Hunter's Run(46)

"That's pretty good. Up to now you've been saying that you were swimming under water, hiding from baby killers. You keep this up, I'm telling the doctors that you're oriented."

"Diegotown. I'm in Diegotown?"

"Have been for days," the nurse said. Ramón shook his head, vaguely surprised to find an oxygen tube stuck under his nose and hissing softly. He reached up and started to pull it off.

"Se?or Espejo, don't  …  you shouldn't take that off, sir."

"I gotta get out of here," Ramón said. "I can't stay in here."

The man took his wrist, his grip at the friction point between reassuring and painful. His gaze locked with Ramón's. He was beautiful, just for being a real person and not some kind of alien, he was beautiful.

"There's no point, Se?or Espejo. The constabulary's already been by here twice. If you try to go, I have to call security. And you can't outrun them."

"You don't know that," Ramón said. "I'm a tough sonofabitch." The man smiled, maybe a little sadly.

"We got a catheter running up your cock, Se?or Espejo. It's what you've been peeing out of. I've seen men try to pull it out. You'd wind up with a piss tube about as wide as your little finger. You know, until it scars over."

Ramón looked down. The nurse nodded.

"You're gonna be here awhile, Ramón. Try to relax and heal up. I'll bring you some fruit gel. You should try to eat a little. Okay?"

Ramón rubbed a hand over his face. His beard was thick and wiry, the way it had always been.

"Yeah," he said. "Okay."

The nurse patted his leg sympathetically. He'd probably known a lot of men in his care who had been visited by the constabulary. He might know what was coming better than Ramón did.

Ramón lay back against the thin hospital pillow, prepared for a long, anxious night, and fell asleep again before he knew he was fading. He woke to the cool light of morning pressing at the windows. He tried to watch a newsfeed, but the cheerful nattering voice of the anchor annoyed him. He made do with the quiet hum of the machines, the distant chiming alarms. He cataloged the aches in his body and wondered what he was going to do.

At the start, it had been simple-get out of town until the Enye came and went and the whole thing with the European had blown over. And then get free, get back, and raise hell over Maneck and its hive in the north. Then get back and remake himself, maybe leave his twin to figure out the whole problem with the police. And now here he was, back in Diegotown, tied down by his penis, and waiting for the constabulary to arrive. Made the sahael seem dignified.

Outside, the city was alive with morning traffic. Vans and transport flyers filled the air, catching the light of the rising sun and reflecting it back into Ramón's eyes like waves flashing on water. The low throb of a shuttle's lift drive announced some traffic sliding up through the thin air to the ships hovering above. Ramón couldn't see the spaceport from his window, but he knew the sound the way men in ages past had known the wail of trains.

The knock on his doorframe was soft and polite. It said I don't have to intimidate you. I don't give a shit if you're scared of me or not. That's how much I own your sad ass. Ramón looked over. The man wore the dark uniform of the governor's constabulary. Ramón lifted a hand in greeting, trailing the IV tube like seaweed.

The man who came in was young and strong. Wide through the shoulders, strong jaw freshly shaved, with still just a shadow of stubble. He was the man Ramón had imagined chasing him up in the north before he'd known about his twin, the man Ramón had pretended to be when he was on the river. He was a convenient fiction made flesh.

"You look a lot better, Se?or Espejo," the constable said. "Do you remember speaking with me before?"

Ramón plucked at the plastic weave of his hospital gown. Whatever he'd said before didn't count. He'd been out of his pinche mind. If his story didn't match, he could say he'd been dreaming or something, so nothing before counted.

"Sorry, ese. I've been a little fucked up, you know?"

"Yes," the constable said. "That's why I wanted to speak with you. Do you mind?"

Like the fucker would go away if he refused. Ramón shrugged, added another little pain to his list of injuries, and gestured toward the small plastic chair beside the hospital bed. The constable nodded his imitation of thanks and sat on the foot of the bed instead, his weight pulling the mattress toward him.

"I was wondering what exactly happened."

