The Lord of Opium

  Listen was impressed. She went up close and watched as he swiveled them back and forth. “Is that why they make squeaky noises?”

  “They should not do that,” grumbled the drug lord. “I need them replaced, but one cannot have several operations at once. Parts of my body are artificial. I was not blessed with a fine hospital and many clones as El Patrón was.”

  The little girl cocked her head to one side. She was clearly pondering the meaning of that last sentence. “Why is it important to have many clones?”

  “Let the man rest,” interrupted Dr. Rivas. “Please overlook her questions, mi patrón. She chatters like a tree full of birds, and half the time she doesn’t know what she’s saying.”

  “That’s not true!” cried the little girl. “I’m smart. I can recite the names of planets and the twenty biggest stars in the sky. I can dissect a rabbit, or could if Dr. Rivas would let me.”

  “Now is not the time,” said the doctor, pulling her away roughly. Glass Eye slumped in his chair, and the nurse came forward again with a glass of liquid.

  “We will conduct more business tomorrow,” Happy Man announced. “The drug lord is tired.” He went to the door, but Glass Eye wasn’t finished.

  “Tomorrow,” he said heavily. “I will see you tomorrow, Baby Patrón. And then you will open the border for me.”

  Never, thought Matt as they were led away.

  47

  HAPPY MAN GOES HUNTING

  Why did Dr. Rivas call Mr. African the patrón? Aren’t you the patrón?” asked Listen when they had returned to the room.

  “He’s not called Mr. African. His name is Glass Eye Dabengwa, and he’s trying to take over the country.”

  Boris and Samson had settled by the door, this time with two cigarettes. The visit to their boss had unnerved them so much that they were trying to get high as soon as possible. They puffed vigorously until a smoke alarm on the wall went off. Samson bashed it with his fist until it stopped.

  “I guess Glass Eye got in when the Bug opened the border,” said Listen.

  Matt sat up. “You knew about that?”

  “Dr. Rivas said they were going to do it. He told the Bug they were going to the Scorpion Star, and oh boy, was he happy about it. He said he was going to aim a big missile at the nursery and blow me up.”

  Matt sighed inwardly. He kept trying to feel sorry for El Bicho, but it was difficult. “I closed the border again. That’s why there aren’t more bad guys.”

  “So are you the patrón or not?”

  “We’re still arguing about it.”

  Matt, in spite of the desperate situation, knew he had a few things in his favor. Glass Eye had few allies in the country, and Cienfuegos, if he was still alive, would make sure that number went down. As for opening the border, no one except Matt could do it. Dabengwa could rage and threaten all he liked, but he couldn’t kill his only chance of escape.

  But as the day dragged on, some of Matt’s optimism seeped away. Nothing said that Glass Eye couldn’t torture him until he gave in. How much pain could he endure? He thought of various things Glass Eye could do and listed them on a scale of one to ten. You think too much, complained El Patrón.

  Matt and Listen were sitting on the floor with the evening food trays on their laps. Beef stew and polenta again. Listen had developed a dislike for polenta almost equal to her hatred of mushrooms. She flicked bits of it on the wall to see if it would stick.

  “Stop that. If you don’t like it, give it to Boris.”

  “I want to see if he’ll eat it off the wall,” the little girl said. Matt got up, took the tray away, and dumped the remaining polenta on Boris’s tray.

  “There! Finish the stew,” he said, replacing it on her lap.

  “I miss Mbongeni,” she said. “And I miss Fidelito and Sor Artemesia and Cienfuegos, too.” Her mouth turned down, and she looked dangerously close to crying. “There sure are a lot of people missing.”

  “They aren’t missing. They know exactly where they are,” Matt said. He watched her eat and then tucked her into bed. “Try to sleep,” he said. He shone the flashlight Tam Lin had given him on the wall and made shadow animals with his hands. Celia had done that for him when he was small. He did a rabbit, a goose, a coyote, and an eagle.

  Boris came over and hunkered down. He’d learned a few English words and used one of them now. “Lullaby?” he offered.

  “Nyet,” said Matt.

  Boris continued looking at the little girl. “Glass Eye bad,” he announced.

