The Lord of Opium(80)

“I didn’t know that,” said Matt.

“Chacho, let me show you something.” Mr. Ortega took up one of the guitars. As before, he laid his cheek against the wood to feel the music with his bones. Then he played the flamenco music Eusebio had written, and it was even better than anything performed that night. The guitar maker turned toward the sound. His eyes cleared. He put his hand on Chacho’s shoulder. The boy trembled.

“Chacho,” said Eusebio, and convulsed violently. Mr. Ortega stopped playing at once.

“Go on,” pleaded the boy, but Mr. Ortega shook his head.

“It’s too dangerous. Eejits—men in your father’s condition—can’t be put under too much stress. They break down and die.” By now Eusebio’s eyes had resumed their dull expression. “Believe me, this is better. If Matt is successful in his search for a cure, your father will be healed.”

“I don’t want to leave him,” the boy said tearfully.

“Nor shall you,” the music teacher said. “I’ll move in and keep you company. It wouldn’t be good for you to be alone with your father in his condition.”

“I’ll stay too,” Ton-Ton blurted out.

“You don’t have to,” said Matt. “We could come back during the day.”

“He n-needs me,” the big boy said. “I don’t want a fancy mansion with circuses and, uh, soccer matches. I don’t want all that swanky stuff. Besides, maybe my parents are here somewhere, harvesting the d-damn poppies. Maybe Fidelito’s grandma is here. Oh, go away and leave us alone!”

So Matt left, deeply shocked by the turn of events. All he had wanted was to make his friends happy, and it had gone horribly wrong. He went back along the path lit with candles. Above, the stars twinkled with a remote light and the Scorpion Star, as always, hovered over the southern hills.





32





DR. KIM’S EXPERIMENT




Matt told Sor Artemesia, Listen, and Fidelito what had happened at breakfast. “The poor child,” said the nun. “I’ll take the little ones over to visit him. Why don’t you come with us?”

But Matt was still smarting from the rejection he’d received. “I have work to do.”

“Don’t leave it too long,” advised Sor Artemesia. “It’s harder to repair a friendship later.”

Matt watched as soccer players, circus folk, rodeo riders, wrestlers, and musicians were loaded into hovercrafts to be transported to the departing train. “You don’t look sorry to see them go,” observed Cienfuegos.

“I’m not. The longer they stayed around, the more they would have found out,” Matt said.

“I told them it was strictly a children’s party and that the older Alacráns preferred to stay away.”

“I wonder if they believed that,” said the boy. The last hovercraft, loaded with musicians, took off. They had averted their faces from Matt.

The jefe flicked out his stiletto with that lightning speed that disturbed Matt and used it to clean his fingernails. “Sooner or later people are going to wonder why no one has seen Senator Mendoza. They will assume, of course, that Glass Eye killed the drug lords when he took over their countries.”

“What about Fani? Isn’t Glass Eye worried about her?”

Cienfuegos laughed. “He has more than a hundred daughters. He doesn’t keep track.”

“What do we do about the doctors and nurses? They surely know by now what happened.”

“They aren’t going anywhere.” Cienfuegos slid the stiletto into its sheath inside his sleeve.

Matt remembered with a sick feeling that they had been microchipped during the orientation process. He wondered how Dr. Rivas had done it. Did he knock them out with sleeping medicine first? Or did he pretend that they needed an immunization shot? Thinking of the doctors, Matt decided he should start asking the one in Ajo how he planned to cure the eejits.

He walked to the hospital with an asthma inhaler in his pocket in case he was affected by the air. But this time he found it clean and fresh-smelling. Obviously, Fiona hadn’t kept up the place when she was in charge. Even the bullhead vines had been uprooted and gravel laid down. It wasn’t attractive, but at least you didn’t wind up with thorns embedded in your shoes.

A nurse immediately ushered Matt to an office and brought him iced tea. “Dr. Kim will be with you as soon as he’s out of the operating room,” she told him. Matt was surprised, but pleased. It seemed that the doctor was already working on a cure.

He looked through books on a shelf while he waited and discovered they were in an alphabet he didn’t even recognize. On the desk was a silver vase with a spray of purple orchids. That reminded him of the greenhouses between the hacienda and the deserted church. He hadn’t visited them for a long time. Herbs and vegetables for the kitchen were grown there, but the main attraction for him, as a small child, had been the flowers.