KOP Killer (7 page)

“Juno?”

I ripped my gaze off the water the way you rip off a bandage. Reality was back, the spark extinguished.

“What’s wrong with you?”

I glared at her, my eyes burning straight through my shades.

“Seriously. What’s wrong?” She reached for my hand, warm fingers making contact. “You’re scaring me.”

Hearing the fear in her voice, I felt a shift inside, chafing annoyance once again getting overwhelmed by the guilt and gloom. I couldn’t handle this shit, emotions cycling like mad, moods swinging like hyper monkeys. What the fuck was wrong with me? “I’m okay.” I tried to sound believable. “Really, I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not. Jesus, look at you. You look like you’re about to pass out.”

“I’m fine. I don’t see a severed head every day, okay? It’s got me a little screwed up.”

“Oh, no, you don’t.” She smacked my hand. “Don’t pull that shit with me. You and I both know you’ve seen worse.”

I didn’t want to bullshit her. I really didn’t. But coming clean was out of the question. This whole fucking thing could be blowing up in my face, but I had to keep it contained as best I could. And to achieve containment I had to keep her out.

She waited for an answer. I had to say something. Something that would explain why my fingers were gripping the rail like a lifeline. Something believable.

I started into another line of bullshit, but it caught in my throat, nothing more than a mangled syllable coming out my mouth. I tried again, but couldn’t spit it out, another false start dying before I could utter it.

Maggie’s sharp eyes shone in the lamplight, her bullshit meter on full alert. I sighed, my posture deflating, my ego wilting.

“I miss Niki.” I adjusted my shades, the shades Niki had given me. Underneath, my eyes misted as painful seconds drifted by.

“I know you do. She was carrying too much weight to keep living.”

Yes, she was. For the twenty-five years we’d been together, she tried to stay afloat. She really did. But the weight dragged on her ankles like an anchor until she couldn’t swim any longer. There were things in life you just couldn’t shake, and being raped by your father was one of them.

Footsteps approached from behind. “There you are. I’ve been lookin’ all over for you two.”

Just what I need.
Josephs. Mark Josephs. Maggie’s newest partner and a grade-A asshole. I rubbed my chin to cover my quivering lower lip.

“Juno, you old dog, what the fuck have you done this time?”

“He and Paolo Wu found Froelich,” answered Maggie.

I cleared my throat and tried but failed to sniffle my nose clear. Using my index finger, I stabbed away a tear that leaked out from under my shades.

He leaned in to get a closer look at me. “What the fuck? You cryin’?”

“No.”

“Cryin’ over Froelich?” He threw up his hands. “You gotta be fuckin’ shittin’ me. Why you gettin’ all weepy over that dickhead?”

“Fuck off.”

“I’m just askin’.”

“Leave him alone, Mark,” said Maggie.

“What’s today’s date? I’m gonna mark my calendar. The day Juno Mozambe cried. This shit’s historic.”

A different type of spark ignited: anger. I was well acquainted with this kind. “Fuck off,” I said, my shaky right strangling the rail.

Josephs held up his hands in mock surrender. “Whoa, don’t get your titties twisted now. I’m just lightenin’ the mood. Bringin’ a little cheer like I always do. Why are you always so serious?”

I told myself to relax.
Let it go. Just let it go.
I peeled my fingers off the rail and shoved them in a pocket. I shifted my feet, muscles uncoiling, and even tried a smile.

“That’s better,” he said. “You gotta quit bein’ so touchy. Don’t be a bitch now.”

My nerves jingled and my eye twitched. I was ready to pummel this stiff. That was what I needed, a good fucking fight.

Maggie put a hand on Josephs’s shoulder. “Listen, Mark, why don’t you let me talk to Juno alone?”

“No.” He pulled his shoulder away. “We’re gonna do it together. We’re supposed to be partners, right?”

“I really think it would be better if you let me handle it.”

“Fuck that. If you didn’t wanna work with me, you shouldn’t have asked me to be your partner.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Her face screwed in disgust. “Nobody else would have you.”

“That ain’t it at all. It’s not that they don’t like me. Those dickheads don’t want to be outshined is all.” He flashed his pearlies. “Nobody likes to be fiddle number two.”

