Montezuma Strip (19 page)

Sure I’m sad. Like, Chuy, he was a friend of mine,
sabe?
Good friend. BTS amigo, you know? But the way I see it, what happened was his own fault.

If he hadn’t been so smart, he wouldn’t be where he is.

I met Chuy in the Hermosillo juvie Rehab. He’d been there almost a year and they had to let him go because he was gonna turn
eighteen. Personally, I think they were getting rid of him because they couldn’t make him, you know? He was so damn smart.
Street smart, the psychys said. Too smart to waste. So they kept sending him home, and he kept coming back. They’d warn him,
and he’d smile, and promise he wouldn’t get in no trouble, and in a few months he’d be back.

Me, I was in for lifting galads from cars. You know: gallium
arsenide storage batteries? Stupido. Too heavy work for me, the federales said when they caught me trying to fence a load,
and they laughed.
Pendejomadres,
Chuy and I met in the Rehab library. It was inevitable. Good word, inevitable. There was nobody else there. Rehab citizens
tend to fill up the bigscreen vit room, and the mess hall, and the athletic facilities, but they got this tendency to avoid
the library. So there was just the two of us, and we saw each other and started talkin’, and when Chuy found out I was BTS,
too—that means you’re from Bahia Todos Santos harbor, Ensenada Arcomplex—it was easy natural from there. Turned out we’d even
scoped some of the same neighborhoods.

I knew right away Chuy had plenty of cerebro, and not just because he was getting out. He talked smart, could speak English
and Spanish as well as the patois, and he had money. The federales could send him to Rehab, but not his money. He knew several
fences, but he was the one who’d taken the kosh—you know, kosher cash? Laundered money?—and stashed it down in Panama. You
don’t expect a mouthy little bayboy to know about stuff like that. I was pretty impressed.

When Chuy found out my hobby was singing the credit electric, we easy started talking some heavy work-release program, you
know? I knew stuff he didn’t, and he knew the street a lot better than me. Problemo was, he was getting out soon and if I
wanted to scope with him I had to do the same.

So I started paying serious attention to my situation, which meant I had to start listening to Trisha Varese, my case worker,
instead of just mumbling “chure” to everything she said while concentrating on her tetas. I can say “sure” as well as any
pure anglo, but they think it’s cute when you say “chure.”

Man, you’d have been proud of me, I was so damn repentant! I mean, I expiated all
over
the place. And “chure” enough, they let me out a day
before
Chuy. I was there waiting for him at the gate when they let him out, and I ream-rawed him pretty good about it. He handled
it with a grin—that was one of his talents—and then he took me to an
AT
and used
a card and drew out about a thousand Namerican dollars. That shut me up real quick.

We caught the first commuter out of Hermosillo nonstop back to good old BTS. I got to admit I choked a little when we banked
over Point Banda on approach to Ensenada, seeing the big bahia spread out all pale blue like coconut flavoring against the
rusty rim of docks and container tracks and cranes, with the city and the mountains in the background and the yellow sand
stretching south toward Cabo Colnett like a Zapotec carpet. But I kept it to myself. You can’t call yourself a Big Tough Shit
and bawl on a commuter vertiprop in front of a bunch of sponge-faced cleanies.

My mother was glad to see me, but it wasn’t much of a reunion. She was late for work and it didn’t leave a lot of time for
talk. You know what the Strip’s like, man. There’s eight million cleanies workin’ the
maquiladora
plants and five times as many as that in places like the CenAm and Colombia and points south would sell their sorry selves
for a chance at the least of those jobs. So
mi madre
said hello and hugged me and excused herself so’s she could maybe make the seven-quarter induction shuttle north to work.
My kid brother and sister were in day school; not that I’d hang with them anyway.

Don’t
miscomprende;
I love my siblings. But a BTS wouldn’t be caught dead tending no kids.

No, first thing, I went looking for Lita. She’s no vit star beauty, my Lita, but she’s easy on the eyes, and kissing her is
like chug-a-lugging a half liter of salsa. More important, she likes me. Actually, I think maybe she loves me, but I’m careful
not to wade in those waters.

“Hey ‘Stebo, when they let you out!” Then she throws herself in my arms, which is hard for me to handle ‘cause she’s bigger
than me and it would look bad for me to stagger,
comprende?
We talk, and go cruise the Pershing Villa Mall, and I buy her dinner, and we talk some more, until the moon is startin’ to
work on the second half of its shift. Then when things are all nice and warm and settled we waft on down to
Ostras Beach for a little Californico Sur body surfing, you know what I mean? Just beach; no
agua.
After those months in Rehab I was more than ready for a little slip ‘n slide.

