? Artificial skin?

Locals didn’t usually go for that kind of shit. Even the rich ones. Tummy tucks and tit jobs were more their style. Face-lifts and erection extensions. To shift like Lizard-man, that was something different. His skin changed texture. His ears recessed. His tongue split. That was some high-end work. Not the kind of thing you could do with a little silicone or a scalpel and a fat vac. To shift like an offworlder, you needed motors and mind jacks. Digital tissue. Fleets of minibots in the bloodstream.

They must have gotten offworld tech installed somewhere. Somewhere cheap, somewhere with low standards.

They needed the kind of doctor who wouldn’t think twice about installing a robo-snatch in Maria’s fifteen-year-old sister.

I crossed the street, dodging offworld pedestrians, and gave the door a loud rap. The door swung open. A teen stood in the frame, the boy assistant I’d seen here before, the one with the milky eyes. Like poached eggs with dishwater yolks.

“The doctor in?” I asked with a grin.

“No.”

“I can wait.” I stepped over the doorjamb and forced him aside.

He put his hand on my elbow. “You’ll have to come back later.”

I started up the stairs. “Doc! You in, Doc?”

“You c-can’t d-do this.”

I ignored his stutters. “Doc? Where are you, Doc?” I hit the top of the stairs and started down the hall, pushing open doors on the way. “Doc?” I threw open another door. Tanks on tables, tanks on the floor, stacked all around. Body parts were growing inside, flesh clinging to circuitry, growing around it, enveloping it. Fingers. Hands. Legs. Suspended organs swam in fish tanks.

“Who the hell are you?” A woman’s voice.

I spun around to face her. “Hey, Doc, it’s me. Remember?” I waved at her with my half-arm.

“I tried to stop him,” said the teen, his milky eyes gone sour.

She motioned her servant away with a toss of her hand, kept her eyes on me. “What are you doing here?”

This woman cut off my hand. Cut it off without asking me. But I needed information. Needed to know if she’d done the work on Lizard-man. I needed that name. I capped the well of anger inside me with a casual smile. “I had time to rethink this missing hand. Sorry I was so rude before, but it was quite a shock, losing a part of me.”

She squinted suspiciously, her crow’s-feet sinking deep into the sands of her face.

I opened my mouth, words stalling in my throat. It wasn’t too late to play it straight. To drop the charade and ask my questions like I was a regular cop. Except I wasn’t a cop, meaning she had no reason to talk to me.

“You still got that replacement hand?”

She nodded like she’d expected that question. “Have you had your dressings changed?”

“No.”

“Come.” She stepped down the hall.

I took a last look at the lab, a shiver tickling the hair on my neck. I followed her into an exam room. It could have been the same one I was in before, but muddled memories made it difficult to pin down. I sat on the padded table and unbuttoned my shirt.

She was dressed most undoctorly-silk shirt, tight pants, like she was ready for a night on the town. But the stressed buttons and taut fabric of her shirt didn’t fit right over her rack.

Her shirt was wrong. My brain scratched at it. I was missing something.

I took off my own shirt, and she pulled up a stool. Seeing the bloodstained bundle of bandages, she spoke with a scolding tone, “What happened here?”

“Got in a bad scrape.”

She let it pass with a head shake and an unfriendly smirk, her chilly bedside manner on full display. Made me want to ask what she thought she was accomplishing with her glasses and salt-and-pepper hair. Why play the middle-aged doctor when you weren’t going to back it up with a warm personality? Or any personality at all.

She yanked tape and started unraveling. “I know you said you don’t do work to order but-”

“I don’t,” she interrupted.

I continued on as if I hadn’t heard her. “In my line of work I could use something with a little punch, if you know what I mean.”

“Be more specific.” Her face stayed flat when she talked, her voice unreadable.

“I’m talking weapons.”

She took her eyes off the bandages and looked square at me.

“Maria told me about some of the work you do for her hooker friends, so I figured maybe you do stuff for bodyguards like me?”

“You’re a bodyguard?”

“Bodyguard. Bouncer. Whatever pays.”

She pulled off the last of the bandages, exposing the blood-caked cap affixed to the end of my arm, and the viny tendrils holding it in place. She dug scissors from a drawer and clip-clipped the air.

“Those sterile?”

“I’m a pro. I won’t cut you.”

I tensed as she leaned in and snipped the first tendril. She pinched the severed piece in her fingers, and I felt a tug as it pulled free. Barely felt it at all.

“So you want a self-defense system?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve done weapons before.” I waited for her to elaborate, for her to say she once did a hand that could morph into a steel trap. She snipped another tendril. “You never told me how you hurt your arm.”

“Didn’t Maria tell you?”

“No.”

I had a lie ready. “I took a day job at a bottling plant and got my hand caught in the machinery.”

“Bad luck.” She dropped another tendril in the trash.

“So what can you do for me?”

She snipped at the tendrils. “I don’t take directions from my patients.” Her tone was as sharp as her scissors. “I go where inspiration leads me.”

“But Maria told me you’ve installed very specific equipment for some of her hooker friends.”

“I let them tell me what area of the body they want me to work on, but that’s all. My practice is not a lunch buffet. Only an artist can be trusted to shape the human body.”

She pulled the cap off the end of my arm. I didn’t look. Didn’t want to know what was down there after so much neglect. I kept my gaze focused on her, pictured her with a saw in her hand, going at my arm. My arm. I breathed deep, gritted my teeth. Get a grip.

She opened up a small pack of gauze, bunched it up in her hand, and poured some alcohol into the center.

I kept my arm still, fighting the urge to jerk free. This butcher cut off my hand.

“Doesn’t look too bad.” She took a deep whiff of my wound. “You’re a lucky one. I don’t smell the rot, but I’d like to get some antibiotics into you just in case.”

“Sounds good.” I tried to sound cool. Calm.

“Be right back.” She went out the door.

I wanted to get out of here, jitters tingling in my feet and legs. I didn’t want her touching me again. But I hadn’t scored any info yet. I told myself I was being paranoid. Just some antibiotics. You need the antibiotics. I knew damn well how regular antibiotic injections kept my mother alive a year longer than most.

I could do this. A quick injection, and it would be over. I’d never have to let her touch me again. We could get back to talking about a new hand. Back to steel traps. I could con her into giving me Lizard-man’s name as a referral.

A figure appeared in the door. The teen with the clouded eyes. He had a syringe in his hand. “I have your antibiotics.” He stepped forward, the syringe filled with clear liquid.

Clear. A sick twinge rolled in my gut. It should be brown. I’d injected my mother plenty of times. Always brown.

“I’ll need an arm,” he said.

I pointed at his hands. “Wash those things first.”

“I already did.”

“Wash ’em again so I can see you.”

He nodded glumly, turned around, and moved to the sink, setting the syringe on the counter before running the water.

I slipped up behind him, slow, silent. He shut off the water, reached for a towel. I nabbed the syringe, bit off the cap with my teeth. He spun, tried to back away, but I’d already sunk the needle into his thigh. He let out a squeak as I dropped the plunger. Antibiotics my ass.

Milk-filled eyes curdled. His balance shifted. Legs noodled. I left the needle in his thigh and eased him down into a crumpled mass of angled limbs. Couldn’t afford to make noise.

I moved to the door, listened first, peeked out second. I crept into the hall and headed for the stairs, the sound of a hushed voice ahead. I pressed my back into the wall, moved toward an open doorway, shoulder blades sliding over bumpy plaster.

“Just get down here.” The doctor’s voice.

A pause. She was on the phone.

She spoke again. “I’m putting him under until you get here.”

I stopped at the edge of the door frame. The stairs were so, so close, but I stayed where I was, afraid to cross the open doorway. I couldn’t let her see me. Couldn’t give her the chance to unleash whatever offworld tech she had inside her. Recessed lase-pistols? Plague pins? Who the fuck knew?

“Bye.”

Shit. I should’ve gone for it already. I heard footsteps. Fuck. I backed down the hall, away from the stairs, and ducked through a door. A bathroom. Stalls and urinals. A shower. Three sinks.

I went for the window, turned the handle and pushed open both sides. I looked out, sized up the drop. Two stories down to a dimly lit alleyway. An ankle-breaker if I ever saw one. Damn. Damn. Damn.

“Juno?” I heard her call from the hallway. She’d found her assistant. “Where are you?” A door slammed down the hall. Then another that sounded closer. “Emil Mota told me who you are. Where are you?”

If I was going to jump it had to be now.

But it was too high. Too damn high. I took off a shoe, dropped it out the window, and ran into the shower.