Hang in a little longer, I told myself. All I had to do was answer a few questions. No big deal. Then I could move on. I could find a bar and drink until the emotions stopped swinging. Drink until I couldn’t feel. “Fucking ask your questions already.”

Josephs hit Maggie with a self-satisfied smile, like he’d just won a prize. The bastard was like a jungle tick the way he loved to get under your skin.

“What are you waiting for?” she asked him.

He turned to me. “How did you find Froelich?”

“Wu and Froelich went upriver last night to do some betting on the monitor fights. Wu wasn’t sure if he made it home okay. We tried calling him this morning and he didn’t answer, so we came down here to check on him.”

“That it?”

“That’s it.”

“What’s the deal with that tattoo on his cheek? You ever seen it before?”

“No. The killer must’ve stamped him.”

Maggie asked Josephs, “What’s the status on the search?”

“The unis tell me this boat’s clean. We think whoever did this did it somewhere else, then dunked Froelich’s head in fly gel to preserve it before bringin’ it here.” To me he said, “Now why don’t you tell me where you fit in with Wu and Froelich.”

“We’re buddies.” Poker face.

“Fuckin’ bullshit. You got some shit goin’ with them two, and you’re gonna tell me what it is.”

“We’re just friends. Pals.”

“We got a dead cop. We can’t let that go unanswered. You know that. If you three were into some shit, you gotta let me know. You back to your old tricks?”

Maggie chimed in. “You know who did this, don’t you, Juno?”

Possibly, I thought with locked lips.

“A cop is dead,” said Josephs. “Fuckin’ decapitated. You understand how much pressure’s gonna come down on us? If you know somethin’, you can’t keep us in the dark. You can’t.”

I felt the pressure, their combined heat bearing down on me. But I held strong. “I told you everything I know.”

Maggie seized my wrist. My heart started it was so sudden. “Don’t you dare shut me out.” She raised an accusing finger, aimed it at the spot between my eyes.

“Trust me,” I said. “You don’t want any part of this. Leave it be.”

“Part of what?”

“I can’t even say for sure it’s related.”

“Talk.”

I didn’t like the way she was looking at me, her brows dipped in a deep V, her lips pursed, her pretty face gone sour. Her pointing finger felt like a drill aimed at my skull.

My resolve broke like I was a two-bit snitch. I wanted to keep her clear, but this was Maggie, my very last connection to the world.

“A badge,” I said, the words bitter on my tongue. “Froelich might’ve been killed by another badge.”

Maggie’s drill of a finger went limp.

Josephs’s face went blank, any vision of a clean case shattered. “Christ. The instant I saw you I should’ve known we were fucked.”

Josephs was old-school KOP. A pimp kills a cop, and it’s time to stomp some pimp ass. An O-head kills a cop, and it’s open season on every junkie who has the bad sense to sleep in an alley. A cop kills another cop? That’s a fucking minefield.

“Fuck me,” he said. “Don’t tell me he’s brass. He better not be brass. Is he brass?” He hung on the answer.

I nodded.

“Fuck! I hate you, Juno. You know that? I’ve always hated you.”

Their phones rang, both at the same time. A holo blinked into existence just beyond the rail. Captain Emil Mota’s feet floated high over the water. “You two running this investigation?”

“Yes,” they responded.

“I just got a tip. A credible tip. I want Juno Mozambe brought in for questioning.”

seven

I
FLEW
through holo-Mota, diving for the river, my shades gripped in my left. My hands punctured the water, next came a slap to the top of my head, and then I was under. I plunged deep below the surface, my ears feeling the pressure. I kicked deeper, waiting for the mad spark to ignite inside me, hoping it would come so I could end this miserable existence.

No such luck.

It was cold down here. My ears hurt and so did my strained lungs. Not so rapturous after all.

I needed oxygen. Aiming straight up, I flutter-kicked for the surface. Breaking through, I sucked air into my lungs. I couldn’t believe this shit. Damn river spat me out. Bitch didn’t like the taste of me.

I looked up. Maggie was there, looking down at me, her expression unreadable from this distance. She gave me a wave. Josephs was there, too, flipping me a double bird.

Holo-Mota reappeared as Maggie must’ve called him back. She’d hung up with him as soon as he mentioned my name. From there, things had gone quick, her saying I better get out of here, Josephs saying they couldn’t just let me walk away with all these cops wandering the pier, and me solving the problem by swanning overboard.

