Hoshi. And Maggie was closing in on them. Why else would Rusedski call them into a meeting? Just them and nobody else. They were under suspicion, and they knew it. But they hadn't been arrested yet. There was still time to cover their tracks. They had to find Yuri before Maggie did. If she found him first, he'd talk. She'd have all she needed to send them to the Zoo for life…
Wu pulled his piece.
Yuri choked on the words, “I'm thirsty. I'm thirsty!”
Wu bunched up his eyebrows, thinking that was a strange thing for Yuri to say at a time like this, and then he sizzled off the top of Yuri's head.
I checked the feed again and verified that it was still working.
Lumbela, Kripsen, and Deluski picked up the body and carried it to the door. So Wu was definitely the new leader, and those three were the grunts. That made sense. Wu and Froehlich were both homicide, while the others were just beat cops. I watched them finish the cleanup and move off, the camera rolling all the while.
Amateurs.
The grin on my face took a long time to evaporate in the rainy weather.
Then I called Liz. I still had to deal with Horst.
THIRTY-ONE
DECEMBER 6, 2788
I walked through the kitchen and climbed the stairs that were becoming too familiar. I rapped on the door.
Liz opened it. She was dressed like a normal person, in a set of whites with her hair pulled up off her shoulders, very domestic. She gave me a curt nod and ushered me in.
Horst was there. He'd come to the door to greet me. He shook my hand, his pale skin contrasting sharply with my own. “Mr. Mozambe,” he said, velvet-voiced. He gave me a bottomless gaze that made the hair on my arms stand up. He'd already scanned me. He knew I was unarmed. No weapons. No cameras. Nothing but me. Totally vulnerable.
I erased the nervousness from my voice before responding. “Mr. Jeffers.”
Liz led us into her kitchen and sat us at the table. They already had a bottle of brandy going, and Horst poured a glass for me. I took the seat opposite him.
Liz had something going on the stove. “Dinner will be ready in just a few minutes,” she said.
“It smells wonderful,” Horst said with a captivating, fangless smile. I still expected fangs every time I saw his teeth. It didn't make him any less dangerous. Fangs or no fangs, he was hardly toothless. He was an offworlder, and that meant his body was loaded with high-tech self-defense systems. He could kill me before I knew what happened.
“Thanks for meeting with me,” I said before taking a sip of brandy.
“I was surprised to hear from you, Mr. Mozambe. When Liz called and said you wanted to meet, I could hardly wait to hear what you had to say.”
Liz set a bowl of nuts on the table. Horst snatched up a couple and popped them in his mouth. “I love these nuts,” he said. “They grow them downriver, you know.”
“I know.”
“But do you know why they grow them downriver?”
“No.”
“It's the trees. They can't survive without regular sunlight, so they only grow down south. They can't survive the depths of Koba's winter, when it's nothing but darkness, twenty-two seven. Of course, the downside is that they don't get much rainwater down there because it's so much hotter and drier. That's why you only find them growing around lakes and on riverbanks. Even then, they don't get much water, so they generally have a small yield. A bowl like this is probably two tree's worth of nuts.”
“Spoken like a true tour guide.”
His smile was pure silk. “Have you ever been down to the deserts, Mr. Mozambe?”
“No.”
“You really should some time. It's harsh territory, but it is stunningly beautiful. Do you have any salt, Liz?”
She fished in a cupboard and pulled out a shaker.
Horst took the shaker and sprinkled the bowl. “Have some,” he said.
I thought it would look funny if I didn't, so I took two. I cupped them in my hand and shook them around like a pair of dice, stalling long enough for Horst to eat a salted nut before I tossed them in my mouth.
“Thanks for offering to host dinner,” Horst said to Liz.
“I didn't offer,” she responded.
“Dinner was my idea,” I said. “I thought this might be a nice neutral place for us to chat.”
“And a grand idea it was,” he said. “Liz is really quite the cook, so any excuse that gets her in the kitchen is fine by me. What do you say we get down to business?”
I nodded.
“Tell me what it is that you want to talk to me about.”
My heart kicked into a new gear. I could feel it pounding in my chest and pulsing through my temples. I'd rehearsed everything in my head, but I suddenly couldn't remember my damn lines. It was stupid to get so nervous. It didn't matter much what I said. All that mattered was that we kept talking until Liz served dinner. Just say something already!
“I thought you might want to hire me,” I said.
He laughed a warm laugh that I knew not to trust. “And why would I want to do that?” he asked as he dipped into the bowl of nuts.
“Because I hear you've got some openings.”
“Thanks to you.”
“Couldn't be helped.”
Liz was staring at us with pained eyes as the two of us talked about her dead brother like he was nothing more than a minor point of negotiation in a business dispute.
Horst didn't even notice. “I can't believe your nerve, Mr. Mozambe. You think that killing my employees is the best way to create an opportunity for yourself?”
I put down the glass I was drinking from and looked him square in that pasty face. “Listen to me, and listen to me good. Ian pinched my wife's air hose until she turned blue. That's why he's dead. Nobody pulls that kind of shit on me and lives. I don't care if he was your damn son. Got it?”
Liz was looking at me with wide-open eyes. Ian must not have told her about that particular air-hose-cinching sin of his.
“Is that how the law of the jungle works?” Horst said with a wisecrack grin.
“He threatened my wife, and now he's dead. Call it whatever the hell you want.”
“Okay, Mr. Mozambe,” he said. “So let's say that I accept the fact that you're a vindictive son of a bitch. Surely, you can't think that absolves you of all your behavior. I've lost my in with Koba's police force and-”
I interrupted him. “You haven't lost anything. You have me.”
“What standing do you have with KOP? You're retired.”
“Have the police come to talk to you? They haven't because I have plenty of standing. I say leave you alone, they leave you alone. Ian was just a detective. He was nothing compared to me. I used to run that place. I have friends all the way up and down the ranks.”
He closed his eyes for a second and sighed before speaking again, making it very obvious to me that he was running short on patience. “My police contacts are hardly all I've lost due to you. Yuri Kiper has gone missing. Do you know how valuable he was? His kind of talent was rare.”
“That wasn't me,” I said. “I don't know what happened to him.”
“And I lost six customers on that barge. Do you know what kind of dampening effect that's going to have on
