Ex-Kop (7 page)

I left the Zoo, unable to shake the feeling that the real reason I was so willing to lie to Maggie was because I wanted her money. I
needed
that money.

M
Y
calves ached by the time I reached the bottom of the stairs that led down from the Zoo to the river. I was already sweating. The sun was out for the first time in days. The docks jutted out in front of me. It was time to go to the hospital. On cue, my stomach stepped up its flipping and flopping. Damn hospital. I hated that place. I tilted my flask back and swallowed the last couple drops. I stopped at a newsstand by the dock and bought a minibottle, slugging down the entire contents in a couple swallows.

I walked out onto the warped dock, where moored boats were scraping against the pilings. There was a man coming my way. I moved to the left to let him pass, but he kept walking down the middle of the dock, claiming it as his own. Who did this asshole think he was? I angled closer to the edge, and he aimed in the same direction. Hair bristled on the back of my neck.

I suddenly recognized him. He was one of the hommy boys; Hoshi was his name. He was coming right at me. I ducked and moved back for the middle, but the brandy impaired my agility. Hoshi had a hold of me, and he was pushing me to the edge. I tried to counter by shifting my weight but wound up losing my balance instead. I was tipping off the side. I grasped at his arm, wanting to pull myself back up, or even pull him over with me—either way. I got a hold of his sleeve, but he yanked his arm free, and I went over backward.

I landed hard on the deck of a boat, my shoulder and back screaming in pain. Hoshi hadn't jumped down yet, but there was already another one on me, his foot pinning my throat. I squirmed out from under, but he recovered quickly, this time coming down with his knee in my face. I kicked out, but my legs couldn't find leverage. They were both on me now, holding me down. I reached my hands out, grasping for anything. …

I stopped resisting when I felt the barrel of a lase-pistol digging into my temple.

“Good to see you, Juno.”

I strained to make the face out through my tears. “Ian?”

“That's right, boy-o. And you're going to listen up, because I'm only going to say this once. You stay the fuck out of my business, you hear me?”

I nodded my head, totally conscious of the lase-pistol rubbing my skull.

“Good. And you're going to do something else. You're going to get Maggie off my ass. You're going to tell her that whatever she thinks I did, I didn't do it. You're going to tell her that I'm a good cop, a great cop. You're going to be my character witness, you get me?”

Again I nodded.

The two of them got up. I stayed down. Hoshi flashed his badge at a couple onlookers who took the hint and moved off.

Ian turned back to me, his lase-pistol leveled at my chest. “You're not so tough now, are you?”

I kept silent as I tried to rein in my galloping heart.

“Say it, boy-o.”

“Say what?”

“Say you're not so tough.”

He can't be serious.

Ian wagged his piece at me. “Say it.”

I was about to launch into a four-letter frenzy, but then I looked at his piece and then his wild eyes. I took my time answering, making sure my voice didn't quiver. “I'm not so tough.”

“Did you hear that?” Ian said to Hoshi. “He's not so tough. I gotta say, I'm a bit disappointed. My pop used to tell me about you. He respected you, said you were a real badass. Turns out my pop was full of shit.”

A voice sounded from the dock. “You got him?”

“Yeah, we got him.”

I couldn't see the voice's face—he was backlit by the sun—but I could make out the girth of his shadow, which was double-wide. “Okay,” he said. “Unless you need anything, I'll be going back up then.” He sounded like he was out of breath.

“We got it under control, boy-o. Good work.”

“No problem, Ian.” His eclipsing shadow moved on, but not before I ID'ed him as the block super who had chewed me out, the sloppy eater with fish in his beard.

Ian gestured with his piece, “What's wrong with your hand, boy-o?”

“Old injury.”

“Bullshit. I think you're scared. Imagine that. Juno Mozambe shaking like a little girl. You're not used to being on the other end, are you? You're used to being the one that's in control, beating out all those confessions, knocking all those cops around. You were a real force. You even beat my pop down one time. You remember that? Can't say I blame you for that one. You should've done him in and saved me the guilt of cutting ties with the bastard. Yeah, you used to be a real mean bastard. But now, turn the tables, and you're just a little faggot, cryin' for mama.”

“Fuck off.”

“Ooh, a little sensitive now, aren't we?” Ian was hovering over me now, flaunting his weapon. I looked over at his accomplice.
I calculated the odds: no way I could snatch Ian's piece and kill both of them without getting cut in half. Still, it might be worth it if I could kill Ian before I died. As if Ian could tell what I was thinking, he tucked his weapon away, out of my reach.

“Stop moving your hand; it bothers me,” he said.

“I can't.”

“I said stop.”

“I told you. I can't.”

Ian dropped on top of me, grabbing my right hand with unbelievable strength. I twisted from under his weight, my left going for his holster. I stopped cold when I felt the muzzle of a lase-pistol jabbing into my back.

“Don't fight it,” Hoshi said.

Ian had a hold of my pinky now. “I told you to stop moving your hand.” The pain had already electrified my brain before the sound of the snap could reach my ears.

I lost all control, screaming like mad as I thrashed and yanked, trying unsuccessfully to wrench my hand free until, two snaps later, things mercifully went black.

I
WOKE
up feeling something crawling on my face. I swatted the gecko away with my left. I held up my shaking right, fingers pointing every which way like some fork gone horribly wrong. Pain ricocheted up into my wrist with every sway of my quaking hand.

