KOP Killer

Twenty-eight

April 28, 2789

The car I’d been following pulled into a reserved space next to a glass-enclosed office building. I handed a thousand pesos to the cabdriver and climbed out onto the curb.

She was out of her car now, heading toward the building entrance, long legs taking short strides inside an ankle-length tapered skirt.

I did my best to ignore the kink in my back-last night’s rooftop hop still exacted a toll-and hustled to catch up. She stepped toward the door, hips wagging, straight black hair moving to and fro. I closed the distance, the bag of ice swinging from my hand.

She heard my approach and glanced over her shoulder.

“Mrs. Samusaka.”

She stopped, her hand on the door handle, her face as icy as the diamond studs in her ears. “Are you following me?”

“I need to talk to you.”

“You’ll need to make an appointment.” She pulled open the door.

“I need to talk to you now. Walk with me.”

“I’ll do nothing of the sort.” She stepped through and let go of the handle.

I shoved my words through the closing gap, getting the whole sentence out just before the door shut. “I know who killed your son.”

She slowly turned around and faced me through the thick glass. Reflections from the neon signs atop the bank across the street sparkled in the glass, her blank canvas of a face painted with flashing reds and blues.

She cracked the door. “He wasn’t murdered.”

“He was.”

“The police said-”

“The police lied.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Because your husband paid them to.”

She didn’t know what to believe, her face pressed into the slivered door, her eyes swirling pools of confusion. “That’s not true. You’re a damn liar.” Her tone didn’t match her words; instead, the accusation limped from her mouth.

“Please, walk with me. You’ll never forgive yourself if you don’t at least listen to what I have to say.”

She took a look around, like she had to remind herself where she was. Then she came out and with a little more coaxing fell in step alongside my clipped wing.

“What do you know?”

The street was late-morning lackadaisical, light traffic and strolling pedestrians. I took weighty steps knowing the revelations I was about to unload.

“Your stepson killed your son.”

“I don’t have a stepson.”

“That’s because your husband never told you. His name is Bronson Carew.”

She grabbed my arm, nails digging like claws. “Carew? That’s Paulina’s name.”

“Your housekeeper. Yes. Your husband got her pregnant, but he couldn’t allow her to raise the child in your house or you’d eventually find out. You’d catch him playing with the boy. Or you’d see the resemblance in the boy’s face. One way or another you’d find out, so she sent him to be raised by his grandmother.”

She let go of my arm. “She could’ve quit to raise him.”

“But she didn’t. Maybe she loved your husband. Or maybe she couldn’t face going back to life on the south-side docks. Whatever the reason, she chose to stay in your home and sent her son to be with her mother. She probably convinced herself that the best thing she could do for her son was to keep earning a regular paycheck.”

We turned left, this street too narrow for cars, traffic noise fading, the rocking sound of slushing ice taking its place.

“But I don’t ever remember her being pregnant.”

“Did she ever take a leave of absence?”

“She left us for a few months once. She had to care for her sick father.”

“Nineteen years ago?”

Her last objection dashed, Crystal Samusaka stopped in her tracks. “That son of a bitch.”

I faced her profile, her lips pinched so tight I could barely see her lipstick. “Has he been unfaithful before?”

She stared straight ahead. “My husband is a selfish man. But he never had a bastard before.”

“Why did you stay with him?”

She took a large, overreaching step but the tapered skirt held her back. “I wasn’t born rich, Mr. Mozambe.” She hiked up her dress to her knees and stormed forward, short strides no longer satisfactory.

I stayed with her. “Your husband paid the police to report your son’s death as an overdose. I couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t want the police to find his son’s murderer until I realized he was protecting another son.”

“My God, Paulina brought a young boy to the house sometimes. She said he was her nephew. Brownie was his name.”

“Could be a nickname for Bronson.”

“He was such a strange boy.”

“Did he play with your sons?”

“Sometimes, but mostly they picked on him. He couldn’t have been more than nine or ten when she stopped bringing him. But I saw him years later when Franz brought him around. Franz said he’d run into Brownie somewhere, and now they were palling around.”

