The Lord of Opium

27

PLANNING A PARTY

Now came the time Matt had been waiting for. Under his direction, the beam that sterilized trains crossing the border was shut off. Ten doctors and twenty nurses, plus equipment, medicine, and all the other things they would need arrived safely and were loaded into hovercrafts. With them came a dozen hovercraft pilots and a hundred new bodyguards recruited from Scotland and Ireland. This was urged by Daft Donald to shore up security.

The new people went to Paradise for orientation and training. All of the medical staff stayed there, except for one, who came to the hospital in Ajo. With the money Matt was paying them, he wanted them to concentrate on working with Dr. Rivas. Nurse Fiona was reassigned to washing dishes. She complained so bitterly that Matt gave her the job of watching Listen, although this didn’t stop the complaints. “What do they think I am? A bloody babysitter?” she yowled to Celia. “That little scrap is the devil’s spawn. She’s got a mouth on her that would do a sailor proud.”

The train returned to Aztlán, bearing Esperanza’s samples and several tons of opium.

Matt felt guilty about continuing the trade, but it was only a temporary measure. The cookie cans outside the opium factory by now extended half a mile, and the dealers in Africa, Europe, and Asia were getting hysterical. Happy Man Hikwa, Glass Eye Dabengwa’s representative, called again and again. At first Matt ignored him. The last thing he wanted to do was deal with Glass Eye, but Cienfuegos pointed out that this would look like weakness to the sinister drug lord.

“I’ve seen him at El Patrón’s parties,” the jefe said. “He has an instinct for terrorizing the weakest person in the room. He killed the Old Man of the Mountains, who you may remember was in charge of the Iraqi cartel.”

Matt remembered. The Old Man of the Mountains had once been a feared and dreaded drug lord. He was one hundred and twenty years old by the time Matt saw him, broken by illness and stoked up to the eyeballs with hashish. Glass Eye had sat next to him at a banquet. The boy couldn’t hear what the African said, but he saw the effect on the Old Man. The Iraqi tried to move away, but Glass Eye detained him with a heavy hand. And then the Old Man slumped facedown into a plate of mashed potatoes.

I should have changed the seating arrangement, El Patrón had said, in a mellow mood after the banquet. Something about Glass Eye brings on heart problems. Ah, well. There’s a silver lining. The Old Man’s customers are up for grabs.

Matt remembered this now as he accessed the holoport and found Happy Man’s new address. He was no longer in Africa. He had a new address in Marijuana, on the eastern border of Opium, and his light was blinking furiously.

Happy Man Hikwa was sitting in front of the portal. There was an ashtray full of cigarette butts, a pot of coffee, and a bottle of aguardente, a villainous Mozambican vodka that smelled like crushed beetles. Hikwa looked like he’d been living in front of the portal. His clothes, a plaid suit without a shirt, were dirty, and Matt could smell stale marijuana smoke. He was a drug addict.

Matt smiled to himself. Drug addicts were the easiest clients to handle. They would agree to anything.

“You . . . you . . .,” said Happy Man, having difficulty forming the words. “You child! Where is Mr. Alacrán?”

“I am the new Lord of Opium,” said Matt. “Mr. Alacrán is busy. What do you want?”

It took a moment for the African dealer to process this information. “You’re a clone,” he finally said. “Clones can’t run businesses.”

“I am El Patrón,” said Matt, smarting from the insult.

Happy Man pushed away from the screen. Behind him was a room in chaos full of old food containers and weapons, and beyond was a wide window showing a city. Matt could see skyscrapers chopped in two as though a giant machete had sliced through them. A line of limousines, not unlike Hitler’s old car, was making its way through rubble. “What’s going on?” asked Matt.

Hikwa looked to where the boy was pointing. “Oh, that. We’re still pacifying the city. A few of the Farm Patrolmen are holding out.” A flash followed by screams showed a building being blown up. Fires raged in the distance.

“You’re destroying your own city,” said Matt, appalled.

Happy Man giggled. “We don’t need it. We’ve got more.” He reached for the bottle of aguardente and took a swig. “Anyway, this place was a ruin when we got it. It used to be called Ciudad Juarez, and the crotters who ran this place were trying to rebuild. Fat chance. Glass Eye showed them what’s what. We”—he hiccuped—“put all their women and children into an empty swimming pool and used them for target practice.”