"You mean?" Ramón gestured at his ruin of a body. The constable nodded.

"I got fucked up," Ramón said. "I went out surveying up north. That's what I do."

"I know."

"Yeah. Well. Anyway, I was up there, and I landed my van at the river, right by this overhang. I figured it was like shelter, right? So, middle of the night, the fucking thing gives out. Must have been three, four tons of rock. Knocks my van right into the river."

Ramón slapped his palms together, the needle in his arm tugging at his flesh in a way that was disconcertingly familiar.

"I was lucky to get out alive," he said. The constable smiled coolly.

"You got in a fight?"

Ramón felt his chest tighten. The heart monitor to his left betrayed him, the blue LED numbers jumping to something just shy of a hundred. The constable almost suppressed a smile.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Ramón said. "I thought you were here about the accident."

"The ‘accident' left knife wounds in your side and your leg," the constable said. "Why don't you tell me about that."

"Oh, shit. That?" Ramón said and laughed. "No, man. That's my own dumb fault. I had my knife, out of the field kit. Used to make the raft. Anyway, I was trying to cut some vines, and I slipped. Fell right on it. I thought I was dead, you know?"

"So. No fighting?"

"Who's out there to fight with?" Ramón said. The blue numbers were slipping back down. The constable seemed unfazed.

"I notice that the field pack wasn't among the things recovered with you."

"Maybe it fell off the raft. I'm not so clear on those last couple days out there."

"Can you tell me where your van was when this landslide took it?"

"Nah. It was all logged on the computer. It wasn't the main river though. It was one of the tributaries." There might be a hundred places that would match the description. Proving Ramón was full of shit just got a whole lot harder. The constable looked peeved.

You could tell him the truth, a small voice in the back of Ramón's mind murmured. Tell him about Maneck and the yunea, the sahael, and the other Ramón. You could even give him proof. You could lead them all right up to that pinche mountain and everything under it. They took you prisoner, tortured you, almost got you killed. You don't owe them shit. You've got no reason to lie.

Except that the man was a cop, and Ramón was a killer.

And besides which, fuck him.

The constable coughed, rubbed his chin. The subject was about to change. Ramón took a breath, trying not to do anything that would change the readings on his monitors. No wonder they wanted to question him here and not wait until he could get out.

"Do you know a woman named Justina Montoya?" the constable asked.

Ramón frowned, looking for the trap in the question. He shook his head.

"Don't think so," Ramón said.

"Calls herself Keiko. Maybe you know her by that name. She's the governor's secretary. She was showing the ambassador around. Tour guide."

Ramón thought of the woman at the El Rey, the European's date. The laughing woman. She'd straightened her hair to look Asian. Maybe she would give herself a stupid name too.

"Don't think so, man," Ramón said.

"How about Johnny Joe Cardenas?"

"Shit, man. Everyone knows Johnny Joe."

"He's a friend of yours?"

"He's not anybody's friend. I respect him. Like you respect a redjacket, you know?"

"He doesn't have a very good reputation, does he? I thought it was strange, then, when I heard that he'd gotten in a fight defending Justina Montoya. He's not the sort of man to do something  …  chivalrous like that."

The stink of danger made Ramón's skin crawl.

"Defend her from what?" Ramón asked. "Someone try to rape her?"

"Maybe," the cop said. "Maybe he would have defended her from that, even Johnny Joe. There were a lot of people there who said that the guy she was with was pushing it with her pretty hard. A big shot. Made some remarks. Twisted her arm when she tried to leave or something. And then Johnny Joe got into it. Maybe saved her."

The silence hung between them, pressing. Ramón's neck throbbed where the sahael had bound him. The monitors chirped and hummed. He knows, Ramón thought. They grabbed Johnny Joe so they can show the Enye that they're on top of it, and this pendejo fucking well knows it's a frame. He's waiting for me to fuck up so they can grab me for it instead.

"Weird, all right."

"Why do you think he'd do something like that?" the constable asked. "Put himself in harm's way to protect a woman he didn't even know?"