overflowing with maggots. Abdul was bagging some maggot samples, cleaning out the rest. Lagartan flies were nastier than flies from any other planet. They would drop eggs from the air. Living or dead, an open wound would get infested in less than five minutes. Abdul would use the maggots to nail down the time of attack-very accurate.
The corpse’s throat was cut deep and wide. His face was already cleaned and had yellow gel laid on thick-the gel would kill flies and eggs. The mutilations were still visible under the gel mask. The stiff’s teeth and gums were showing-lips gone, cheeks gone. The rest of his face was pocked and chewed upon-lizards again.
I looked up to find Josephs and Kim watching my temporary partner. She was focused on Abdul’s ME work. Her face was pale…very pale, but holding together.
Yuan Kim was looking stupid-satisfied now, imagining how he was going to spend the five g’s.
Josephs decided to push things. “The killer must’ve used a knife on the face. He trimmed away the lips and cheeks real careful. Notice there’s no cuts on the gums. My father was a butcher. I used to watch him work. He would trim the fat off beef the same way. Grab a hold of the fat and pull. Run a knife along nice and slow. Sometimes the fat would slip through his fingers. He’d have to grab on tight.”
Maggie Orzo turned green; Kim turned red, ticked to the nth. Josephs’s father was never a butcher. Maggie closed her eyes and breathed deep, concentrating hard. She opened her eyes and eyeballed the gore with determination. Color started to return to her cheeks. She was a strong woman. Josephs saw her pull herself together and stormed off. Kim was beaming, five thou richer.
Abdul finished cleaning out the maggots and started applying gel to the body wounds.
I leaned in close; the blood stench just about knocked me over. “Stab wounds.”
The old coroner stopped and wiped his face off with a rag. The top of his bald head was still speckled with perspiration. Some drops broke loose and ran down his face, reminding me of a windshield the second after the wipers sweep it dry. “I count fourteen to the torso. Three slash wounds to the throat. Killer grabbed him from behind, dragged the blade across the throat right, left, right. Nobody would have heard a thing.”
“Makes the killer right-handed?”
“That’s right, blade in the right hand…pull to the right, push left, then pull right again. Like a saw. Here’s the first incision. Notice how the skin is torn here, not sliced. The blade was dull.” He pulled the edges of the wound open. “See the windpipe, there? Barely scratched on the first swipe. The second and third slices cut deeper. It was a long blade, maybe thirty centimeters. Our vic must’ve been dead inside a minute or two. Then the killer stabbed him repeatedly and cut up his face.”
Maggie Orzo asked, “Can you determine what kind of knife was used?”
“I can’t tell you for sure, but when I get him to the morgue, I’ll be able to measure the wounds precisely and compare them against every kind of knife I can find. There are no burns, so he didn’t use a lase-blade. My guess is a plain ol’ butcher knife.”
Josephs returned with a bowl of soup from the stand down the street. We all turned to look at him. He was up to something. It was way too hot for soup.
Kim looked stupid-suspicious. “What you got there?”
“Menudo.”
Oh shit. Here we go.
Josephs stood over the body and started to dig in, sweat dripping off his nose into the bowl. Maggie the rook seemed wobbly.
Josephs carried on, acting superfriendly. “Where are my manners? Anybody want some? You have to like tripe. Some people don’t like it. It’s stomach, you know. I love it. Let me see if I can find some.” He fished with his spoon. “Ah, there’s a big chunk. Anybody want it? No? Okay, suit yourselves.” He slurped it in then talked with his mouth full. “Mm, not the best tripe I’ve ever had. A little on the chewy side. You have to prepare it just right.”
That did it. She took off, hurrying for the door to the Lotus. She didn’t make it far before she bent over and groaned up her breakfast.
Yuan Kim was livid-just lost five thou, and that wasn’t even the worst of it. Mark Josephs was not the type to let you forget it. Josephs laid a shit-eating grin on Kim…only the beginning.
Maggie Orzo finished barfing and wiped her chin. She looked back at us. I tried to quit smiling, too late. Her sky eyes burned into me. She headed into the Lotus to find a bathroom.
I didn’t know what the hell Paul was thinking teaming me up with her. I didn’t care who the rich girl’s parents were. I wanted her out.
THREE
I scoped the area. The blood trail started by the door with just a few drops. I thought it through: The killer must’ve hidden behind the cooling unit and waited for Lieutenant Dmitri Vlotsky to come out of the Lotus. Then he snatched him from behind and sliced his throat straightaway. There wasn’t much blood at the door-too easy for somebody to spot. The perp dragged Vlotsky down the alley, quick, before he was seen. Then he stuck him fourteen times and cut his lips off. Next, he took Vlotsky’s money and split.
It didn’t play as a robbery. Muggers killed out of necessity. They usually didn’t use knives, and when they did, they used lase-blades, not butcher knives. It wasn’t that lase-blades cut that much better-a sharp knife could kill you just as well-but lase-blades were so much more intimidating. Imagine your vic was watching you swing the tight beam of a lase-blade through the air. He’d hear the crackle of humidity flash-frying as it came in contact with the blade. Flies attracted to the light would pop off the blade’s edge like black popcorn. Your vic would be feeling mighty compliant by now. There was no way a mugger was going to use a regular old knife. The vic might’ve started thinking he had a chance if he fought back. Definitely not a robbery. Besides, muggers didn’t take their victim’s lips with them. What would a pair of lips bring on the black market anyway?
Conclusion: Our killer was either a hit man trying to throw us off course with the mutilations or a genuine psycho…or both.
Maggie Orzo came back out to the alley wearing a clean shirt. She looked less sick but no less steamed. She was working up to saying something.
I cut her off before she could give me some shit about how I needed to respect her as a cop. I didn’t want to hear it. “We have to canvass the area. You ready?”
She answered with an off-guard, “Yeah, I guess so.”
A welcome gust of cool greeted us upon entering the Lotus. Rose had dry shirts at the ready-classy place. I dipped behind a screen, stripped my shirt off, and dropped it into a hamper. I washed my face in a basin of fragrant water that had flower petals floating on top. I toweled and made a rare check in the mirror. My hair was low-tide receding and frothing white at the edges. My slightly darker than average skin and barely kinked hair were the last remnants of my diluted African blood. I looked more Latin than African. Most everybody on Lagarto looked Latin, though many had a little Asian or a little European mixed in. We were all mutts of one sort or another.
I slipped one of Rose’s white short-sleeves over the sturdy shoulders I’d inherited from my wife-beating coward of a father. I labored over the buttons with one hand-fucking ridiculous. Niki had taken all of my own shirts to my tailor and had the buttons replaced with snaps.
A houseboy grabbed the hamper when I came out from behind the screen. From experience, I knew he’d have my shirt laundered and ready for pickup in thirty minutes.
Rose wore a wrinkled sarong, and her lipstick was uneven. I’d never seen her look so scattered. She was usually done up nice, if a bit overdone. “Oh, Juno. I am so glad to see you.”
“Hi, Rose. You’ve met Detective Orzo?”
“Yes, of course. You’re looking much better, dear. Would you like some tea?”
“Yes, we’d like that,” I answered.
Another houseboy bolted off.
She led us into her staging area, where she would serve her clients tea and sweets. The room was decked out in rugs and antiques. The Lotus was only for the refined palate. The air in the room choked with the smell of soaked-in perfume. My new partner and I sat on wooden chairs with embroidered cushions, the johns’ seats. We were sitting opposite a floor-to-ceiling two-way mirror looking into the empty showroom. Its chairs, sofas, and
