“Yeah. I watched somebody eat one in the other room. A guy told me it’s an aphrodisiac.”
The couple stood and walked to the back, then through a curtain, briefly exposing a set of stairs that led up to what I figured to be some private rooms.
“You think it works?” I asked.
“Hell no.” He laughed. “You know how people make up stories to sell worthless crap.”
“Learn anything?”
“I got a couple guys to admit they knew Samusaka, but that’s as far as it went. You?”
“Dead fucking end.”
“What’s our next move?” Deluski seemed eager, totally digging his first crack at playing detective. The kid impressed me. Made me think he might be worthy of being my number two. Might be.
I asked, “You ever tell me how you got sucked into this?”
“Sucked into what?”
“Into this gang. What’s left of it anyway.”
He rubbed his chin. “It started with a girl.”
“A girl?”
“Yeah. I wanted to impress her, show her I could take care of her. She had this ex who kept bothering her. You know the type, the clingy kind that can’t let go. I went to see him, wanted to talk some sense into him.”
“You give him a beat-down?”
He nodded, his eyes looking distant. “I didn’t want to. I really tried to talk to him, but all the guy understood was fists.”
“Some people are like that,” I said, thinking I might be one of those people.
“Yeah, well, this guy turned out to be Wu’s cousin, and he went to Wu for help. That’s when Wu came to me and told me that he could get me fired. All he had to do was file a report.”
“Unless?” With Wu there was always an “unless.”
“Unless I did a job for him. He had this whole plan of how he was going to steal a shipment of O. He had a tip that a container had just come in, and it was sitting in one of the abandoned shipyards. What he wanted me to do was knock it into the water. There’d be no guards, he said. That was the way these guys liked to operate.”
Already, his story sounded familiar. “Guards would just attract attention.”
“Right. They thought it was better to just leave their shit out in the open. There were so many shipping containers on that pier nobody would stumble upon the opium unless they knew where to look for it.”
I listened closely even though I already knew how this one was going to end. I’d run the same con.
Deluski carried on, his voice getting deeper and harder to hear, as if he were telling the story of how somebody close had died. “He gave me the container number and told me where to find it. It was right where he said it would be, locked up tight and sitting close to the water. I hooked it to a tugboat I’d rented, and I pulled it off the pier and let it sink just like he said. You see what he was thinking?”
“He wanted to make the drug dealers think somebody hauled their container away.”
“Right. They’d go searching the river, looking for a big boat, and while they were off doing that, he’d go back with a small fishing boat and dive for the O. I thought he was a genius.”
“But?”
Deluski’s voice continued to lose volume. I had to lean in to hear him. “But when he dove down to the container, he found bodies inside. A whole family. He showed me pictures of them. A man and woman. Three kids. All drowned. They were trying to get off-planet. A barge was going to come by and sneak them into the spaceport as cargo. I’d sunk the wrong container.”
Deluski was practically shaking. He had to know the truth. I looked him in the eye, my face as sober as my words. “The whole thing was a con. That container was empty. It’s still down there. Still locked up tight.”
“I know.” His voice was solemn as an undertaker’s. “I eventually figured out it was all bullshit. But at the beginning…” He let out a sigh. “At the beginning, I thought it was real. Wu helped me cover it up. I owed him, and I started doing regular jobs for him. By the time I realized I’d been had, I was in too deep. I still remember those pics. Those kids still feel real to me. Fucked me up good.”
I swallowed what was left of my drink and slapped my glass on the bar. A story like that required a good belt. Hard to believe I used to pull that con myself. Some cruel-ass shit.
Right in front of us, a couple sat pressed together on a sofa, lips mashing, hands exploring. Helluva place for a conversation like this. To the rest of the Maze’s clientele, Deluski and I probably looked like a good match. Like we’d just had a moment.
Over in the corner, I caught the offworlder watching me. I shot him a nasty stare. Asshole. Offworlders were all assholes.
Deluski’s story was common enough. Decent kid catching some bad breaks. Ground up like so many others in the mill of corruption that was KOP.
“Wu screwed you,” I said. I wanted to see what he’d do if I gave him an easy out. “Everything that’s happened since wasn’t your fault. You had no choice.”
“Wu was a grade-A prick, no doubt about it. I’m not sorry he’s gone. But…” He shook his head. “But I had choices every step of the way. Some of the things I’ve done…” His voice trailed into dust.
The kid was the real deal. Man enough to put the blame right where it belonged.
We stood in silence for a while, lost in thought. My arm itched. I poked at the bandages through my sleeve, dug my fingernails into the fabric to get a little relief.
He broke the silence, barely, his voice hardly a whisper over the bar’s din. “I’m going to burn in hell.”
“Tell you what. When you get there, you ask for me and I’ll show you around.”
He chuckled and patted my shoulder. “Thanks, boss. Now tell me, what are you after in all this?”
I gave him the only answer I had. “I don’t know.”
He threw a nonchalant wave of his hand. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”
I seized on the statement. “What makes you so certain?”
He thought before answering. “Listen, I was Wu’s man for a time, and later Ian’s until you killed him and took us as your own. That’s three bosses I’ve had, and all three of you were power-hungry bastards, but you were the only one who understood that power comes with responsibility.”
I arched a doubtful eyebrow.
“You ran KOP. You and Chief Chang. You two were dirty as hell, everybody knows that, but you never stopped running a police department.”
“You give us too much credit.”
He shrugged off my comment. “All I know is the city ran a lot better when you were in charge.”
“Quit blowing smoke up my ass. You can be honest with me.” A fly buzzed by my face. I took a swipe at it but came up short. Damn missing hand.
“I was being honest.”
Time we quit pussyfooting. Time to put it out there. “You telling me you wouldn’t stab me in the back if you had the chance?”
His jaw held firm, his eyes tightening in the corners. “You referring to the vid?”
Of course I was. Killer KOPs. “Wouldn’t you cut my throat for a chance to destroy it?”
The corners of his mouth lifted, a sly smile forming. “Absolutely.”
I reflected a wily grin back at him. Kid had some balls. Definite number-two material.
“Screw this place,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”
We beelined our way out the back exit, down some stairs and up a short alley to the street. The Maze’s front entrance stood just a couple meters away. Misting rain drifted down from the starless sky, and caught in the glow of passing headlights, formed temporary galaxies of twinkling light.
I sucked deep on O-free air. “Let’s hit some more gay bars. We need to find a connection between Froelich and Samusaka besides their taste in tattoos. Call Kripsen and Lumbela. See if they can ditch riot duty. We could use two more bodies.”
“Can’t call them. You know the regs. Police radio only.”
“Call them anyway. They’ll answer for us.”
“KOP disables their personal phones during riot duty.”
“Since when?”