Matt had seen enough. No way was he going to open the border for a shipment to Dabengwa. He reached for the off button.

“Hey! You can’t go! We need our opium!” cried Happy Man Hikwa, but by that time the holoport had closed.

Matt sat, shaken by what he’d seen. He knew things were bad in the old Dope Confederacy, but this mindless destruction was worse than anything he’d imagined. He accessed addresses in Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros. In each one a window showed a scene of devastation. What kind of country was Glass Eye building? He and his men acted like a swarm of locusts Matt had seen on an old TV show. Eat one field, move on to the next. You needed infinite fields to keep an army like that going.

Matt found a few portals in rural areas where marijuana and tobacco were grown. The crops had withered, and the bodies of eejits filled dry canals.

He was too exhausted to look anymore. Even though the holoport had adjusted to his slightly different handprint, the scanner still made him nauseated. He went to El Patrón’s apartment and lay down. The windows opened onto green lawns, and the odors of flowers and cut grass drifted in. The sound of eejits using scissors to trim the lawns soothed him. El Patrón’s empire was evil, all right, but it was still alive.

Soon, Matt promised himself, he would rip out the opium and plant different crops. Cattle would be turned onto healthy fields of grass. When the eejits were free, he would offer them jobs as normal farmers, or they’d go back to whatever lives they’d had before. It would be their choice. Far fewer were dying now that Matt had added meat and vegetables to their diet.

His days were packed with work—learning to ride Real Horses, flying a hovercraft, and even driving Hitler’s old car with Daft Donald at his side. The seat was pushed forward so he could reach the pedals, and he enjoyed the cheers from the gardeners and Farm Patrol. “¡Viva El Patrón!” they shouted, as though the old man had been reborn. Sometimes Matt had the creepy feeling that El Patrón was actually sitting in the backseat, admiring his kingdom from the dark halls of the dead. This is the most excitement I’ve had in years, the old man said, grinning with delight. Matt shivered. He knew the backseat was empty, but he didn’t turn around to look.

Best of all was planning the party. It would be the greatest celebration ever seen in Opium. Ton-Ton, Chacho, and Fidelito were coming on the next train, and their eyes would drop out when they saw what Matt had arranged. They would have a circus, a professional soccer game, a rodeo, guitarists from Portugal, and food undreamed of by boys who had lived in a plankton factory. Ton-Ton had eaten ice cream only a few times in his life, and Fidelito had only seen pictures of it. So many wonderful experiences lay in store for Matt’s compadres. He had only to stretch out his hand, and whatever he wanted was his.

Cienfuegos had been correct about Esperanza. She seemed to have forgotten about Major Beltrán’s existence and had little interest in anything besides the plant and animal samples. Matt managed one unsatisfactory meeting with María, with her mother present, and called the girl his novia openly. Esperanza only gave him a tight smile that reminded him of a sprung mousetrap.

As for Cienfuegos, he was short-tempered for reasons Matt couldn’t discover. The man was never rude, and yet the boy sensed a gathering tension. It worried him, and finally he approached Celia about it.

“He’s being foolish,” Celia said. “He knew what Dr. Rivas would do when the new staff arrived.”

“Dr. Rivas was going to train them,” said Matt. “Is there something else I should know about?”

“Oh, dear,” said Celia, putting down the soup ladle she was holding and wiping her hands on her apron. “New staff can’t just be turned loose in Opium.”

“What are you talking about?” Matt had the queasy feeling that things had moved out of his control.

“Remember what I said about the bodyguards and Farm Patrolmen being microchipped?”

“What do you mean? I didn’t tell Dr. Rivas to alter their brains!” cried Matt in horror.

“They’re violent men,” Celia said. “El Patrón said that chipping them was no different from a rancher turning bulls into steers. Left alone, bulls fight, and it’s dangerous for anyone around them. That’s why Major Beltrán had to die. He intended to kill you when he discovered you were the only Alacrán left. Cienfuegos understood.”

“You knew about the murder! You were in favor of it!” Matt was astounded. This was the woman who had sung him lullabies when he was a small child, but who had also coldly watched El Patrón die.

“I may be only a cook, but I’ve been close to the center of power for fifteen years,” said Celia. “You don’t rule a country by being weak. Thousands have died in Opium and will keep on dying if we don’t do something. The drug trade is too powerful to stop without shedding blood. God will forgive us our sins if we manage to stamp it out.”

