With every fresh pump, my rage inflated until the words came bursting out of me in an uncontrolled torrent. I told her how stupid she was for jumping off a bridge. I blamed her for losing all our money, everything I ever worked for. I was out there every day, taking risks, hustling to get the money for that spine, and here she was, working against me. It was all her fault that I was under Ian's thumb. How was I supposed to save her when she pulled this shit?
She listened to it all, her eyes not meeting mine.
“When was he here?” I managed to ask in a strangled voice.
“Before you c-came this afternoon.”
“What did he say?”
“He said that he'd k-kill me if I didn't get… you to do what he… says. He said I couldn't… get away.” She smiled. “He's r-right about that.”
I didn't find it funny. “Did he…?” I pointed at the air hose.
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Why d-do you think?”
I knew why, but I couldn't bring myself to believe she'd go that far even though the facts were staring me in the face: she wanted to die. She couldn't do it herself. She wanted me to defy Ian so he'd come and make good on his promise. She let me think there was nothing wrong, nothing to worry about. I'd sat across the table from him, asking for money, not knowing he'd been here, in this room, with that tube pinched between his fingers…
My insides were boiling. My hand was fucking gyrating. I shook the bed's railing, wanting to rip it off and slam it to the floor. “How could you do that to me!”
Niki's eyes targeted mine. She spat furious words that got mangled by the pump. I drowned out her garbles with shouts of my own. Curses flew out of my mouth like angry bees from a shaken hive. A nurse popped her concerned head through the door. I sprayed a few curses in her direction, and she went running for help.
Niki gave up trying to speak. She stared at the ceiling, feigning boredom. I shook the bed until I got her attention and launched into a fresh tirade, the words coming out of my mouth so fast that I had no idea what I was even saying.
Finally spent, I dropped into a chair and wiped sweat from my brow. The nurse was back with help. “It's okay,” I told them. “I'm done.”
Not taking my word for it, she asked Niki if everything was all right.
She said, “Yes.” Then, after they reluctantly left, she said to me, “You know… I was going… to ask you the… same question.”
“What's that?”
“How can you d-do this to me?”
I left the hospital when Vlad showed. I posted the former cop outside Niki's door, fronting him enough money to negate a fourth of my recent profits.
I walked out saying, “See what you've done, Niki. You've really fucked things up.” The door closed behind me, shutting me off from her plug-pulling pleadings. Things would be different when she got her spine. She'd see I was right.
The rains were back. The city lights illuminated the long raindrops as they emerged from the darkened sky. I ducked into an all-night cafe and ordered up some eggs.
There was a vid screen hanging over the counter. The news was running a pic of the deceased Officer Ramos. He was a regular-looking guy. A real Everyman. Brown hair, brown eyes, and bronze skin. I recognized him now. He wasn't anybody I knew, but his face was probably one that I'd walked past a hundred times in the halls of KOP station. The gene eaters had really done a job on him. The gray pumpkin head I'd seen on the barge bore absolutely no resemblance to the smiling face on the screen. I read the scrolling headline, “Cop Crushed by Corroded Crane.” Not a bad lie. It sounded plausible. Shit was always falling off those barges, and this way they wouldn't have to show anybody his gene-eaten corpse. They could just say he got pancaked beyond recognition. The press would drop it in a day or two, and the KOP brass wouldn't have to admit their ineptitude in failing to catch an offworld serial killer with a baker's dozen to his name.
I spiked the coffee with a splash from my flask, trying to soothe away that sick feeling I'd had in my gut ever since Niki's “accident.” I thought of her watching Ian pinch off her air. My first instinct told me I should kill Ian. Eliminate the threat. What held me back was the knowledge that Ian was part of something bigger. I'd seen all those cops at Roby's last night. Some of them were the same ones that had joined in with Ian on that beatdown he laid on that sap cameraman. Ian was part of a cop clique, likely the leader. You couldn't take on one without taking on them all. I knew that better than anyone. I ran the biggest, baddest cop clique in KOP history for chrissakes.
I thought about the deal I'd made with Ian. The good news was Ian thought I actually wanted to be rid of Niki. If she only knew how that one backfired on her. She'd only made herself safer. If I'd known that he'd threatened her, I never would've asked for payment. As it was, Ian thought he had nothing to gain by killing her, and I'd be doing my best to keep him thinking exactly that. Things were going to get ugly. I had no illusions about getting involved with Ian. I knew Ian's type. Shit, I'd been his type. Once you got in with him, there was no getting out.
The eggs arrived, and I forced myself to choke them down despite the rebellion put up by my stomach.
I looked out the window. The sky was starting to brighten with the dawn. I could see the hospital from here. How could she do that to me? Maybe I shouldn't have saved her when she took her swan dive. Maybe I should've just let her die. That was what she wanted. That was what she told anybody who would listen. She had the shrinks convinced. Three separate ones came to me, each of them telling me she had the right to refuse medical treatment. It took all my powers of persuasion to bring them around to my way of thinking, a little cash flashing here, a little knuckle cracking there. It was hard enough getting her medical needs met; I didn't need a legal battle, too.
But why did she have to fight me like that? If that was the way she was going to be, maybe I should just give Niki her wish, let them yank the plug and wash my hands of it altogether.
My eggs wanted to come back up. I sucked some coffee down hoping it might settle my stomach. Stop thinking like that, I told myself. I couldn't let them pull the plug. I couldn't lose her. This was Niki we were talking about. There was still hope for us. I was certain of it. Broken and battered as the two of us were, I knew we still had a future. We were meant to be together.
And there was no fucking way in hell I was going to let some punk wannabe enforcer take her from me.
I called Maggie, told her we needed to meet.
NINE
The smell of acid burned my nose. I moved around to the upwind side of the fountain and watched the small team of city workers scrub the upper reaches of the statue from precarious scaffolds surrounding the four intertwined iguanas. The iguanas were sculpted to look like they'd climbed each other's bodies until the whole lot of them had lifted themselves off the ground. They were held up by their tails, which braided down and disappeared under a pool of black water at the fountain's base. The top halves of their bodies were stripped down to bare stone as the city workers had already scoured away the layers of molds and mosses. Their lower halves were still coated with furry growth that looked like wooly pants.
I saw Maggie approach from the far side of the fountain sporting designer duds and rain-speckled hair. The knot in my stomach started twisting at the thought of having to fess up.
“My god, what happened?” were the first words that came out of her mouth when she spotted my mummified hand.
“Did you get yourself scanned?”
“I'm clean.”
“Good.”
I had to be sure I wasn't bugged, so I'd gone down to an offworld tech shop to get myself checked out, and came up bug free. It made me sick how much money the scan cost. If I had to keep spending like this, I'd have no
