Authors: Warren Hammond
They moved away from the door, and I noticed spinning snake tats on Mota’s and the doctor’s cheeks. The same tats as on Froelich and the dead Samusaka kid. A gay-boy’s club was coming into focus. A matching-tat dick clique.
The crowd quickly engulfed them, everything but the panama hat. I pushed my way through hanging shirts to the pavement and followed with a tilted, one-shoed gait.
I wracked my brain to remember what she’d been wearing. Mota’s girlfriend. When she came out of the club. Silk shirt. Tight pants. I was sure of it. Just like the doctor had been wearing inside. Just like he was wearing right this second.
Understanding brought a knowing sneer. They were all the same person. The gay playboy. The doctor. Mota’s girlfriend. The
same
person.
Mota was
gay.
Not bi. One hundred percent flame just like Wu thought. His girlfriend was a man, a drag queen who could raise tits and sink an Adam’s apple; a cross-dresser who could, at will, broaden hips and sprout a big, gaudy mop of hair. A tranny who swapped out everything but the plumbing.
I was sure that with offworld tech even that was possible, but evidently, shedding his thing wasn’t his thing. Even as a woman, he pissed standing up.
The panama hat turned right. I sped up to the corner, then stopped to let the hat reel out far ahead. The crowd was less dense on the side streets. I’d be easy to spot if I didn’t keep my distance.
Mota and Dr. Tranny. Lovers. Mota and Froelich. Lovers. All three together. Franz Samusaka too.
They turned again, and the trio ducked through a gate with armed guards standing on both sides. I strolled straight past, head down, no eye contact with the guards. I hustled to the end of the block and stood outside a schlock shop: porn vids, monitor-tooth necklaces, neckties made to look like brandy bottles.
I fake-studied a rack of palm-frond fans, my true gaze aimed up the block to the guards holding their posts, the red tips of their cigs glowing with every puff. From this angle, I couldn’t read the painted sign over the door, but I knew the place. Bresner’s Sky Cab. The biggest flyer rental company on the planet.
I waited for ten minutes, maybe longer—the shopowner giving me the stink eye—until I heard the roar of liftoff. Earsplitting thunder rumbled down the street. Windowpanes rattled in cheap-ass frames while monitor-tooth necklaces gnashed on their hooks.
The flyer appeared above its rooftop landing pad and passed overhead, lights bearing down, wind lashing my hair. The flyer moved off, the roar growing steadily softer before fading to nothing but the echo in my ears.
They were going to Yepala. On the phone, the doc had said so. They were all in business together, and that business was centered in Yepala. What did that war-torn wasteland have to offer? I knew I’d have to go up there myself to figure out this shit. But not tonight. Tonight I had a social call to attend to. If I wasn’t already too late.
I headed up the block and strode between the guards to the office inside. I asked my question and pulled bills from my pocket until I got an answer.
Dr. Tranny had a name. Angel Franklin.
* * *
The skiff slid under a dark bridge into a narrow canal. Almost there.
Dr. Angel Franklin. The name washed through my head over and over like foul water through a sewer pipe. I tried to eject it from my thoughts. Time enough to look him up later.
I paid my fare and hopped out of the skiff onto a private dock, walked to shore, then started along a well-lit, fresh-burned trail through jungle scrub. Recent rains made a paste of ashy mud stick to my shoes, my newest pair. I’d needed to replace only the one I’d tossed out the doc’s window, but you couldn’t buy just one.
I rapped on the back door. Paul Chang’s door. I wiped mud off my shoes, scraping them back and forth over a coarse-bristled mat. The door swung open, a stranger waving me into the kitchen with a drunk grin. Didn’t know the guy. Likely one of Pei’s relatives. Paul’s wife came from a family so big that Paul used to joke about needing name tags.
Catering staff stood at large sinks with steamy water running over clacking dishes. I was late. Paul’s son’s graduation party was about wrapped.
I walked through the kitchen, which was cavernous enough to be gaudy. Paul liked to show off, and the deceased chief had the money to do it. Selling KOP’s services to the Bandur cartel yielded a sweet income.
