The Dark Side by Anthony O'Neill

Author:Anthony O'Neill
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

27

BACK IN THE SIN vehicle bay, Justus is greeted by a gum-chewing Dash Chin and escorted swiftly to a police car.

“Okay,” he says, getting inside, “tell me what we’ve got.”

“Two bodies,” Chin says excitedly. “Just wait till you see! This is real butcher’s-window stuff!”

“A terrorist attack?”

“Supposedly. There’s another statement too.”

“At the crime scene?”

“Right next to the bodies.”

“And what’s it say?”

Chin sniggers. “You’ll see.”

Justus, who’s spent the entire journey from the rocket base hoping for an uncontaminated murder scene, wonders just how many cops have handled the statement already. “And the victims?”

“Kit Zachary—ever heard of him?”

“Who is he?”

Chin starts the car. “A builder—biggest builder in Sin. Least he was when he got up this morning.”

“And why would terrorists be killing a builder, exactly?”

“He was a high-profile builder. A big cheese. A real mover and shaker here.”

“With political ambitions?”

“He had his hat in the ring, sure.”

Justus nods. “And the other person?”

“Huh?”

“You said there were two bodies.”

“Oh,” laughs Chin, backing out of the vehicle bay, “that’s just some whore he was with.”

They race recklessly through the streets, nearly clipping a couple of tourists, and in no time they reach Sordello, the red light district of Sin. Here, in a labyrinth of neon-washed streets, Chin brings the car to a jolting halt outside a narrow multistory brothel called Cherry Poppins. A crowd of half-dressed prostitutes, many resembling famous sex symbols, are being restrained by the police. Two of the cops are bashing someone with a truncheon.

“Third floor, sir,” Chin says.

“You’re not coming up?”

“Gotta spare my appetite—haven’t had a bite to eat since last night.”

Justus doesn’t insist because he doesn’t trust Chin anyway. Inside the brothel he’s directed to a cage elevator but he elects to take the stairs. Halfway up a bunch of cops are grinning and joking. Justus hears a few comments in advance:

“. . . didn’t even get his dick out—”

“. . . one helluva head job, though—”

“. . . yeah, probably got the instructions mixed!”

But when they see Justus they stiffen, give unconvincing nods of deference, and zip tight until he passes.

Finally Justus enters a room on the third floor. There’s an unmade bed, a bedside table, Pompeian sex murals on the walls, and suspended from the ceiling a spinning mirror ball that’s throwing out shards of white light. There are plenty of cops too: Hugo Pfeffer, Jacinta Carvalho, Prince Oda Universe, and the surly Russian Grigory Kalganov among them. Pfeffer’s eating a hot dog. Carvalho’s got a steaming coffee in a Styrofoam cup. They’re slouching around, looking like they’re discussing the latest baseball results. Then, when they see Justus, they straighten self-consciously and shift to reveal the featured tableau.

“Need a barf bag, Lieutenant?” one of them asks.

Justus shakes his head. “I’ve seen worse,” he lies.

The man looks to have been about fifty-five. He’s still in a well-cut suit, but his head’s barely attached to his body. From what Justus can figure, he must have been attacked from behind with a heavy blade, probably a meat cleaver. There are thick gashes around the neck and shoulders and one crushing blow to the back of the head.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.