I stopped, put the bag down, and pulled Deluski’s chip from my pocket, held it to her temple. “That him?”

She jerked her head away. “That’s him.” Tears came, twin raindrops rolling down her cheeks, her mouth caught in a silent, misshapen cry. She let her skirt fall back down, hands moved to her eyes.

“Why?” she managed to wail. “Why did he kill my boy? Franz tried to be his friend.”

I lowered my eyes. “You won’t like the answer.”

“Tell me!”

“Your son was involved in the gay community. At some point he got sucked into a clique centered around an offworld doctor. This doctor made a new drug called the genie. It makes people extremely susceptible to suggestion. Your son Franz used the drug on Carew. He raped him for several days.”

The crying stopped. I expected denial. Refusal to believe. A wall of motherly love that would keep her from seeing the truth about her son. Instead she asked, “Is it a pill?”

“A liquid. It comes from snails.”

Her face went white. She wobbled on woozy legs. I reached for her in an attempt to catch her before she went down, but she’d already dropped to a seat on the asphalt. “Snails,” she whispered.

I sat next to her. “That’s right.”

A pair of teenagers walked by, strange looks aimed our way.

“Hudson gave me a snail to eat.”

I nodded, not entirely surprised.

“He told me it was a delicacy, fed it to me in a wine sauce. It was his birthday. He took me to bed, undressed me. Th-then he brought out a stranger from the closet. I remember wondering what he was doing in there. Hudson told me he was a friend. He wanted me to have sex with this man while he watched.”

The genie was true evil. “And you did it.”

“I did. I didn’t want to, but I did. I couldn’t understand what was wrong with me. I thought I was depraved. I mean, who would do something like that?”

“You were raped.”

She pulled at her hair, strands coming out in her fingers. “I fucked him.”

“That wasn’t you. It was the drug.”

“How could I-”

I pulled her hand away from her hair, gave it a pat. “It wasn’t you.”

“Oh my God, he filmed it. I let him film it.”

“When was this?”

“He just had another birthday, so a little over a year ago.”

The last tile cemented into place, the Samusakas’ dirty mosaic now in full focus. Franz and his pop were quite a pair. Franz the young entrepreneur, selling the doc’s plastic surgery and introducing the genie to his gay friends. His father, a man who treated family like possessions. A man who would let his own wife get raped for his pleasure.

Franz must’ve shared the genie with his father. Hey, Pop, look what this snail can do. Gee, that’s pretty neat, son. I think I’ll try that on your mom.

“Do you remember when your home was broken into?”

She closed her eyes, her hands back in her hair, squeezing down, clumped strands poking through her knuckles like weeds through a fence.

“That was Carew’s doing. Paulina let him in, which was why no windows or locks were broken. He wanted Franz’s rape vid. He ransacked Franz’s room to find it and then he brought it to the police, but the police ignored it. These were the same two detectives who later covered up your son’s murder. They said the vid didn’t prove he was raped. Looked like he enjoyed it.”

She wrung her hair some more.

“Carew killed them.”

She moaned.

I kept talking. “Your other son, Ang, was the first to find his brother’s room after Carew ransacked it. But instead of reporting the robbery right away, he decided to hit his father’s study. He doesn’t like his father, does he? I’m guessing Franz was your husband’s favorite.”

I couldn’t tell if her moaning meant I was right or wrong. I plowed ahead anyway. “Ang found your husband’s vid, the vid of him feeding you the snail and everything that followed.”

She grabbed my arm, nails digging in. “Are you saying my son watched me?”

“Yes. He has the vid. But at first, he let your husband think the burglar took it. It must’ve taken him a few days to figure out what he wanted to do with it. He’s been using it to blackmail your husband ever since. I didn’t know what was on the vid until now.”

Her moans turned to sobs. Another shattered life. Welcome to the club.

“Carew went into hiding after killing Franz. Nobody will admit to seeing him since. Your husband and housekeeper won’t talk to me. I came to you hoping you could help me find him.”

She wiped her face with a sleeve, fabric streaked with mascara. “How would I know where he is?”