“I wish I’d known who you were the first time you came in. I wouldn’t have stopped with your hand.” She was in the bathroom, her voice so near, so cold, so cruel.

Heartbeats pounded in my chest, my ears. I peeked through the gap between the mildewed shower curtain and the mossy wall, dewy water soaking into my shirtsleeve.

I could see her now. She was at the window, leaning through to get a good look down. See the shoe and believe it. Please believe it. Lungs ached to keep up with my double-timing heart, but I kept my breathing slow and constrained, breaths squeezing in and out of my mouth.

She pulled her head back inside the window. Believe, bitch.

Seconds passed. Long, super-stretched seconds.

“It’s me again,” she said. “He’s gone. Bastard jumped out the window.”

A pause. She was on the phone again, the device wired somewhere inside her skull.

“He got spooked and ran. You still coming, Emil?”

Pause.

“We’re going to Yepala. Book a flyer.”

Pause.

“Yes, tonight.”

She slammed the window shut, sealed it with a turn of the handle, and moved out of view. I turned my head, pointed an ear in her direction. I listened for footsteps, had to know when she’d left the room.

I heard the hollow sound of wooden soles on tile. Step, step, step. Then nothing. Shit. She was having second thoughts. For good measure, she was going to do a quick search. She was going to kill me, take me apart piece by piece and kill me.

I heard a zipper, a rustle of cloth, then the sound of liquid streaming against porcelain. I told myself to breathe again. She was taking a piss.

But I hadn’t heard her go into one of the stalls, hadn’t heard any of the doors.

I leaned to the right. Carefully. Tentatively. Painstakingly. I edged my eye past the other side of half-drawn curtain. She stood with her back to me, facing the wall.

Understanding bloomed in my head. Her shirt made sense now, why it didn’t fit right.

A man’s shirt.

She was at the urinal, hands in hose-holding position.

The good doctor had a dick.

I told the kid to cut the shirt into strips. He was the same clothes vendor I’d come to in my underwear after escaping the doctor’s office the first time. He knifed through the shirt, making nice long strips of fabric while I hid behind a row of hanging tees, my eyes zeroed on the doc’s door, phone conversations replaying in my head.

Mota was coming to meet her. Him. She was a him.

The kid finished, the shirt now reduced to a pile of makeshift bandages. For disinfectant, I dunked my stump into a jar of fly gel, a yellow glob sticking to the end. I put my eyes back on the door and stuck out my arm, told the kid to mummy it up good.

Dumbass doctor should’ve fried me the moment he saw me. But he tried to get cute with it, playing the good doctor, sending in his pasty-eyed patsy with a needle. Apparently, violent confrontation wasn’t the doctor’s way. Before this was done, I’d make sure he knew it was mine.

The kid layered on the last strip. He pulled a safety pin from a rusted tin box. “I don’t have any tape.”

“No problem.”

I let him pin it and went back to spying, my bare foot tapping the asphalt.

I spotted a hat poking above the crowd of offworld kids. Panama. I watched it come down the street, bobbing on top of the crowd like a leaf on a river.

My pulse punched my temples, and hate stoked the fire inside me. I wanted my weapon. Wanted to feel its cool grip in my palm, feel its heft, finger the trigger. Just a little squeeze was all it would take to loose the fire burning within. Just a little squeeze.

But I had no weapon. I pinched my lip between my molars and squeezed. Panama approached the doctor’s door. Mota was with him. I could see him now, the crowd thinning enough to expose his smooth strut.

They went inside. I paid the kid and waited.

It wasn’t long before the door opened again. Three of them came out. Mota, Panama, and… I’ll be damned…

Raven hair and silk shirt, offworld tech somehow making both blow in a wind that didn’t exist.

I knew that guy. The gay bar. He’d hit on me.

He wore the same poured-into pants the doctor had worn inside. The same silk shirt that had barely held together over her buxom chest now draped and shimmered over his muscular frame. This had to be the doctor’s regular appearance, his true gender on display.

It must’ve been quite a shock when he spotted me in one of his favorite haunts, sniffing around, asking questions. He knew me. He’d already cut off my arm. He would’ve called Mota, told him somebody was asking about Franz Samusaka. Using the phone in his head, he would’ve transmitted a vid stream of me, and Mota would’ve told him who I was.

Mota would’ve come for me, but he couldn’t. Not then. Not when he was hiding in the Cellars, lying in wait to ambush my boys.

So he told the doc to sic that damn fly on me. That way he could come for me later.

They moved away from the door, and I noticed spinning snake tats on Mota’s and the doctor’s cheeks. The same tats as on Froelich and the dead Samusaka kid. A gay-boy’s club was coming into focus. A matching-tat dick clique.

The crowd quickly engulfed them, everything but the panama hat. I pushed my way through hanging shirts to the pavement and followed with a tilted, one-shoed gait.

I wracked my brain to remember what she’d been wearing. Mota’s girlfriend. When she came out of the club. Silk shirt. Tight pants. I was sure of it. Just like the doctor had been wearing inside. Just like he was wearing right this second.

Understanding brought a knowing sneer. They were all the same person. The gay playboy. The doctor. Mota’s girlfriend. The same person.

Mota was gay. Not bi. One hundred percent flame just like Wu thought. His girlfriend was a man, a drag queen who could raise tits and sink an Adam’s apple; a cross-dresser who could, at will, broaden hips and sprout a big, gaudy mop of hair. A tranny who swapped out everything but the plumbing.

I was sure that with offworld tech even that was possible, but evidently, shedding his thing wasn’t his thing. Even as a woman, he pissed standing up.

The panama hat turned right. I sped up to the corner, then stopped to let the hat reel out far ahead. The crowd was less dense on the side streets. I’d be easy to spot if I didn’t keep my distance.

Mota and Dr. Tranny. Lovers. Mota and Froelich. Lovers. All three together. Franz Samusaka too.

They turned again, and the trio ducked through a gate with armed guards standing on both sides. I strolled straight past, head down, no eye contact with the guards. I hustled to the end of the block and stood outside a schlock shop: porn vids, monitor-tooth necklaces, neckties made to look like brandy bottles.

I fake-studied a rack of palm-frond fans, my true gaze aimed up the block to the guards holding their posts, the red tips of their cigs glowing with every puff. From this angle, I couldn’t read the painted sign over the door, but I knew the place. Bresner’s Sky Cab. The biggest flyer rental company on the planet.

I waited for ten minutes, maybe longer-the shopowner giving me the stink eye-until I heard the roar of liftoff. Earsplitting thunder rumbled down the street. Windowpanes rattled in cheap-ass frames while monitor-tooth necklaces gnashed on their hooks.

The flyer appeared above its rooftop landing pad and passed overhead, lights bearing down, wind lashing my hair. The flyer moved off, the roar growing steadily softer before fading to nothing but the echo in my ears.

They were going to Yepala. On the phone, the doc had said so. They were all in business together, and that business was centered in Yepala. What did that war-torn wasteland have to offer? I knew I’d have to go up there myself to figure out this shit. But not tonight. Tonight I had a social call to attend to. If I wasn’t already too late.

I headed up the block and strode between the guards to the office inside. I asked my question and pulled bills from my pocket until I got an answer.

Dr. Tranny had a name. Angel Franklin.

The skiff slid under a dark bridge into a narrow canal. Almost there.

Dr. Angel Franklin. The name washed through my head over and over like foul water through a sewer pipe. I tried to eject it from my thoughts. Time enough to look him up later.

I paid my fare and hopped out of the skiff onto a private dock, walked to shore, then started along a well-lit, fresh-burned trail through jungle scrub. Recent rains made a paste of ashy mud stick to my shoes, my newest pair. I’d needed to replace only the one I’d tossed out the doc’s window, but you couldn’t buy just one.

I rapped on the back door. Paul Chang’s door. I wiped mud off my shoes, scraping them back and forth over a coarse-bristled mat. The door swung open, a stranger waving me into the kitchen with a drunk grin. Didn’t know the guy. Likely one of Pei’s relatives. Paul’s wife came from a family so big that Paul used to joke about needing name tags.

Catering staff stood at large sinks with steamy water running over clacking dishes. I was late. Paul’s son’s graduation party was about wrapped.

I walked through the kitchen, which was cavernous enough to be gaudy. Paul liked to show off, and the deceased chief had the money to do it. Selling KOP’s services to the Bandur cartel yielded a sweet income.