Matt sat down, feeling that the room had suddenly filled with shadows. El Patrón had shot down a passenger plane to avert a war. Esperanza felt righteous about killing the eejits in Cocaine. Dr. Rivas held poor Mbongeni hostage to fend off Glass Eye. Where did it all end? How much wickedness could you do in the service of good before it turned into pure evil?

“Cienfuegos blames me for microchipping the new bodyguards,” said Matt.

“He’s too personally involved,” Celia said.

“What, exactly, is the effect of the process on him?” Matt asked.

The woman frowned. “You know the chips keep him from harming you or leaving the country. They also forbid him to feel pity or love.”

Matt thought about the jefe’s reaction to Listen’s tears. The man had clearly wanted to comfort the little girl, but he dared not do it. If he had touched her, what would have happened? Would he have doubled up in agony as he had when he attacked Matt?

“Cienfuegos is a very unusual man,” concluded Celia after a moment’s thought. “He fought like a tiger when the Farm Patrol first caught him. Very strong-minded people have more resistance to the microchips.”

Without being asked, she dished up a bowl of soup for Matt and set out bread still warm from the oven. The boy wished she would sit with him, but Celia no longer thought it was proper. He ate without much appetite. Cienfuegos did care about people, Matt thought. He liked Listen, pest though she was, and he was upset about the new bodyguards. It was there under the surface, and it was driving him mad.

Matt finished his meal with dulce de leche ice cream covered in marshmallow sauce. How Fidelito would like that when he arrived! The thought cheered Matt up, and he made plans to find more things to delight the little boy.

“By the way, you don’t have to keep paying the doctors and nurses those outrageous salaries,” said Celia, removing his dishes to the sink. “They’ve been microchipped too. You can’t have people who hold the power of life and death out of control either.”

* * *

Matt eagerly watched the train cross the border on the holoport screen. Workers unloaded suitcases and carried them to waiting hovercrafts. Wonderful, magical passengers disembarked and stretched their legs in the shimmering desert heat. First a group of musicians, five men and one woman, got out, carrying their instruments. They removed their coats and looked around to see what must have been a land of fables to them, a zombie kingdom ruled by an ancient vampire. They wouldn’t realize that the workers around them were zombies.

Next came a group of cowboys for the rodeo—short, raw-boned men who seemed made of gristle and steel. Their leather jackets were scuffed from being thrown from horses. After the rodeo, Matt planned to stage a pachanga, a kind of bullfight where no animal got killed.

The soccer players from Brazil and Argentina were taller than the cowboys and moved with easy grace like thoroughbred horses. Matt had never seen a soccer match, because El Patrón didn’t like sports. He said that only games with real risks were suitable for men.

The sport he approved of was called pok-a-tok and had been played by the ancient Maya. It was somewhat similar to soccer. The players used a hard rubber ball, which they weren’t allowed to touch with their hands, and scored points by knocking it through a stone ring. It was more like a religious ceremony than a game, El Patrón said, a symbolic battle between life and death. The winning team represented life, and the losers, who represented death, got their heads cut off.

A troupe of tightrope walkers and trapeze artists hauled equipment out of the train. Long ago circuses had contained lions and tigers, but now those animals were extinct. Except here, Matt thought happily. Wrestlers followed, walking with a rolling gait as though they were already in the arena. They were dressed in Levi’s and T-shirts, but inside their suitcases were costumes that would transform them into creatures of fantasy.

Matt watched anxiously as the performers were flown off to Ajo. He wasn’t going to let them anywhere near Dr. Rivas, and anyhow they were short-time visitors. Now the door of the last car opened and out tumbled Fidelito, pursued by Ton-Ton and Chacho. Matt could almost hear Ton-Ton shout, C-come back or I’ll beat the stuffing out of you! But he knew the big boy would never do it, and so did Fidelito. The little boy danced around, kicking up sprays of sand. Then a fourth person stepped out of the train.

Sor Artemesia.

Matt’s heart leapt to his throat. María was on the train! She had to be. Esperanza had relented at the last moment and decided that he was good enough for her daughter. Matt watched in a fever as the nun stepped down carefully and grimaced when her feet touched the hot sand. She gave a command, and Fidelito immediately stopped prancing and took her hand. Together they walked to the last remaining hovercraft.

Workers swarmed over the train to remove cartons of supplies. María never appeared.