The Lord of Opium(16)

Matt had gone to the stove with no purpose, or at least none that he was aware of. But once there a voice, deeply buried in his mind, whispered, He wants to kill you. It was so real that the boy glanced up to see whether someone else was in the room.

“I’ll open the border when I think it’s the right time,” Matt said, watching the soup eejit.

“If you do it now, Doña Esperanza will be merciful. She doesn’t have to be, you know. She has an entire army at her disposal.”

Matt felt the back of his neck prickle. He wanted to spin around, to discover what the major was doing, but he instinctively felt that this was bad strategy. He must look as though he were in control. Do it, the voice in his mind said. “Do what?” Matt said aloud.

Don’t waste time with stupid questions! thundered the voice. Do it! As though someone else had taken control of his body, Matt’s hands grabbed the pot, and he whirled around. The major was much closer than he thought, and Matt threw the boiling soup at him.

The major jumped back, but not quickly enough. The soup splashed over his coat, and he frantically pulled it off. A knife clattered to the floor. Celia screamed. In the same instant Matt was aware that Cienfuegos was in the doorway.

The jefe launched himself across the room, slammed the man into a wall, and punched him three times like a professional boxer. The major collapsed. Cienfuegos casually took a pitcher of ice water from the table and poured it over him.

“It was good strategy using the soup, mi patrón,” he said, “but next time throw it at his face.” He went to the hall and called for eejits to carry the major to his apartment.

* * *

Matt’s hands were shaking as he clutched the mug of coffee Celia had given him. He didn’t know which had upset him more—the major’s attack or Cienfuegos’s lightning response. “Would he really have killed me?” he asked. “If he had, no one could have opened the border.”

“He would have taken you hostage and forced you to do it. I’ve had my eye on him ever since he learned you were the sole heir,” said the jefe.

“You need more bodyguards,” said Celia, supervising the eejit who was cleaning up the spill.

“I don’t know why I threw that soup,” Matt said. “Something just came over me.”

“That’s how the old man was,” Cienfuegos remembered fondly. “He was like a samurai warrior, always in the present. No one had time to outguess him.” The jefe was lounging with his feet up on the table, holding a similar mug, except that his had pulque in it.

“I don’t really like to hurt people,” Matt admitted.

Cienfuegos gazed at him over his drink. The jefe’s light-brown eyes were intent, like a coyote watching a rabbit. “You get used to it,” he said at last.

Celia bustled around, preparing another pot of soup. “I’ve been thinking about possible names for our new drug lord,” she said. “How about El Relámpago, the Lightning Bolt, or El Vampiro?”

“I lean toward vampires,” said Cienfuegos. “They come out after dark and drink blood. Very scary.”

“For the hundredth time, I don’t want another name,” Matt said.





8





THE HOLOPORT




When they had finished, Cienfuegos led the way to the holoport, and Matt was surprised to recognize the place. He’d discovered it while exploring the secret passages El Patrón used to spy on people. It was a warehouse filled with computers and surveillance cameras, and normally it would have been full of bodyguards.

“I should have thought of this room,” the boy said. “It’s one of the few places El Patrón allowed modern machinery.”

“You’ve been here before?” Cienfuegos sounded surprised.

“El Patrón and I used to watch the surveillance cameras together.” Matt was lying. He’d never been here with the old man, but it pleased him to keep the jefe off balance.

“That’s odd. He never let his other—” Cienfuegos halted.

He never let his other clones in on the secret, Matt silently finished. You can’t use the word “clone” around the new Lord of Opium, any more than I can use the word “eejit” around you.

The jefe threw open the doors of a cabinet to reveal a giant screen. It brightened to show an office overlooking a large city. An address at the bottom read HAPPY MAN HIKWA. BULAWAYO, ZIMBABWE. Matt remembered that Happy Man was one of El Patrón’s most voracious customers. He distributed drugs under the leadership of Glass Eye and was now probably an enemy.

Matt was pleased to recall the man’s identity. When El Patrón was alive, the boy had memorized long lists of drug contacts, trade routes, and the correct mordidas, or bribes, to pay.