KOP Killer (21 page)

They wore their badges, the pins running through their right nipples. Froelich and Wu.

“What the hell are we dealing with?”

I didn’t realize I’d asked the question aloud until Josephs responded. “A fairy. One fucked-up fairy.” His voice sounded distant over the hollow ringing in my ears. “He actually cut their dicks off,” he said to himself as much as anybody. “Heads and dicks both. Beheaded ’em two times.”

My arm twitched with the firsthand memory of the killer, teeth sunk into my flesh, reptilian eyes reflecting back inhumanly.

Maggie moved up for a closer inspection. “How are they staying upright?” She was over the shock, her mind already reasoning, analyzing. She tapped one on the arm with her flashlight, a solid clink sounding back. “They’ve been dipped in something like varnish.”

Deluski rushed out. Nobody tried to stop him.

Josephs snickered. “Punk’s got weak knees.”

I didn’t let Josephs’s words penetrate as my mind struggled to inch forward, wheels slowly turning with the need to make sense of the senseless.

Froelich and Wu had been here before, in this very room. They’d investigated Franz Samusaka’s death and ruled it an accidental OD. They said his missing member was munched away by lizards postmortem. And they got a powerful family like Samusaka’s to accept it.

I couldn’t fathom why Froelich and Wu would cover for this cock-chop bastard. Why sweep away Samusaka’s murder with lies?

Froelich knew Samusaka. They had matching tats. Friends? Lovers?

Nothing made sense. Nothing.

“The killer craves attention,” Maggie said.

“Cocksucker’s got flair,” responded Josephs. “I’ll give him that.”

I nodded my head in silent agreement. The killer reveled in his work. He must’ve been pissed when his killing of Samusaka was passed off as a bullshit OD, his art tossed in the trash as idle scribble.

He wanted attention, wanted everybody to know who he was, what he was capable of. He’d been ignored before, and Froelich and Wu had to pay for showing such disrespect. He’d brought what was left of their corpses back to the site of their crime. And in doing so, he’d retroactively claimed credit for Samusaka. He was erasing all doubt, doing his best to get the attention he deserved. His head-tossing, child-killing, assfuck-posing best.

*   *   *

We’d returned to the living room, Maggie, Josephs, and I. We’d come to escape the smell, but the stink of my mutilated crew members stayed with me, in my clothes and nostrils.

Josephs shined a light through the window. “You out there?”

Deluski stepped into the beam, hand over his eyes. “Yeah.” His voice didn’t sound right, like he was out of breath. He wiped his cheek on his shoulder.

“You cryin’?” asked Josephs.

Deluski turned his back. The kid had finally cracked, like his newfound freedom had set him free to feel. I wished I could console him. But that shit wasn’t me.

Josephs swung his light on me. “Why are you and your boy cryin’ all the time? What kind of pussy-ass show you runnin’?”

I let his words pass through me. Not in the mood.

Maggie moved her light around the room. O pipes. Chewed leather shoes. An empty box of rubbers. “The killer must’ve spent significant time here. He’s dropped bodies here twice now. This place is important to him.”

“Maybe he was slumming here.”

“Or he’s a student. There’s a prep school ten minutes downriver.”

“Is that where you went?”

She put her phone to her ear and asked for San Juan Diego Academy. To me, she said, “No. It’s for the troubled kids. Uniforms and curfews.”

“Hey, boss,” called Deluski from the window. “Come check this out.”

I stepped over and leaned through the broken-out frame. I tried to get a good look at the kid, see if he was still crying, but couldn’t see more than a shadow. His light was aimed at a tree. “You see it? Right there on that branch.”

I saw it. An iguana, eyes reflecting like little pools of molten brass. Over the eyes stood row after row of don’t-fuck-with-me spines. The spines ran halfway down his back like a cape of thorns. “What about it?”

“Is that the kind of lizard the killer turned into? See the rust-red stripes on his cheeks.”

“No. Our guy didn’t have spines.”

“Do you remember how many stripes?”

I couldn’t remember. Didn’t want to. Steel teeth clamped down. Flesh ripping, tearing off the bone.

“Well?”

“Quit bugging me with this shit.”

“Don’t you want to know why he shifts into a lizard?”

I shook my head and swung around. Maggie was off the phone, waiting for me. “Franz Samusaka was a student at San Juan Diego Academy. Graduated two years ago.”

