The Lord of Opium

  “How many of them are there?” asked Matt.

  “Only two. Dr. Rivas said the border closed before more could get in. I didn’t know we were at war with the Russians.”

  “We aren’t. They’re working for Africans,” said Matt. He knew now who had taken advantage of the open border. Just as El Patrón preferred Scottish bodyguards, Glass Eye Dabengwa had preferred Russians. Foreigners weren’t as likely to betray you as your own kind.

  “Africans! I’d sure like to meet them,” said the little girl.

  “Don’t get your hopes up. Thugs come in all types. Where’s Mbongeni?” he asked.

  “Dr. Rivas says he’s very sick and needs an operation.”

  Matt couldn’t speak for a moment. He knew what kind of operation the doctor had in mind, and that meant that Glass Eye needed a transplant. “And where’s Dr. Rivas?”

  “Don’t know.” The little girl shrugged. “First he came for the Bug, and then he came back for his son and daughter. They were going on a trip, but the bad guys got here first. Can you make those men let us go?”

  It was worth a try. Matt pointed at the door, nodding to show that he wanted it open. One of the men rubbed his chin with a rasping sound like sandpaper. “Nyet,” he said.

  Matt tried to walk past them and got pushed back. It was a lazy gesture, like shooing a fly, but the strength behind the man’s hand propelled Matt across the room and into a wall.

  “Maybe they’ll fall asleep,” said Listen. The men showed no indication of sleepiness. They rumbled to each other in Russian and smoked a hand-rolled cigarette that they passed back and forth.

  Matt recognized the smell from El Patrón’s parties, where guests were offered hookahs. “If they keep that up, they’ll pass out,” he said. But the guards showed no sign of passing out, either.

  After a while someone knocked on the door and handed through trays of food. It was a kind of beef stew with tomatoes and onions. On each tray was a slab of polenta as heavy as a brick. But the food was surprisingly good and the polenta okay if you ignored the rubbery texture. The guards ate enthusiastically, using their fingers and wiping their hands on their pants. They cleaned up the leftovers from Matt’s and Listen’s trays.

  “I’m thirsty,” complained Listen. She opened her mouth and pointed down her throat. One of the men went into the bathroom and returned with two plastic cups. “I sure hope he got that water from the sink,” said the little girl.

  Time passed slowly. To keep Listen amused, Matt told her one of Celia’s Bible stories. “Samson was a very, very strong man,” he began. “When he was a baby, he could pick up his crib and throw it across the room.”

  “The Bug tried that once,” said Listen. “He rocked Mbongeni’s crib back and forth until it fell over. Dr. Rivas put him into a straitjacket for a whole day.”

  Matt had forgotten about the Bug. With luck, someone would have heard his screams by now, although Matt didn’t think his chances were good with Glass Eye Dabengwa’s soldiers. Of course, Dr. Rivas could have helped him, but the Bug was of no further use to him. The boy was just another rabbit.

  Matt’s head hurt, and the aftereffects of the tranquilizer beads made him queasy.

  “Hey, are you okay?” asked Listen, shaking his arm.

  Everything’s fine, Matt thought. Sor Artemesia, María, and Fidelito are hiding. Cienfuegos is missing. The Bug has lost a hand. Glass Eye Dabengwa has taken over Opium, and Mbongeni—

  Glass Eye had needed a transplant as soon as he arrived. Matt was suddenly alert. That meant he was seriously ill and was probably close to death. Too bad Dr. Rivas hadn’t waited a few more hours before opening the border.

  Matt shied away from what must have happened in the operating room, but he had to face it. He remembered the first time Celia fed him arsenic. She had known, as he did not, that El Patrón had suffered a heart attack. She had forced him to eat before going to the hospital, supposedly to visit the old man, but in reality to have his heart cut out.

  The arsenic had made Matt so sick that he was unusable for a transplant. And El Patrón had to make do with a piggyback transplant, with a heart too small to do the job properly. Just as Glass Eye was making do with poor Mbongeni.

  “I wish we could get fresh air,” Listen said. “The smoke is making me sick.”

  Matt looked up to see the guards passing their hand-rolled cigarette back and forth. He pointed at the smoke and pretended to gag. One of the men opened the door. “Izvineete,” he said.

