his teeth were loose. The LED in this cell was off, so it was a lot like being in a grave. Or the aliens' tank. He chuckled at the idea, and then at the arcing pain that came from chuckling. There was another thing that laughter could be. Despair. Pain.
To have come so far, to have endured so much, just to wind up rotting in a cell under the station house of the governor's constabulary. And for who? The aliens who'd humiliated and used him? He didn't owe them shit. Maneck and all the motherfuckers like it. Ramon owed them nothing. He didn't remember now why he thought he did. The kii, slaughtered by the Enye: they weren't human babies. They didn't matter. If he just told them, he could go. He could find Lianna. Maybe send old Martin Casaus a message saying how sorry he was, and that he understood why Martin had tried to kill him. He could sit beside the river and listen to the water slap the stones of the quay. He could get a van again, and go out where there were no people or aliens or jails. All he had to do was tell them.
He levered himself up to his elbows.
"I'll tell," he croaked. "Come on, you pendejos. You want to know what's out there, I'll fucking tell you. I'll fucking tell. Just let me go!"
No one heard him. The door didn't open.
"Just let me go."
He fell into an exhausted sleep there on the floor and dreamed that his twin was in the cell with him, smoking a cigarette and bragging about sexual conquests Ramon didn't remember. He tried to yell to the other man that they were in danger, that he had to get away, before recalling that the man was dead. His twin, who had also become Maneck and Palenki, had launched into a lascivious description of fucking the European's companion when Ramon managed to break in, protesting in thought more than words that it had never happened.
"How do you know?" his twin asked. "You weren't there. Who the fuck are you?"
"I'm Ramon Espejo," Ramon shouted, waking himself with the words.
In the darkness, the prison floor harder than mere stone under his back, Ramon shook his head until the last tendrils of nightmare were gone. He forced himself to sit up and take stock of his injuries. They were, he decided, more painful than dangerous. Disgust washed over him - for his weakness, for his willingness to help the police even after they'd done this to him. Maneck and the aliens had collared him like a dog, but they hadn't locked him in with a psychopath just for fun. It took a human to do that.
"I'll kill you fuckers," he said to an imagined constable, his supervisor, the governor. "Somehow, I will get free of this, and will kill each one of you sorry pendejos!"
Even he wasn't convinced. When the door swung open, he realized he'd fallen asleep again. The supervisor walked in, light from the hall making a halo around him. As Ramon's eyes adjusted to the brightness, he saw resignation and amusement on the man's face.
"You don't look so good, Se?or Espejo."
"Yeah. Well, you go ten rounds with Johnny Joe Cardenas, see how you do."
The LED in the ceiling flickered on as the door closed, leaving the two of them alone.
"I'd do fine," the supervisor said. "Hung him this morning. You want a cigarette?"
"Nah," Ramon said. "I'm quitting." Then, a moment later, held out his hand. The supervisor squatted beside Ramon, struck a cigarette against the floor and handed it over.
"Got some food coming too," the man said. "And I'm sorry about Paul. He doesn't do so good when someone embarrasses him. The Enye taking your side with the governor watching? Well, he overreacted."
"That's what you call this, eh?"
The supervisor shrugged like a man who'd spent too many years looking at the world.
"Got to call it something," he said. "They're gonna take your story apart. I'm just saying, Ramon. It's going to happen."
"Why would I lie about my van getting - "
"No one gives a shit about your van. The Enye have been going crazy about this robe. It's some kind of alien artifact."
"That's what I fucking said it was!"
The supervisor let that pass.
"If there's something you're hiding, we're going to find out. The governor's not going to watch out for you. He knows you killed the European ambassador, even if he doesn't want to admit it. The cops ...