Maggie went off to visit with her aunt, and then Vlad went searching for some food, which left Niki and me alone for the first time. After a generous dousing of bug spray, I sat next to Niki's bed.
“It's beautiful here,” she said.
I nodded and allowed myself to relax enough that I could appreciate the chirps and squawks coming from the jungle outside. For the first time, I noticed the flickering iridescent light bugs fluttering about in delightful randomness. “We'll have to take a tour of the place.”
“I'd like that.”
“We should've taken more vacations.”
“You're r-right. We should have.”
Sorrow descended upon me like a sopping wet blanket. “I'll have to add that to the list.”
“What list?” she wanted to know.
“The list of ways that I've failed you.”
“Don't say that.”
“I'm sorry, Niki.”
“For w-what?”
“For being a bad husband.”
“I told… you not to say… that.”
“It's true. I was always too busy, too caught up in KOP. I thought what I was doing was important.”
“You were trying… to make a d-difference.”
“I did more bad than good. You know that. I should've spent more time with you. I should've been one of those collect-a-paycheck cops. If I'd just spent more time with you, you wouldn't have jumped off-”
“Don't you say… that!” she said with as much force as the respirator would allow. “It's not… your fault.”
I shook my head, not believing her one bit.
“It's not,” she repeated. “Don't you g-get it? I would've… done it that night… if it wasn't… for you. You're the o-only reason, I've
… made it this… far.”
I knew what night she was talking about. That night. “But if I had-”
She cut me off. “I don't… belong here, J-Juno. I never… have. That night, I th-thought that if I could convince… you that somebody else… had killed them, you'd want to p-protect me. And I… thought that if I worked r-really hard at it, if I… really tried, I could… make a normal… life with you… I tried, Juno… I really tried.”
I lifted up the netting and wiped away the tear on her cheek as I felt my own eyes beginning to tear up.
“All this time.” She wheezed. “I've been trying… to be normal, but… it's too hard. I'm… so tired, Juno. I… can't do it anym-more. I can't.”
“Don't ask me to do this, Niki. I can't.”
“I know you… can't. You still want… to protect me,” she said with a sad smile.
DECEMBER 2, 2788
“This is getting ridiculous.”
“I agree.”
“How long has it been?”
“Twenty hours.”
Twenty hours holed up in an opium house and no Raj Gupta. Maggie and I wanted to have another brace session with the punk, see if we could learn a little about his movie career, like who funded the pictures and whom they were sold to. Find our snuff film buyer, and we likely find our barge murderer. Problem was the punk hadn't shown his pretty-boy face, and I was getting damn sick of this dump. “He must be in hiding,” I said.
“What do you want to do?”
I had jungle on my mind. I wanted to fly back out to see Niki. I wanted to pick her up and carry her into the jungle with me. I wanted her to breathe normal so we could leave the respirator behind. I wanted to find a nice pile of leaves, maybe some soft moss under a tree and lay down with her, maybe sleeping, maybe not, the two of us just lying there until the jungle took us with its creeping vines and its sprawling root systems. That was what I wanted to do.
“What do you think, Juno?” Maggie was getting antsy. She was feeling the pressure of the clock. Adela's time was running out.
“Let's get the hell out of here,” I said.
Maggie and I snuck out the back, careful not to step on any upturned nails poking out of the gnarled scrap wood that used to be the back porch.
“What now?” asked Maggie.
“Beats me.”
“I can't keep calling in sick like this.”
“Today's only the third day, isn't it?”
“Today's the second. Yesterday was already scheduled as a day off. But still…”
Since the three-hour boat ride back to Koba, we'd been striking out. We wanted to get the porn scheme fleshed out… so to speak. We tried tracking down Yuri Kiper, but according to his neighbors, the cameraman hadn't been home. We tried calling his work, but the people at Lagarto Libre said he was on vacation, and no, they didn't know where he'd gone. Ian was playing defense, and playing it well.
Maggie and I shuffled down the street, with no particular destination in mind, just walking to be walking. I was already sweating. I looked up and caught a rare view of blue sky. I was glad to see it, knowing full well that when the rains quit, it would be hot like this all the time, and it wouldn't take more than a couple sweat-soaked days for me to start wishing it was still raining.
Maggie said, “What do we know about Liz?”
We know how she sucks cock. We know what she looks like with a dick up her snatch. We know what she looks like with her throat cut. “Not much. I don't even know her real last name.”
“Well, she's the only other person that we know who was involved in those movies.”
“Yeah.” I didn't want to talk to Liz. I didn't want to see her after watching those vids. Partly because she scared me, partly because she disgusted me, but mostly because she turned me on, and that was what scared and disgusted me more than anything else.