Soon they’d be telling Mota how they’d just tried but couldn’t find me. I must’ve already left the scene. No, they didn’t know where I’d gone. Now what was this tip all about?

I scanned the ship’s rails. I couldn’t see anybody but Maggie and Josephs. Nobody else had seen me. I quietly breaststroked away, aiming for a set of docks just downriver.

*   *   *

Water dripped from my clothes, forming a puddle on the tile floor. I shivered under the blasting aircon. From behind a long row of glass cases, a sharp-eyed woman stared at me with one brow cocked in puzzlement.

I held out my shades, drops of river water falling onto the glass counter. “Sorry.” I tried to wipe off the water, but wound up smearing it around. Under the glass, rows and rows of earrings and necklaces glinted through the resulting blur.

I unfolded my sunglasses so she could see how one stem had bent when I hit the water. Through chattering teeth, I asked, “Can you fix this?”

*   *   *

I lay on the bed, wearing a brand-new set of cheap whites that I’d bought with some soggy pesos. My good-as-new shades covered my eyes.

Maria sat in the sex swing, her bare feet on the floor, her toenails painted pink to match her bra, which peeked out from under a tit-hugger top. My wet clothes hung from the cables that supported the sex swing. So did my drying pesos, two dozen bills clipped on like tiny flags, each held in place by a nipple clamp posing as a clothespin.

We didn’t speak. She seemed to sense I wasn’t in a conversational mood. My mind was grinding and churning, processing and plotting. Mota had overplayed his hand. The guy was a suit, and suits had no business poking around in a murder investigation. Not when they worked in PR. Shoving his weight around with Maggie and Josephs was an overreach. They didn’t report to him.

I never doubted Maggie and Josephs would let me go. Tense as things were between Maggie and me, we had a history. And Josephs, he was an everyday cop, and everyday cops had a long tradition of anti-suit sentiment. He’d let me go on principle. The SOB didn’t like being told what to do.

But Mota would keep pushing. He was already trumping up a bullshit tip to turn KOP against me and my boys. KOP was too fractured for his plan to work in full, but he didn’t need complete success. Shit, all he needed was a single kiss-ass. Just one trigger-happy uniform with designs on currying suit favor and I was fucked.

Whether Mota killed Froelich or not, he had to be corralled. And fast.

But he hadn’t responded to my threats. Or a pair of broken legs.

I knew what I had to do. It was the only way to get the mission back on track. There was no other way to be sure my new protection business would succeed.

The competition had to be eliminated.

I had to kill him.

I tried to tell myself I shouldn’t feel guilty. I ran tired, old rationalizations through my head. Things like,
It’s his own fault for not backing down
. Or,
Anybody stupid enough to buck me isn’t worth the air he breathes. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. You fuck with a monitor, you get an assful of teeth.

I had a million of them, but none helped, the familiar pit of guilt-tinged self-loathing making my stomach ache.

I had to kill him.

There it was.

“You met my sister yet?” asked Maria, her lashes gunked up with so much mascara that her lids and upper cheeks were dotted with semicircles of mascara tracks. I couldn’t see the bruise I’d given her. Whether it had faded or had just been covered by a few coats of foundation, I couldn’t tell.

“No.”

“She works here. She’s got a pretty face. She’s gonna do good at this.”

“How old is she?”

“Fifteen, but she looks older. Most people think she’s seventeen or eighteen. I’ve been saving up to get that doctor I was telling you about to do some work on her.”

“I thought you said she was pretty.”

“She is. She’ll get regular business, but we have to think long-term. Most of these girls don’t think like that. They spend their money as fast as they earn it. They never think about what’s going to happen when their tits start sagging. What are they going to do then?”

Somebody less jaded would’ve told her to get her sister the hell out of here. The girl was only fifteen. It wasn’t too late to get her back in school.

Instead, I told Maria her sister was lucky to have her looking out for her.

“She’s a smart kid. Someday we’re going to start our own house. If we’re really good about saving our money, we can do it in ten years or so.”

“You think a new set of tits will earn her that much?”

“It’s not just the tits. She’s gonna get some work down below, too.”

“What kind of work?”

“This doctor can insert motors and stuff down there so she can give her johns a ride they won’t forget.”