No answer. I knocked again…still nothing. I took the keycard out of my pocket and waved it at the reader. I held up three fingers for Maggie then mouthed, “One…two…three…”
We stormed in, weapons raised in two-handed grips… Empty. Damn.
Maggie holstered her weapon.
My piece was wobbling in my hands. I self-consciously put the gun away. “Let’s search the place.”
“Don’t we need a warrant for that?”
“How do we know what we need a warrant for until we know what he’s got in here?”
She gave me a sly grin. She was catching on. Maggie rifled the dresser drawers while I checked out the bed. The sheets were stained brown in several places. The blanket looked chewed upon. I lifted the mattress. Bugs ran for cover, disappearing into mattress holes.
Maggie closed the last of the drawers. “There’s nothing in the dresser. Find anything?”
“Not yet.” I upended the mattress and braved the insects by reaching into any hole big enough to fit my hand. I felt them skittering over my skin as I probed around the moist insides of the mattress. Every time I pulled my hand out, I flicked my wrist and sent the hangers-on skipping across the floor. There! Something…plastic. I managed a grip and extracted a shopping bag.
Maggie said, “What are you waiting for?”
I opened the bag. Lying on top was a magazine. The cover showed some actress with her mouth cut out. A quick thumb-through showed mouthless celebrities on every page.
I went back into the bag and grabbed hold of two bundles of money. Talking to myself as much as Maggie, I said, “Where the hell did he get that?”
I passed a stack to Maggie who ran through the bills. “They’re all ten-thousands. There has to be at least a million pesos here, maybe two.” Enough money to buy a house…a nice house.
Maggie turned the bundle over. There was something on the bottom. She stripped off the rubber band and unfolded a photograph of Lieutenant Dmitri Vlotsky saluting in uniform-Vlotsky’s address scribbled on the back. “What the hell?”
I reached into the bag and removed a roll of cloth. I began unwrapping the plain white fabric with red stains at the center. We both knew what we’d find, but I continued with morbid obligation. I pulled over the last fold of cloth, exposing a piece of red flesh-Vlotsky’s lips.
Maggie asked, “What’s that string for?”
There was a string running from the backside of one cheek to the other.
“I don’t know. It’s like a…” I couldn’t finish.
“Like a mask,” she said.
“Yeah. A mask.” An image of Ali Zorno standing in front of the mirror with Vlotsky’s lips strung over his ears, his patchwork face reflecting back a set of normal lips, seared itself into my brain.
Maggie shivered the horror away and said, “We’ve got the bastard, Juno. When Abdul matches this up to Vlotsky’s body, we’ll be able to give the case to the DA. Between that and Pedro’s testimony, Zorno won’t stand a chance. He’ll be executed.”
“Zorno’s just the hitter, Maggie. This wasn’t a serial killing. He was hired to whack Vlotsky. That’s where the money came from. He got half the money up front along with Vlotsky’s picture and address, the other half after he did the job.”
Ali Zorno: psycho for hire. Paul’s mayoral suspicions came to me front and center.
Maggie asked, “How are we going to get him to talk, tell us who paid him?”
“He won’t squeal,” I said. “I say we tail him-see who he talks to.”
Maggie looked skeptical. How could we let a serial killer roam around untouched?
She was right, but I was tasting mayor. I was already envisioning Mayor Samir’s head on a platter with me as the waiter. I’d be damned if I let him take KOP away from me and Paul. We took it a quarter-century ago. It was ours. fifteen
W E put everything back the way it had been, locked the door, and went back down to the building manager. I slapped the keycard on the counter, told the old hag, “We were never here.”
I moved the car across the street for a better view of the front and got a spot in the shade. I kept the car running with the pedal floored to keep the aircon pumping.
I settled into my seat. Maggie had her head leaning on the window-probably fell asleep. She’d been up all night.
I scoped the parade of ex-cons passing in and out of the boardinghouse-zeroed on harelips.
“Juno?”
I guess she wasn’t asleep. “Yeah.”
“How’s your jaw?”
“It hurts a little, not too bad anymore. It looks worse than it is.”
“You know I can take care of myself, don’t you?”
“Yeah. I know.”
“Then why did you attack Mark Josephs like that?”
“I was angry.”
“You’re always angry.”
“Yeah.”
“Yuan Kim talked to me about you.”
“The guy’s an idiot, Maggie.”
“I know he is, but don’t you want to know what he said?”
“What?”
Maggie tucked her hair behind her ear. “He said he’s sorry that I have to work with you.”
“Why’s that?”
“He had a lot of reasons.”
“Tell me.”
“He said you’re just a hothead, and you’re still working vice because you have no smarts for being in homicide. He said the only way you got anywhere at all was by using muscle to intimidate people, and you’re too dumb to see that nobody is afraid of you anymore. He called you a shaky old man that should have been bounced out of the force years ago.”
“Gee, thanks for sugarcoating it, Maggie.”
With an amused look, she said, “There was more.”
“I can’t wait to hear it.”
“He said you’re the chief’s bitch.”
“He said ‘bitch’?”
Now she was laughing as she nodded her head. “He said Chief Chang tells you what to think. He’d be surprised if you ever had a thought of your own.”
“Was that it?” I asked as I wished that I’d pounded that asshole when I had the chance.
“He said you would have lost your job a long time ago if you weren’t the chief’s yes-man. He thinks the only reason that the chief threw this case to you is as a favor, so you could prove you can still perform.”
“What do you think?”
“He’s right about you being a hothead, but he’s wrong about everything else, especially the part about you being stupid. He shouldn’t underestimate you like that. I think Chief Chang put you on this case because he wants it solved, and he knows you’ll do whatever it takes to get results. Now, I’ve been honest; you tell me why you got so angry at Josephs that you attacked him.”
“Hell, I don’t know what to tell you, Maggie. I know you can take care of yourself, and I know you don’t need me to protect you, but when I saw what he did to your picture, it made me angry that he would disrespect you like that. You’re my partner.” I braced for another lecture.
Maggie didn’t say anything for a while. “Thanks.” She patted my hand-the shaking one-then let her hand rest over mine. I froze. Pull away! My hand stayed where it was. My heartbeat picked up, and my body went prickly.
She took her hand back and focused on the door.
I scrambled for words. The silence was stifling. “You surprise me. I thought you’d still be furious with
