TWENTY-NINE
DECEMBER 5, 2788
I puttered up to the Jungle Pride, me and my two-cadaver cargo, one still in the wrapper, the other cooked medium well. I wondered how Yuri was doing in the dark. A check of my watch told me it had been more than two hours since we'd left him cuffed to that pipe. It was already half past midnight.
I'd stayed in that field with Ian's body for at least an hour, hashing it all out in my head. The plan was solid. All I had to do was get Maggie to sell it to her lieutenant. The rest was up to me.
I killed the motor and stood up, my legs telling me they weren't ready for more exertion. Hauling those two bodies out of that field had wasted what was left of my strength. And after having used these same legs to hold off a group of panicked offworlders, I hadn't had much to begin with. I suddenly remembered the knife, the one used to kill Raj. I picked it up from the boat's floor and heaved it into the river. That was a murder that would remain unsolved. I tied off and hauled myself up to the rippled pier. I made my way along the decrepit docking, choosing my path carefully, trying to stay away from the collapsed portions.
Yuri was going to have a hell of a time carrying those bodies across. I'd have to check the skiff for life vests. He'd need one if he fell through.
My knees creaked as I climbed the gangway. At the top, I could hear the drone of a thousand buzzing flies. I turned on the penlight. Hoshi's body was crawling with lizards, all of them chattering and clicking. Some fled when I passed, others hissed, and the rest just kept feeding.
I found Yuri where I'd left him. He looked relieved to see me. Two hours was plenty of time for him to start thinking I wasn't coming back for him.
I sat down on the floor. I caught a whiff of urine, and saw the stains running down the wall a short ways down. “Couldn't you hold it?” I said.
“Not for two hours,” he said petulantly.
He was already ticking me off with his big-baby routine. I told myself to let it go. At least he wasn't crying anymore. “Do you know who I am?”
“No. But Ian told me to look out for a guy with his hand in a cast.”
“What did he say about me?”
“Nothing. He just said to call him if I saw you.”
He had no idea who I was. As I'd hoped, I could be anybody I wanted. Ian's little need-to-know policy was about to bite Yuri in the ass. I kept my face straight. “I'm a cop, Yuri.”
“I figured that.”
“I'm a captain. I'm Ian's boss's boss. Consider yourself caught. We have you on so many counts, I haven't had time to add them all up.”
He nodded, his jowls puffing in and out under his chin. I could tell he was ready to talk. The guy was caught so red-handed that he could pass for somebody who sliced beets for a living. When you caught a guy dead to rights like that, he'd usually just come out with it, no lies, no arguments. Could be a guilty conscience that would make them confess, or maybe it was just the fact that they'd spent so much time looking over their shoulders that it was a relief to finally look straight ahead. Either way, Yuri was ready, and I made it a little easier on him by telling him the code to his cuffs so he could free his wrists.
“I think we can help each other,” I said.
He perked up a little. “How's that?”
“Why don't you tell me what you know first, and we'll see.”
“What do you want to know?”
“I want to know how you got into the business of selling executions. Start with Horst Jeffers. Tell me how you met him.”
Yuri didn't look me in the eye as he talked. Instead, he picked at a fold in his pants. “He hired me for a job. He had a tour group going on a tiger hunt, and he wanted somebody to film it so he could sell the vids to them.”
“I thought tiger hunts were just a cover.”
“They were, but sometimes people would sign up anyway. Horst doesn't like to turn money away.”
I nodded. “Go on.”
“Well, like I said, he hired me. He saw one of my ads on a lamppost. I used to freelance a lot, you know, weddings, parties, that kind of thing. The tiger hunt was a three-day job, so I took some sick days to do it.”
“The pay was good?”
“The pay was great. I told Horst that whenever he needed me, I'd be available.”
“Is that when he told you about the fuck flicks he wanted to make?”
“That wasn't until later, but yeah, he approached me about the movies. He knew I worked for Lagarto Libre, and he thought I might be able to let him in late at night so we could use the studio space.”
“And you approached your boss about it?”
“No. I thought I'd get fired if Hector found out what we were doing. I was really careful, but he found out anyway. I think one of the cleaning crew tipped him off.”
“Was he angry?”
“He acted angry, but he wasn't really. He just wanted a cut of the profits.”
“I heard he liked to be there during the shoots.”
“Yeah,” he said. “He'd say he had to be there to make sure nothing went wrong. He had the reputation of the Libre as a news organization to think about. But that was all a bunch of bull. He really just liked to watch Liz. He drove me crazy. He was always in the way. I don't know if he had bad eyes or what, but he was always trying to get way too close. I'd be looking through my viewfinder and all the sudden, there's Hector's shoulder in my shot, or there's his head, coming in from the side. What really sent me over the edge was that whenever I'd move in for a close-up, he'd follow me in so I'd end up bumping into him when I tried to pull back out. But what could I do? He was my boss.”
“What did Liz think of him?”
“He creeped Liz out. He'd have his hands in his pockets all the time. Confront him on it, and he'd actually say his hands were cold, like that was going to fool anybody. I mean you could see his hands moving around in there. He was a damn nuisance, and I told Horst that, but Horst said we had to humor him. One time, Hector even asked Horst how much it would cost to be with Liz himself. Horst gave him a flat no. Liz wasn't into him at all. Like I said, he creeped her out.”
“Why did Ian kill him and his wife?”
Yuri gave me a puzzled face, trying to figure out how I knew so much. “Hector paid him to do it.”
“Hector wanted to die?”
“No. He paid Ian to kill his wife. She wanted a divorce. She was going to take him for all he was worth. He used to complain about it all the time. He'd tell anybody who would listen that she was a whore. He'd go on and on about how she cheated on him, and how now she thought she was entitled to his money. The guy was bitter.”
“I'd imagine so,” I said, finally picturing it in its entirety. I could imagine what it was like for Hector, your typical middle-aged guy with your typical once-a-week humdrum sex life, waking up from his suburban slumber the moment he found out one of his cameramen was shooting late-night porn in his news studios. Instead of being outraged like any respectable businessman, his dick took control and started tickling his brain with these funny feelings. He decided that there would be no harm in doing a little spectating, just to see what it was all about. And then there he was, in a dark studio, watching “Liz Lagarto” go to work on Raj Gupta, watching their bodies writhing and grinding, bumping and bouncing. He was hooked. It was all he could think about. I could see him sitting in his office, trying to get his work done but suddenly finding his hand in his pants, reaching though the holes in his pockets and wishing he was wearing a loincloth. He tried to get with Liz, but when he was rebuffed, he did the next best thing by talking his wife into doing little reenactments with jungle-boy Raj. And that got him off, got him off big time, until it all fell apart when she dumped the schmuck for the jungle boy and decided to take all his money. It was fucking beautiful the way it worked out for him.
“Why didn't Hector do his wife in himself?” I asked
“I don't know. I guess he was a coward. He went to Ian to see if Ian could put him in touch with somebody