Acting as his enforcer, I’d made a nice haul myself. Not that I had much to show for it. Spent most of it as it came in, and dropped most of the rest on Niki’s medical bills, all that money wasted trying to save a woman who wanted to die. I would’ve given anything to save her. Anything. But she didn’t want to be saved.

I centered my shades on my nose and looked at what was left of the cake. Less than half remained, but it had clearly been shaped like a badge. Congrats Robert was written in icing. Paul’s son a cop. What would Paul have thought? My first instinct said proud, but considering how Paul’s reign ended, with him disgraced and a hole blasted through his head, I couldn’t be sure.

I exited the kitchen and entered the dining room. The caterers had set up quite a spread, platter after platter of picked-over cured meats and spiced fruit. A basket of bread sat at the table’s end. I reached for a piece, but stopped when I saw the mold spots. Couldn’t leave bread out for more than a couple hours.

I’d spent a lot of nights in this room. Niki and I. Paul and Pei. Knocking back a few, eating dinner, knocking back a few more.

I palmed an empty spot on the table where Niki used to sit, felt the cool wood against my skin. I shouldn’t have drunk so much those nights. The memories would be clearer now, easier to reach, easier to touch.

It was right here at this table that I’d told Pei about Paul, told her he was dead. Told her he had been murdered. Told her KOP was going to sell it as a suicide. No, she couldn’t fight it. The mayor and the new chief were in control now. She had to swallow it. She had to accept that her husband would forever be remembered as a criminal and a coward. If her kids were going to have any future at all, she had to swallow it.

One of the caterers came in, started bussing platters. I moved into the living room. Only a dozen or so hangers-on were still milling about, mostly cops, longtime vets and pensioners. Eyes avoided my face, checking out my arm with sideways glances.

These were Paul’s loyalists. His inner circle. There was a time they all reported to me, but that was a long time ago. Now, they didn’t know how to deal with me. They knew I had no choice but to turn on Paul. I had to agree to testify against him. It was the only way to keep Niki out of jail. But justified or not, I was still a traitor. You don’t clap a traitor on the shoulder and ask him what he’s been up to. You don’t give him a mock punch in the gut and tousle his hair. You don’t shoot the shit or tell the old stories. You don’t talk to a traitor at all.

Pei marched up to me in white pearls, gold earrings, long red-lacquered nails, strappy high heels jabbing the floor. “Nice of you to show up.” She noticed my dangling sleeve, grabbed hold of the empty part to verify the vacancy. “What happened?”

Every eye in the room was now fixed on me. “Robert here? I came to congratulate him.”

Using my sleeve as a leash, she led me away from the stares, back into the privacy of the dining room. “He moved on to another party over an hour ago. You let him down, like always. Now what happened?”

“Will you tell him I came by? Tell him I’m sorry I missed him.”

She was much shorter than me, her neck craned back to look me in the eye. She pulled my shirtsleeve down like the branch of a Lagartan melon tree, then pulled my face down like it was some out-of-reach fruit, pulled it down so she could machete it off.

“You didn’t have a service for Niki, you bastard. How could you do that to her?”

I poked my chest with my thumb. “My wife. My decision.”

“She was my friend, damn you. You robbed me of the chance to say good-bye.” She tossed the sleeve from her long-nailed hand. “You always wanted to keep her to yourself, didn’t you? Well, she wasn’t yours. You didn’t own her.”

I felt my cheeks heating, my heartbeat knocking at my ribs. I didn’t need this shit. Words bubbled up inside me. Bad words. Hateful words. But this was Paul’s wife. Show some respect.

“Where did you get those glasses?” She snatched them off my face and inspected the frames.

Chandelier light made me squint. I held out my hand, curled my fingers a couple times as if to say, Gimme.

She held my shades up to the light in order to read the fine print on the frame. “Where did you get these?”

“I found them in a box. Niki must’ve given them to me.”

“They were Paul’s.”

I didn’t understand.

“I bought them as a birthday gift when we were still dating. He said he lost them.”

What was she talking about? I felt dizzy, reached for a chair.

“See.” She pointed at the frame. “I had them personalized. It says Paul Chang right here.”

I forced out the question I didn’t want to ask. “How did the glasses get in my closet?”

The makings of a spiteful grin formed at the corners of her mouth. “You didn’t know?”

I pulled the chair close, leaned against it. Needed it to keep upright. A giant hole was burning in my chest.

“Remember when Paul and I split up for a few months after he was promoted to captain? You and Niki were going through a rough patch around the same time. The first year after you two got married, you were always going through a rough patch.” She spoke like she was dishing to her gossipy friends, her fingers wrapped around my heart, lacquered nails digging in. “Paul told me about it when we got back together. He told me all about it.”

I had to get out of here. Now. Forcing shaky feet into action, I went toward the door and banged my way through. A caterer steered clear as I rushed across the kitchen-heads snapping my way-and busted out the back door like a drunk in sudden need of a toilet.

I swallowed bile and hurried down the narrow path toward the river, away from this house and the people inside it. I kicked at one of the lights stuck in the ground, uprooted the thing and would’ve sent it flying if not for the cord that ran through it to the other lights. I went for the lightbulb with a heel, busted it in a pop of shattered glass.

I went off the path, shoes slip-sliding over scorched, muddy earth until thick, black jungle stood tall all around me. I took a swing at it, my fist busting through leaves and fronds, rage filling the hole in my chest.

Niki and Paul.

Paul and Niki.

Screaming, I lunged deeper into the jungle, arms swinging like sickles, breaking stems under my feet. I grabbed with my left hand, ripped and pulled at the foliage, clumps of torn greenery coming free. I struck a thin tree with my right arm, took hold of the skinny bastard and tried to uproot the fucker, but a thousand vines refused to let it go. I punched at the vines, chopped at them with the blunt blade of my right arm, and yanked at the tree again. I kicked and pushed and yanked and shoved. The bastard was coming down!

I pulled with all my might, sweat dribbling in my eyes, lungs sucking air. The damn tree wouldn’t budge. The jungle never budged.

I let it go and raised a leg to give the stubborn bastard a last karate kick. Ended up on my ass.

I stayed there, waiting for my lungs to quit heaving. Waiting for the sweat to quit dripping. Waiting for my heart to quit ripping into a million little pieces.

April 26, 2789

Another day of darkness would begin soon. I’d tossed and turned the night away with sparse dozing, turbulent thoughts, and disturbed images.

Niki and Paul. I told myself that it was a long time ago. Paul had spied on her just like I had. He’d watched her sleep and talk on the phone, watched her put on her makeup and eat her breakfast. It was natural for him to develop feelings, wasn’t it? He’d split up with Pei, and Niki and I were fighting like we always did right after we were married. They were both lonely.

I told myself again that was a long time ago. I shouldn’t care. I told myself they were dead. I should let them rest.

I told myself a lot of things, but none could yank the thorn of betrayal embedded in my heart.

My wife. My best friend.

I could feel the pressure building in my blood and behind my eyes.

Breathe. Just breathe. This was a perfectly nice bed. It would be a damn shame to smash it up; a shame to rip into the mattress and tear out the stuffing; to snap the frame under stomping feet and demolish the walls with a bedpost sledgehammer. All of it a damn shame.

I had to stop thinking about them.

I rolled onto my side. A lopsided curtain hung over the door, lopsided because the withered fabric had lost its grip on a third of the rings. A triangle of light came through where the curtain hung folded over. I followed the glowing beam’s path past three figures on the wall-two geckos and one Jesus-followed the beam down to where it died on the floor.

A church guesthouse. That was what this place was, where Maria had set us up for the night. It was one of several attached buildings surrounding a courtyard with a fountain and a blinking sign that read, HE DIED FOR YOUR SINS.

Deluski slept a couple doors down. I’d peeked in on him when I arrived. He’d been snoring with a twisted, strangled sheet snaking between and around his limbs. I wasn’t the only one with restless dreams.

I’d also spotted the phone on the dresser by his bed. A cheap, anonymous phone. No doubt, Deluski had used it to erase his movie. First chance he got, he’d connected up and deleted that era of his life.

I stretched out my legs. I could barely see the dimly lit Jesus staring at me from his perch on the crucifix nailed to the wall. He died for my sins. So did Kripsen and Lumbela.

Four dead crew. They weren’t all my fault. Lizard-man got credit for Froelich and Wu. But Kripsen and Lumbela, they were on me, victims of my arrogance. Seize a protection racket. From there, seize KOP. I was fucking insane to think I could pull off that shit. I wasn’t even a cop.

I rolled onto my back… fussed with the pillow… readjusted the sheet… flipped the pillow… pulled the sheet back up.

