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.
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.
They needed the kind of doctor who wouldn’t think twice about installing a robo-snatch in Maria’s fifteen-year-old sister.
I crossed the street, dodging offworld pedestrians, and gave the door a loud rap. The door swung open. A teen stood in the frame, the boy assistant I’d seen here before, the one with the milky eyes. Like poached eggs with dishwater yolks.