The Lord of Opium(114)

“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.”