Kop (21 page)

Zorno made it to the door of the boardinghouse and stopped to shake off some of the water. He wrung out his shirttails and pant legs, his mouth frozen in a lopsided snarl. He looked over, seeing me and my bag of potatoes. He grimaced and turned into the building like somebody who has had people staring at him all his life and didn’t like it.

I interrupted the potato woman’s direction-giving to pay. I noticed Maggie was back in the car and hurried through the rain and sat down uncomfortably in my wet clothes. “He’s inside. He saw me buying potatoes. When he comes out, you’ll have to follow him; he might recognize me. I’ll call you, and we’ll keep the line open the whole time. I’ll follow in the car at a safe distance. You keep me updated. You got it?”

“Got it.”

“This is for real, Maggie.”

“I know.”

Maggie kept the wipers going. My eyes strained through the water-blurred windshield. Maggie used her napkin to wipe off the fog that formed on the inside. We waited, and we waited.

After two hours, I started feeling antsy, so I rang up the Zoo. Zorno had only been out of jail for a few weeks, yet he’d landed a contract for a hit. I was figuring that he must have made some contacts in prison.

I got prison guard Fatima DuBois on the line. Her image sat in the backseat. I conferenced it so Maggie could participate.

I said, “We need to talk to you about Ali Zorno.”

DuBois wore her hair up, streaks of gray ran throughout. “You mean Fishhook? Yeah, I know the guy. They never should have let him go. He has no business being on the street. He just isn’t stable.”

I got chummy, making her feel like she was one of us cops rather than a cop wannabe. “You’re sure right about that. People like us can just spot ’em, can’t we?”

“You bet we can. They ought to get rid of juries and put us in there. Regular citizens can’t tell if somebody’s guilty. They have to guess. They don’t know guilty like we do.”

“You’re onto something there, Fatima. Can you tell us who he associated with?”

“Why?”

“We’re looking at him for a murder. We’re hoping we might find somebody that he was friends with, somebody he’d confide in.”

“That’s kinda tough. He was mostly a loner. The only guy he ever seemed to talk to was his old cellmate.”

“Can we talk to him?”

“Nope. He was released a year ago.”

“What’s the cellmate’s name? We’ll try to look him up.”

“Kapasi. Jhuko Kapasi. Check with the Army, he went in—”

I stopped listening to her, the name sinking in. Kapasi.
What the fuck?

The sun eventually burned through the clouds and doused the street with rays that made wet cars twinkle as they drove by.

Maggie said, “I can’t believe they were cellmates.”

“I can’t believe it either.” My brain short-circuited every time I thought about it. Our hitman was cellmates with our original suspect. I slouched into the seat cushions.

Maggie was pumped. “What about Kapasi’s sister? Brenda Redfoot was looking at Zorno for her disappearance. Can you believe it; Kapasi gets sent up to the Zoo and ends up rooming with his sister’s killer. Can you imagine his grief, losing a sister like that and not knowing that the murderer was sleeping in the next bunk? He was the last person he saw every night;
the first person he saw in the morning. Do you think Zorno knew?”

“I’m sure he did. Serials have long memories. I wouldn’t be surprised if Kapasi told him about how he had a sister that disappeared. Zorno would have figured it out—probably played it real cool asking questions like, ‘How old was she?’ and ‘What did she look like?’ Meanwhile he’s sitting there the whole time, knowing what he did to her. He probably still has her lips stashed away somewhere.”

“Do you think Kapasi hired Zorno to kill his lieutenant?”

My mind said, “No. It was the mayor. Paul couldn’t be wrong about this.” My mouth said, “Could be. We know Kapasi had motive. If somebody gave me a bum gun and sent me into combat, I’d be angry enough to kill.” I left it at that. I was stringing her along, letting her think whatever she wanted. It was the mayor who was behind this. Kapasi and Zorno being cellmates was just a coincidence. It had to be.