No more of this bullshit. I sat up. No matter how desperate I was to sleep, it wasn’t going to happen. I had too many derailed trains of thought, too many poisoned memories.

Niki and Paul.

What the fuck was I supposed to do with that?

I grabbed my pants and struggled to pull them on one-handed. Damn nuisance. I carefully zippered over my skivvyless package and coaxed my still-sore muscles out to the hall. That run-in with Mota and Panama in the Cellars had taken a toll on these tired bones. I ambled down to Deluski’s room and shook the curtain on his door, brass rings jingling on the steel rod.

“Yeah?”

I poked my head through the curtain. “I need your phone.”

He picked it off the dresser and tossed it my way. I snatched it out of the air left-handed and headed back to my room, pleased that I hadn’t tried to make the grab with my missing right. I was finally catching on.

I kept the light off, stripped off my pants, and dropped back into bed. I punched in a name: Dr. Angel Franklin.

Born ninety-three years ago. Smooth-skinned bastard kept himself young. Offworlders were damn good at defying time, their bodies riddled with antiaging drugs and a steady supply of replacement organs. Their life expectancy was more than double ours.

He was originally from Earth, someplace called Slovakia, wherever the hell that was. Started the fourteen-year journey to Lagarto in ’sixty-nine.

Fourteen years. Nobody made that trip anymore. Not since the brandy market tanked. The Earth-Lagarto trade route was called the sucker’s rainbow now, named for the fourteen-year stream of immigrants who arrived after the economy collapsed. All of them setting off for the promise of work and a new world. All of them following a rainbow cut through the heavens to the pot of gold called Lagarto. A decade and a half’s worth arrived after the collapse, my great-grandparents among them, all of them caught in transit after the pot of gold had already been looted and picked clean.

Yet Dr. Angel Franklin made the same voyage. Why coop himself up inside a metal tube for more than a tenth of his life to come to this green hell?

I checked out his professional history, and the question answered itself. He lost his medical license in ’sixty-eight, revoked for ethical violations. That was all it said. Ethical violations. He’d set off for Lagarto just a few months later.

He’d come here to practice medicine, or his twisted version of it, away from the rules and the regulators, to a place where rules were for sale.

I heard the clacks of high heels on tile coming this way. The curtain swung aside. Backlit explosion of hair. Miniskirt silhouette. Maria. “You like the place?”

I set the phone on my chest and turned on the light, carefully propped the pillow under my head to keep from aggravating my burned scalp. “I owe you one.”

“You owe me more than one. Don’t you ever sleep?”

“Not often.”

She walked over and slumped into a chair by the bed. Her breasts were squeezed into a faux-leather halter top.

“Long night?” I asked.

“Long but quiet.”

“Business slow?”

“Not bad. By quiet, I meant no problems.”

“Chicho know you’re gone?”

She shrugged her shoulders and turned up her palms. “I don’t know. I doubt he’d care this time of night. The johns are all gone except for the all-nighters, and they never cause trouble. Any luck with whatever you’re working on?”

I mimicked her don’t-know gesture.

“You know, you never told me what you were after in all this.”

“That’s because it keeps changing.”

“What’s the latest?”

“I’d settle for catching the bastard who did this to me.” I waved my right arm. “That, and stopping Mota.”

“What about expanding your protection business?”

“That can wait.” Despite my promise to Maggie, I couldn’t bring myself to say I was giving it up. Truth be told, I wasn’t sure that was a promise I could keep. “What do you know about the doctor?”

“No more than you already know.”

“Keep away from him.”

“Her.”

I shook my head. “She’s a he.”

“Really?”

“Stay away from him.”

“Why?”

“He works with Mota.”

“On what?”

“No idea, but don’t trust him with your sister.”

“Where else am I supposed to get the work she needs?”

“I’m sure the johns love her just the way she is.”

“I’ll think about it,” she said, absent sincerity. She unstrapped her shoes and kicked them off. “Can I use your shower?”

“Help yourself.”

She stood and disappeared into the bathroom. A knob squeaked and pipes clanked somewhere under the floor before I heard the sound of sputtering, drizzling water.

I didn’t want her getting any ideas when she came out. I picked up my pants, and after thinking on it a bit, decided to try the lying-down method of pulling them on. A minute’s labor proved the method promising.

I brought the phone back to Deluski, woke him up to tell him we were leaving in an hour.

Back in my room, I reached for my shirt when Maria came from the bathroom, towel wrapped around her, wet hair slicked back, her cheeks stripped of rouge, her lips bare. She crinkled up her brows in disapproval, like she was upset I’d dressed. “You have a comb?”

I shook my head no as I pulled on my shirt. I sat on the bed and started on the buttons. Why so many?

She took a seat at the end of the bed and combed her hair with forked fingers. Free of her high hair and her makeup mask, she looked like a different person, loud features turned plain, muted. I put my eyes on my buttons.

“You were married for a long time, weren’t you?”

I gave a slight nod, a bare-minimum response for a subject I didn’t want to discuss.

“Did you love her?”

I looked at Maria. She’d stopped combing. With no makeup to cover it, a faint mark from one of my knuckles still showed on her cheek.

“It was complicated.”

“Complicated how?”

“It just was.”

“Knowing how it ended, if you could, would you trade away your time together?”

I didn’t know. I suspected I never would.

“Would you?”

A larger truth came to mind. “If I could, I’d trade my whole life away.”

She combed her hair again, her fingers catching on a knot. She worked at it with two hands until she pulled it free. “You’re a strange man.” She held her hand over the floor and shook a couple strands off her fingers. “Never heard of anybody taking over a group of brothels, but not going for freebies.”

I went back to the buttons. Stupid things were tricky as hell.

“Christ, will you let me do that?”

“I got it.”

She tugged on my sleeve. “Get over here.”

I stood and stepped in front of her, smelled shampoo and hints of perfume trapped in her hair.

“You didn’t line ’em up right. It’s all out of whack.” She undid the misaligned button. And another one. She reached inside my shirt, her hand warm against my chest.

“You don’t want me,” I whispered. “I’m damaged.”

She slid her hand down my stomach, tingles drifting south.

“I’m damaged,” I repeated. “Broken.”

She touched my arm. “It’s okay. I’m damaged too.” She freed the towel, terry cloth falling down to her waist. Her hands were back on my chest, wandering downward, as were my eyes.

Now I understood why she’d quit hooking. Why she had to quit hooking. I wanted my sunglasses. I needed a shield, needed something to dim this painful reality.

She took my good hand, put it on her right breast. “You can’t tell when you can’t see.” She waited for me to say something, her fear-filled eyes tottering at the edge of a cliff.

I answered with my hand, fingers touching, squeezing, caressing, as if her breasts weren’t scarred. As if she hadn’t let some cheap, back-alley plastic surgeon hack her up. I touched them with my lips.

As if they were normal.

I touched with my half-arm.

As if I had a hand.

A clique of girls came into the library, voices at volumes only teens could achieve. Plaid skirts, SJD Academy embroidered on matching white blouses. Upon spotting the librarian’s stern stare, they silenced themselves, faces contorted with suppressed laughter. They dropped books on the counter and busted back out the door, laughter like shattering glass. Maggie watched them go, a quirky smile on her face.

“Remind you of your school days?” I asked.

“The early days.”

“Before your father died?”

She nodded, eyes sobering, the smile unquirking. “Find anything?”

“Not yet.” I went back to the holo-pics, jumping one-by-one, holo after holo, Franz Samusaka’s former schoolmates flashing by. Zits and chin fuzz. Slicked-back hairdos and caterpillar mustaches. Two more years of senior photos to go and so far, no sign of Lizard-man.

“Thanks for coming,” I said.

She responded with silence, its barren emptiness ballooning in my chest. I couldn’t do anything right. I said what needed to be said anyway. “Your help means a lot to me.”

She didn’t meet my eyes. Instead, she pretended to be interested in checking her earrings, like she thought they could’ve fallen out since we’d been sitting here.

I groped for something to say, desperate to find something that could penetrate the wall standing between us. “Where’s Josephs?”

She drummed the table with her fingers. “Sleeping in. He said he’d meet up with us later.”

“Does he know we’re going to Yepala later?”

“I thought we could surprise him.”

“He’s going to throw a goddamned fit.”

A sly grin formed. “Looking forward to it.”

Deluski came through the double doors, back from the bathroom, and dropped into a wooden chair scarred with carved graffiti. Tall shelves stood behind him, rows and rows of mildew-stained books, the aging paper making the room smell old.