Figured as much. I stood and stretched my aching back. I picked up my bag. It was mostly water now, the ice melting away. Just like my options.

“Brownie ran away one time.”

“He did?”

“This was right before Paulina stopped bringing him over. He was gone for two days, hiding in the abandoned boathouse.”

“You have a boathouse on your property?”

“It’s on the lake. Hudson’s father used to fish there. When he died, Hudson stopped maintaining it. He doesn’t like to fish.”

“Is it still there?”

“It’s jungle now.”

The boathouse was right where Crystal Samusaka said it would be, cracked stone walls held in place by a sprawl of thick roots that spilled down the sides like a melted scoop of coffee ice cream, ferns sprouting from the crevices.

I sloshed through shallow lake water. I’d given up on the trail, thick jungle making it nearly impassable. I looked back to see if anybody was coming. Stopped and listened.

I’d gotten a helluva scare when I jumped the wall, saw a line of uniforms with flashlights coming right at me. Rusedski’s task force had made the Carew-Samusaka connection, and a search of the grounds was under way. Wouldn’t be long before they made it here.

Rusedski was probably in the main house right now, grilling Hudson and Miss Paulina, the proud parents of a lizard-man serial.

I climbed onto the twisted dock, turned off my flashlight, and pulled the weapon I’d picked up on the way here, actually stopped by my place to get it. I faced the boathouse, honed in on dim light seeping from the window.

He was here. And time was short.

Dock boards creaked under my shoes. I gripped the weapon tight in my left, plastic bag handles hooked over my right’s crooked elbow.

I moved slowly in the dark, approaching the doorway, picking my way through tumbled stone and tangled roots when a loose rock rolled out from under my foot. I caught my balance, plastic bag swinging from my arm, the sound of crinkling plastic. I steadied the bag with my gun hand, breath held in my lungs, silence restored.

Did he hear that? I waited, listening.

Nothing.

I allowed myself to breathe, allowed my foot to take another step when a voice came from inside. “I can hear you.”

My soaked pant legs suddenly felt cold, like I’d waded through ice water. I trained my weapon on the doorway, finger sweating on the trigger. Wait for him to come check on the noise. Just wait him out.

Time passed, a minute, maybe longer.

“I can see you.”

Heartbeats thudded in my chest. Don’t believe him. Stay quiet and force him to come to you.

“I can see you through a crack in the wall. Whoever you are, you should come in. I don’t have a gun.”

His voice was calm. Soft. I didn’t move, eyes probing the shadows, my finger primed to fry the doorway with fire.

The wall lit with points of light, a bright light poking through a half dozen cracks and holes. I looked down at the constellation of light spots on my chest. Shit.

“See, I could’ve shot you right then if I had a gun instead of this flashlight. Come inside.”

I wanted to run. Wanted to be anywhere but inside that boathouse. But I had no choice. I had to see this through.

I followed my weapon to the doorway-a slanted rectangle of stone-and inched my way inside. The air was scented with formaldehyde. Weak light drooled from a portable light wedged into a cluster of roots that had conquered the rafters. The room was long and narrow. Floor-to-ceiling racks ran up each side with canoes stowed in several bays, one of the shelves converted to a sleeping space, pillow resting on a blanket.

I stood face-to-face with Bronson Carew, arms by his sides, his flashlight aimed at the ground. He glanced down to the missing part of my right arm, an out-of-kilter smile forming. “It’s you.”

I kept my lase-pistol on his chest, wondering why I hadn’t already wasted the bastard.

Black bangs hung over ink-centered eyes. “You can’t shoot me. In fact, you’re going to give me your gun.”

I caressed the trigger, itching to get this over with, but he was unafraid. Confident.

He twisted his neck to look toward the boathouse’s back corner. “Come on out, Ang.”

From behind one of the canoes came Ang Samusaka. He held a knife to his own throat, trickles of blood running down his neck and sopping into his shirt collar.

Carew reached a hand into his shirt pocket, pulled out an empty snail shell. “I told him if anything happens to me, he should start slicing. Give me your gun.”

Shoot him anyway. That was my first instinct. Who gave a shit about the Samusakas’ youngest? Punk was a junkie blackmailer. Screw him.