I couldn't see straight. I couldn't think.

It was all I could do to muster up a simple course of action.

First step: I hit the newsstand and bought up enough minibottles to make a maxibottle.

Second step: I paid a thousand pesos to a teenager with a boat—take me to the city morgue and bring me to Abdul Salaam.

Third step: I knocked back minibottle after minibottle until I couldn't feel a damn thing, not my fingers, not the stomach pain, not a damn thing.

I moved through the hospital corridors. With this hand, I looked more like a patient than a visitor. Abdul did a fine job wrapping it, not bad for a coroner. He'd splinted my four fingers into a karate chop and left my unbroken thumb free. Ian must've gotten bored when I passed out, stopping after the index finger.

Who did that punk think he was? Bracing me.
Me!
In my mind, I kept replaying the scene with different endings: sometimes spinning out from under his grasp and snatching his lase-pistol; or other times I'd
just tackle him and bash his head into the decking until he went limp; or better yet, I'd pull a lase-blade out of my belt and watch the look on his face as it sizzled into his chest. Then, just when I'd really start getting into my fantasized victories, the shame of being nothing but a drunken old has-been would bring my broken-fingered reality front and center, which would just end up making me all the angrier.

Rage seeped into my gait, my footsteps becoming footstomps as I turned onto the long-term-care ward. I saw the nurses wheeling their carts, the patients shuffling in their open-assed gowns and thought that if just one of them so much as looked at me …

Let it go. You got your money.
That was all that mattered for now. I didn't need any more trouble with Ian. Niki had to be my top priority.

From Abdul's office, I'd called Maggie as soon as I'd sobered enough to speak without slurring and told her that the girl fessed up. I told her that the girl was getting dicked by her father, and she decided to de-dickify him. End of story. Maggie sounded short of 100 percent convinced, but her whole premise that the girl was innocent was flimsy from the get-go. I persuaded her to get off Ian's case, despite the fact that, in reality, I knew Ian was involved. How, I didn't know, but I had four broken fingers telling me so.

Maggie had wanted to get together and buy me a drink, but I'd declined. If she found out about Ian's little finger-snapping fiesta, she'd go all out investigating him. Then how long would it be before Ian and his posse showed up at my door ready to break the rest of my bones in order to find out what I'd told her? It was better this way, safer for both of us.

I'd chatted with Maggie a while longer, letting her vent about police politics, with me listening, wishing I was still a cop. Right before I hung up, I recited my account number despite
the protestations of the knot in my stomach. I needed that money. Maybe when this was over, and Niki was fully rebuilt, Maggie and I could partner up again and find out what Ian was up to. Together, we could bust that asshole.

Not since I was a kid had I had to worry about money. As the chief's right hand, I'd pocketed a shitload. If it was illegal, we took our cut: opium-den dinero, hooker fuck-bucks, bookie vig, chop-shop swag, gene-smuggler scratch … My palms were so greased I couldn't have held onto sandpaper.

Niki and I lived high, spending recklessly to no consequence. There was always more coming in than going out. But when I was forced to resign by the bastards who murdered the chief, the trend lines went from black to red. Not being a cop anymore, I had to start earning my dough or give up the life. I found good work hiding in closets, peering through windows, exposing scandals when I could and creating scandals when there were none to expose. It wasn't glamorous, but the scandal rags paid well. It was a long way down from running KOP, but it kept me in the game. Barely.

Then came Niki's “accident.” I spent most everything I had on the offworld tech it took to reconstruct her, and I still had a fresh-grown spine to pay for. The money I got from Maggie would get me over the top on the next spine payment, but I still had four more to make. Offworld medical didn't come cheap, and they didn't accept local currency. For every hospital bill, I had to exchange bagfuls of pesos, getting mere handfuls of offworld dollars in return. Still, I knew that if I could pull down another half dozen nice paydays, I'd be able to cover. Last resort, I could sell the house to make the final.

The docs said Niki's new spine was coming along on schedule. I was commissioning the work on the Orbital—there was no tech like that on Lagarto. I could connect up at any time and look at it in its tank, a glass cylinder filled with brown gel,
Niki Mozambe
written on the lid. It didn't look like much yet, just the worm in a tequila bottle, but it'd be having a major growth spurt soon.

I entered Niki's room. The lights were off. A wall of monitors gave the room an electronic radiance. I didn't turn on the lights. I knew Niki liked it dark, no matter what time of day.

“What happened … to your h—hand?” Niki said between pumps of the respirator.

I bent over and kissed her on the lips, getting a lukewarm response. “Remember I told you I was going to do a job for Maggie. It got a little ugly, but it's done now. And it paid well. You'll be up and about in no time.”

“Save your … money.”

“We're not going to go through this again, are we?”

The way she was jutting her jaw told me we were. “I don't w—want this,” she said.

“Yes you do. You're just out of sorts right now, trapped in this room all the time.”

“It's more th—than that, J—Juno.”

I took a deep breath. Today, her paused speech annoyed me even more than normal. “I know it's hard, Niki. But it'll be over as soon as we get your new spine in. You'll feel better when you can walk again.”

“Why don't you f—fucking get it, Juno? You can fix my body … all you want, but I'll still be b—broken.”