I stole another glance at Maggie’s smile, soaking in as much of it as I could before I voice-ordered the yearbook forward, one holo shifting into the next, kid after kid, the same damn repetitive poses: the smile-into-the-camera look, the thoughtful chin-resting-on-fist look, the looking-off-into-the-future look. I stopped on a name. The kid I didn’t recognize, but I did the name: Ang Samusaka.

“A brother?” asked Deluski.

“Looks like it. Why don’t you go ask the librarian?”

He stood and went to her desk. Maggie leaned my way. “How long you going to keep him under your thumb?”

I rubbed my smarting arm. “I set him free already.”

“Really?”

“He destroyed the video himself.”

“But he’s still working for you?”

“He wanted to see this case through. Kripsen, Lumbela, and the others were his friends. After this is over, I don’t know. If he’s smart, he’ll go back to being a regular cop.”

“Think he’s smart?”

I shrugged my shoulders. We’ll see.

“You know, it’s nice to see your eyes again.”

It took me a second to realize I wasn’t wearing my shades. Paul’s shades. I’d worn them long enough that I could still feel the plastic resting on the bridge of my nose, stems hooked over my ears. Ghost shades to go with the ghost pain in my hand.

“You done hiding?” she asked.

I tuned into my own breathing, air moving in and out, lungs inflating and deflating. I tuned into the other signs of life. My heartbeat. The ache in my missing hand. The pleasant memory of recent sex.

She waited for my answer. I put my good hand on her knee, felt the warmth through her pants. “I’m done hiding.”

“That’s good.” She patted my hand. “That’s real good.”

I took my hand back and reluctantly, remorsefully forced my brain out of the moment, back into the past, focused it on my first sight of the lizard-man, standing in the doorway, Wu’s lower jaw in his hand. I conjured up the killer’s face as I navigated from pic to pic. Searching for that wild mop of hair. Those disturbed eyes. That cold gaze.

Seven years of class photos. Samusaka’s class and the three years before and after. Close to the end now, the last year of San Juan Diego Academy’s privileged but troubled youth cycling by.

“That’s it.” I rubbed tired eyes. Lizard-man wasn’t a student here. He knew Samusaka some other way. Knew about the party pad where he killed Samusaka and later posed Froelich and Wu’s bodies some other way.

Deluski came back. “Ang was Franz’s brother. Graduated last year. Last the librarian heard, he was living in a hotel off the Square. She hears the kids talking about it. Sounds like he hosts a lot of parties there.”

“Anything else?”

“I made a quick call to a cop friend I used to work with-”

“Did you use your new phone?”

“Yeah.”

I felt an uptick in my pulse. “Why the hell did you do that? You should’ve borrowed the school’s.”

“I wanted to see if-”

“Ditch the phone.”

He rolled his eyes. “The phone’s anonymous.”

“Not anymore. Dump it.”

“This was a friend I called. He’s not going to tell anybody.”

I pointed my short arm at the trash can.

He rolled his eyes and tossed in the phone. The loud, metallic clunk drew a scolding stare from the librarian. Librarians must practice that shit.

“You know Maggie still has her phone. Mota could track us through her.”

She shook her head no. “Mine’s anonymous. I hid my police issue under the seat of a taxi.”

I smiled at the thought of Mota following a taxi all around town. “What did your friend tell you?”

“I had him look up Ang to see if he has a record. He wasn’t in the system except for a call he put in to report a B-and-E at his parents’ house. I checked the date. It was only a month before his brother was killed. Think we oughta check it out?”

Hotel Koba. Ten minutes of asking around the school had scored us the name of the place. We followed the arrow down a set of stairs to a basement door and pushed our way through. Stone floors and sculpted light fixtures. Thick rugs under monitor-hide chairs. A front desk made of polished wood with a backdrop of gold-tinted mirrors.

“Ang Samusaka,” I said to the desk clerk, a teenage girl in a purple hand-me-down uniform with overly long sleeves folded up at the wrists and a worn-through collar.

“Let me see if he’s in.” She touched a number on an airborne holo-grid to her right. “May I ask who’s calling?”

“No.”

Lines in her forehead arched at my curt response. “Um.” She gestured at her earpiece. “It’s ringing right now.”

We waited.

“He’s not answering.” Not He’s not in, but He’s not answering.

“No problem. What’s his room number?”

She hesitated until Deluski waved his badge. “Three-o-three.”

Maggie pushed the elevator’s up button, and steel doors slowly cranked open with a metal-on-metal scrape. Inside, a chambermaid struggled with a tippy towel hamper that was missing a wheel from one of the front corners.

I reached with my half-arm but came up short. Dammit. Deluski beat me to it, used his big hands to lift the cart’s front end over the gap between the elevator and the floor.

We stepped into the now vacated elevator. The humid stench of soggy towels clung to the walls. The elevator banged and groaned up to the third before the doors took their time scraping open. We walked down the hall, shoes sinking deep into plush carpet.

Deluski rapped on the door. A punk kid answered, dark skin and fried eyes. No shirt, no shoes, wrinkled pants. Not him.

“We want to talk to Ang Samusaka.”

“Ang!” he called over his shoulder before wobbling back inside.

We strode into the young Samusaka’s suite and closed the door behind us. The room stank of burned herbs. Damn early for that shit. Another kid slept on the sofa, and to his left, a rolled herbstick burned on a saucer, and next to it a plate with a half-eaten frybread. The punk who let us in sat and called for Ang again before snatching up the bread.

A bedroom door opened. Ang came through fastening his pants and nabbed a shirt off the floor. He gave it a shake before pulling it over his shoulders. “Who are you?”

Maggie moved toward him, her shoe avoiding a food scrap on the floor. “We want to talk to you about your brother.”

He pulled his shirt over visible ribs and started buttoning. “He’s dead.”

“We know.”

“Who are you?”

Deluski pulled his badge, gave Ang a quick wave.

Ang rolled his eyes while his friend dropped his jaw and swiveled burned eyes between Deluski and the smoldering herbstick. The punk tossed the frybread back onto the plate. “Um, I’m still hungry. I’m gonna get some more food.” He nudged the kid sleeping on the sofa. “C’mon, Jose.”

Jose’s lids slowly cranked open like the hotel’s elevator doors.

“Cops are here.” The punk shook Jose’s shoulders. “C’mon, we gotta go.”

Jose’s lids couldn’t hold, lashes dropping back down like they were weighted.

The punk ditched him and slunk out.

Ang took a seat. “You gonna tell me what you’re doing here?”

Maggie pointed at the herbstick. “Put that out.”

Ang leaned over and mashed the ashy end into the plate.

“Your brother was murdered.”

“Cops said he ODed.”

“Did he have a drug problem?”

“He ODed, didn’t he?”

“How long have you been living here?”

“About a year.”

“Why don’t you live at home?”

“I’m an adult. I do whatever the hell I want.”

Maggie moved in a step, getting close enough to brace him.

I passed his chair, posted myself directly behind it. People get nervous when they can’t see you. He looked over his shoulder to find me, and I nudged myself out of his view.

Maggie leaned down to him. “You reported a robbery at your house.”

“No. I reported that somebody broke in.”

Smartass.

“He didn’t take anything?”

“He didn’t take any of my stuff, but he tore up my brother’s room. My dad’s study too.”

“What did he take?”

“I don’t know. My father and brother didn’t say.”

Maggie’s eyes narrowed. “What does that mean?”

He twisted in his seat. “You’d have to know my father to understand. Man likes his secrets. My brother was just like him.”

Maggie gave him a long, appraising stare before deciding to let it pass. “Was anybody home when he broke in?”

“Miss Paulina was.”

“Who’s she?”

“Our housekeeper. She was in her living space downstairs. She never heard anything until I came home from school and found the mess.”

“How did the burglar break in?”

He shook his head. “Why are you asking me all this crap? Can’t you just read the police report?”

I booted his chair. That startled the shit out of him, hands and knees jumping. Over on the sofa, Jose’s eyelids flickered and went still. Ang torqued his body all the way around to look at me, his face part surprise, part fear. “What’s your problem?”

“She asked you a question.”

He faced forward again. “I don’t know how he got in.” His words were coming out quick now. “The police couldn’t figure it out. They said somebody must’ve left a door open.”

Deluski leaned against the arm of the sofa. “Ask him about the tattoo.”

“What tattoo?” asked Ang.

“Your brother had a tattoo on his face.”

“What about it?”

“What does it mean? Why two snakes?”

“It’s a gay thing.”

“Explain.”

“The snakes are eating each other’s tails. Get it?”

Maggie stared at him, her eyes processing.

