compartments flooded decades ago, making the old junker sit cockeyed in the water.
“Yeah,” Wu mumbled as he stepped up alongside me. “His place is on the second deck.”
“Let’s wake him up.”
We climbed the long gangway, and reaching the top, we started across the slanted decking, our shoes sinking into spongy moss. We ducked through a bulkhead and went up a set of rust-eaten metal stairs that-due to the barge’s tilt-sat at an awkward angle.
“Heard from pretty-boy Mota?” asked Wu.
“No. But we don’t have to worry about him anymore. Not after last night.”
“Good. You know he’s a fag?”
“Where’d you hear that?”
“Around.”
I kept one hand on the sweating steel wall as we headed down a long corridor that leaned heavy to starboard. My shoe slipped and I went down, my knees crumpling, my left side smacking into the deck. Christ.
Wu laughed, the sound of his delight echoing up and down the corridor.
I slowly stood and evaluated the damage. One ankle felt a little gimpy, and my hip would surely bruise, but no more than that. “What the hell happened?”
“You fucking fell.”
I pushed my shades up to the top of my head and studied the floor. There’s the culprit. I reached down to touch a glob of yellow goop that had been smeared under my shoe. I held my fingers to my nose for a smell. “Fly gel.”
“Somebody must’ve spilled.”
The gel killed flies and eggs. Lagartans used it to clean cuts and abrasions. Without it, an open wound would be squirming with maggots inside five minutes. Lagartan flies acted fast. And they were damn good dive-bombers, expert at dropping their eggs from the air.
“There’s more up there,” said Wu.
We followed the sporadic trail of drops to a door painted sloppily with the name FROELICH.
“Did Froelich cut himself last night?” I asked, uncertainty creeping up my spine.
Wu shook his head no and opened Froelich’s door. I followed him in, my hand on my piece. He flicked on the lights. The cabin was small-bed, kitchenette, toilet-and from the entry, it slanted downhill to the left.
The nightstand had been toppled, contents spilled on the floor. Oils and lubes. Condoms and cock rings. My eyes turned to a splatter of gel that marked the far wall, more gel on the floor underneath, and then a trail leading behind the bed, as if somebody had thrown something against the wall, where it fell, then rolled down the slanted decking.
Wu and I stepped slowly around the bed, following the trail to a severed head. Coated in fly gel, it rested where the wall met the floor, a vertebra poking out from a savagely chopped neck stump. I toed a gooey ear with my shoe, rolling the head faceup.
Hemorrhaged eyes stared from behind the gel mask. His mouth was agape, the black hole clotted with gel.
Froelich.
Six
“No,” said a shocked Wu. “No fucking way.”
I pulled my shoe away, and Froelich’s head rolled face-down, his vacant gaze aimed at the floor but angled to one side, his nose acting like a mini-kickstand. What was that on his cheek? A tattoo?
I squatted down for a closer look. A ring of interlocked snakes, two of them, each one swallowing the tail of the one in front. Where did that come from?
“No fucking way,” repeated Wu, shaking his head slowly from side to side.
Froelich was dead, reducing my crew by 20 percent. My gut was heavy with dread. Events were reeling out ahead of me, and I had no way to rein them back in. I’d lost control.
Mota. Had I misjudged that pretty-boy son of a bitch? I couldn’t believe he’d take it this far. Would he actually kill one of my crew? A fellow cop?
Wu’s face was as pale as my own, his scar a faint pink line. “He was my partner,” he said, his voice barely audible.
I sat on the bed’s crumpled sheets and tried to see it another way. Maybe it wasn’t Mota who did this. Froelich had enemies, lots of them. It might not be my fault. It might not have anything to do with me. That tattoo on his cheek was some weird shit, wasn’t it?
And why kill Froelich? Cop killings brought too much attention. Killing me was the smart move.
Unless Mota couldn’t find me.
Or he was crazy.
“What do you mean you don’t know?” Maggie’s hands were on her hips, her jaw jutted. We stood in a private corner of the barge’s deck, behind one of the cranes, isolated from the hommy dicks and the med techs. I leaned on the rail, the deck’s listing slope making it the only comfortable way to stand.
I hid behind my shades. “I don’t know anything about this.”
“Don’t give me that. Talk.”
I didn’t know what to say. That I was back in the protection business? That I broke a good kid’s legs last night? That I already got one of my crew killed?
Wishing it all away, I looked out at the river, at the black water flowing gently in the starlight. I tuned into the way the barge swayed with the silent current, my mind syncing with the lazy rocking. Maggie asked another question, but I wasn’t listening. The river. It was calling me. The mad spark lit inside me. I recognized it this time. I felt reality leaking away, and I let it go. Gladly.
I stared straight down at the water. It stared back. Smiling, inviting. All I had to do was jump this rail. After a quick drop, the river would welcome me with a burst of spray, a celebration of liquid confetti. I’d drop below the surface and let her hold me in her cradling hands. Sinking, I’d let her carry me in her cool flow until she ushered me away from this world.
A finger poked my arm. “Talk, dammit. What do you know about this?”
I was transfixed by the water. Seduced. I didn’t want to break the trance.
“I’m talking to you, Juno.”
The trance crumbled. Dizzy, I gripped the rail and willed my melting knees to lock.
“Juno?”
I ripped my gaze off the water the way you rip off a bandage. Reality was back, the spark extinguished.
“What’s wrong with you?”
I glared at her, my eyes burning straight through my shades.
“Seriously. What’s wrong?” She reached for my hand, warm fingers making contact. “You’re scaring me.”
Hearing the fear in her voice, I felt a shift inside, chafing annoyance once again getting overwhelmed by the guilt and gloom. I couldn’t handle this shit, emotions cycling like mad, moods swinging like hyper monkeys. What the fuck was wrong with me? “I’m okay.” I tried to sound believable. “Really, I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not. Jesus, look at you. You look like you’re about to pass out.”
“I’m fine. I don’t see a severed head every day, okay? It’s got me a little screwed up.”
“Oh, no, you don’t.” She smacked my hand. “Don’t pull that shit with me. You and I both know you’ve seen worse.”
I didn’t want to bullshit her. I really didn’t. But coming clean was out of the question. This whole fucking thing could be blowing up in my face, but I had to keep it contained as best I could. And to achieve containment I had to keep her out.
She waited for an answer. I had to say something. Something that would explain why my fingers were
