windows.
Maggie and I sat on Pedro’s stoop. She knew the whole story. How Paul approached Ram Bandur using Yashin’s opium as a good-faith offering. How Bandur took Paul’s deal and how they helped each other take over the city. She knew how Paul used Yashin’s money as a bribe fund and that the first person he put on the payroll was Deputy Coroner Abdul Salaam, who became his numero uno evidence tamperer and star witness.
She had listened to how Paul and I tore through the city. How criminals had two choices: work for Bandur, or go to jail. Paul ran the evidence room and the Office of the Coroner. He could trump up anything he wanted. He arrested his way to the top.
I’d told her how Paul seized control of KOP with his plata o plomo policy. The choice was yours: silver or lead. Paul dished Bandur money to anybody who would take it, and for those who didn’t, I dished out the lead. I was the enforcer in a skull-cracking, reputation-smearing rampage through KOP. I learned how to turn my temper on in an instant. I wreaked vengeance on all who opposed Paul. Everybody feared me.
She’d learned how Paul picked tourist neighborhoods that Bandur had to keep crime free. In exchange, Bandur was permitted to war with his enemies, immune to prosecution. Paul molded the city to his vision of what was best for Lagarto. So what if he got rich along the way? You couldn’t expect him to do a job without getting paid. What did it matter that crime never dropped? Who cared that Paul’s attempt to bring more tourists to Lagarto only resulted in a boom of offworld-operated resorts that kept all the big money in offworld hands? At least he did something.
I’d unloaded twenty-five years of sin on Maggie, only holding one thing back: that Niki murdered her parents. Niki still hadn’t even admitted it to me. Some secrets are best left buried. I let Maggie think our patsy really did it. The poor bastard didn’t even survive the first week of his incarceration before he was tortured to death by some inmates who were trying to make him spill where he’d hidden Yashin’s stash.
We sat quiet for a while. Maggie looked at me, her features hard to read in the dark. She put her hand on my shoulder and leaned in close. My skin tingled; my heart raced. She kissed my cheek. I turned to her lips, but they were already gone. I wanted to put my arms around her, but I held back as my brain struggled to interpret her gesture. I wanted to believe she was attracted to me, but…
Could be she was just delirious-she hadn’t slept for two days. Could be she just felt sorry for me. Could be she was thanking me for making her feel less guilty about Pedro’s death by dwarfing her error with the quarter- century of broken dreams, broken lives, and broken skulls I’d left behind. Then again, it could be she wanted me to kiss her. I was on the verge…
She stood before I got the chance. “Let’s get going. We have work to do,” she said.
Maggie followed me into the Floodbank bar. The place was empty except for the bartender, who was sweeping up after closing. “We’re closed,” he said.
Maggie held up the bar bill with Pedro’s address written on the back. “You passed this note to one of your customers. Who told you to do it?”
He stopped sweeping and leaned on the broomstick handle in a belligerent fashion. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t pass no note.”
I ran at him. He reflexively swung the broom. The handle bounced off my arm. I drove my shoulder into his chest, and brought him down hard to the floor. I was on top of him. Years of pent-up enforcer rage drove my piston fists, my right doing as much damage as my left. My blood pumped through my veins, while his pumped from nose and mouth. He gave up the struggle and covered his face, submitting to the beating.
I started taking my time, a cat playing with its prey. I picked and chose shots through his guarding hands. I felt better than I had in years. The enforcer was back. So what if I couldn’t shoot anymore?
Maggie strode forward. She stood over us, her legs spread wide, hands on hips, her face pure cool. She held out the bar bill. He moved his hands off his face and looked at it through teary eyes. She spoke slow and deliberate, enunciating every syllable. “Who told you to give this note to Ali Zorno?”
I was primed for the words Mayor Samir.
He sobbed through a wrecked mouth. He said, “Mdoba, Sanders Mdoba.”
Maggie gave me a look that said, “I told you so.”
Son of a bitch! Sanders Mdoba: I knew him. He ran the East Side O dealers for the Bandur cartel. They were supposed to be on our side.
TWENTY-TWO
My eyes stung when I forced them open. Fuck me-it was early. The sky hadn’t even begun to brighten with the coming dawn. Ali Zorno had come to me in my dreams, wearing a lip mask and charging with a butcher knife while my father held me down. Two sweaty wake-ups later, I’d used a triple-shot of brandy to put myself under.
I sat up; Niki stirred. I imagined a lip mask strung over her face. A shake of my head couldn’t dispel the image. I labored my aching body out of bed. The brandy fog made me wonder if two hours of uninterrupted sleep was worth going to bed at all. I bumped my way into the shower and let the warm water massage me awake.
In a perverse attempt to shake the image of Niki wearing a lip mask, I recalled Pedro’s death, his hands to his throat in a futile attempt to keep his blood from spilling. If only I’d gotten there a minute earlier…What good would that have done? I would’ve burnt the whole place down before I hit Zorno. I looked at my hand shaking under the trickling water-fucking useless.
I rubbed soap into my scraped fists, relishing the sting. I found a deep cut on one of my knuckles. I hadn’t realized I’d cut myself so badly. With so much of the bartender’s blood on my hands last night, I hadn’t noticed. The cut was only a couple centimeters long, but an open wound was an open wound. Taking a close look, I could see the tiny wriggling shapes of maggots. Shit, I’d have to get it cleaned out.
Last night’s events ran through my mind. When had I turned into such a joke? Zorno killed our witness while we were following him. How could I have let that happen? It had been my idea to follow him. I should’ve arrested him the first time I’d seen him. I could’ve crossed the street with my gun under the bag of potatoes. I could’ve made up some shit to say to him like, “Helluva downpour.” I could’ve walked right up to him, real close, then dropped the bag, my piece right in his face, close enough that I couldn’t miss if he tried anything, shaking hand or not.
If I had just arrested the fishhook-faced asshole, I could’ve beat the truth out of him. I used to strong-arm all the time. I was a first-rate expert with over two decades of experience. I probably didn’t even need to torture him. I bet I even could’ve gotten him talking with some sick game like showing him holos of his mommy with the lips cut out, or maybe pasting a holo of Zorno’s own fubar lips on top of hers. Instead, I had pushed Maggie into following him.
Maggie was blaming herself for the kid’s death, but the fault was pure Juno. She was going to carry that guilt for the rest of her life. It would eat her up. I knew what it was like, a hundred times over.
Dammit, all of that was in the past. Nothing to be done about it now. I hit the brakes on my thoughts and changed gears from reverse to drive. Where do we go from here? I was supposed to find a link to the mayor, and instead I’d found Sanders Mdoba. He was the one who passed Zorno the skinny on our witness, and he was a high- ranking member of the Bandur organization, the same outfit that Paul and I had been conspiring with for all these years. Hell, Paul made the Bandur organization what it was. Without Paul, they’d still be just a neighborhood outfit.
Reluctantly, I turned off the faucet and watched the ankle-deep water swirl down the rusted drain before I got out and dried off with a towel that smelled like mildew. I needed to tend to the cut on my knuckle. I rummaged under the sink, trying to find the fly gel.
“Juno, what are you doing?”
I looked up from my kneeling position to see Niki in the bathroom doorway. My first instinct told me to hide my hands, but I could see it was already too late. Niki was looking at my hands with a resigned look on her face. She gestured at the toilet, and I took a seat while she took my hands in hers. “You have to be more careful.” She didn’t say it as a nag. She said it like she meant it.
“I know,” I said.