I bit my lip, gnawed on the new fact. This place was a hooky haven. A place for troubled kids to get in more trouble. The killer could’ve been Samusaka’s classmate.

Deluski rapped on the wall. “Somebody’s coming.”

I stopped breathing and listened, the distant buzz of an approaching outboard motor sailing through the broken window. Instinctively, I reached for my piece. But I had no piece. Or a hand.

Maggie and Josephs fared better, lase-pistols drawn and already moving for the door.

We stepped outside. Deluski kept his back to us. “I think there’s two boats.”

Josephs pounded his way to the porch’s edge. “Who are these bastards?”

Maggie pressed her flashlight into my chest. “Go inside. You too, Deluski. We’ll tell whoever it is that this is a crime scene.”

I squinted at the dark, my eyes straining to see the approaching boats.

“Go inside,” Maggie insisted. “We can handle this.”

Deluski headed inside; I still couldn’t see his face. He tugged my shoulder, and I let him guide me, allowed myself to be backpedaled inside the door. He pulled the door most of the way shut, and I stood with him, shoulder to shoulder, watching the boat lights through the cracked door until the lights disappeared under the plane of the porch. We moved to a window and stood on opposite sides. I watched and waited, broken glass under my shoes, shards pressing into my soles, jagged breaths puffing out my mouth. I kept my eyes zeroed on the rope ladder, half-hitches wrapped around rusted cleats.

Maggie and Josephs stood outside, their backs silhouetted by dim haloes. Maggie tucked her weapon into a pocket. Josephs dropped his to his hip and gave us a wave. I breathed easier. Whoever had arrived wasn’t a threat.

I could see Maggie and Josephs talking, their hands gesturing, but I couldn’t hear their voices, the sound swallowed by motors.

Engines silenced. The rope ladder tensed, rope scraping against the decking. Hands came over the porch’s edge, then a head, blocky features under wavy black hair. Lieutenant Rusedski, Homicide.

“It’s the good guys,” said Deluski, his voice solid, his emotional episode apparently forgotten. “Wanna go out?”

I weighed my options. I didn’t know where I stood with KOP. Mota had been telling lies about me, spreading rumors. The bastard had tried to implicate me in his boyfriend’s decapitation.

I half listened as Rusedski gave Maggie the biz:
What are you doing here … I took you off the case … I should bounce you out of Homicide … you call yourself a squad leader.…

Maggie took the punches with stoic poise. Josephs let her take the heat. Prick stood off to the side, doing the innocent bystander routine. Finally he spoke up, asked how Rusedski knew to come here.

The killer tipped them off. Called the tip line himself.

By this time, several med techs had climbed the ladder, piling up cameras and lights. Hommy dicks milled. They’d soon be ready to come inside. Lights flicked on, the porch bathed in eye-piercing bright white.

I had to make a decision: run away or face Rusedski.

KOP couldn’t be serious about me. Rusedski would have questions but nothing more. I couldn’t see it any other way. Mota’s rumor mill must’ve collapsed by now, blades falling off as Rusedski’s task force looked at the evidence. Witnesses had seen the killer eat my arm in that sweatshop. KOP would have sketches of him. They had his voiceprint too, now that he’d called in. They knew he wasn’t me.

Nothing to fear.

What else was I going to do anyway? No fucking way was I going to jump in the river again. She’d been a bitch to me.

I ducked and stepped through the window. Sore muscles creaked and moaned, made me regret my choice of exit.

My appearance silenced all conversation. Unis and med techs and hommy dicks looked at me, then the void where my hand should be, then at Rusedski, who hadn’t noticed me yet, back to me, then the rope ladder, people still coming up, eyes back on me.

I didn’t like the way they looked at me. Like I was a storm cloud about to ruin their picnic.

Deluski appeared alongside me. I gave him a questioning look. He seemed as confused as I felt.

Rusedski noticed me now, his eyes bouncing between me and the ladder. Hands came over the porch’s edge. Grabbing a cleat, a man pulled himself up the rest of the way. He stood straight, with a fine nose, expressive eyes, and a tailored uniform with a glistening badge under captain’s stripes.

My upper lip curled into a snarl, my hand into a fist.

Nobody spoke. Nobody moved.

The jungle closed in on me, its humming monotone scratching at my pulsing eardrums.

His lips curled into a smug smile.