  Matt calculated how fast he’d have to be to scoot out the door, but he couldn’t leave Listen behind. “Let’s see. Where was I? Samson was strong because he never cut his hair. It was a kind of magic.”

  “Dr. Rivas says there’s no such thing as magic,” said Listen.

  “Dr. Rivas is a jerk. One day Samson was out walking, and a lion attacked him. He killed it with his bare hands. Later he saw that a hive of bees had moved into the lion’s skin, and he ate some of the honey.”

  “Didn’t the bees sting him?”

  “They sure did, and Samson brushed them off like bread crumbs. Heroes don’t worry about things like that.” Matt told her about how Samson’s girlfriend Delilah betrayed him by cutting his hair off, and how Delilah’s friends turned him into a slave.

  “His hair must have grown back,” said Listen, with her usual logic. “Then he could beat everyone up.”

  “His hair did grow back, but nobody noticed because he was a slave. Samson waited and waited until he got his enemies all in one place. One night they had a big party, and they brought Samson out so they could make fun of him. Samson got hold of the posts holding up the house and pulled them down. The building fell on top of everyone and squashed them flat.”

  “And Samson lived happily ever after,” finished Listen.

  Too late Matt remembered how the story ended. “Not exactly,” he said.

  “He got out, didn’t he?”

  “I’m afraid not. He died along with his enemies. But he got revenge, and that’s important.”

  “I don’t like that story,” Listen yelled. “I want a happy ending! He should have picked up a rock and let ’em have it.” She grabbed a pillow and began to pound it with her fists.

  “It didn’t really happen,” said Matt.

  “It’s a Bible story. Sor Artemesia says they’re all true.”

  Listen started to cry, and one of the guards came over and thumped himself on the chest. “Samson,” he announced. He flexed his muscles.

  “Did you understand what we were talking about?” asked Matt.

  “Nyet. Samson.” Thump, thump.

  “That’s his name,” Listen said delightedly. “What’s the other guy called? Delilah?”

  “De-lee-lah,” said Samson, pointing at his fellow guard and mincing around.

  “Boris,” corrected the other guard. Now he came over and with gestures invited Listen to a game of scissors, paper, rock. They had seen that the little girl was upset and wanted to cheer her up. For thugs, they weren’t too bad.

  Night came, or what Matt supposed was night. There was no window in the room. The men made gestures that indicated sleep. They turned off the light but left the bathroom door ajar. Matt still had Tam Lin’s flashlight, and they used that to move around in the dark.

  Listen curled up on the bed, but it was too small to include Matt, and he had to sleep on the floor. Exhausted though he was, he couldn’t get comfortable. He dozed and woke and worried. The Russians snored erratically and occasionally woke each other up with a snort.

  Sometime during the night Listen climbed out of bed and sat down next to Matt. “I get scared in the dark,” she told him. “Most times I used to climb into the crib with Mbongeni. I tried to teach him scissors, paper, rock, but it was too hard for him. We played paper and rock instead, but you need scissors to make it work. Anyhow, he liked moving his hands around.” She began to cry softly, and Matt held her until she fell asleep again.

  * * *

  T
hey lost track of time. Air seeped in through a vent, but it was never fresh, and the fumes from the guards’ cigarettes made them sick. The same food was brought three times a day, but the Russians got most of it.

  At night Matt went over his last sighting of Glass Eye Dabengwa. It had been at El Patrón’s birthday party three years before. Silence radiated from wherever the African drug lord walked. It reminded Matt of a large predator arriving at a waterhole. The birds stopped singing, the monkeys faded through the trees, and the antelopes clustered together, hoping that there was safety in numbers.

  But there was no safety in numbers where Glass Eye was concerned. He had wiped out entire villages for trivial slights. Matt hoped that by imagining the man he could get used to his presence. But the memory of those unblinking yellow eyes appeared to him in dreams and lingered long after he’d awoken.

  Matt practiced Russian with the guards and managed to communicate a few basic requests, such as soap, towels, and toothbrushes. Boris and Samson seemed unaware that such luxuries were necessary, but they were eager to please. They passed the requests on, and the supplies arrived.