  “You can say that again,” said Matt. The Russian twisted his hands as though he were snapping something in two. Then he shook his head.

  “What does that mean?” said Listen after the Russian had gone back to his post.

  “It means he’d like to kill Dabengwa but can’t. He’s controlled by a microchip.”

  “It was nice of him to think of it,” said the little girl, snuggling into the covers.

  “Being here isn’t nearly as bad as when I was thrown into the chicken litter,” Matt said. “I was alone except for Rosa, my caretaker. She hated me. All I had to play with were cockroaches. But a dove used to come through the window and visit me.”

  “Was it the same dove Noah sent out to look for land?” Listen said suspiciously.

  “Her great-great-ever-so-great-granddaughter,” said Matt. “María rescued me, even though she was only six years old. She brought Celia to the window, and Celia went to El Patrón.” He told her how Tom—a certified bad guy—had come to the window and shot him with a peashooter until he was covered with bruises. “But then I threw a rotten orange at him, and it fell apart on his face and covered him with wiggly worms.”

  Listen crowed with delight. “Did they get into his ears and mouth?” she asked.

  “Yes! And two of them went up his nose.” But Matt saw she was getting too wild, and so he made her lie down again and told her about the oasis instead. “It was a secret world. No one except me and Tam Lin knew about it. We had picnics and campfires. We went swimming in the lake. It’s not like being in a swimming pool. The water makes you feel alive, and it’s full of little fish.”

  “I wish I had a secret world,” Listen said wistfully.

  “I’ll take you there when we get out,” Matt promised.

  Later, when he attempted to snatch a few minutes of sleep, he felt Tam Lin’s flashlight under the pillow and wished they were in the oasis now. There sure were a lot of missing people, and tomorrow there might be two more.

  * * *

  Dr. Rivas arrived about noon, accompanied by two African soldiers armed with machine guns. “This place stinks. We’ll go to the nursery,” he said. He was in a grim mood and shoved Listen away when she tried to hug him.

  She didn’t stay depressed long. It was too wonderful getting outside, and she danced for joy. She was dressed in a yellow pinafore and bright pink sandals that had been delivered the evening before. Eejits went about their work in the gardens, clipping grass with scissors, refilling hummingbird feeders, and taking litter out of ponds one leaf at a time.

  “Look!” cried Listen. Over one part of the hospital was a column of smoke. “That’s the lab where all the freezers are!”

  Five soldiers were scooping buckets of water out of the fountain where El Patrón’s brothers and sisters stood. If only five had been spared to fight the blaze, Matt thought, Glass Eye couldn’t have that many men. Perhaps hundreds of eejits were around, but they hadn’t been trained to throw buckets of water on a fire. The whole hospital could burn down around their ears and they wouldn’t notice.

  “A century of research went up in those flames,” said Dr. Rivas. “My life’s work. I begged Glass Eye for more help. I told him his health depended on the lab, and he said that his life depended on being guarded. Cienfuegos is at the bottom of this. I hope he’s proud of his stupid Neanderthal act of terrorism. He must have used a flamethrower.”

  He probably is proud, Matt thought. Among those samples were the deadli
est germs known to humankind.

  The same caretakers were sitting along the wall of the nursery, but the dead eejit had been removed. Listen peeked into the kitchen, the bathroom, and the cupboards. “Where’s Mbongeni?” she said.

  “You know where he is,” Dr. Rivas said impatiently.

  Listen looked wary. “How would I know?”

  “Because I explained it to you when the first Mbongeni was sacrificed. He’s been used for spare parts,” said Dr. Rivas.

  Listen shrieked, “You did it! You said you wouldn’t do it, and you did! You did! You did! You did!”

  “You’re a beast,” said Matt, trying to calm the little girl.

  “We’re all beasts.” The doctor sat down on one of the beds, and one of Mbongeni’s stuffed toys fell to the floor. “Sor Artemesia can talk about souls all she likes, but when we die, we turn into compost like any other piece of rubbish.”

  “Mbongeni was not rubbish!” Listen shouted.