I wanted to pound that nose. Drive a fist into his slick smile. I’d done it before, pulped that pretty face of his. Him tied to a chair, me teaching him not to cheat the chief. Teaching him four knuckles at a time.

But this wasn’t the time.

Mota came toward me. “Juno.” He extended his hand. “Truce?”

The bastard was putting on a show, acting like he was the bigger man. My jaw was squeezed too tight to speak. He and Panama killed Kripsen and Lumbela, pulled their tongues out their throats.

I felt eyes on me. Cops and med techs. Maggie and Josephs and Deluski.

And Mota—long lashes planted around bright whites. He stood there with his hand stretched out, taunting me.

I rushed him, planted my shoulder in his gut, drove my legs through the impact, and brought him down in a crunch of cracking wood. Shades hanging on one ear, I used my weight to hold down his squirming form. I wedged my stump under his chin and brought down my fist.

Fire exploded in my eyes, a thousand needles dipped in chili paste. I sucked wasps into my lungs. I couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe. I rolled off him and swiped at my eyes with my shirtsleeves.

Mota grabbed me by the hair. My burned scalp went electric with pain. On a gust of hot air, a whisper blew in my ear: “I’ll cut your throat next.” I felt it in my ear canal, the searing burn of chemicals. It was still on his breath, whatever he’d spat in my face.

He let me go and voices gathered. Hands grabbed hold and pulled me to my feet. I tried to cough out the wasps, wracking, stabbing, excruciating pain. I let myself be led, Maggie’s voice nearby. A shove sent me over.

The river took me. She kissed my eyes with cool water. I filled my mouth, let her rinse out the chemicals, cleanse the pain. River wasn’t such a bad bitch after all.

nineteen

I
STRODE
down Bangkok, ’mander-on-a-stick in my left. I bit off a leg and crunched it down, hot sauce sizzling on my tongue.

Rusedski had been a pain in the ass. After I’d refused to go down to the KOP station, he kept me at the scene for three hours, asking his questions, grilling me on how I knew Froelich. And Wu.
What’s with you and Mota?

Why are you wearing those sunglasses? You have an eye condition?

Three hours I’d had to put up with his shit, my face still burning with whatever Mota had spat in my eyes. I did a lot of coughing. A lot of tear dabbing. Even more stonewalling.

Three hours. I was there when he chased away Maggie, Josephs, and Deluski. I was there when Mota took off with a self-satisfied wink, and when they knocked the railing off the staircase so they could carry Froelich and Wu’s shellacked bodies down, somebody’s bright idea to carry them by their skewer, three dumb-as-hell med techs on each end of the pole, hauling Froelich and Wu down the stairs like they’d bagged big game on a safari.

Un-fucking-real.

I put the stick up to my mouth and bit off the shoulders along with half of the torso. I really did need to eat more often.

Bangkok Street was prepping for a long night of partying. Street vendors arrived on bikes, umbrella-topped grills in tow. Strippers headed to work, high heels dangling from their hands, skimpy numbers on hangers. Offworld kids sat in restaurants, shopped for souvenirs, and generally acted like the pampered brats they were. Debauchery would be coming soon.

I gnawed off what was left on the stick and dropped the splinter of Lagartan bamboo on the ground. I stopped for a bag of soda and sucked it dry as I watched the place across the street. The upstairs lights were on.

I borrowed a phone from a street vendor and called Josephs. The results on Lizard-man’s tube of glue were finally in. As I’d expected, Lizard-man hadn’t been careless enough to leave us the gift of fingerprints.

I had to find another way to ID him.

I looked at the door, the door I’d come out one hand less than when I went in. Lizard-man could shift. The fork-tongued fuck could turn his hand into a steel trap. And Lizard-man wasn’t the only one who had been enhanced. Mota had his mouth modified so he could spit liquid fire without burning himself in the process. Did that mean false lips and eyes? Artificial skin?

Locals didn’t usually go for that kind of shit. Even the rich ones. Tummy tucks and tit jobs were more their style. Face-lifts and erection extensions. To shift like Lizard-man, that was something different. His skin changed texture. His ears recessed. His tongue split. That was some high-end work. Not the kind of thing you could do with a little silicone or a scalpel and a fat vac. To shift like an offworlder, you needed motors and mind jacks. Digital tissue. Fleets of minibots in the bloodstream.

They must have gotten offworld tech installed somewhere. Somewhere cheap, somewhere with low standards.