“Are they going to kill you?”
“Not if you do what Juno says. Okay?”
I cut Mdoba off then spoke to Malis. “I want you to bring the vid to me.”
“I want money,” she said. Mdoba tensed.
“I don’t think you understand,” I said. “If you don’t bring me the vid, he’ll die.”
“I understand just fine. Go ahead and kill him, I don’t care. How much can you pay?” Mdoba was fucked-sold out by his squeeze.
Mdoba turned wild at her betrayal. He was shouting and flailing his half-hands. The kitchen air crackled with lase-fire. Mdoba took three hits, the last to the head. Tipaldi kept his lase-pistol on target until Mdoba slumped over dead. Tipaldi put his piece back in his belt.
Maggie was stunned. I shrugged.
Malis and I settled on price. She told me she was already on her way back to Koba to retrieve the vid. She said to meet her at Club Dynasty on Bangkok at 2:00 AM.
I rang up Paul. His holo dropped into the Kapasi brothers’ living room, setting off another round of hysterical lizard fits. “Paul, it’s Juno.”
“Yeah.”
“We have confirmation that Mayor Samir and Carlos Simba are conspiring together. They’re planning to take you and Bandur out.”
Silence dragged on the other end. Paul said, “You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have proof?”
“Mdoba’s girlfriend is selling us a vid of the mayor telling Mdoba about our witness. We’re meeting her at-” I almost said the name of the place, but I smartly held back. No telling who could be listening in. “We’re meeting her in a couple hours.”
“You want backup?”
“No,” I said. Yuan Kim was a confirmed rat. C of D Banks was a likely rat. And it might not stop there. At this point, I didn’t trust any cops not named Paul or Maggie. “We better do this alone.”
“I understand. Bring it to my office as soon as you get it. We’ll hash out how to go about getting the mayor neutralized.”
“Got it. I’ll see you there.”
Paul sounded more exhausted than relieved. “Thanks, Juno.”
I clicked off.
Maggie came up from behind and spoke in a quiet voice, not wanting Sasaki and Tipaldi to listen in from the kitchen. With all the lizard chatter coming from the cages, she didn’t have to worry. “How long is this going to take?” she asked. “We have to get moving.”
“It’ll probably take Tip another ten or fifteen minutes to finish cleaning up. We’ll hitch a ride back to Koba in Sasaki’s flyer. We have plenty of time.”
Maggie didn’t look pleased about the idea of riding back with Sasaki and Tipaldi. “They didn’t have to kill him.”
“He was no use anymore.”
Maggie shook her head disgustedly.
“What?” I said. “You really care what happens to a piece of trash like Mdoba?”
“It’s you I’m worried about.”
“What does that mean?”
“You act like this was no big deal. They fed a man’s hands to a monitor for god’s sake and you could care less.”
“What do you think we did to that guy in Tenttown? And that bartender?”
“We didn’t kill them.”
“No. I just beat the shit out of them.”
“I know,” she said, and she covered her face with her hands. “That was wrong. I shouldn’t have let you do it.”
“If I hadn’t done it, we’d still be wondering how our witness got killed right in front of us.”
“This isn’t why I became a cop, Juno. I wanted to do good.”
“We are doing good, Maggie. We’re going to stop a corrupt mayor.”
She looked me in the eye. “But KOP is corrupt. You’re corrupt. The chief’s corrupt. And now I’m corrupt. What good does it do to stop a corrupt mayor when we’re corrupt ourselves?”
“No. We’re different from the mayor. The mayor’s out for himself. He’s conspiring with slavers. ”
“You and Chief Chang conspire with those animals in there. You really think you’re better than the mayor?”
Her words cut right through me, the way the truth always did.
TWENTY-SEVEN
JUNE 32, 2787
It was time to meet Malis. Maggie and I cruised through the city. I turned onto the Bangkok Street Strip. The street was still abuzz with late night action. Cars weaved helter-skelter with bikes zipping in between. Partiers rollicked in every direction, brandy glasses in hand. Signs interleaved so tightly over the narrow street that they created a neon ceiling. I parked at the end of the block rather than battle my way down the pedestrian-crowded street.
We stuck to the less crowded street center as we walked. Broken glass crunched under my shoes. Flashing neon stung my eyes. Doormen solicited offworld passersby with megaphone-amplified shouts of “First drink free” and “Live sex acts onstage.” My brain fizzed with overload.
The Club Dynasty doorwoman collected cover charges in full S amp;M regalia: monitor-hide skivvies and studded collar. She play-whipped customers through the door. I passed her a couple bills. She ran her whip up my thigh, stopping just short of my crotch. I ducked the hand she extended toward my temple. She moved for Maggie, touching the device attached to her fingertips to Maggie’s temple, bombarding her brain with pornographic imagery. Maggie jerked away. I should’ve warned her.
Club Dynasty blared with eardrum-rattling dance beats. The dance floor was fogged over with O smoke. A small number of offworld men laid down dance moves with scads of Lagartan women who were wearing homemade miniskirts and cheap high heels. The women were battling for the affections of the offworld men. Hopes of finding an offworld suitor brought them out to the clubs with Cinderella dreams.
It didn’t happen often, but it did happen. An offworld man would fall in love and take one of our women up to the orbiting castle in the sky. For her, it would be a dream come true. She’d never go hungry, and her life expectancy would be extended by a hundred years or more. But marrying an offworlder was rare. For most, the night would degenerate into a ruthless slut-off competition. The one who ground and teased the best would get to sleep with the offworlder, all but certain to be discarded the next morning.
We circled the dance floor, scoping tables for Malis. Discount perfume and opium smoke burned my throat. Maggie grabbed my elbow and pointed. Malis was in a wraparound booth surrounded by doped-up bar trash, passing an O pipe.
Maggie showed her shield to the group. Malis smiled and waved in drug-stupor stupidity. Higher-than-a-kite girlfriends cleared out and weaved to the dance floor. Maggie and I escorted Malis to the restrooms. There was a line at the women’s. A steady stream of women was coming out with freshly poofed hair and water-doused shirts that clung to braless bods. We took her into the men’s. The bathroom was empty except for two offworld men swapping stories at the sink. One modeled marbled skin that made him look like statue. The other was going with his everyday look-chiseled chin, sharp eyes, and a beguiling smile. A genetically enhanced ten. I badged them out.
Maggie seized Malis’s bag.