  “Ask them for deodorant,” suggested Listen.

  “For us?” asked Matt, surprised.

  “For them.”

  “Boris would probably eat it,” said Matt. He suspected that even if he learned fluent Russian, the guards wouldn’t have much to say. They were stoned all the time. They sat in front of the door in a state that was almost hibernation. But they could wake up quickly. Matt tried to sneak Listen past them, and they hurled him across the room without even breaking into a sweat.

  Once Listen sat up in the middle of the night and screamed, “I want Dr. Rivas! I want Dr. Rivas!” The guards fell over themselves trying to calm her down. Boris sang her a Russian lullaby so melancholy that Listen went into hysterics.

  46

  GLASS EYE DABENGWA

  And then, one morning, they were awakened by a knock on the door. The light was already on, and the guards were passing their cigarette back and forth. The same man Matt had seen outside the operating room marched in. He was dressed in a general’s uniform, with so much gold braid on the shoulders you could hardly see his neck. The guards snapped to attention and ground the cigarette under a heel.

  “Idiots! You don’t get stoned on duty!” shouted the man. He slapped Boris hard and shoved Samson against the door. Matt watched hopefully—they could have snapped the officer in two—but the guards only cowered before his obvious authority. The man turned to Matt and Listen. “Come on! Hurry up!”

  Boris and Samson herded them down the hall, with the general striding in front. “Hey, mister! Are you an African?” yelled Listen, running to keep up.

  The general halted and turned around. She almost ran into him. “Why do you ask?”

  “ ’Cause you’re dark like me. I’m an African. My name’s Listen, and I’m going to grow up to be a drug queen.”

  The man’s eyes widened. “I once knew a woman called Listen, but she died long ago.”

  “I know,” the little girl said excitedly. “I’m her clone—or I woulda been if she’d lived. Tell me about her. What was she like?”

  The general knelt down beside her. “She was a most beautiful and kind lady.” The hard expression faded from his face, and he smiled.

  Matt did a double take. He’d seen this man before, whining for a shipment of opium. At the time he’d been dressed in a plaid suit and high-heeled boots. The uniform made him look almost respectable, but Matt knew he didn’t deserve to wear it. He wasn’t a real general. He was a drug addict. “You’re Happy Man Hikwa,” Matt said. “Are we going to a costume party?”

  The hard expression came back. “You’ll soon learn what kind of party we’re going to.” The man picked up Listen and continued down the hall.

  What a fool I was to walk into the hands of our enemies, Matt thought as they walked on. He should have hidden until he found Cienfuegos. How easily the soldiers had disarmed him. He might as well have handed the weapons over and saved them the trouble.

  I wonder what shape Glass Eye is in, said El Patrón in a casual, chatty way. His replacement parts used to wear out faster than mine.

  Do you know something I don’t? thought Matt. He heard a dry cackle and imagined the old man sitting in the back of Hitler’s car, enjoying the homage of his slaves.

  Just because they took your weapons doesn’t mean you aren’t armed, said El Patrón. Matt waited for more information, but the voice only came when it felt like it. He had no control over it.

  Matt experienced a moment of abject terror when he entered the hospital room. Glass Eye Dabengwa almost overflowed the chair he was sitting in. His legs were like tree trunks covered in gray bark, and his toes, with their gnarled and discolored nails, spread out like the talons of a bird of prey.

  He was dressed in a skimpy hospital gown, and his seamed arms, repaired from many battles in his youth, bulged out of the sleeves. His body was massive, nourished, so rumor said, on the blood of children. But much the same rumor had been circulated about El Patrón. It could be said of any drug lord who harvested clones.

  The only mercy was that Dabengwa’s eyes were cloaked by dark glasses. The curtains in the windows were drawn too, and the only light was from a dim lamp covered by a shade. Matt wondered whether something was wrong with the man’s vision. He certainly hoped so.

  Dr. Rivas was seated in another chair across the room, and Listen immediately flew to him. A pair of nurses cowered against a wall. The rest of the space was taken up by African soldiers.

  “Who is this child?” Glass Eye said in a voice that resonated like distant thunder.

  “The baby patrón,” said Happy Man.