Maggie started questioning herself, reasoning it through. “But why hire Zorno when you could kill Lieutenant Vlotsky yourself? Maybe Kapasi was just a tough talker. He didn’t have a violent background. He was just a scam artist. He didn’t have the guts to do the job himself, so he hired Zorno. Little did he know that the guy he hired, the guy he roomed with in prison, killed his own sister.”

“Where’d he get the money? That was a large pile of cash we found in that mattress.”

“Kapasi was dealing opium and running games in the Army. He used the profits to buy Zorno. That has to be it. Maybe he sold the mystery POWs back to the warlords. That might net him enough money.”

Pieces were falling into place. I tried to mentally poke holes in her reasoning, but the more I poked, the more her theory
made sense. But it had to be the mayor that bought Zorno. Paul needed it to be the mayor.

Maggie asked, “Can we get in to see Kapasi?”

“Not yet. Paul’s trying to get the mils to let us in to see him. He’ll tell us when he gets through.”

Maggie nodded.

Zorno came out and tromped in our direction. I sank down as far as I could with this creaky old body. I felt his shadow crawl over me as he passed by.

Maggie waited impatiently for ten seconds and stalked out after him. I immediately rang her up. I set it up as a hologram-free phone connection.

“Yeah, I’m here,” she said.

“Okay, Maggie. I’ll be just a step behind you.”

I U-turned onto the street and crept up behind her.
Where is he? Don’t worry about him…just keep your eyes on Maggie.
Maggie had to double-time to keep up with him. Her shirt was instantly perspiration-stained under the arms and down the center of the back.

A flyer roared overhead. Zorno paused to watch, and Maggie ducked into a shop in case he looked back. I pulled to the side, letting traffic roll by. The flyer buzzed the rooftops. Offworld passengers were sure to have their heads pressed against the glass, looking down at us savages. It was painted camouflage style, as if that thing could ever blend into the surroundings. There were at least a dozen offworld resorts on Lagarto, and one of their main attractions was a flyer ride out to the remote jungle for a monitor shoot. Offworld tourists would rough it in airconned tents while trappers let caged monitors loose right outside the tent flaps for them to pop with scattershot lase-rifles that couldn’t miss.

The resorts were offworld owned and operated. This was
our
planet, yet Lagartans were relegated to cleaning the rooms and washing the dishes at cut-rate salaries. Paul never saw that one coming. He always thought Lagartans would be the main benefactors of increased tourism. It had never occurred to him that offworlders would develop their own resorts and keep millions of tourist dollars from entering the Lagartan economy. Zorno watched until the flyer dropped out of sight then renewed his fast-paced walk.

Maggie turned into a vacant lot that kids used as a playground. I pulled over to the side and saw Zorno already on the far side of the lot.
Damn, he’s heading for Floodbank.
That neighborhood floated on pontoons—no cars. When the rainy season came, the Koba River flooded that area. It stayed underwater for three-fourths of the year. It was a large expanse of useless mud for the rest of the year.

“Maggie, I’m going to have to ditch the car. I’ll follow on foot.”

“Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing.”

I left the car curbside and hurried into the lot. Maggie was out of sight. I said, “I’m on foot. Where are you?”

“I’m about to cross the canal bridge—the one by the church.”

I jogged until she came back into view then slowed to a quick march as I tried to bring my breathing back under control. I closed the distance between us so I could keep her in sight once we started into Floodbank’s intricate system of makeshift walkways.

Following the Lagartan economic collapse, the unemployment rate ran sixty percent, yet for years immigrants like my ancestors continued to arrive, victims of the incredibly slow speed of interstellar travel and communications. They arrived at the spaceport, received their papers, paid their citizenship fees, and were bussed to Tenttown.
Here’s a tent with a little free
space. You and your family will like it here.
Disease and starvation took out a third of them.

The Tenttowners desperately wanted land of their own to settle, but the Lagartan government claimed ownership over the whole damn planet. They’d sell off parcels of land to anybody who had the cash. Tenttowners had no money. Most arrived destitute, having spent everything they had on passage to Lagarto. Some fled upriver to the remote jungle and squatted, eventually coming under the control of the warlords. Many others moved to the Floodbank area of Koba. It was free. It flooded every year, so it wasn’t considered land—no point developing it.

