Kop (25 page)

“Why are you so interested in her? You seein’ her?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit. I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have said those things about her if I knew you were pokin’ her. You know I’m not the kind of guy that talks about another guy’s woman.”

“I know. I just lost it, okay? I wasn’t thinking straight.”

“You can say that again. You were like some kind of fuckin’ animal, man. You were flashin’ your teeth. I was afraid you were gonna bite me.”

“Sorry, Josephs.”

“Hey, man, that’s okay.” He wiped his lip with a towel.

“Tell me about Natasha.”

“It must have been a year ago. Back then I was all jazzed to arrest an offworlder. I’d only arrested Lagartans up to that point, and I thought it would look good on my record to have a few offworld collars. I got all dressed up, got my clothes ironed and everything. Then I hit some of the nice restaurants near the Town Square, you know, the touristy places. I’d hang out in the bar and wait for an offworlder to proposition a hooker. Didn’t have to wait long.”

Josephs wiped his lip again. This time it came away clean, and he tossed it on the floor. “You ever been in a restaurant called Afrie’s?”

“Yeah.” That’s where I’d met her.

“Your Natasha was there with two other hookers. They didn’t look like hookers though. I thought they were just out partyin’ together. There was also this group of five miners there. The two groups were makin’ eyes at each other, then the miners started sendin’ drinks over. One of the miners went over and sat with Natasha and her friends. You should’ve seen this dude. He had this fish skin—you know, scales and shit. They was all into touchin’ it, seein’ how it felt. He was turnin’ it on and off. One second he’s a fuckin’ fish, and the next, he’s a normal person. Natasha and her friends were oohin’ and ahin’ like schoolgirls. At this point, I wasn’t suspicious at all. I’m thinkin’ it’s just some innocent flirtin’, but then he goes back to his table, and the five of them pool together a bundle of cash. Then the guy goes back over to Natasha’s table and leaves the money with a hotel key. I followed them to the hotel and busted the whole lot. All eight of them.”

“You’re sure we’re talking about the same Natasha?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. When I booked her, she said her name was Yashin. I asked her if she was related to Pavel Yashin, and she said he was her father. I just about shit when I heard that. I asked her why she was hookin’. She’s got all the money she needs. She wouldn’t answer.”

I went for the door—had to get out of there.

Josephs stayed seated. “Sorry to break it to you. You were gonna dump her anyway, weren’t you?”

I stopped, my hand on the doorknob. “Why do you say that?”

“You’re about to arrest her father. Aren’t you gonna sting him? Give him a line like, ‘You’re under arrest, and I’ve been fuckin’ your daughter.’ Shit, that’s cold! That would sting him good, Juno. You could even dress it up a little—”

Paul put his hand on my shoulder and guided me out.

I couldn’t think straight. All this time she’d been with me, she’d been…

Paul yelled over the rattle of rain on the aluminum overhang. “What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know. I have to talk to her.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“No.”

“Can you keep that temper under wraps?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

“What good would that do?”

“I can watch while you talk. The second I see your switch go off, I’ll stop you before you hurt her.”

“You think you can stop me?”

“I just did.”

I called Natasha, told her to come down to my place right away. Paul and I sat together wordlessly waiting. My emotions cycled with alarming speed—anger, hatred, disgust, grief, resentment, hostility…They all burned through me—their combined combustion nearing a flash point. A knock on the door launched me from my seat. Paul went in the bedroom, leaving the door cracked.

I opened the front.

Natasha’s gray dress matched the sheeting downpour. The smile on her face didn’t last long. “What’s wrong?”

I let her in and led her into the living room, into Paul’s view. “I talked to Officer Josephs today.”

Her defenses snapped into place. “So?”

“He told me he arrested you a year ago.”

“So what if he did?”

“You’re a prostitute. That’s what you do when you say you’re going out with your friends.”

She looked away.

“How could you do that to me?”

When she turned back, her eyes had ignited. “How could I do what? Open my legs for money?”

My vision started to blur. “Yes. How could you do that?”

“Because they fucking paid me.”

“I don’t pay you.”

“Yes you do. You’ll pay me when you arrest my father—a onetime fee!”

“Is that all I am to you? A means of getting rid of your father?” I was pacing now.

“Yes. That’s all you are, just a cop that can get me what I want. And I’m getting sick of you stringing me along!”

I could feel my pulse in my temples.

Natasha unleashed. “I came here expecting you to tell me you were going to arrest him today. For months, you’ve been leading me on. A real man wouldn’t be so chickenshit scared of my father!”

My head pounded; my stomach churned. My whole body ached for release.

She kept at me. “I’ll tell you another thing. I didn’t have to fake it with my johns!”

I wanted to lose control. The only thing holding me back was the fact that I knew she was deliberately provoking me. She wanted me to strike her…punish her.

I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. I just hit her with the truth. “You hurt me, Natasha.”

She was positively fuming. My emotions suddenly shut down, like they’d overloaded. I watched her with a strange detachment. It finally occurred to me why I was so attracted to her in the first place. She was the only person I knew who was filled with more rage than me.

Nothing left to say, we stared at each other for long minutes.
I saw her expression move from bitter to smoldering, then from smoldering to little-kid scared.

Questions ran through my head….How long has your father been raping you?…Is your shame so great that you punish yourself by selling your body?…Would you stop if I took your father away?

Instead I said, “Get out.”

“What?”

“Get out. I don’t want to see you.” I wanted her to pay for how I felt.

“Please, Juno. I didn’t mean those things I said.” She was misting up now.

“Get out.”

“But I quit. I quit! I quit after I met you.” Tears rolled down her brown cheeks. “Don’t do this, Juno. You can’t do this to me. Don’t leave me!”

