Maggie stopped him. “That’s not the issue here. If Mota didn’t kill Froelich and Wu, then he’s got no stake in this. So what’s his beef with you, Juno?”
“Beats me.”
“Yeah,” said Josephs. “What the fuck?”
I tried to shrug it off like I didn’t know.
Maggie kept at me. “Why is Mota poking his nose in this case? Why is he spreading rumors about you?”
“How should I know?” I tried to say it straight, nonchalant, but my voice betrayed me, a defensively high pitch giving me away.
Josephs stepped toward me. “Don’t play innocent. Talk.”
“Talk,” echoed Maggie with her uranium stare.
I tried to conjure my enforcer’s face, a shield of pure steel to keep out the radiation. It wouldn’t come, my inner enforcer running for cover. “Fine! Fucking fine. You want to know? I took over his protection business.”
Maggie closed her eyes and shook her head.
“What protection business?” asked Josephs.
“Mota was taking money from the snatch houses in the alley near Floodbank.”
“When you say you took it over, you mean you bought him out?”
I shook my head no. “I did it old-school.”
“You and what army?”
“Me and my crew.”
“Don’t fucking tell me. Froelich and Wu?”
“Them and a few others.”
“You that hard up for cash?”
“It’s not about the money.”
“Then what is it?”
I looked at Maggie. She was pacing again.
“Well?” asked Josephs.
“KOP has to change,” I said.
“What does that have to do with it?” He turned to Maggie. “What’s he talking about?”
Maggie stopped pacing to look at me, her expression unreadable.
I repeated my defense. “KOP has to change.”
She turned on her heel and walked away.
Twelve
April 24, 2789
“You think he uses a saw? Or maybe he chops the head off with an ax or something?”
“Can you shut up with that shit?” said Deluski.
“Don’t you want to know how he’s going to do us?” asked Lumbela. “We’re next.”
I rubbed my arm, a dull ache creeping through the pain blockers. “This isn’t helping.”
It was long past midnight. Other than the occasional drunken giggle or groan, the whorehouse was quiet. The four of us were in my room, Lumbela and I sitting on the bed, Deluski on the floor, Kripsen leaning against the wall, the slow-burning cig in his hand matching the expression on his face.
“We can’t assume he’s after all of us,” said Deluski. “Wu and Froelich were partners. It could be just the two of them he targeted. It’s probably somebody they put away who just got sprung. Plus Juno said the killer might’ve done another one before Wu and Froelich. Far as we know, that body didn’t have anything to do with us.”
I leaned forward. “Listen to me, boys, I can’t say if we’re targets or not, but we’re not going to sit back and wait to find out. As long as Mota keeps butting into Wu and Froelich’s investigation, we can’t trust KOP to catch this guy.”
I sharpened the edge in my voice. “This fucker killed two of ours, you hear me? He slaughtered Wu’s wife, his little girls.”
“And he took your hand,” said Kripsen.
“And the son of a bitch took my hand.” I made a chop with my abbreviated arm. “Whether we’re targets or not, we’re going after this freak. You with me?” I met them eye to eye, one at a time, soliciting nods of agreement.
I had them. I could see it in their faces. Gone was the resentment they’d harbored against me. I wasn’t their blackmailer anymore. I was their leader, the guy who’d made it through scrapes way worse than this. I was the one who could keep them alive.
“Besides, it’s about time you shits learned to do some police work. Did any of you know Froelich was gay?”
“Froelich wasn’t gay,” said Lumbela.
“He was.” I nodded with certainty.
“Really?” Lumbela’s eyes were wide open, the whites showing bright against his dark skin.
“No fucking way,” said Kripsen.
“He and Mota were seeing each other,” I said. “They were lovers.”
“Get the fuck out of here.”
“I saw the pictures.”
Deluski spoke up. “I knew he was gay.”
Kripsen flicked his ashes on the floor. “Bullshit.”
“No, really. You remember that friend of his who would come drinking with us sometimes, the thin guy with the gold tooth. I saw them holding hands.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“It was none of my business.”
The group stayed quiet for a few, lost in their own thoughts. Kripsen puffed on his cig. “This shit’s hard to believe. I mean, us and Froelich, we’d go chasin’ tail together all the time.”
“Ever seen him catch any?” I wanted to know.
Kripsen thought about it. “I figured he was shy.”
Lumbela threw up his hands. “Aw, shit, think of all the times we’d go piss on a wall, all of us whipping out our wangs. Fucking Froelich must’ve been checking us out.”
Kripsen laughed at him. “You are such a dumbass.”
“What?”
“You think he wants to peep when we’re pissing? There ain’t nothing sexy about a dick that’s pissing.”
A smirking Lumbela came back with, “How would you know when a dick is sexy?”
Are these humps for real? “Shut up already! Save this crap for another time. What’s important right now is to understand that Mota thinks we did Froelich. He thinks we killed his lover to send him a message.”
“He does?”
“Wouldn’t you? We broke his uniform’s legs.”
“But Froelich was one of ours. We wouldn’t do one of ours.”
“What if Froelich and Wu were really on Mota’s side?”
Confused stares all around.
I elaborated. “Mota had something going with Froelich and Wu. They were in business together. Anybody know anything about that?”
They threw one another questioning stares. Nobody had answers, and their bewildered gazes eventually came back to me. It wasn’t surprising Wu and Froelich had frozen out these three. Why cut their share three extra ways?
What pissed me off was Wu and Froelich let me pick a fight with Mota without clueing me in.
“Here’s the deal, boys. While we were suspecting Mota killed Froelich, he was thinking it was us trying to intimidate him into backing down. Mota even threatened me, told me I was going to pay for Froelich.”
