Kop Read Online Free Page B

Okay, suit yourselves.” He slurped it in then talked with his mouth full. “Mm, not the best tripe I’ve ever had. A little on the chewy side. You have to prepare it just right.”
    That did it. She took off, hurrying for the door to the Lotus. She didn’t make it far before she bent over and groaned up her breakfast.
    Yuan Kim was livid—just lost five thou, and that wasn’t even the worst of it. Mark Josephs was not the type to let you forget it. Josephs laid a shit-eating grin on Kim…only the beginning.
    Maggie Orzo finished barfing and wiped her chin. She looked back at us. I tried to quit smiling, too late. Her sky eyes burned into me. She headed into the Lotus to find a bathroom.
    I didn’t know what the hell Paul was thinking teaming me up with her. I didn’t care who the rich girl’s parents were. I wanted her out.

three

    I SCOPED the area. The blood trail started by the door with just a few drops. I thought it through: The killer must’ve hidden behind the cooling unit and waited for Lieutenant Dmitri Vlotsky to come out of the Lotus. Then he snatched him from behind and sliced his throat straightaway. There wasn’t much blood at the door—too easy for somebody to spot. The perp dragged Vlotsky down the alley, quick, before he was seen. Then he stuck him fourteen times and cut his lips off. Next, he took Vlotsky’s money and split.
    It didn’t play as a robbery. Muggers killed out of necessity. They usually didn’t use knives, and when they did, they used lase-blades, not butcher knives. It wasn’t that lase-blades cut that much better—a sharp knife could kill you just as well—but lase-blades were so much more intimidating. Imagine your vic was watching you swing the tight beam of a lase-blade through the air. He’d hear the crackle of humidity flash-frying as it came in contact with the blade. Flies attracted to the light would pop off the blade’s edge like black popcorn. Your vic would be feeling mighty compliant by now. There was no way a mugger was going to use a regular old knife. The vic might’ve started thinking he had a chance if he fought back. Definitely not a robbery. Besides, muggers didn’t take their victim’s lips with them. What would a pair of lips bring on the black market anyway?
    Conclusion: Our killer was either a hit man trying to throwus off course with the mutilations or a genuine psycho…or both.
    Maggie Orzo came back out to the alley wearing a clean shirt. She looked less sick but no less steamed. She was working up to saying something.
    I cut her off before she could give me some shit about how I needed to respect her as a cop. I didn’t want to hear it. “We have to canvass the area. You ready?”
    She answered with an off-guard, “Yeah, I guess so.”
    A welcome gust of cool greeted us upon entering the Lotus. Rose had dry shirts at the ready—classy place. I dipped behind a screen, stripped my shirt off, and dropped it into a hamper. I washed my face in a basin of fragrant water that had flower petals floating on top. I toweled and made a rare check in the mirror. My hair was low-tide receding and frothing white at the edges. My slightly darker than average skin and barely kinked hair were the last remnants of my diluted African blood. I looked more Latin than African. Most everybody on Lagarto looked Latin, though many had a little Asian or a little European mixed in. We were all mutts of one sort or another.
    I slipped one of Rose’s white short-sleeves over the sturdy shoulders I’d inherited from my wife-beating coward of a father. I labored over the buttons with one hand—fucking ridiculous. Niki had taken all of my own shirts to my tailor and had the buttons replaced with snaps.
    A houseboy grabbed the hamper when I came out from behind the screen. From experience, I knew he’d have my shirt laundered and ready for pickup in thirty minutes.
    Rose wore a wrinkled sarong, and her lipstick was uneven. I’d never seen her look so scattered. She