“It’s like they’re sixty-nining,” said Ang, as if he thought he needed to explain things to us old people. “The snakes, they’re sucking each oth-”

Maggie put up a hand. “I get it.”

“My brother and his friends got their tats at the same time.”

“Like they were in a club?”

“I guess.”

I pressed myself into the back of his chair, my eyes looking straight down at the top of his head. “Who was in this club?”

He looked up at me, counted on his fingers. “My brother, the doctor, a couple cops.”

My thoughts braked on the word “doctor.” “What doctor?”

“I don’t know his name, but he’s an offworlder.”

“And the cops?” asked Maggie.

“I only met them a couple times, but they were tight, always holding hands and stuff.”

“Names.”

“One was called Froelich. Can’t say whether that’s a first or last name. The other name I don’t know. Everybody just called him Captain.”

“Good-looking?”

“I don’t swing that way.”

“Humor me.”

“I guess so. My brother sure had eyes for him.”

Froelich and Captain Mota. Together with Franz Samusaka and Doctor Tranny. Matching tats all around. All of them into the same shit. Froelich’s nongay partner must’ve gotten dragged in along the way. “Is that it? Just the four of them?”

“Far as I know. I saw each one of them come out of my brother’s bedroom at one point or another.”

“They do more than screw each other?”

“What do you mean?”

“They had a business going.”

“What kind of business?”

“You tell me.”

He shrugged. “My brother helped find patients for the doctor, if that’s what you mean. The doctor is a plastic surgeon. My brother would get a killer referral fee for all the rich friends he sent over.”

“Anything else?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Has your brother ever been to Yepala?”

“Sure. He went a few times to visit the doctor. The doc has a clinic up there, one here in the city and one up north.”

“What does the doctor do at this clinic?”

“I don’t know. I guess he does the same thing he does here.”

Maggie jumped in. “You have a job, Ang?”

“No.”

“You go to school?”

“Nope.”

“Who pays for this place, a nice suite like this?”

“My father.”

“You telling me he pays for you to bum around this place with no strings attached?”

Good question. I remembered the way Ang’s father talked to his wife, the way she dropped her head like a dog before its master. The man was a control freak.

Before Ang could answer, the bedroom door opened behind me, a teenage girl coming through, her hands fastening the last button of her purple hotel-uniform blouse, a pinned-on name badge over her right breast: Mira Grabowski. “Um, good morning,” she said, hands smoothing her hair, then her skirt, gold bracelets jingling on her wrists.

I turned back to Maggie just in time to see the disapproving look on her face. She had a low tolerance for girls like Mira, girls who got ahead by lying on their backs. Maggie dismissed the girl with her eyes and squared them back on Ang. “I asked you a question, Ang. Your father okay with you doping your life away?”

“I do whatever the fuck I want. He doesn’t own me.” The bravado was back; he was putting on a show for his girlfriend.

The girl walked past me to the center of the room. I told her, “We’re having a private conversation here.”

She rubbed the big-ass stone hanging off the gold chain around her neck, her gaze moving from person to person until she lingered on her boyfriend’s face. “I’m not going anywhere. Who are you people?” Mira to the rescue.

“Yeah,” said Ang, his voice gathering strength. “I’m done talking.”

I looked at Maggie, Deluski too. I wanted more answers, wanted to use my particular expertise to extract them. But not this kid. This kid was a Samusaka. Big-time money and big-time power. The kind of power that could crush a has-been cop like me.

Best to keep biting around the edges; take what’s offered and move on. Besides, when it came to unearthing the Samusakas’ family secrets, something told me we’d just begun to break ground.

Deluski pointed to his watch. If we were going to make it to Yepala today, we best get going. We headed for the door, Mira Grabowski following us to make sure we left. I heard her call to Ang just before the door closed us out. “Who the hell were they?”

I followed Maggie and Deluski to the elevator, and we silently rode down to the lobby. We went toward the exit, the girl behind the desk watching us pass. She looked an awful lot like the girl upstairs. I scanned the name badge. Dora Grabowski. Sisters.

On a whim, I let Maggie and Deluski go ahead and stopped to talk to her. “What can you tell me about Ang?”

“We don’t talk about our guests.”

I put on my earnest face, made my voice sound concerned. “You really want to protect him, knowing how he treats your sister?”

Her brows angled downward. “What are you talking about?”

“Hey, I don’t want to cause any trouble, but you know he shares her with his buddies, don’t you? She was doing Jose and that other one on the sofa when we walked in on them.” I really was a wicked son of a bitch.

She dropped her hands to the desk and shook her head. “I told her from the beginning he was no good.”

“Listen, I’d love nothing more than to get him out of her life. Is there anything a cop like me should know about him?”

She leaped at the chance. “He takes drugs.”

I sucked a loud breath through my teeth. “Not good enough. You gotta know a family like his can buy him out of small-time trouble like that. Got anything else?”

She fussed with her hair, pulling at the strands hanging by her ear. I glanced back at Maggie and Deluski, who waited by the door, wearing matching quit-fucking-around expressions.

I took another look at the girl, still pulling at her hair, her eyes staring off to nowhere.

Maggie and Deluski were right. This was a waste of time. I turned for the door.

She spoke before I could take a step. “How about blackmail?”

I froze. Fucking A. I winked in my partners’ direction before facing her. “I’m all ears.”

I felt Josephs’s shoe bump my shin again. “Dammit, quit kicking me.”

“Don’t blame meee,” he slurred. “You shoulda got a bigger boat.”

“Put that bottle away already.”

“Fffuck you, Juno, you stooopid drunk. Like you’re one to talk.”

I wished I could roll the bastard overboard. The guy had a way of pissing me off like no other. I searched for relief in the black sky, in the few stars that had found a break in the clouds. It had been an hour since we’d seen any onshore lights, the captain’s calm piloting and occasional buoys the only signs we were going the right way.

“I still think he staged the break-in,” said Deluski.

Five hours on this boat and Ang Samusaka’s blackmail scheme still dominated the conversation. According to the hotel clerk, Ang had his father by the curlies, lording an incriminating vid over his head. The clerk had no idea what was on the vid, didn’t think her sister knew either, but whatever it was, it was enough for Ang to turn his father’s wallet into a help-yourself buffet.

Deluski’s theory went like this: Kid and his dad were on the outs for one reason or another, kid decides to rifle his father’s things, finds an incriminating vid of some sort, gets walked in on by the housekeeper, makes up a bogus burglary story to cover up the mess he’s made of his father’s study. Six days later, Ang moves into the hotel.

Maggie’s voice came out of the dark. “Still doesn’t explain why he raided his brother’s room.”

“He was trying to throw his father off, to make it look like somebody really broke in.”

“But if he wanted to make it look like somebody really broke in, wouldn’t he have busted a window or something?”

“I didn’t say he was smart.”

The hollow ping of a glass bottle sounded off the boat’s hull. The bottle clanged around a bit before rolling down to the boat’s center. By the sound of it, Josephs had finished the thing off. I leaned forward. “You still with us, Josephs?”

No response. Finally passed out, thank the stars. I should’ve left his ass on the pier as soon as I saw him buy that bottle. Dumbass wanted to pass it around, like we were going to party our way to Yepala.

Deluski pushed Josephs’s knee with his shoe. “Remind me why we brought him along, Maggie?”

“He told me he wanted to stay involved.” I could hear the shrug in her voice.

I felt a tap on my shoulder. The boat captain pointed to a cluster of lights up ahead. Yepala.

After jumping ashore to join Maggie and Deluski, I stretched a sore back. Long fucking trip. I checked the time: late afternoon, almost true night.

The charter boat captain aimed a pole at Josephs’s slumped form. “What am I supposed to do with your friend?” Josephs’s conked head hung straight back, mouth open like he wanted to catch raindrops. One hand was draped overboard, a couple fingers dipped in the water.

“Let him sleep it off. If he wakes up, tell him to stay on board. You make it real clear, he goes to a bar we’ll ditch his ass.”

The captain used the pole to push off and revved the motor, the boat powering toward a collection of pilings jutting from the water where he’d tie up and wait for our return.

I took the lead up a narrow trail through a tangle of jungle, keeping to the boards embedded in the mud. Dim lights were strung overhead, and the air was ripe with damp peat. Fronds brushed my arms. Leaves dragged over my hair. I lifted a shoe, pinned a thorny shoot to the ground, and waited for Maggie and Deluski to pass before forging forward.

The jungle opened onto the street. Yepala unfolded on either side, squat buildings facing a rutted road. A motorbike putted by, mom, dad, three kids and a baby heaped on top.