Carew put his index finger into the shell, made it dance like a finger puppet. “Give it or I tell him to do it.”

I had to pull the trigger. Kill him and plant my evidence. The Samusaka kid didn’t matter. Let him hack through his carotids. Why should I care?

Carew put the shell back in his pocket and held out his hand. “Gimme.”

My gaze turned back to Ang, knife held in his fist, blade pressed under his chin. Eyes dead as gravestones. “Ang. Put the knife down.”

He didn’t budge.

“Don’t bother,” said Carew. “Keep at him long enough, he might start obeying you. But I’ve been working him for a whole day now.”

Ang was so young. Barely out of school.

Stop thinking that way. He’s a junkie and a blackmailer. He was disposable. I couldn’t afford to let myself think of him as a victim.

A victim trapped in this hell for a whole day. Victim of a fucked-up home. A domineering asshole of a father.

Just like my father.

And Niki’s father.

Like so much of the misery in this world, all of our collective pain and anguish could be traced back to that one simple cause: assholes having babies.

Carew held out his hand. “Give me the gun.”

“Ang!” I called. “Put the knife down.”

Carew stepped forward, put his hand over my gun’s barrel. “Let go.”

I didn’t want to. This was a time to be hard. Cold. Ruthless. This fucker had to burn. Wu’s little girls demanded it.

Yet there was Ang, his death sentence tied to my trigger finger.

A cockeyed grin broke on Carew’s face. “Ang, this is your brother. When you hear me reach three, start cutting.”

Sweat rolled down the back of my neck, pulse kicking into high gear. Pull the trigger. Fucking do it.

“One.”

Can’t be helped, Ang. Collateral damage. That’s what you are.

“Two.”

Heartbeats flew by like fence posts at high speed. You should’ve grown up faster, Ang. Should’ve made your life count for something when you had the chance.

“Th-”

“No!”

His voice stopped short, lips poised to finish the word.

“Fucking take it.” Disgusted, I let him twist my gun from clinging fingers. My hand stayed where it was, reluctant to break aim. I glared at the blank-faced Ang. You better be worth it.

Carew took a step back and trained the lase-pistol on my head. “Move away from the door.”

I complied. Plan B was already formulating. Cops were coming. Soon. All I had to do was keep us alive for another ten minutes. Fifteen, tops. No fucking problem. Son of a bitch like him had to play with his prey before feeding.

“Don’t want you running away. Go over to the window. Get on your knees.”

I walked to the window, a row of wrought iron bars twisted by a strangle of viny roots. I stole a look out, praying for the sight of approaching flashlights. No luck.

I set my plastic bag on the floor and dropped to my knees next to a short stack of canned goods, Ang little more than a meter away. “Tell him to put the knife down.”

Keeping the gun trained on my head, Carew took a seat on a short stool by the door. “Ang, my darling brother, it’s time to cut your throat.”

Before I could react, Ang dragged the blade across his flesh, plowing a deep red furrow.

I jumped for him, reached too late, caught a warm spray on my hand. “What the fuck!”

Carew laughed, a childlike giggle etching into my eardrums. “You should see the look on your face.”

Helpless, I watched Ang fall forward, bumping one of the canoes partly off its shelf before he flopped to the left and hit the floor, a bent-back leg pinned underneath as his blood and life drained into the dirt.

Bile scorched my throat. I’d fucked up royally. Never give up control. Never!

The sound of screeching lizards drew my eyes to the wall, a half dozen stripe-faced man-eaters reacting to the ruckus, strings running from a stake in the ground to tiny leather collars around their necks. To their right sat a small terrarium, slimy glass walls dotted with snails.

God, I was such a dumb fuck. I wiped my hand on my pant leg, white linen stained red. Just like my burning cheeks. I should’ve known better, dammit.

“You should’ve shot me,” he said.

“No fucking kidding.” Cops are coming, I told myself. This wasn’t over. They’d be here soon. They’d see the light in the window just like I did.

“Who are you?”

“Juno.” All I needed was time.

“You a cop?”

“Used to be.” Just keep him talking.

