I tailed Hidalgo for a week. He was turning tricks for five hundred a romp. He was being pimped by one of Bandur’s people who now reported to Koba’s new crime boss-Carlos Simba.
Hidalgo wasn’t seeing any profit from his skin sales. Every peso went toward his gambling debt. According to the books, they were steadily raising his interest rate. After four years of back-alley blow jobs, he’d only reduced the debt by three percent. He’d be so old by the time he paid it off, he’d be gumming cock.
I thought he might be perfect for my plans. I evaluated his abilities: He couldn’t afford to pay for O anymore, but instead of turning to glue huffing he’d kicked the habit-promising. He was overcharging his tricks and pocketing the difference, hiding the cash in the hollowed-out heels of his pumps-clever. He was taking a big risk by shorting a pimp. It was considered a capital offense-gutsy. One word summation: potential.
Niki, Abdul, Maggie, and I finished off the paella. I poured just half a glass of brandy for myself. I was getting to the point where I could half-glass my way through a bottle in no time. I wasn’t the only one; Abdul was keeping pace. It was taking a two-drink minimum for either of us to forget feeling sorry for ourselves and get conversation turned to the good times we’d had with Paul. Maggie was the willing listener, our excuse to tell the stories one more time. “You ever heard about the time Paul…?” Niki laughed at the right times, as if it were the first time she’d heard any of the stories.
Maggie turned the discussion serious. “I’ve been going through the missing persons files. I came up with seven more likely slaves. That makes thirty-six so far.”
Abdul said, “You have to stop nosing around, Maggie. Somebody’s going to notice.”
“I can’t just do nothing. They’re running slaves and they’re getting away with it. Doesn’t that upset you?”
“Not as much as seeing you get killed.”
“What else am I supposed to do? The mayor has it in for me. Chief Banks won’t let me do any important work. Now he has me doing background checks on academy applicants. And that’s in addition to the traffic violations work he’s got me on. Their strategy to make me quit is becoming abundantly clear. They’re loading me up with so much work that I can’t possibly keep up, and then they’re going to start filing dereliction-of-duty reprimands on me. I can’t stand doing goddamned busywork.”
Maggie ran her hands through the hair behind her ears and talked directly to me. “When are you going to help me take over KOP?”
Niki’s hand moved under the table to my knee and squeezed, signaling a tug of the leash. I was happy to comply. “It can’t be done.”
“Why not?”
“It just can’t.”
Maggie asked Abdul the same question. “Why not?”
Abdul looked at me. “Yeah, Juno. Why not?” The two of them were ganging up, applying the pressure.
My brandy was getting low. I added a dash to my glass. “First of all, you’re a woman. KOP has never even had a woman captain much less a woman chief. Second, you’re not ruthless enough. You have to be vicious. You don’t have it in you.”
“That’s why I need you.”
I couldn’t say, “I’m not vicious anymore.” Not with the scheme I was planning. If went through with it, I’d reach new heights of ruthlessness and viciousness. I couldn’t let myself worry about the moral implications. I was on a mission-destroy the six of them: Mayor Samir, Chief Banks, Carlos Simba, Mai Nguyen, and double-crossers Tip Tipaldi and Yuan Kim. They had to pay for what they did to Paul. They had to pay for using me. They especially had to pay for underestimating me by leaving me alive. There was no time to help Maggie. She’d have to take care of herself.
I said, “If you’re so bored at KOP, I have a job for you.”
Maggie looked skeptical, “What’s that?”
“I need financial workups on Simba, Nguyen, and Chief Banks.”
“What for?”
“I don’t want to say. Can you do it?”
Maggie tried to bargain with me. “You have to agree to help me first.”
“You don’t want me. You said you want to do it clean. You’ve got the wrong guy.”
“I have the right guy. You can be rehabilitated.” She said the last part with a smirk.
Abdul laughed aloud. Niki joined in. Abdul and Niki were right. There was no hope for me. I was a real bastard; that was all there was to it. There was no way I could ever redeem myself for the things I’d done. I couldn’t get caught up in Maggie’s dreams for a better Lagarto. I’d already tried to make Paul’s dreams for Lagarto come true, and Lagarto was no better off. Once my scores were settled, I was going to try harder to make Niki’s dreams of a normal life come true. There was still time with Niki.
“I can’t do it, Maggie.”
She relented. “What kind of financial information do you need?”
“I need to know the worth of their assets, cash flow-anything you can get your hands on.”
While I waited for the financial workups, I had time to get one name crossed off my list.
I knocked back an entire bottle waiting outside Yuan Kim’s place until the early AM. The house used to belong to his father, Chen. He’d passed it on to Kim when he’d retired from the force and moved out of the city. It was a middle-to-upper class neighborhood. Most yards were jungle-trimmed immaculate.
I watched his door through the prickly leaves of a shrub. I swatted mosquitoes to pass the time. I didn’t wear bug spray. I didn’t want some passerby picking up my scent. Bites covered my hands and neck. I must’ve lost a liter of blood. I drank brandy as an itch reducer, an orally ingested calamine lotion. No sign of Kim. He still hadn’t come home-must’ve found somebody to service the snake tonight.
I needed to get moving before people started to wake up. I crawled out of the bushes and crept up to the house. Both doors were locked. I decided on a window entry. The basement window looked like the best bet-low to the ground, plenty of jungle cover.
I worked at the lock for a while. Fuck it, I just broke the glass. I used a broomstick handle that I’d brought with me to knock the glass out and beat away the sharp edges. I climbed through, dropping my hand into a lizard’s nest. I got nipped, but luckily it didn’t break the skin-didn’t want to leave any blood evidence behind. I bumped around in the dark, sloshing through ankle-deep floodwater until I found the staircase and moved up into the bedroom.
I took the broomstick handle and taped it to my right arm. It was a perfect fit. I had prepped it by cutting it down to arm length. It was now attached to the outside of my arm, running from my shoulder to the back of my hand. I’d wrapped the tape extra tight around my hand, so it couldn’t move-left just my fingers free, so they could grasp my piece’s handle. I placed the gun in my hand. It held rock solid. I couldn’t sight for shit-wouldn’t matter. I’d take him at close range.
I sat on his bed, my hand tingling from the lack of circulation and mosquito bites. I heard keys jangling in the front lock. I got into position, standing in the door frame. When he rounded that corner, he’d just about run into me. I relaxed my body-just wait. I tuned into the sounds of Yuan Kim making his way around the house. My entire body sizzled with anticipation. He was in the kitchen. That was the fridge opening and closing. He’d be coming soon-keep breathing, nice and slow.
He came around the corner, unbuttoning his shirt. I took care of business with two shots-the first in the chest to bring him down, the second to the head. No “This is for Paul, you cocksucker.” No “Get on your knees and beg.” None of that bullshit. When you got a job to do, you do it-no room for ego. Make it quick and simple-no complications.
I stripped the tape from my arm with a hair-ripping jerk. Kim’s glasses were on the floor. I pulled my shirtsleeve over my hand, picked them up, and placed them on what was left of his fried head. I stuck them to the peak of his nose, so they wouldn’t slide down.
The sun was up already. I sat back on the bed. It was too risky to leave now. I’d have to wait five hours for nightfall. It was Kim’s day off; hopefully nobody would come looking for him.