A serious loyalty problem. That was what I had. That was why I was so hot to secure a revenue stream. If I could fatten their wallets, they’d start thinking working for me wasn’t so bad. As it was, they were doing it because they had no choice. This crew had gotten into some bad shit a couple months back, some really bad shit. They fucking stank of it. They’d conspired with offworlders. They’d betrayed their own people, selling them off to be killed by offworlders who wanted to play executioner.
These assholes were traitors. Rat bastards, every one of them.
They hadn’t been the brains of the operation. Hell no. These humps didn’t have that kind of smarts, and they’d proven it when they’d let me catch them on film. The Killer KOPs. That was what I called my little documentary. It wasn’t a very long movie, barely three minutes, but still a pretty good flick.
Set in an abandoned warehouse, it starts when five cops enter through a cockeyed door and come face-to- face with one of their co-conspirators, a pudgy little local on the verge of squealing their devious deeds to investigators. The Killer KOPs are nervous and fidgety, you can see it on their faces. Wu keeps rubbing at that scar of his, and Deluski stands in back, shifting from one foot to the other. They’re desperate, see. Their traitor bosses are already dead, and they’re out to cover their tracks.
Wu pulls his piece. The porker knows too much, and they can’t trust him to keep quiet. Wu fires, and the beam of his lase-pistol burns through hair and skull and brain. A piece of the porker’s head comes free and falls to the floor.
It’s done. Deluski is staring at the corpse, his jaw gaping, his face ashen. Lumbela and Kripsen grab the de- lidded corpse by the arms and legs, and Deluski holds the door as they haul it out into the rain. Wu gives a look to Deluski, his finger pointing to the scalp on the floor. Deluski, the low man in their little cop clique, steps over to the porker’s lid and pinches a lock of hair between forefinger and thumb. He lifts it off the floor and rushes out with his arm extended, like he’s carrying a rat by its tail. Wu and Froelich are the last to leave, the pair of hommy dicks disappearing into the pouring rain.
Roll credits…
Like I said, not a bad flick. I harbored no illusions about these bastards-bad men through and through. But I knew a thing or two about bad men. Bad men could be useful. I was on a mission to take back the police department, and a mission like that required the accumulation of power. And if I had to start with these five misfits, so be it.
Instead of turning my movie over to KOP, I kept it for myself. And when I’d screened it for the five of them, they became mine.
I checked the time again-any second now. Where the fuck was Froelich with my ten unis?
Wu kicked at a gecko. “How long is this thing going to take? I need to call my wife and tell her when I’ll be home.”
“You kidding me?”
“She worries when I don’t come home on time.”
“Fucking unbelievable,” I muttered loud enough to be heard. I couldn’t be bothered with this shit. “Tell her you won’t be home. Tell her to use a vibrator.”
His scowl made the scar on his forehead dip. “Some husband you must’ve been. No wonder she decided to off herself.”
Without thinking, I snatched hold of his shirt and yanked his scarred face up to my own. “You watch your fuckin’ mouth!”
Wu was grinning in my grasp, enjoying the fact that he’d gotten to me. What he’d said was true enough. I had been a bad husband. And had I been a better one, Niki might not have done herself in.
But that didn’t mean I was accepting opinions on the matter, especially from Paolo-fucking-Wu.
A door opened and the woman bodyguard came out. Maria was her name.
She froze when she saw me. I must’ve looked ready to kill. Probably because I was. Snapped back to my senses, I remembered that we were likely being watched from the windows above. I released the bastard. It didn’t look good to have anybody see us fighting among ourselves. With a self-satisfied smirk, Wu brushed at the stir of wrinkles my fist had left on his chest.
“I came to help,” said a tentative Maria. “Where do you want me?”
Before I could answer, the lights went out.
Looking up, I tried to calm myself by taking a moment to look at the thousands of tiny pinpricks of light twinkling in the sky. That was the good thing about these power outages. You could see so many stars when the city lights went out. The only good thing.
“Um, can I ask a question, boss?” asked Lumbela.
It took me a few seconds to respond. “Talk.”
“What’s the plan?”
“We wait.” A riot was about to start. Of that I had no doubt. The only question was whether the storm would drift our way.
I stepped out of the alley and into the street. Weeds bent under my shoes. This street was overdue for a good scorching. The Lagartan jungle was a persistent bastard. Inch by inch, street by street, the weeds and vines slithered across the pavement and up the walls, relentlessly seizing territory from a lazy population. You could slash it, and you could burn it, but you could never stop it. Once the roots dug in, you couldn’t get rid of the shit.
I heard my crew complaining behind my back. No matter. They could bad-mouth me all they wanted. My roots had already dug into them.
I looked off into the darkness and listened. I could hear people above me. They were leaning out their windows and venting their frustration. This was a city that had had enough.
For ten minutes, maybe longer, I waited, my senses tuned to the nervous energy all around me. People milled about, curiosity seekers and troublemakers, their voices anxious and agitated. I heard the sound of crashing glass in the distance. I caught a whiff of smoke from an unseen fire. They were getting right after it tonight.
Running footsteps. I flicked on a flashlight and caught sight of a young punk sprinting my way. “They’re coming!” he yelled. “They’re coming.”
Forgetting we had a gal in the mix, I called to my crew, “We’re on, boys!” I aimed my flashlight at Kripsen and Lumbela. “You two set up a fireline right here at the alley mouth.” Fireline was cheap but effective. You just squeeze out a thick bead of gel and light it. It would burn hot, and it would burn tall. With it, you could create a firewall of the literal variety.
Freddie Lumbela shook his black head, his skin a few shades darker than your typical Lagartan brown. “No can do, boss.”
I shined the flashlight directly into his face. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
He used a hand to shade his eyes. “These cans of fireline are used up. This is the fourth riot we’ve worked this week.”
“You couldn’t swap those cans for new ones?”
“KOP ran out. They’re getting more shipped in next week.”
“Yet you two decided to keep carrying empties around?”
“It’s in the regs for riot gear. We’re required to carry fireline.”
Holy hell, where did I find these humps? I played my flashlight across their tense faces. This would be so much easier if I had my ten uniforms.
“Okay. Here’s how we’re going to do this. I want a single line. Spread out wall to wall to cover the alley mouth. Nobody gets into this alley, got it? Use any force necessary. And you two put some flashlights on the ground and aim ’em up at us. We want people to see us when they come barreling around the corner.”
“Hey, guys,” said a voice holding a flashlight up to his face. Froelich. “I’m not too late, am I?” His shaved head was beaded with glistening sweat, like he’d really raced to get here. He wasn’t breathing hard, though. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was just trying to make it look good, stopping off on the way to dump a cup of water over his head.
“Where are my uniforms?”
“Just a minute behind me.”
I told him to get in line. No time to ream out the late bastard.
I took my position, Maria to my right, Wu to the left. I leaned toward Maria and took a sneeze-worthy blast of perfume up the nose. “You know you don’t have to stay. Chicho doesn’t pay you enough for this.”