Later we lie on our backs on the sand thinking how nice it was of God to make the moon pretty as well as functional.

While Lita talks I lie there all tired and warm-worn an’ let her voice run all over me like saguaro honey. The words I try
to ignore.

“You gonna get a good job, ‘Stebo. Make some honest money. You so smart; I know you can do it.”

I listen to this with my ears and my eyes, but my mind is someplace else. See, Lita, she likes me a lot, and I think she wants
to get married and have a house and kids and all that cleanie stuff. But me, I don’ want that. What do I want a couple rugrats
hanging on me all the time? I argue with her, and then I just give up and nod. It’s easier that way, man, and it makes her
happy.

We find another wave, and paddle like mad, an’ this time I wait for her.

Next morning she’s all smiles an’ winks when she goes off to her crummy job and I relax ‘cause I can forget about the
otra.
‘Til next time. I mean, I’m a BTS, man. I don’ need no family mucking my business.

But as the hot days pass she keeps buggin’ me, so I start thinking about it serious. Until Chuy come looking for me, and I
explain to Lita that I got to go with him. My friend needs me. And just like I’m afraid she will, sure enough she starts crying
and yelling.

“What kind of friend can you make in Rehab, you dumb schmuckito? You don’t need to be hanging with no ninlocos! This Chuy
guy, he’s gonna get you screwed all over again and then what am I gonna do?”

She’s really makin’ rain, so I try to comfort her and reassure her, explain that Chuy’s no ninloco, he’s smarter than that,
smart enough not to get involved with no street gang. Maybe he’s an antisoc, but what’s the big deal with that? Half the people
in the Strip are antisocs. At least he ain’t no weird.
But she pulls away from me and tells me to get out, go on, get lost, I ain’t gonna amount to nothing because of the people
I hang with. I know she’ll get over it, she always does, but it’s hard, ‘cause see, I really like her. Deep.

Chuy takes me in this old car that he drives around in even though he could buy a Shogunner because, he explains, the federales
would start hanging right with a young guy in a Shogunner, spizzing him and making him crazy, and while this heap may not
look so good, it’s a hell of a lot more sophic. It’s late, and we head for the back of the docks, where the light induction
assembly yards are.

They’re big, the induction yards. Container and cargo ships from all over the Pacif off-load their cargoes there. Carriers
from Old Nippon, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, and China swap components and chippies and assembly packs and wafers and take
on finished goods, cables and connectors, and agriblocks for transport home.

The containers slide right off the ships onto flexible maglev loading arms. You’ve seen ‘em: big stelacrete and fiber-composite
tentacles, four to an operator’s cabin. The containers are already content and destination-coded and those macho operators,
the real good ones, can toss ten-ton containers around like square baseballs.

Most of them end up in the distribution yards, waiting for a slot out. The yard ‘puters stack them into trains for redundancy
value and when they’ve got enough headed in more or less the same direction, they send them off north to San Juana or Agua
Pri or Yumarado or Elpaso or the Navahopi nation. The already assembled, finished goods that come pan-Pacif go straight to
Frisco or LaLa.

The Bay and Ensenada City are the harvest ground for the whole western two thirds of the Strip. All those fancy vits and consumer
electronics the cleanies hunger for are assembled in the Strip, using Strip cheapa labor and Zonie engineering. It’s a helluva
place.
Mi madre’s
job is up there. She does okay considering my stinkin’ run-off
pendejo
of an old man never
sends no money to her. Okay, yeah; but she has to work like a dog. Ten people waiting to get her job.

We pull into one of the big public cleanie commutee lots and start to cruise, slow and easy. Chuy knows where he’s going,
I can tell, and the closer we get to where he’s going the quieter he gets. Maybe his mouth’s shut, but his eyes are moving
all the time. Bright black eyes, like dancing ball bearings. He’s real serioso now and so I keep quiet, trying to watch for
I don’ know what.

Then this little smile spreads over his face. If I forget everything else about him I’ll always remember that smile, like
a guy on a date who’s spent a lot of money and has worked real hard to sound sincere and has just figured out he’s gonna get
laid. He pulls over next to a nice, shiny Sodan coupe, maybe a year old. I flash the two guys in the front seat, one a slant
and the other a big blond anglo who don’ look like he belongs within a hundred kims of the place. They’re flashing me back
like they’re trying to swim the Golfo from Guyamas to San Blas and I’m a weight tied to their ankles.

