“Last night.”
“What about the night before last night? Was your brother here then?”
“No.”
“Where was he?”
“I don’t know. He w-went out.”
“All night?”
“All night. Yes.”
I added opportunity to our already established motive. “You said your brother wasn’t mad at you anymore. Why was he mad?”
“Because he told me he wasn’t.”
“I know, but why was he mad at you before?”
“That’s a secret.”
“It’s okay, Sanje. We’re police officers. It’s okay to tell secrets to the police.”
He balled his hands into fists. “N-NO! Y-you’re wrong. B-brothers d-d-don’t tell secrets.”
Maggie took over, talking like a mother to a baby. “It’s okay, Sanje. You’re right, brothers don’t tell secrets. Can you tell me about your lizards?”
“Th-they’re my pets.”
She soothed with her voice. “What do you do with your pets?”
Sanje was already fully calmed. This guy has a quick switch-happy to furious and back in thirty seconds.
“I breed them and train them,” he said, beaming a rotten-toothed smile.
Maggie kept up the questions. “What do you train them for?”
“I sell some of them, but I keep the best ones.”
“What do people do with the ones you sell?”
“I keep the best ones.”
Maggie took a deep breath. “Tell me about your sister.”
“Isabel.”
“Yes, Isabel. What happened to her?”
“She went away.”
“Did she say where she was going?”
“No. Sh-she just went away.”
“What about your brother. Can you tell us about him?”
“He’s not mad at me anymore.”
“Why was he mad?”
“That’s a secret.”
Maggie gave me a frustrated look.
This was going nowhere. It was time to get things moving. “Listen to me, Sanje. We know you raise lizards for fighting. You know ’guana fighting is illegal, so we’re going to take your lizards away.”
“N-No. Y-you can’t d-do that!”
“We can, and we will.”
He pulled at his greasy hair. “NO!”
“We’ll take all of them away from you. We’ll make sure you can’t get any more.”
“No, no, no.” Sanje started rocking from foot to foot and beating his head.
I talked as I pulled my piece. “We’ll have to kill them, of course.” I aimed at the monitor’s head, trying to keep my wobbling hand steady.
Sanje rushed me.
I sidestepped and shoved him in the back as he passed, using his own momentum to send him crashing into the wall head first.
He fell to the floor with a rough thud. Sound erupted from under the floorboards, the growls and snaps of an unknown number of monsters like the one in my weapon’s sights. Sanje Kapasi pulled his hands away from his head. They came away bloody. Scalp wounds were always the best bleeders.
“Ow!..Ow!” he sniveled.
“That’s right, Sanje. We’re going to kill your pets, and there is nothing you can do to stop us.”
“N-no, y-you can’t do that.”
“I’m starting with this one.” I made another show of aiming at the surgically enhanced monster, ready to fry it with one sustained burn. It had to be at least twice the size of any monitor I’d ever seen.
“No, don’t kill him! Don’t!” He started to cry. Tears ran from his eyes and snot poured from his nose.
“I’m gonna start with this one, but I’m going to kill them all, Sanje.” The monitor stared at me coldly unaware, testing the air with its tongue.
“Stop, Juno!” About fucking time Maggie stepped in, good cop to my bad.
“No. I’m going to kill this one right now!”
“No. Why can’t we tell Sanje to stop fighting ’guanas? He’ll stop if we tell him to. We don’t have to kill them.”
“Y-yes, I’ll stob,” he sobbed through clogged nasal passages.
I lowered my piece. “How can we trust him? He won’t even answer our questions.”
Maggie leaned in close, put her hand on his shoulder. “He’s right, Sanje. How can we trust you?”
“I b-bromise I won’t fight them.”
“Will you answer our questions?”
“Y-yes.”
I looked at Maggie, at the expression on her face. She was enjoying this. I put the lase-pistol back in my belt and tossed Sanje a musty towel, telling him to blow his nose and wipe the blood off. He wound up just smearing it all over.
Maggie baby-talked. “We want to know about your brother.”
“H-he’s not mad at me anymore.”
“Why was he mad at you?”
“I–I was s-stubid. He t-told me I was stubid.”
“What did you do that was stupid?”
“I didn’t give Vishnu the bill.”
“Who’s Vishnu?”
He pointed to the reprieved reptile.
“What kind of pill?”
“A w-white bill.”
“What does the pill do?”
“Makes him bleed and bleed.”
“I don’t understand. What do you mean it makes him keep bleeding?”
“When he gets cut, it makes him bleed and bleed and bleed.”
“An anticoagulant?”
Sanje just looked at her, his mouth hanging open.
Maggie asked, “Why did Jhuko want you to give the pill to Vishnu?”
“I told him Vishnu was the best. I c-couldn’t give him the bill. He w-was the best.”
“Did Vishnu win the fight?”
“Vishnu was the b-best.”
“So your brother told you to give Vishnu a pill, and you didn’t do it? Is that right?”
“Yes.”
Maggie took a long breath. “What happened next?”
“H-he couldn’t bay. B-because I didn’t g-give the bill to Vishnu.”
“Who did he have to pay?”
“A-a lawyer was after him.”
My mind went instantly to the pretentious prosecutor. “Was it Wilhelm Glazer?” I asked.
“N-no. A lawyer.” Then thinking I wasn’t understanding him, he clarified, “A law-yer.”
