fucked the whole thing up.”
“How?”
“I gave Kapasi half the dough up front. I was going to give him the other half after he did the job. He was running around in the jungle with Vlotsky for days. How hard could it be to pop the guy?”
“He didn’t do it?”
“He didn’t do shit. I don’t know if he ain’t got the cojones or what. I figured that a guy who sells his sister as a slave won’t mind killing somebody, but this guy must not like to get his hands dirty. I called him on it, and he said the unit was going on leave. I thought, ‘Good, then I can do it myself.’ I told him to send my money back, but the fucker kept it, and he called me a couple days later and told me he killed Vlotsky. What kind of fucked-up job is that?”
“Then what?”
“A few days later, I got tipped off that there was a witness. I tried to get Kapasi on the line, but the Army had him in some kind of lockup. They were worried that Vlotsky’s murder was Army-related. It cost me a fucking fortune in bribes to get him on the line. I told him that somebody saw him kill Lieutenant Vlotsky. He told me there was no way anybody saw him kill Vlotsky since he didn’t kill him. Can you believe this asshole? I said, ‘If you didn’t kill him, who did?’ He told me he gave the front money to his old cellmate from the Zoo to do the job. He was going to keep the second payment for himself. ‘For the referral,’ he said.”
Mdoba asked for more water. He coughed most of it up before carrying on. “I about shit on the spot. He told me about Zorno. You already know about him since you killed him.”
Holes were filling in lightning fast. My brain raced to keep up-Simba hired Mdoba to fix the board’s vote; Mdoba hired Kapasi to whack Lieutenant Vlotsky; Kapasi subcontracted the job to lip-obsessed serial killer Ali Zorno. “Why’d you come here to Kapasi’s house?”
“Kapasi went back on leave today. The Army decided he had nothing to do with Vlotsky’s death, so they let him go. He called me, asking for the second half of his payment. I acted real nice and told him he did a great job, and I’d be there as soon as I could. I met him here and told him I wasn’t going to pay him. You should have seen him getting all pissy about it. Why should I pay him for hitting Vlotsky when he didn’t hit nobody?”
“What did you do to him?”
“I shot him. He had it coming to him. Then his dumb-fuck brother got all pathetic, crying and shit, so I burned a hole through his chest to put him out of his misery. I figure he’s better off dead. His momma shoulda smothered him the minute she popped him out and saw he was a retard, am I right?”
Maggie was watching now. The repulsive torture scene not quite so repulsive anymore.
Mdoba rattled on. “Once I finished feeding the Kapasi brothers to the lizards, I was gonna open the cage and let the monitors loose. Let ’em shit the evidence all over Loja. Once I hosed that basement down there was no way it coulda gotten traced back to me.”
After another dose of morphine, I asked, “What’s Simba’s relationship with Mayor Samir?”
“They’re working together.”
This final confirmation announced Paul’s vulnerability in bright lights. “How so?”
“Simba approached Samir before the elections, asked him, ‘Why split the power four ways when we can split it two?’ You see what he meant? Bandur runs the drugs, gambling, loan-sharking, and prostitution in Koba. Chief Chang runs KOP. Mayor Samir runs the city government, and Simba runs his slavery operation. Get rid of Bandur and Chang, and you got only two left-Simba for the illegal shit and Mayor Samir for everything else.”
The battle lines were finally clearly drawn-Simba, Nguyen, and the mayor versus Paul, Bandur, and me. “How is the mayor planning to bring down Chief Chang?”
“I don’t know that part. Simba never told me. All I know is they talk every day, so they can coordinate things.”
“Who tipped you off about our witness?”
“Mayor Samir.”
“Mayor Samir?”
“Yeah. He came to my boat to tell me.”
“He was on your boat?”
“That’s what I said. He told me that a cop-”
“Which cop?”
“Some guy named Kim. This Kim told the mayor that you guys had a witness, so the mayor came and told me about it.”
“What exactly did he say?”
“I just told you.”
“Tell me again.”
Mdoba used a nursing-home voice-slow, loud, and deliberate. “He said that Kim from Homicide Division came and told him that there was a witness to the Vlotsky murder-some peeping-tom kid. He recited the kid’s name and address for me, and then he left.”
Make Yuan Kim our rat-fink cop.
Maggie stepped over and leaned into Mdoba’s line of vision. “Do you have proof that the mayor came to your boat?”
“I have it on vid. I know how to cover my ass. He may be mayor, but he ain’t half as smart as he thinks he is.”
“Where’s the vid?”
He was grinning now. “How ’bout lettin’ me walk outta here?”
Sasaki said, “Tip, I think Juno could use your help.”
Tipaldi moved in fast. He yanked one of Mdoba’s hands toward the monitor who was hungry for seconds.
Mdoba shrieked. “STOP! STOP! I don’t know where it is. STOP!”
Tipaldi stopped. “What do you mean you don’t know?”
Mdoba panted, “I gave it to my girlfriend. I told her to hide it.”
“Where’d she put it?”
The monitor was snapping at Mdoba’s just-out-of-reach hand.
Mdoba said, “I don’t know! I told her not to tell me where she put it. If you don’t let me outta here, she’ll have it destroyed. Call her. She’ll tell you.”
We needed that vid. It was our smoking gun. I turned to Sasaki. “What do you say?”
Sasaki fingered his lapels, shaking his head no.
“Paul needs this,” I said with determined desperation. “You have to do this for him.”
“Leaving a traitor alive is bad for business, Juno. We can’t have people thinking it’s okay to betray us.”
“He’s already lost most of his fingers. Tell people you let him live so that when people see his hands, it’ll remind them of what happens to traitors.”
Sasaki was thinking it over.
I said, “Paul won’t survive without that vid, Matsuo.”
Sasaki rubbed his face with a pinkyless hand and gave the smallest nod.
I called Mdoba’s boat. Malis’s buxom hologram dropped into the kitchen. I had it one-way conferenced- everybody could hear her side of the conversation, but she could only hear me.
“Have you ever met Mayor Samir?” I asked.
“Sure. He came to the boat to talk with Sanders.”
“What about?”
“You want the vid, don’t you?”
“How’d you know?”
“Sanders told me to hide it. He said that if he got in trouble, I should use the vid to get him out. Is he in trouble?”
“Yes, he is.”
“How can I be sure?”
I let Mdoba’s voice on the line. “Do what he says, babe. Everthing’s gonna be okay if you just do what he says.”