I went to the door and opened it.

“I’m sorry. I should have told you, but I quit. I didn’t think it mattered. Don’t do this!”

She stepped out the door where elongated raindrops were stabbing the ground like glass pencils driven into the mud. She slipped and just managed to catch herself by dropping her hands to the ground. She pushed herself back up and pulled her hands free from the wet earth, her fingers coated with mud. She flicked her hands in an effort to get the clumps off but just wound up spraying the front of her dress with muddy water. She looked at me. Her eyes imploring.

You can’t do this to her, Juno, Don’t be an asshole.

I closed the door in her face.

Paul and I were still at my place. I called off the Yashin arrest. “Wait and see if we can get Bandur,” I said.

Paul tried to talk me out of it. “Are you sure? It’s going to
kill your chances with Natasha. If we nab her father, you’ll still have a chance to patch things up.”

“After what she did to me? She can go to hell.”

“You know what her father did to her. She’s been carrying all that guilt. She hooked to punish herself, Juno. We work vice. How many hookers do we know that have the same story? Besides, the way Josephs told it, she didn’t sound like a serious hooker. Maybe she was just experimenting. Maybe it was peer pressure. You don’t know. She did quit. Doesn’t that count for something?”

“She’s been lying to me, Paul.”

“And you’ve been honest with her? How do you think she’d feel if she found about you spying on her?”

“That isn’t the same.”

“It isn’t?”

“Dammit, Paul, you’re supposed to be on my side. Quit making me feel like a shit.”

He grinned. “But it’s so easy.”

“Fuck you.”

“Listen, Juno, I’ve never see you like this. You must love her, right?”

I begrudgingly nodded.

“Do you think she loves you?”

I nodded again.

“Then at least give it a couple days. You need to cool down first, so you can think straight. Will you at least do that?”

I gave him a reluctant yes.

“Good. Now let’s go get drunk.”

S
EPTEMBER 32, 2762

PM
BECAME
AM and Paul slowed the drinks down. My buzz started to fade. Paul and I had been living large since we’d left my place—a two-person bar-hopping blowout. I’d been knocking back drinks with forget-Natasha abandon the whole night.

The crowd was thinning out. Where there’d only been standing room, there were now open tables. I hadn’t had a drink in at least an hour, and I was beginning to see straight. I wasn’t liking the idea of being sober one bit. The same strippers that I thought were hot an hour ago were now playing ordinary in my eyes—bad dancing, bad thighs, and bad sags were suddenly coming through strong. I wasn’t ready to shift from drunk-and-happy to depressed hangover. “You know where we should go, Paul?”

“C’mon, Juno, it’s late. The sun will be up in a few hours.”

“You haven’t even heard my suggestion yet.”

“All right, what is it?”

My phone rang. “Yeah.”

I couldn’t hear a damn thing over the late-night hubbub, but Natasha’s smiling hologram was blocking the stage. I read her holo-lips. “Juno,” she said.

Her sweet face soured in my mind, yet I couldn’t keep myself from cranking up the call’s volume. “Yeah?”

“I need you to come over. Something happened.” Her voice rang an alarming note over the go-go music.

“Be right there.” I clicked off. “We have to go to Natasha’s.”

Paul asked, “What do you think she wants?”

“I don’t know, but there’s something wrong.”

We went to the back door and knocked. Natasha opened up and let us into the kitchen. It was my first time inside the house that I had spent so much time spying on. I turned on the lights—knew right where they were. “Oh god, Natasha. Are you okay?”

Her shirt was covered in blood. There were spatters on her face, in her hair.

“Somebody broke in…my parents…”

“Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m okay.”

Paul and I sprinted through the house. We bounded upstairs like we lived there. We found her parents in the bedroom. There was blood on the walls, the carpet, the lamp. Pavel Yashin was lying in bed, stab wounds all over his body. His blood had run through the mattress and puddled to the floor underneath. Blood spatters doused geckos drinking their fill. Flies were already bouncing around the room. We waved our hands in a futile attempt to keep them away. Pavel’s wife, Gloria, was huddled in a defenseless ball under her Virgin Mary shrine; white candles were spotted red. A lase-blade handle protruded from her back and smoke rose from her charring flesh as the blade burned an ever-widening hole. Half the hilt was already sunken into her back. I flicked it off before it burned through to the floor and set the house ablaze.

Paul said, “Go take care of Natasha. I’ll scope the place out.”

I returned to the kitchen. Natasha was sitting at the table, blood-smeared Formica under her hands.

“Tell me what happened.”

Her face was unreadable. “I’m sorry I called you. I know you don’t want to hear from me, but I didn’t know who else…”

“It’s okay, Natasha. I’m here now. Tell me.”

“I went out with my friends…and no, I wasn’t hooking. When I came back, I saw that my parents’ door was open. I peeked in to see if they were home, and I found…” She couldn’t finish. Tears began to stream.

“Then what?”

“I checked to see if they were still alive, but they weren’t breathing. That’s when I called you.”

“Do you know who did this?”

“No. Somebody must have broken in and sneaked back out. There was nobody here when I came home.”

Paul came around the corner. He checked the kitchen window then asked for a key to the basement. Natasha told him to look in the silverware drawer. He ran down to the basement for a minute, came back up, and waved for me to follow him to the living room.

“Excuse me, Natasha; I have to talk to Paul for a minute.”

Paul and I went into the living room. Paul spoke in whispers. “They’re both dead.”

“Do you think Bandur could have done this?”

“Is that what she said?”

“No. She said that somebody must have broken in.”

“I checked all the windows and doors, Juno. There are no signs of forced entry. The basement is fucking packed with O. He’s also got a couple cases of money down there. Nobody touched any of it.”