We looked at one another, the same questioning faces all around. Now what?

We turned right-why the fuck not? — and passed in front of a market, blue tarps stretched over tables of piled fruit and spice. Chickens and ’guanas squawked inside cages hanging above butcher blocks. I recognized the market from some of Mota’s pictures. He’d spent a lot of time here.

“You need a guide?” I looked down at the voice. A young girl, ten, maybe twelve, pinned-back hair, grunge-stained pants, jellies on her feet with dirt-blackened toes poking through the cracked plastic.

“You know an offworlder with long hair? Says he’s a doctor.”

She put a finger on her cheek, drew a circle. “Snakes?”

I nodded.

“He has a clinic in the jungle. He comes into town sometimes. I can take you.”

Just at that moment, an older boy came out from the market and stepped in front of her. “I know the way. Half hour on foot.”

The girl slipped around him, wedged herself between us. “I saw them first!”

He grabbed her by the shoulders and tossed her to the side. “Come, I’ll take you.”

She threw a punch, fist bouncing off his arm, her follow-up swing catching him in the ribs.

I liked her already.

“Cut it out.” He geared up to give her another shove.

I put my hand on his shoulder. “She asked us first.”

“But-”

I squeezed down, fingers digging in, words slowing. “We have our guide.”

He backed up and ducked out of my grasp. “Don’t fucking touch me!”

I took an aggressive step his way, and he darted off.

The girl stood tall, posture proudly erect. “Are you cops?”

Were we that obvious? “Why do you think that?”

“Some cops from Koba come to visit the doctor a lot.”

“Do you know their names?”

“No, but one of them has a big scar.” She drew a line across her forehead.

Wu.

“How many cops?”

“There’s the one with the scar, and then there’s the bald one with the same snake tattoo. And sometimes they come with a captain.”

Wu. Froelich. Mota.

“What do they do here?”

“They go out to the doctor’s to get a cask they take home to Koba.”

“What kind of cask? The kind they put brandy in?”

She nodded.

“Do you know what’s inside these casks?”

“No.”

“So how do we get to the doctor’s clinic?”

“If you want to pay for a car, we can drive halfway, but the hills get too steep after that. Too muddy after it rains. Or we can walk the whole thing.”

I exchanged glances with my traveling partners.

Maggie bent down to the girl’s eye level. “What’s your name?”

“Evangeline, but everybody calls me Evie.”

“Okay, Evie, I think we’d rather walk. It’ll do us good after that boat ride.” She didn’t mention that we wanted to make a silent approach. Our goal was simple: figure out what the hell was going on up here and go home. No confrontation. Not here.

Evie started down the street, and we fell in line-me in back-keeping to the narrow channels between puddles and clumpy mud. I took a look over my shoulder and scanned the sparsely lit street for a panama hat. This was his turf.

Warlord territory.

We strode past food counters and refurbed tech shops, a clothing store with broken mannequins in the window, amputees sporting sundresses. Somebody called to us. I spotted him up ahead, sitting on a tire, trying to wave us down: a beggar in rags.

I looked away. If you don’t want to give, you don’t make eye contact.

I heard him call again and chanced another glance his way. He was off the tire now, crab-walking. Something wasn’t right about him, the way he moved, crawling backward, his head twisted uncomfortably around so he could see where he was going. Curiosity got the better of me. I stopped and pulled a bill from my pocket and waited for him, his out-of-whack crab-walk striking a freaky chord inside me.

He came closer, his bare feet too short, toes too long. What the fuck? Hands. I realized they were hands.

I bent over and held out the money, waiting for one of his four hands to come off the ground and take it. Something snaked around the bill, wrapped it up tight and pulled it from my fingers. I jumped back, heart kicking. What the hell was that?

He smiled and laughed softly as he crabbed away, the money held up high with his tail.

“Juno,” Deluski called. “You better get up here.”

My legs obeyed and started moving to catch up, my gaze slow to unlock from the beggar. What are you?

I stumbled over a clod of mud and forced my attention forward. Evie was standing next to another young boy with a lase-rifle hanging across his chest. Maggie and Deluski faced them, Maggie digging into her wallet. “He wants money.”

“Who is he?”

Evie said, “You have to pay to leave town to the north.”

The kid waited with crossed arms, one elbow resting on the weapon’s butt, the other on the barrel. His shirtsleeves were cut off, a scar tattoo of the letter Z raised on his arm, the scar tissue too perfectly lined to be made by anything other than a branding iron. I looked left, through the open window of a dance hall. Music played loudly, and a dozen armed boys sat at long tables with longer stares.

A pair of boys not much older than Evie came out squaring berets on their heads. General Z’s soldiers. They joined ranks with the first boy.

Maggie handed the kid a bill. He looked at the denomination and shook his head. Maggie added a second. And a third. He still shook his head.

Maggie pulled out yet another bill but Evie stopped her. “That’s enough.”

The soldier boy stayed where he was. Hand out. Waiting for more. Evie took his hand, closed his fingers around the money, and told him to quit. She put her hands on his hip and pushed. He resisted with a straight face and rigid body. She drove with her legs until he finally tipped. He caught his balance and swung the gun around. “I want more money!”

We froze. Maggie, Deluski, and I were caught in the sights of a pubescent punk playing soldier.

Evie took Maggie’s hand and told her to come. “You paid enough. He’s just playin’.”

Didn’t look like he was playing.

Evie pulled Maggie’s arm, “C’mon.” Maggie took a tentative step, and another, me and Deluski following in her cautious footsteps. I felt an uneasy sickness in my chest. We were foreigners here. Didn’t know the players, didn’t know the rules. Foreigners.

Another beggar approached, this one a child, a protruding bump under his shirt, head shaved bald with some kind of input jack embedded in the center. Christ. Where the fuck were we?

My head swam, anxiety creeping up from my chest and settling around my throat. I pulled the lase-blade handle tucked into my belt, held it tight in my fingers, thumb perched on the button. Deluski paused for a moment to give the kid some money, put it in the kid’s pincer-claw hand.

With my nerves now on razors, I kept moving, eyes bouncing left and right, watching, waiting for the next mind fuck. An occasional truck passed, workers standing upright in the truck bed, their clothes stained from a grueling day in the poppy fields. We passed homes with barred windows, guards sitting out front, resting on tipped-back chairs, weapons slung from their shoulders, glum frowns slung from their chins.

We reached the edge of town, the last streetlight falling behind us, the pitch black darkness a relief to my overloaded senses. Maggie passed her flashlight to our guide. To me she asked, “Can you see all right back there?”

I kept my eyes aimed up ahead, where Evie and Deluski lit the way. “I’m good.”

We crunched our way up the trail, weeds and dead branches snapping underfoot. We’d ditched the road as soon as we’d left town. Told Evie we didn’t want to be seen, asked her if there was a back way.

The jungle trail was rough going. According to Evie, it wasn’t used much, not since the road was built. We tripped through vines and scrub, my lase-blade slicing through the worst. We tramped through streams, pushed through brambles. My thorn-scratched, bug-bitten skin itched in a thousand places. Bug spray didn’t do shit in deep jungle.

The unmistakable roar of a flyer sounded up ahead. We were close. I covered my ears as the grumbling bellow passed overhead, foliage whipping in the wind. I dumbly looked up, caught a shower of sappy detritus in my hair, my eyes, down my shirt. I coughed and spat, shook shit out of my shirt.

Flashlights and laughter, both aimed at me.

I wiped my face with my empty sleeve. A too rare smile broke on my face as I had a good laugh at myself, first time since forever ago. Evie and Maggie brushed flakes of I-didn’t-know-what out of my hair while I winced against the pain of my burned scalp.

On the move again, Evie led the way until the bush finally thinned and opened onto an open field, where a pair of lamp poles dropped cones of light on a broad swath of poppies. We stayed low, flashlights off, watching for activity.

A building sat in the middle of the field, surrounded by several shacks. A two-wheeled track led to the road we’d avoided. A sizable group of people worked the far side of the field, canisters on their backs, sprayers in hand, rags tied over their mouths.

I scanned for guards, scoped five in total, two monitoring the workers, three more patrolling near the main building, a two-story structure constructed of slats and poles under an open-air thatch roof.

I asked Evie, “Is that General Z’s headquarters?”

“This ain’t no headquarters.” She laughed. “It’s just the doc’s clinic. Z runs whole villages up north. I portered a trip up there once.”

“You’re a porter?”

“My cousin is. He took me along as more of a runner. I don’t eat much so it don’t cost much to bring me.”

