“What did you see in me?”
Her brows quirked as if to ask, What the hell are you talking about?
“When we first met, when we first partnered up, what did you see in me?”
She stepped out of the rain, up onto the bottom stair, droplets in her hair, water dotting her face.
I needed an answer. “What did you see?”
“I saw a broken man trying to fix himself.”
I rubbed my stump. “So what’s changed?”
“Everything. You’re going the wrong way. Can’t you see that?”
“My head’s been a little screwed up.”
“A little?”
“My intent was right, Maggie. My intent was right.”
She started to protest, but I stopped her by holding up my left hand. I wouldn’t let her talk me out of it. My intent was right. It was true. It had to be true. How else could I live with what I’d started, the shitstorm I’d unleashed?
I needed her to see. To understand. “You saw more in me than that.”
She folded her arms, her green eyes wary.
I pressed. “When you learned who I was, my history, why didn’t you drop me as fast as you could?”
“Because I could see you didn’t want to be that person anymore. I thought you wanted to redeem yourself.”
“I did. I do. You know damn well that’s why I wanted to take KOP back. You know I wanted you to change it, to make it better than the clusterfuck Paul and I left behind. But that’s only half of it, isn’t it? Enough with the redemption story. Tell me the other reason.”
She came up two steps so she could look down at me again. “Stop twisting things. What you’re doing is wrong. You took over a protection business. You’re pocketing prostitution money.”
I didn’t like that tone, that holier-than-thou, white-horse-riding tone. I leaned way forward, my ass coming up off the step, my floored soul coming off the mat. “Of course it’s fucking wrong.” I spat each word. “But doing right isn’t enough. Not for this screwed-up world. It’s never been enough.”
My voice got loud, words stampeding from my mouth. “You think I enjoy being me? You think this shit is easy?”
She backed away, the heat in my voice knocking her down a step.
“I pay the price,” I said. “Fucking every day, I pay the price. But I do what it takes. If I have to, I’ll paint the fucking streets with blood. You know why?” I clenched my fist, pounded it on my leg. “Because doing right doesn’t change anything. Because doing right isn’t worth shit!”
My wad shot, I dropped back down to my seat, my face on fire, my body shaking, my soul standing tall.
Maggie stared back at me, her stern face giving away nothing.
“It’s a taker’s world,” I said. “A taker’s world.”
We watched each other, pieces said, guts spilled. I didn’t need to say the other reason she kept me around. She knew damn well what wasn’t said, that she saw in me something she lacked. Something she needed to get where she wanted to go. The capacity to go all the way, to sink the knife to its hilt, to slice the throat all the way through to the bone.
She needed a vicious bastard like me.
But she showed no forgiveness in her green eyes, no give at all. She was right, and I was wrong, and with this quiet stare, she was making sure I knew exactly what she thought.
I’d said what I had to say. I stayed silent, wondering if this was it. If this was where our paths forked.
I refused to believe it. We’d been through too much together in the short time we’d known each other. Our bond was too strong, our codependence too great.
“I can’t have you running a criminal enterprise.” Her voice was rock certain. “Quit the protection racket.”
“I can’t let Mota take it back.”
“Why not?”
I took a long time answering, the last ounce of pride I had left making me reluctant to reveal the depth of my mistakes. “He killed Kripsen and Lumbela.” There. I’d said it.
She closed her eyes and shook her head. Her jaw dropped like she was about to speak but nothing came out. She tried again but managed only a stutter. I’d knocked the words right out of her.
“He cut their throats. He’s working with a pair of Yepala cops. I put one in the hospital, I think, but the other one gave my boys neckties. Mota, Wu, and Froelich were running some kind of business in Yepala, something far bigger than a protection racket. We have to find out what it is.”
Her dropped jaw stayed where it was.
“Mota’s got an offworld girlfriend who helped him try to knock me off. I have to find out who she is and where she fits in.”
She closed her mouth and rubbed her face with her hands.
I kept dishing it out, puzzle piece after puzzle piece. Mota and Froelich were lovers. Froelich and Samusaka had matching tats. Froelich, Wu, and Mota were all in business together. Samusaka was the gay son of an oil baron whose family was less than cooperative.
Somehow, it all fit together. The lizard-man serial killer too. It all fit together.
I told her I’d put the puzzle together, and when I finished, I was going to destroy it. I’d blow the whole thing up, and I’d watch the fragments burn. Wu’s little girls deserved no less.
She listened to every word, sharp green eyes taking it all in.
“I need your help.”
“Quit the protection racket.”
Frustration spilled into my voice. “You need a power base to be chief.”
She shook her head no.
“This is how it’s done.”
“We’re doing this different.”
“Dammit, Maggie, you think you can get to the top by doing a good job? You think they look at attendance records? ‘Boy, she’s punctual, let’s make her chief’? To be chief you have to take it. It’s a taker’s world.”
“I won’t do it like you and Paul did. I won’t climb over the backs of pimps and hookers and drug kingpins. I won’t be corrupted.” She leaned forward like she was about to throw a dart. “I won’t let myself turn into you.”
The dart drove deep. Pierced me in a place so deep that a shallow man like me ought not to feel it.
She crossed her arms. Emerald eyes bored in. “Drop the protection racket or we’re done.”
Her will was so much stronger than mine, her moral center more fixed. Judging by the look on her face, she knew she’d won, and now she was just waiting for me to figure it out. I’d come here to remind her of why she needed me, but she’d upended the thing. She’d done it so skillfully, so completely that my arguments floated adrift, meaningless.
Nothing to do but marvel at what I saw in her at the beginning.
I surrendered with a defeated nod of agreement.
Her green eyes softened, emeralds becoming less cold, less chiseled. She shook her head at me with a disapproving smirk, then sat down next to me, letting out a what-am-I-going-to-do-with-you sigh on the way down. “A taker’s world? Have a damn heart, will you? It wouldn’t hurt to give a little.”
She was right. Always right.
I ran my fingers into my hair and instantly regretted it, the root of every hair feeling like a sharp needle against my burned scalp. After a prolonged wince, I said, “You may never get there doing it your way.”
“I know.” She sounded sure. Like she’d made peace with it.
“I can’t let Mota take his racket back. Not after what he did to Kripsen and Lumbela. They were my responsibility.”
“Drop the racket after we bring him down.”
We kept quiet for a long time, content to be in each other’s presence, listening to jungle rain drum on the roof and the patio tiles, reunited in our mission for change.
Change. Whatever that was.
The skiff rode low in the water. A tourist vessel. We had cushioned seats under our asses, elbow rests for our arms. Overhead, a red-and-white-striped tarp stretched over a metal frame, ropes of light twining around the poles.
Deluski and I sat near the back, Maggie and Josephs a row ahead of us. Maggie kept one of the boat’s floodlights trained on the riverbank, her face focused, concentrated. Light skittered across trees and tangled foliage. Jungle overflowed the riverbank like bread raised over a pan’s lip.