The ’guana stared at me like he was waiting for an answer. I pulled my shades from my shirt pocket and slipped them on, darkening the iguana’s pink stripe to the color of blood.
I looked at Maria, her brown-sugar skin closer to chocolate now. She gave me a puzzled look, but didn’t ask about the shades. “You’re not in it for the money, are you?”
“Why do you say that?”
“Look at you. Those are decent shoes, durable, but nothing fancy. You don’t wear a glitzy watch. You’re dressed in whites like any other joe. If you were about the money, you’d be showing off what you got. That’s what pimps do. Madams too.”
I downed the rest of my glass, stood and walked over to her for a refill. Damn, her perfume was strong.
“You should get that hand fixed.” She poured brandy into my wavering glass. “I know a doctor who works cheap. She does a lot of work on the girls around here.”
“Tit jobs?”
“Yeah. And other stuff.”
“What kind of other stuff?”
“Other stuff,” she repeated with a shrug. “I bet she could fix that hand.”
I took my place back on the bed. “Not interested.”
“She’s an offworlder. Or she used to be. She lives on-planet now.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I guess she likes it here.”
“So how did you end up working for Chicho?”
“He took me in when I was eleven.”
“You hooked for him?”
She nodded. “But I wasn’t very good at it. I was young, so I did well with the pervs at the beginning, but when my tits started coming in, I knew my time was limited. The other girls were prettier, and they knew how to work the johns better than me. I tried to compensate in the looks department by learning how to do my makeup and my hair real good like this.”
I wanted to laugh.
“But even then, I couldn’t compete. So I had to find another way to make myself useful.”
“And you chose security?”
“Why not? I still get to beat men off. I just do it a different way now.” She gave me a mascara-caked wink, her lashes coming together like two rakes. “You never answered my question. You’re not doing this for the money, are you?”
“No.”
“Then why are you doing it?”
“It’s complicated.” I had nothing more to say on the subject. I sipped my drink, uncomfortable silence taking hold.
“That was some riot,” she said after a while.
“Yeah.”
“You just about got yourself killed, you know.”
“I know.”
“What were you thinking? The sky was fucking falling, and that’s when you decided to stroll on out?”
“You ask too many questions.”
“You remind me of some of the girls around here.” She poured herself another. “I’m talking about the ones who drink and drug and fuck like they’re on a mission.”
“What kind of mission?”
“I wish I knew. It’s like they’re out to kill themselves, but they don’t have the guts to just slash their wrists and be done with it. Is that who you are?”
“No. I’m on a different kind of mission.”
“That’s what they all say.”
I tiptoed out, trying not to wake Maria, who was conked out on the sex swing. I hadn’t slept all night. My haunted thoughts wouldn’t allow it.
I found an empty room with a phone and tried to set up a conference call with Wu and Froelich. Wu answered. Froelich didn’t. I’d have to wake up that asshole in person. I told Wu to meet me at Froelich’s boat. It was time I took those two homicide bastards to task. Fuckers thought it was okay to go out gambling and not answer my calls? That shit was going to stop.
I strolled out the door and through the riot’s wreckage, my shades dimming out some of the details. This duller form of reality suited me fine. The morning was hot. A southern breeze carried scorched air from the vast southern deserts that suffocated so much of this planet. Lagarto’s only oasis was here in the jungles of the northern pole. If you could call this lizard-infested, riot-ravaged, poverty-stricken, mold-spotted city an oasis.
I chartered a skiff and rode the Koba River. A single lightbulb swayed on the end of a wire that hung from the rusted roof, golden light oozing out across black water. Pairs of monitor eyes reflected out of the darkness, accusing me with their cold, reptilian gazes.
Arriving at the dock, I handed the pilot some bills and climbed a ladder to the pier. I wandered the stalls, passing tables full of fresh fish on ice and racks of gutted ’guanas on hooks.
Spotting a small tub full of squirming salamanders, I stopped to order a taco. I stood by as the cook skewered two ’manders and dunked the squirming pair into a jar of peppery batter. They came out completely coated, their battered legs and tails wriggling as they went into the fryer. Next, she held a flatbread in one hand and used the other to spatula on a thick swath of aromatic paste made from local spice. My stomach growled as she spooned on the riverfruit salsa. Then came the sprinkle of bitter cloverweed leaves. I waited as the fryer bubbled, the smell of grease and wood smoke making my mouth water. Finally, she pulled the skewer out of the fryer, crisped ’manders impaled on the end. Folding the flatbread into a taco, she used the bread to pinch the golden-brown critters off the slender rod. “Hot sauce?”
I nodded, paid up, and bit through the flatbread, crunching on the ’manders in the center. Tangy. Must be juveniles. The older ones tasted muddy.
Wu stepped up just before I took another bite, and I decided to take a bite of him first. “Hey, asshole, you left us hanging last night.”
“Sorry, but me and Froelich, we were upriver-”
“I don’t want to hear it.” I chomped into my taco, hot sauce dripping out the other end. I walked as I chewed, forcing Wu to follow.
“Kripsen and Lumbela filled me in on last night,” he said.
“Did you thank them?”
“For what?”
“For doing your job.”
“What? Now I’m supposed to be the leg breaker?”
“You and Froelich should’ve been there. And you motherfuckers better quit dodging my calls.” I chomped off another bite and kept at him, my words slurred. “I thought you were supposed to be the badass of this gang, but when the serious shit comes down you’re nowhere to be found.” I licked hot sauce off my lips, my tongue on fire. “You know what you are? You’re a pussy.”
He grabbed my arm and pulled me up close, our noses almost kissing. “You take that back.” His temples were pulsing, the scar across his forehead darkening.
“Pussy.” I grinned while I chewed, daring him to try something. His nostrils flared, and his lips pinched down so tight that they resembled the scar on his forehead. He didn’t take a swing. He couldn’t. I pressed my taco hand into his chest and pushed him out of my way, leaving a grease stain over his heart. If he didn’t like being called a pussy, then he better grow a pair and do what he was told.
I was walking again. My appetite was gone, but I forced myself to take one more bite before tossing the scraps into the weeds with the candy wrappers and broken bottles. Wu trailed behind me, but not far-I could hear his shuffling footsteps. Sulking bastard.
“This it?” I pointed my bobbing finger at a listing barge. Froelich had once told me how some of the lower