  “For twenty years I have been El Patrón’s slave. I created life out of nothing, fed it, cared for it, and in the end killed it to prolong his existence. That’s what clones are for, Listen. You knew that, so don’t pretend you didn’t. It’s no different from dissecting rabbits.”

  “You don’t cut up people!” she cried.

  “Clones aren’t people. They’re collections of cells.”

  Listen threw herself at the doctor, but Matt held her back. He was afraid for her. She’d hidden the truth from herself for years. She knew on one level what had happened to the older Mbongeni, and she knew what the fate of the younger one would be. But it was too much for a seven-year-old child to face consciously. The truth had only surfaced in her night terrors.

  The African soldiers kept glancing outside as though expecting trouble. Boris and Samson had, Matt noticed, armed themselves with stun guns. A breeze laden with smoke from burning cholera, smallpox, and plague germs stirred the curtains of the windows. It was another beautiful day in the drug neighborhood.

  “You’re one of the lucky ones, Listen,” said Dr. Rivas. “Glass Eye likes you. He wants you to grow up to become his hundred and fiftieth or two hundredth wife. I forget how many there are.”

  The little girl refused to look at him. “I’m putting you into my freezer,” she hissed.

  Matt longed to lunge at the doctor and silence him forever, but the soldiers would stop him. “Glass Eye won’t live that long,” he said, lifting Listen onto one of the beds.

  The doctor laughed bitterly. “Oh, yes he will. He isn’t in as good a shape as El Patrón was, but we can do wonderful things with machines. I can build a mechanical heart that will keep him going. Just think, Listen. In ten years you’ll be seventeen. You always wanted to be a drug queen, and here’s your chance.”

  To Matt’s surprise, Listen didn’t look grief-stricken, as he’d expected. The expression on her face was rage. It made her seem a lot older than seven.

  “I think it’s time for lunch,” said Dr. Rivas, getting up and brushing the wrinkles from his lab coat. He sent the eejit caretakers to the nursery kitchen, and they soon returned with cheese sandwiches and chocolate milk. Matt didn’t think he could eat, but he’d grown so tired of stew and polenta that the new food was welcome. Listen spat on her sandwich and threw it on the floor. The soldiers and Russian bodyguards stood by the door and watched.

  Matt picked up Mbongeni’s stuffed toys and put them into a cupboard, where Listen couldn’t see them. He rolled the crib into the kitchen, but the eejits, when they tidied up, put everything back. They’d been programmed to keep things in order, and it was useless to argue with them.

  “Happy Man has been going on hunting parties,” Dr. Rivas said suddenly. “He and a few friends have been flying around in those little stirabouts.”

  “I suppose they want to turn this place into a wasteland like the rest of the Dope Confederacy,” said Matt.

  “They’ve been extremely successful.” The doctor smiled, pleased that he’d gotten a reaction. “The animals here have never been hunted, and they didn’t know they were in danger. Happy Man bagged a dozen pronghorn antelope, even more white-tailed deer, two bears, a jaguar—they’re very rare—and a puma. It won’t take him long to clean this place out.”

  For the first time Matt realized that the doctor was not only evil, he was insane.

  “The machine guns were so powerful, they blew the animals to bits. One of the antelopes was standing in front of a window at Malverde’s chapel. I suppose the beast thought it was under the saint’s protection, but it soon learned its mistake. When the buzzards came down to feed, the soldiers blasted them, too.”

  “Why tell me?” said Matt. He carefully kept his face blank at the mention of the chapel.

  “Because I want you to see your country in ruins. I want you to watch your friends die and know that you yourself have fallen into the hands of your worst enemy.”

  “What do you have against me? I didn’t do anything to you.”

  “You destroyed my son and drove my wife to suicide,” said the doctor, as though he hadn’t heard Matt. “You burnt up my life’s work, but it’s all worth it if you suffer.”

  “El Patrón did those things, not me.” Matt despaired of getting through to the man. He was locked into a mental bubble.

  More soldiers came to the door. They talked excitedly in some African language. Boris and Samson jumped from one foot to the other, trying to make themselves understood.

  “I’m not El Patrón,” Matt repeated.