Acting as his enforcer, I’d made a nice haul myself. Not that I had much to show for it. Spent most of it as it came in, and dropped most of the rest on Niki’s medical bills, all that money wasted trying to save a woman who wanted to die. I would’ve given anything to save her. Anything. But she didn’t want to be saved.
I centered my shades on my nose and looked at what was left of the cake. Less than half remained, but it had clearly been shaped like a badge.
Congrats Robert
was written in icing. Paul’s son a cop. What would Paul have thought? My first instinct said proud, but considering how Paul’s reign ended, with him disgraced and a hole blasted through his head, I couldn’t be sure.
I exited the kitchen and entered the dining room. The caterers had set up quite a spread, platter after platter of picked-over cured meats and spiced fruit. A basket of bread sat at the table’s end. I reached for a piece, but stopped when I saw the mold spots. Couldn’t leave bread out for more than a couple hours.
I’d spent a lot of nights in this room. Niki and I. Paul and Pei. Knocking back a few, eating dinner, knocking back a few more.
I palmed an empty spot on the table where Niki used to sit, felt the cool wood against my skin. I shouldn’t have drunk so much those nights. The memories would be clearer now, easier to reach, easier to touch.
It was right here at this table that I’d told Pei about Paul, told her he was dead. Told her he had been murdered. Told her KOP was going to sell it as a suicide. No, she couldn’t fight it. The mayor and the new chief were in control now. She
had
to swallow it. She had to accept that her husband would forever be remembered as a criminal and a coward. If her kids were going to have any future at all, she had to swallow it.
One of the caterers came in, started bussing platters. I moved into the living room. Only a dozen or so hangers-on were still milling about, mostly cops, longtime vets and pensioners. Eyes avoided my face, checking out my arm with sideways glances.
These were Paul’s loyalists. His inner circle. There was a time they all reported to me, but that was a long time ago. Now, they didn’t know how to deal with me. They knew I had no choice but to turn on Paul. I had to agree to testify against him. It was the only way to keep Niki out of jail. But justified or not, I was still a traitor. You don’t clap a traitor on the shoulder and ask him what he’s been up to. You don’t give him a mock punch in the gut and tousle his hair. You don’t shoot the shit or tell the old stories. You don’t talk to a traitor at all.
Pei marched up to me in white pearls, gold earrings, long red-lacquered nails, strappy high heels jabbing the floor. “Nice of you to show up.” She noticed my dangling sleeve, grabbed hold of the empty part to verify the vacancy. “What happened?”
Every eye in the room was now fixed on me. “Robert here? I came to congratulate him.”
Using my sleeve as a leash, she led me away from the stares, back into the privacy of the dining room. “He moved on to another party over an hour ago. You let him down, like always. Now what happened?”
“Will you tell him I came by? Tell him I’m sorry I missed him.”
She was much shorter than me, her neck craned back to look me in the eye. She pulled my shirtsleeve down like the branch of a Lagartan melon tree, then pulled my face down like it was some out-of-reach fruit, pulled it down so she could machete it off.
“You didn’t have a service for Niki, you bastard. How could you do that to her?”
I poked my chest with my thumb. “My wife. My decision.”
“She was
my
friend, damn you. You robbed me of the chance to say good-bye.” She tossed the sleeve from her long-nailed hand. “You always wanted to keep her to yourself, didn’t you? Well, she wasn’t yours. You didn’t own her.”
I felt my cheeks heating, my heartbeat knocking at my ribs. I didn’t need this shit. Words bubbled up inside me. Bad words. Hateful words. But this was Paul’s wife.
Show some respect.
“Where did you get those glasses?” She snatched them off my face and inspected the frames.
Chandelier light made me squint. I held out my hand, curled my fingers a couple times as if to say,
Gimme.
She held my shades up to the light in order to read the fine print on the frame. “Where did you get these?”
“I found them in a box. Niki must’ve given them to me.”
“They were Paul’s.”
I didn’t understand.
“I bought them as a birthday gift when we were still dating. He said he lost them.”
What was she talking about? I felt dizzy, reached for a chair.
“See.” She pointed at the frame. “I had them personalized. It says
Paul Chang
right here.”
I forced out the question I didn’t want to ask. “How did the glasses get in my closet?”