“Cops are liars.”

“Yes, they are.” Time.

“You were in Wu’s apartment when I brought back his head.”

“I was.” Every second my odds got better.

“You saw his wife and daughters.”

“I did.” Tick, tick, tick.

“He killed them all himself, you know. You should’ve seen it.”

I opened my mouth to respond but his words drilled deep. Some suspicions didn’t need confirmation. The thought of those poor girls waking up in bed, their father standing over them, a lase-blade in his hand. The confusion. The betrayal. The terror.

I couldn’t stand to look at him, had to look away, my eyes landing on Ang’s lifeless body.

His gaze followed mine. “Now I regret killing him so soon.” He pulled a tube of glue from his pants pocket and gave it a good whiff. “I wasn’t done with him. Barely got started. But I couldn’t resist fucking with your head.”

I turned back to him; his grin was knotted and twisted like the gnarled roots hanging overhead. “He was your brother.”

Carew made like he wanted to spit. “He was spoiled. Undeserving.”

“Sounds like every rich kid I ever met. What did he ever do to you?”

“He wouldn’t respect me. Me. His own brother. I’m no street trash.” He rapped the gun against his chest. “I’m a Samusaka! He and his asshole brother lived in my rightful home. They ate for free. They fucked for free. They got everything they ever wanted, cars and clothes. Money. I deserved to live that life. I’m his son too.”

“Did they even know you were their brother?”

He brushed the question away with a wave of the gun. “Why are you here?”

I bit the inside of my cheek, unsure how to play it. Decided I had nothing to lose by playing it straight. “I came here to kill you.”

“Ha!” He waved the gun at me. “How did that work out?”

“Not good.”

“Why do you want to kill me?”

“You’re a monster.”

He leveled the lase-pistol. “That’s not true. Take it back.”

I stared into the barrel, wanting to wilt, wanting to melt into the dirt. But I had to keep him talking. I fished for courage, summoned enough to look him in the eye. “You kill people for no reason.”

“Bullshit! They deserved it. Every one of them deserved to die.”

“Wu’s family didn’t deserve it.”

“Detective Wu was a liar. His wife deserved it for fucking him. His spawn was tainted.”

“Those girls were innocent.”

“Don’t give me that. I bet you didn’t even know them. What were their names?”

I didn’t know.

“You’re a fucking idiot. You live in a dream world like all the other fucking idiots, thinking children are magical little angels. My brothers weren’t angels. They stole my whole life. My father. My home. They took my mother and made her nanny them instead of me.” His tone turned caustic, corrosive. “I was her son, goddamnit. That was my food she cooked and fed to them. That was my play time they stole. Those were my smiles and hugs.”

I sharpened my tongue, the only weapon I had left. “That’s because she loved them more than she loved you.”

I thought I saw an eye twitch, the only sign that my blow might’ve landed.

He stood and walked to his dead brother; the exposed parts were already covered with flies and geckos. Nearby, the man-eaters strained at their collars, feet scratching at the dirt, desperate to go in for a feed. “Well, now she’ll have no choice who to love most. Same with my father.”

Carew moved the gun to his left hand, kept it and one eye on me while his right hand shifted into the steel trap that took my hand. “I’m the only one left.”

He opened the jaws wide and reached for his brother’s thigh.

I closed my eyes, heard the snap, heard the thump of meat landing in the dirt, the excited squeals of lizards.

Jesus. I rubbed my arm, told myself not to panic. The cops were coming, had to be getting close. When I opened my eyes, he was back on the stool, his hand returned to normal.

Buy time. Keep him talking. “You get that steel trap from Dr. Franklin?”

“I got two steel traps.” He gave me a wink. “I was getting ready to use my favorite on my dear brother, but now I’ll have to use it on you.”

A chill came over me, nerves coated in frost.

He startled me by jumping up from his seat. “I want to show you something.” He grabbed hold of a low-to-the-ground canoe and pulled it off its shelf to the floor. I heard the sound of clanking glass. “Look.”

I raised up on my knees to peer over the canoe’s rail. Glass jars gathered at the boat’s low point, flesh souvenirs preserved in formaldehyde. Hair stood up on my arms and the back of my neck.