  “Oh, but you are,” Dr. Rivas said softly. “You have the same gestures, the same body, and the same voice. You’re the most perfect copy of him I ever made.”

  The soldiers beckoned to the doctor, and they conferred in low voices. “Glass Eye had a slight relapse this morning,” Dr. Rivas said when he returned. “That’s why he didn’t call for you. It seems that Happy Man took advantage of the situation to go hunting again. He didn’t come back.”

  “Tough toenails,” said Matt. With any luck, the fake general was in the stomach of a jaguar (very rare).

  “It means that your time has run out. Dabengwa wants the border opened, and he wants it now.”

  Matt grabbed a fork from a table and stabbed at his right hand, but he wasn’t fast enough. The African soldiers were as well trained as the Farm Patrol, and one of them twisted his arm behind his back while another kicked him in the stomach. Matt collapsed, gasping for breath.

  “That was a trick worthy of the old man,” Dr. Rivas said. “Too bad it didn’t work. Your hand is going to stay in perfect condition until we’ve had the use of it.”

  The soldiers pulled Matt to his feet and shoved him out the door. He wondered how long he could endure pain. He’d heard about things Glass Eye had done to his enemies. Unlike El Patrón, the African drug lord didn’t dispose of them quickly. Terror was the way he kept power.

  “I’ll die before I betray Opium,” he said.

  “Oh, you won’t be the one to suffer,” Dr. Rivas said, nodding at Listen as they hurried across the garden. “She will be.”

  48

  EL PATRÓN’S ADVICE

  You’re in a fine mess, aren’t you? said El Patrón.

  Stop gloating and help us, thought Matt.

  Why should I? I’ve already told you what you need to know, the old man said peevishly. Matt imagined him sitting under a grape arbor, watching the statues of his seven brothers and sisters.

  Tell me again. If I don’t survive, your ninth life is over. Matt knew there was no use appealing to El Patrón’s better nature. He didn’t have one. But only silence followed this appeal to self-interest. The old man had gone back to whatever entertainments the dead had.

  They passed a stirabout and a heap of ruined animal skins. They hurried through the halls of the hospital. Samson carried Listen, who was trying to shred his arms with her fingernails. He bore it stoically.

  There was chaos in Glass Eye Dabengwa’s room. Bottles had been overturned, a lamp lay
shattered, a nurse knelt at the drug lord’s feet, holding her arm and sobbing. Soldiers were ranged against the wall in postures of defense. Glass Eye himself was swaying like a heavyweight boxer about to land a crushing blow.

  “I’ll kill him,” he snarled. “I’ll kill him.” No one dared to answer. Either Happy Man really had run off, or he was pushing up daisies in the forest. “You! Boy! Open the border. I will have more men now!”

  Matt flinched. The yellow eyes swiveled toward him, their lids shrunken and dry from lack of use. He swallowed. His throat closed up. “No,” he managed to croak.

  “YOU DO NOT SAY NO TO ME!” roared the drug lord.

  Matt swallowed. He heard the click, whirr of Dabengwa’s eyes, the creak of his neck, the tiny groans of various parts of the man’s anatomy as he moved. Dear God, was any part of him still human?

  “You leave my friend alone!” came a sharp little voice directly under Glass Eye’s nose. “If you’re not careful, I’ll put you into my freezer.”

  Dabengwa looked down as though he could scarcely believe what he was seeing.

  “If you don’t know what that means, I’ll tell you,” said Listen. “I won’t see you and I won’t hear you. You’ll be a big old lump of ice to me.”

  “Listen, please come away,” begged Matt.

  She looked directly into the drug lord’s yellow eyes and tapped her foot impatiently. It was like watching a bantam rooster challenge a rottweiler. Utterly courageous and crazy. The rottweiler always won.

  “Let me tell you about your original,” rumbled Glass Eye, momentarily distracted. “She was a girl from a small village. I sent for her and she defied me, so I killed her brothers and sisters. She ran away, and I killed her parents. Then she came, hanging her head and apologizing, but she was never obedient. Always she ran, and I had a tracking device injected under her skin. The last time, I broke her neck.”