To build a Floodbank home, you’d start by lashing together some old brandy barrels or empty oil drums. Then steal some scrap wood from an abandoned factory and attach plank floors and walls. Then just top it off with a corrugated metal roof, making sure you stacked rocks on top to keep the wind from ripping it off. For indoor plumbing, just cut a hole in the floor and use the river as your toilet.

They built these junkyard homes in the ankle-deep mud of the Floodbank using salvaged concrete blocks as anchors. When the rains came, their homes floated on the river water only to sink back into the mud in the dry season. Floodbank had grown over the years from a small collection of homes to a floating city in its own right. They had their own schools, brothels, churches, and bars—all tied together with a never-ending series of knotted ropes and cords.

Zorno led us through the labyrinth of haphazardly connected structures. We were surrounded by the moan of ropes tug-of-warring against each other and the sharp cracks of buildings bumping into each other at the whim of the river currents. Maggie stopped and turned to look back my way.

I hurried to catch up to her. “What is it?” I asked, afraid she might have lost him.

“He went into that bar.” The place looked pretty dead, too early for all but the hard-core drinkers.

“Did he see you?”

“No way, he never looked back.”

“Is he still in there? Can you see him?”

“Yeah. That’s him sitting at the bar.”

Now I saw him. Thankfully, his back was turned to us, so he couldn’t see us gawking through the window. We snagged a pair of stools at the end of an open-air fish counter that had a view of the bar. Hopefully, Zorno would stay put long enough for us to scarf down a bite—I was starving. I ordered mine fried on noodles. Maggie asked for hers steamed, but it came fried anyway.

We kept an obsessive eye on Zorno as we ate. He downed brandies, one after another. People stayed clear of him; nobody sat within three stools of the guy. Even the bartender kept himself busy at the far end of the bar.

The fish was greasy-wet, the noodles soggy-wet, but I was hungry enough that it didn’t matter. I leaned over until my chin almost touched the bowl. I spooned it up and in as fast as I could with my left; didn’t spill much that way. I left nothing but a pool of oil on the bottom. Maggie just picked at hers.

The sun had dropped. Cool evening air lured throngs of people out onto the Floodbank walkways. The fish counter creaked and rocked to the footfalls of customers and passersby. The cook scrambled to keep up with the orders. His grease-stained T-shirt dripped with sweat as he toiled over the deep fryers, stopping only to give Maggie and me nasty looks for hanging around and nursing our drinks, taking up two valuable seats.

Inside the bar, the bartender passed Zorno his check. After
paying up, he was back on the move. I downed the rest of my soda and dropped a few bills on the counter.

Maggie said, “Same plan?”

“Yeah. You follow him, and I’ll follow you.”

M
AGGIE
and I trailed behind like a piece of loose fishing line hooked in the fish’s mouth. We snaked our way back toward the riverbank. At times, I could see Zorno’s sturdy build in the distance ahead, but mostly, I just eyed Maggie’s sweat-soaked back.

We were near the edge now. The walks were wider and more solid. If not for the slight sway, you wouldn’t know you were actually on the water. Maggie talked in my ear, “I’m on the street now…. He’s taking a cab. Hurry up, Juno. He’s taking a cab.”

I caught up quickly—I hadn’t been far behind. We were on land now. The two of us made for the line of cabs that waited at the entrance to Floodbank. There was no way to get back to my car so Maggie crawled into the back of an empty taxi while I hopped in the passenger seat. Zorno was haggling with the driver of the cab in front of this one, no more than a couple meters away.
Where the hell is the driver?
There was a crowd of people playing dice on the street. I made eye contact with a woman who didn’t seem too interested in the game. She nudged a player who was on all fours, waiting for the next throw. He looked over and saw us sitting in his car. He held up a finger to say, “Wait a minute.”
Holy shit, hurry up!