“I’m going to add yours to my collection.”

I looked to the door. What the fuck was taking them so long?

“What’s in the bag?” he asked.

“Why don’t you come see?”

“Nice try. Throw it over here.”

I grabbed the plastic handles and tossed it in his direction. He snatched it up and poured the contents out onto the ground, the dirt acting like a sieve, water running into the earth while a few last ice cubes stayed on the surface along with what I’d taken from Mota’s corpse.

Carew’s face bunched in puzzlement. “What have you brought me?”

“What does it look like?”

He bent down and picked it up. He held it to the light, licked his lips. “I don’t understand.”

“Consider it a gift.”

His dark eyes didn’t know what to make of that, but he couldn’t resist. He carried it to the far corner, set it on a shelf, and grabbed an empty jar with his now free hand. He raised the jar to his mouth and blew out the dust before setting it on the ground and reaching for a glass jug. He removed the stopper and did a sloppy job of pouring with one hand, formaldehyde splashing and spraying, a rotten pickling smell wafting through the room.

He dropped my “gift” into the jar and sealed it. “We’re more alike than I thought.”

“We’re nothing alike.”

A crooked grin. “Whose is it?”

I shook my head, no intention of answering.

“I can make you talk.” He stepped to the terrarium and lifted the lid.

No fucking way. I’d make him shoot me first.

He nabbed a snail, tossed it at my feet. “Eat.”

I picked up the snail, held it up to study it. “Franz made you eat one of these, didn’t he?”

“Franz.” He said the name like it was a bitter pill. “He pretended to like me, acted like he was happy to have a new brother. He brought me to the house a few times, introduced me to Ang. Then he invited me to a party at an abandoned house near his old school.”

I turned the shell in my fingers.

He shook his head to fling hair out of venomous eyes. “He told me it would get me high, like sniffing glue.” His voice choked on emotion, the gun trembling in his hand. “Then he took me upstairs an… and he kept me there.”

“But you made him pay.”

“Damn straight. First I took his weapon.” He aimed the lase-pistol at my crotch. “Then I took his life. He learned his lesson. Believe me, he learned his lesson. Now eat.”

Fuck that. I threw the snail out the window.

The air exploded with fire. I closed my eyes against the flash of heat, the spray of stone shrapnel and burned moss. I covered my head, lungs choking on smoke.

The smoke cleared and I straightened up, the warmth of hot stone at my back. He shook his head like he was disappointed in me before tossing another snail my way. “Eat.”

I reached for the snail, tossed it back at him. “No.”

He came at me, the gun trained on my head the whole time. He stepped straight up to me, pressed the lase-pistol’s barrel against my left eye like I’d once done to him. I felt wet snail pushing against my lips. I kept my mouth closed, lips pinched tight like steel doors against the pressure.

“Eat!”

No fucking way.

A voice sounded from somewhere outside. I felt the lase-pistol lift off my eye, the snail off my lips. He leaned toward the window.

I didn’t hesitate, arms reaching, feet centering underneath me. I had him around the hips, shoulder in his gut, knees extending, legs surging forward. The lase-pistol fired, a sizzling explosion somewhere behind me. I lifted him off the ground and threw him down with all the force I could.

He hit with a thump, a cloud of dirt dusting up. I kicked at the weapon in his hand and made contact with the toe of my shoe. The gun bounced free.

I lunged for the lase-pistol, reached for it with the wrong hand, reached with fingers that weren’t fucking there. I switched hands, but he was on me before I could grab hold, the two of us tumbling to the ground, roots jabbing into my shoulder and backbone.

He was on top of me, skin like slate, forked tongue flicking. He punched with his steel trap hand, my jaw taking a bricklike impact. My vision went hazy, my arms and legs weak. A blur of jagged steel came for my throat.

I couldn’t stop him, my reflexes soaked in molasses.

The room went bright with lase-fire, shouts all around. I saw double-vision uniforms. Heard garbled voices I couldn’t understand.

I closed my eyes and let sleep come on a draft of charred meat.