  “Baby Patrón. I like it. Come closer, boy,” said Dabengwa.

  Matt struggled to hang on to his courage. Was it his imagination or did he hear an odd sound in the room? “I am the heir of El Patrón,” he stated as firmly as he could. “I am the Lord of Opium.”

  Dabengwa’s large head turned toward him. Click. Whirr. There were those strange noises again. “I see only a boy.”

  “Appearances are deceiving. I’m actually a hundred and forty-seven years old.”

  Glass Eye wheezed. It took a moment for Matt to realize it was a laugh. “You sound like the old vampire, at any rate.”

  “We don’t know how much of the personality clones inherit,” said Dr. Rivas. “None has survived this long.”

  Glass Eye dismissed the comment. “No matter. He’s in my power now.”

  Dr. Rivas paused before saying, “Mi patrón, let me warn you that he still has an army. There are men in Ajo—”

  “Silence!” Glass Eye nodded to a nurse, who looked perfectly terrified as she approached with a bottle of some liquid. The man sucked on a straw. Click. Whirr.

  Matt thought, So Dr. Rivas is calling him patrón now. He was disgusted, but not surprised.

  “Where’s Mbongeni?” Listen suddenly asked. Dr. Rivas shushed her, but it didn’t work. “Mbongeni’s my best buddy, and I want him back.”

  Glass Eye seemed to notice her for the first time. “Another child,” he said.

  “I’m Listen,” said the little girl, wriggling out of the doctor’s grasp. “I want my buddy, and I know he wants me. Do you know where he is?”

  Matt grabbed her before she could get too close to the ancient drug lord. She didn’t seem to understand the danger she was in. Dabengwa removed his glasses, and there they were, the yellow eyes that never blinked, the eyes of a crocodile peering up through leaf-stained water. They whirred as he focused on her.

  “I am Mbongeni,” said Glass Eye.

  Matt felt sick. Part of him was, of course—the heart, maybe the liver.

  Listen laughed. “You’re making fun of me ’cause I’m a little kid. Mbongeni is about so high”—she held out her hand, palm down—“and he’s not too bright, but that’s not his fault. He’s a baby and always will be.”

  Glass Eye was pa
ying close attention to her. He reached out his hand and turned hers over. “This is how they measure size in Africa. With the palm up.” Matt shuddered to see his massive paw enclose hers, but she shook him off.

  “I’m an African, but I’ve never been there,” she said.

  “Is your name really Listen?”

  “She’s your wife’s clone,” said Happy Man Hikwa.

  “I’m not a clone, you turkey. Once the original dies, the clone becomes a full human.” The little girl folded her arms and scowled at Happy Man.

  Glass Eye grinned, something Matt didn’t think was even possible. The famous teeth of a twenty-year-old gleamed in his weathered face, and something squeaked in his neck. “She’s as cheeky as the original,” he said with approval.

  “Tell me about her, Mr. African. I always wondered what she was like.”

  “Well . . . ” The yellow eyes swiveled, remembering. “She was very clever, too clever really. How she could hide when she was naughty! I would look for her all over the presidential palace. I would send guards to seek her out, but she always escaped them. Then, when I was worried enough to forgive her, she reappeared, hanging her head as you do now and promising never to do whatever it was again.”

  “She was like one of those brightly colored hummingbirds you have here,” said Happy Man. “They hang in the air, and when you try to grab them, they disappear.”

  “Nobody but a dum-dum would try to catch a hummingbird,” Listen said scornfully.

  Glass Eye wheezed again. He was pleased with her. “You do remind me of her. So quick. So pretty. I’m glad you didn’t terminate her, Dr. Rivas.”

  Matt could see the little girl trying to figure out the word. Fortunately, it wasn’t part of her vocabulary.

  “How come you don’t blink, Mr. African?” said Listen, gazing into his face. “If I don’t blink, my eyes hurt.”

  “Listen! Don’t ask rude questions!” cried Dr. Rivas.

  Dabengwa waved his hand at the doctor. “It’s all right. Her original would have said the same thing. My eyes are artificial, child. They are machines, like little cameras. Dr. Rivas made them for me many years ago, after I was injured by a car bomb. He replaces them every so often.”