The anglo looks unhappy. I keep my expression carefully neutral, but I already hate him for his good looks. “Modal, Chuy.
Who’s the buffo?” I stiffen but say nothing.

“Take it easy. We hung in Rehab together.”

The other two relax a little. So do I. “Oh. I guess that’s okay, then.” He sneers at me. “What can you do besides make goofy
expressions, buffo?”

Before I can reply Chuy steps in. “He’s mode. I think he’s a tweek.”

The Sodan drivers exchange a look. It’s clear this they don’ expect. I’m inordinately pleased.

“We don’t need no stinkin’ tweek,” the slant mutters.

“Just because we never had one before don’t mean we can’t use one,” Chuy tells him. I can tell he’s getting irritated. So
can the slant, because he doesn’t say anything else. Chuy climbs out, locks his boost-a-wreck. I notice it’s got a cute
little peapod gelplug under the ignition that’ll blow the fingers off anybody dumb enough to try and skrag it. I imitate his
withdrawal. We pile into the Sodan.

I check out the interior, note the origin stains: stupid, easily bypassed dash security; elaborate satellite mapping system
above the CD player, revolving token holder for the toll highways. I refract this ain’t the anglo’s cruiser, and I say so.

“Where’d you skrag this gordo, goldilocks?”

The anglo looks angro for a second, then nods in grudging approval. “Not around here. You think I’m a buffo like you?”

“Naw,” I reply, displaying a bravado I don’t feel. The anglo is twice my size, stuffed full of steroid-rich cereal. “I think
you’re a buffo like yourself.”

It’s his turn to stiffen, but it’s hard to unload on somebody when you’re in the front seat and they’re in the back. Then
he grins and extends a hand back toward me. The palm is soft, like a vitwit’s.

“I’m Kilbee. You know? Like the killer bees?”

From behind the half wheel on the driver’s side the slant sniffs. “It’s really Kirby, but you know these anglos. Delusions
of grandeur. I’m Huong. Long Huong to my lady friends.”

“In what
faevela?”
I shoot back, and just like that I’m one of the pak, no longer an outsider. Huong starts the Sodan and the big reviviscent
electric motor purrs like a telenovela tart wound too tight. We ease out of the lot, heading toward the main induction distribution
yard on the eastern fringe of the Arcomplex. I’ve already got it figured, but Chuy explains anyway.

“Don’t like to leave our real transportation too close to our place of business.” He’s smiling, but tense now. Getting close
to work time, I figure.

We pull up to the deserted four-lane gate. Faking a high, Huong weaves as he sticks a card into a read-only. While we wait
nobody says anything. A moment later the reo regurgitates his card and the gate pops sweet as an electric cherry. I see them
all relax.

“Card cost a lot of money,” Chuy tells me as we roll in. “Kilbee got it in LaLa.”

“My folks are never home,” the anglo explains. “Took me weeks to set up delivery.”

“Where do they think you are, your folks?”

“Studying business at UC Escondido. They’re out of town so much they could know less. Much less care.” His expression was
not fraught with filial love.

We pull as far into the lot as possible and Huong parks next to half a dozen empty vehics. Kilbee reaches under his seat and
extracts a big package. He opens the top and hands me a soft lump.

“Left side, near the bottom,” Chuy elucidates as he slides to his right. “You can find it with your fingers. Be ready to slip
out as it expands.”

I eye the lump, find the switch. “You’re kidding. What the hell’s this?”

Chuy gestures to his left, toward a steel tower on the far side of the lot. “Spy vit up there, covers the whole tarmac. It’ll
show at least two people in this car. Have to be two here at all times. Probably don’t need it, but I don’t like to take chances
if there’s a better way.”

“Ready, it’s swinging.” Huong is looking casually to his left. “Now!”

I flip the switch I’ve been fingering. The lump hisses like a dreaming gila monster and starts to bloat. I frantically follow
Chuy as he scrambles out the right side of the coupe and onto the pavement. Behind me, a pair of inflatable drunks expand
to fill my seat and Huong’s. They are extremely good likenesses. By the time the spy vit swings back past the Sodan they will
be blown up to human size and occupying their seats. I can’t repress a grin.