The makings of a spiteful grin formed at the corners of her mouth. “You didn’t know?”
I pulled the chair close, leaned against it. Needed it to keep upright. A giant hole was burning in my chest.
“Remember when Paul and I split up for a few months after he was promoted to captain? You and Niki were going through a rough patch around the same time. The first year after you two got married, you were always going through a rough patch.” She spoke like she was dishing to her gossipy friends, her fingers wrapped around my heart, lacquered nails digging in. “Paul told me about it when we got back together. He told me
all
about it.”
I had to get out of here.
Now.
Forcing shaky feet into action, I went toward the door and banged my way through. A caterer steered clear as I rushed across the kitchen—heads snapping my way—and busted out the back door like a drunk in sudden need of a toilet.
I swallowed bile and hurried down the narrow path toward the river, away from this house and the people inside it. I kicked at one of the lights stuck in the ground, uprooted the thing and would’ve sent it flying if not for the cord that ran through it to the other lights. I went for the lightbulb with a heel, busted it in a pop of shattered glass.
I went off the path, shoes slip-sliding over scorched, muddy earth until thick, black jungle stood tall all around me. I took a swing at it, my fist busting through leaves and fronds, rage filling the hole in my chest.
Niki and Paul.
Paul and Niki.
Screaming, I lunged deeper into the jungle, arms swinging like sickles, breaking stems under my feet. I grabbed with my left hand, ripped and pulled at the foliage, clumps of torn greenery coming free. I struck a thin tree with my right arm, took hold of the skinny bastard and tried to uproot the fucker, but a thousand vines refused to let it go. I punched at the vines, chopped at them with the blunt blade of my right arm, and yanked at the tree again. I kicked and pushed and yanked and shoved. The bastard was coming down!
I pulled with all my might, sweat dribbling in my eyes, lungs sucking air. The damn tree wouldn’t budge. The jungle never budged.
I let it go and raised a leg to give the stubborn bastard a last karate kick. Ended up on my ass.
I stayed there, waiting for my lungs to quit heaving. Waiting for the sweat to quit dripping. Waiting for my heart to quit ripping into a million little pieces.
twenty-one
A
PRIL 26, 2789
A
NOTHER
day of darkness would begin soon. I’d tossed and turned the night away with sparse dozing, turbulent thoughts, and disturbed images.
Niki and Paul.
I told myself that it was a long time ago. Paul had spied on her just like I had. He’d watched her sleep and talk on the phone, watched her put on her makeup and eat her breakfast. It was natural for him to develop feelings, wasn’t it? He’d split up with Pei, and Niki and I were fighting like we always did right after we were married. They were both lonely.
I told myself again that was a long time ago. I shouldn’t care. I told myself they were dead. I should let them rest.
I told myself a lot of things, but none could yank the thorn of betrayal embedded in my heart.
My wife. My best friend.
I could feel the pressure building in my blood and behind my eyes.
Breathe. Just breathe.
This was a perfectly nice bed. It would be a damn shame to smash it up; a shame to rip into the mattress and tear out the stuffing; to snap the frame under stomping feet and demolish the walls with a bedpost sledgehammer. All of it a damn shame.
I
had
to stop thinking about them.
I rolled onto my side. A lopsided curtain hung over the door, lopsided because the withered fabric had lost its grip on a third of the rings. A triangle of light came through where the curtain hung folded over. I followed the glowing beam’s path past three figures on the wall—two geckos and one Jesus—followed the beam down to where it died on the floor.
A church guesthouse. That was what this place was, where Maria had set us up for the night. It was one of several attached buildings surrounding a courtyard with a fountain and a blinking sign that read,
HE DIED FOR YOUR SINS.
Deluski slept a couple doors down. I’d peeked in on him when I arrived. He’d been snoring with a twisted, strangled sheet snaking between and around his limbs. I wasn’t the only one with restless dreams.
I’d also spotted the phone on the dresser by his bed. A cheap, anonymous phone. No doubt, Deluski had used it to erase his movie. First chance he got, he’d connected up and deleted that era of his life.
I stretched out my legs. I could barely see the dimly lit Jesus staring at me from his perch on the crucifix nailed to the wall. He died for my sins. So did Kripsen and Lumbela.