“Ever seen General Z?”

She nodded. “He comes to Yepala sometimes to meet with his lieutenants and the sheriff.”

“Who is the sheriff?”

“Carlos Aceves. He’s a mean man. You watch out for him. He always wears a panama hat. He and the doctor are friends, which is why he lets the doctor have his clinic here.”

“What kind of clinic is it?” asked Deluski.

She didn’t have an answer for that.

Maggie took a seat in the weeds. “That flyer we heard heading south-think the doctor was on it?”

“Probably. He’s always going back and forth to Koba.”

I dropped down next to Maggie. Might take awhile for that last group of workers to call it quits. According to Evie, they’d walk the road until they passed the mud, to meet a truck that could take them the rest of the way back to town.

Deluski and Evie sat down, Evie right next to Maggie. “Can I see your earrings?” Her tough-girl voice had been replaced by something softer and sweeter.

Maggie pulled them out of her ears and passed them to Evie, who held them low to the ground before turning on a flashlight. “They’re real pretty. Is that gold?”

“Yes.”

“What about the stones?”

“Emeralds.”

“They match your eyes. How’d they get so green?”

“They’re not my original eyes. I was born with brown eyes, just like you.”

Evie hung the earrings on a branching weed and studied how they dangled.

I turned my attention to the poppy field. Slowly, the workers peeled off, dropping their spray cans at one of the sheds and heading for the two-track road where a small gathering formed.

Evie took the earrings off the weed hanger and made to give them back but Maggie put up a hand. “You can keep them.”

“No. They’re too nice.”

“The way you’ve helped us, you deserve something nice.”

Evie forced them into Maggie’s hand. “Somebody would try to steal them by cutting off my ears.” Tough girl was back.

Workers continued to quit, my heart rate climbing as they did. Sneaking in there was going to be tough. Too much open space, and too many guards.

The last few workers headed in, the field lights flicking off right afterward. The compound, however, was still bathed in yellow as workers started to file down the road.

As a group, we moved into the poppy field and slowly started across. The deep dark made it difficult to pick our way through ragged rows of poppy plants, black leaves and stems and pods reaching up from blacker earth. We detoured around the lamp poles, afraid somebody would turn them back on.

Maggie whispered, “This is as far as you go, Evie.”

I counted off some bills for her. “First sign of trouble, you go back the way you came.”

“Got it.”

We crept forward. Only three guards left. The other two were escorting the workers down the road.

We made our crouched approach, slithering through and around the poppies, our goal a wide stack of black tar bricks. Three guards, none looking this way. They were boys, young teens. General Z’s army was a children’s brigade. I doubted many survived long enough to be men.

We slipped behind the stack of bricks and peeked over them and around the side. I grabbed Maggie’s wrist, put my half-arm on Deluski’s shoulder. “You sure you want to do this?”

They both nodded. We had to know what was going on in there, had to know what game Mota, Panama, and the doctor were playing.

We had no choice but to break in and see with our own eyes. The local authorities wouldn’t help. Panama ran YOP.

The planetary authorities wouldn’t help either. This was General Z’s territory, a lawless expanse of jungle villages and O fields. The Lagartan army would never tame this region. Truth was, the pols didn’t want them to. Crush the narco-state and they’d have to stop milking the Unified Worlds for drug enforcement money, which they siphoned into their own pockets.

The three guards stood in a group, close enough that we could hear them chatting. We snuck from one stack of tar bricks to the next, approaching closer and closer, the first shed a few meters away. I looked at the main building. The windows, most of which were dark, were now in plain view. I checked the lighted ones, searching for moving shadows and prying eyes. All I found was eerie stillness.

Deluski led us toward the next cover, a low-to-the-ground enclosure of tarps and hand-hewn wood poles. We crawled over hoses to the enclosure’s edge. The clinic was a short distance ahead.

I moved around the enclosure, my shoulder getting wet as it brushed against the dewy tarp. What the hell was in there? “Wait,” I whispered to Deluski. I pulled my lase-blade, held it close to the ground, and flicked it on. I stayed hunched above the blade to block the light, fiery heat baking my chest and chin. I sliced into the tarp, a good-sized gash, and I spread the opening wide, using the light of my blade to peer through.

Dirt. Rocks. Sprawling squash vines. A garden?

I saw something move. Barely. I strained to see in the red light, spotted it again. A burrowing shell. I could see more of them now, lots of them, coin-sized shells dragging sluggishly across the dirt, along the squash vines and leaves.

Deluski tapped my shoulder. “See anything?”

I turned off the blade. “Snails.”

“Like the ones we saw at the gay bar?”

“I think so.”

Maggie elbowed me. “What were you guys doing at a gay bar?”

Deluski peeked around the side. “Let’s go. The guards are heading for one of the sheds.” We dashed behind the clinic, pressed ourselves into the wall. We hustled down its length, stopping at the first doorway, a shutter on hinges.

Maggie pushed open the shutter and we were inside, stealing down an empty hall, weapons-first. Humming lights fluctuated to the sound of an unseen generator. As we went forward, our legs were tickled by ivy and ferns that grew through cracks in the wood plank floors. An unoccupied desk came into view, and we stepped up to it. Maggie put her free hand on the seat. “Warm.”

We waited, listening. My heartbeat sounded in my ears. A toilet flushed. We followed the sound to a curtained doorway and stopped to surround it. A hand swept the curtain aside and a guard came through. Maggie and Deluski plugged his ears with lase-pistols.

“Drop to the floor,” I ordered. “Kiss the wood.”

The kid spread his hands and slow-moed down.

I pushed my heel between his shoulder blades, my toes pressing his head into the floorboards like it was a gas pedal. “Kiss it.”

I could feel the punk’s lungs rising under my heel, quick puffs up and down. His head went all the way down, lips on wood. I lifted my shoe so Deluski could relieve him of his weapon and frisk the little shit.

I put my foot back where it was. “How many guards?”

“Four,” he said, his voice cracking midword. I couldn’t tell if it was distress or puberty that frogged it. “Three outside and me.”

“Who else?”

“A nurse.”

“What about the doc?”

“He left, took a flyer to Koba.”

“Just one nurse?”

He nodded, his face mashing into the floorboards.

“Where?”

“I don’t know.”

I put some extra weight on my foot.

“Upstairs somewhere,” he wheezed. “He makes rounds.”

“Does he come this way?”

“Sometimes.”

“Armed?”

“No.”

I let up. “Call him.”

“Manny.”

“Louder.”

“Manny! Get down here.”

Maggie and Deluski waited by the stairs. The ceiling creaked overhead. I looked up and followed the trail of whining planks to the staircase, shoes clomping down. He reached the bottom, stunned eyes sizing up me and my piece. He was built like a gym rat, his head shaved bald as a bent knee. Dark-skinned biceps squeezed out of a tight-fitting tee tucked into belted designer pants. He wore rubber gloves on his hands.

Maggie and Deluski closed in on either side of him. He froze except for a quivering lip.

Maggie waved her weapon at him. “What’s going on here?”

He hesitated, eyes clicking through his options. Deluski accelerated the decision making with a quick crack to the skull.

“A clinic,” he blurted. “It’s a clinic.” He rubbed his head with his gloved hand, checked his palm for blood. “What did you do that for?”

“What kind of clinic?”

“Listen, I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. This shit’s not exactly a secret around here, but you best go see for yourselves.” He hiked a thumb at the stairs and rubbed his head again.

Maggie, Deluski, and I traded glances. Nods all around. Maggie told him to give us the tour.

We filed upstairs, all five of us. I kept my piece buried in the kid’s kidney. Deluski stayed with Nurse Manny, a fistful of the nurse’s tee bunched in one hand, weapon in the other, gun barrel stabbed into Manny’s spine.

We stepped down a short hallway, passing a room with a single bed on the left. “That’s the doc’s room,” said Manny. “My room is way over on the other side.”

Iguanas scuffled overhead, the rafters dotted with nests made from stolen fronds in the thatch roofing. We entered a long room, beds lined up barracks-style. We walked down the wide center aisle, my brain struggling to comprehend.

Maggie wandered, slack-jawed, her weapon hanging by her hip. She made to talk but her mouth just opened and closed like that of a dazed fish dying on a boat’s floor. Pigment had drained from Deluski’s face, his sand-colored skin turning a sickly olive.

My head spun, drunk on this fucked-up horror show. I felt ready to tip over. I drilled my piece deeper into my charge’s side, made him wince and bite his lip. I kicked his legs from behind. “Get down.”