Montezuma Strip (11 page)

Wormy stumbled into the farthest corner and stood there,
staring at the smooth, antiseptic polystyrene wall. He was still numb, he was not cataleptic. His brain continued to work.

Some Tesla had gutted the Sangre. Then they had unconscioused Wormy and planted the bloody knife in his hand for the federales
to find. That much was simple, obvious enough. Of course, there was no hope of the federales believing such a story. It was
a tale any ninloco would tell to try to save his skin. No one would listen to a dumb street kid’s excuses. They had his prints
on the knife; that was all they needed. There were no witnesses to the killing except the members of both gangs, and why should
they say anything to save him? He wasn’t even a gang member. Just a goofy citizen unlucky enough to be in the wrong place
at the
equivocado
time.

They would send him to Hermosillo, to the juvie farm there. With luck he might get out in four years. If the other inmates
didn’t make tacostuff out of him first. Wormy knew he’d have nothing going for him in facility, nothing to offer except his
body, which wasn’t particularly attractive. It wouldn’t matter. They would chew him up and spit him out, and nobody would
give a shit, nobody at all.

Paco. It helped to think about the sneering, good-looking neg. Maybe Paco had put the knife in his hand. Paco would do something
like that. Maybe he was even the killer. Wormy felt better. It helped to have something to hate (he discovered he could hate
Paco now). Something to focus his tormented thoughts on. He concentrated on Anita’s neg; on his grinning, handsome, ugly face;
on his arm, which was always around
dulce
Anita. The muscular, powerful, tattooed arm that Wormy often envisioned feeding to the hammerheads that haunted the pilings
beneath the desal plant.

A bored voice approaching. “Danny Mendez; let’s go.” Wormy turned. A tired guard stood outside the grille. Probably just getting
off shift; indifferent to his surroundings, thinking of home. “C’mon,
niño,
get your lazy ass in gear.”

Wormy’s eyes flicked to the occupied bunk bed. Its occupant slept soundly. Instinctively, he moved forward. It was dark; the
guard was into himself. This probably wouldn’t go any
farther than the gate, he knew, but he had nothing to lose by finding out. Maybe a kick or a fist in the groin when he was
discovered, but he could deal with that. It lay in the future.

The guard hardly glanced at him. “Got your street clothes on; good.” He pivoted.

Wormy followed, hardly daring to breathe. Was there a chance? Everything had happened real fast. Time enough for confusion
to linger. This wasn’t an adult prison, wasn’t maximum-security
nada.

The guard led him through the gate, into the jail’s outer offices. Danny Mendez, Wormy told himself. The name blazed itself
into his brain. I am Danny Mendez, and I need, want, deserve to get the hell out of here.

He tried to keep his head down without being obvious about it. The checkout clerk was equally busy, didn’t bother to look
up from her box screen. She assumed that the guard knew what he was doing. The guard assumed likewise of the clerk.

They had him sign for the personal effects of the innocent Mendez. Wormy accepted them without protest. A little money, a
credcard he could jerk around, a cheap Indonesian watch. A packet of thermosensitive condoms, a half-pack of sense sticks.
He pocketed it all.

The guard led him to the back door of the jail, mumbled something about staying out of trouble, and nudged him out into the
night.

Wormy stood there a moment, staring at the damp, humid back street. Then he started walking. Not too fast. Probably they wouldn’t
discover the mistake until Mendez awoke or somebody expecting him on the outside started making inquiries.

Only after he hit the alleys did he start running. He ran until his heart threatened to burst through his sallow chest, ran
until he had to stop because the pain in his throat was choking him. Then he cautiously began to retrace his steps, until
he was back at the scene of the fight.

The feds were gone, along with the corpse of the unfortunate
Sangre. The transmitter was where he had secreted it, untouched and unharmed. He slipped it back into the front pocket of
his shorts and headed for the beach.

Taichi-me found him in his pipe, working under a battery-powered light. “Hey, G, I ain’t seen you in days, homber? What you
doin’?”

Wormy said nothing, did not look up. He didn’t have the right equipment, didn’t have decent parts, and it was hard doing what
he was trying to do. But he’d thought about it a lot. It was possible. He could do it. Paco was his inspiration. Taichi-me
moved close to peer over his friend’s shoulder.

“That’s your girl toy, ain’t it?”

“Shut up,” Wormy muttered.

The younger man backed off. “Take it easy. Didn’t mean nothing.” He looked hurt. Wormy sighed.

“It’s Okay. I’m just having a hard time.” He turned back to the improvised workbench. “I’m going looking for somebody. Not
Anita.”

“Sure.” Taichi-me shrugged. “You let me know if I can help, okay?”

“You can’t. Not with this. I just need time.”

“Sure, homber. I’ll wait. Vit you later.”

“Yeah, right.”

He knew the feds would find him eventually if he stayed in Penasco. After they realized their mistake, they’d start broadcasting
the holos they’d taken of him. Sooner or later somebody would recognize one and call him in. Except for Taichi-me, he knew
he couldn’t rely on the discretion of the desal plant’s inhabitants. Not where real reward money was involved. He had to find
out what he needed to know before that happened, had to finish some things while he still had time.

It took him plenty days and still he wasn’t sure it would work. But he didn’t see how he could make it any better. He went
looking for the Teslas.

He didn’t find them, and when he went later that night to talk it over with Taichi-me, his friend was gone. Where the
big float that the kid had converted into a home had hung, there was only a frayed cable, dangling in the humidity like a
severed nerve. Flying fish darted through the Promethean pilings below while the moon hinted at the ghostly presence of mantas.

“Taichi-me! Goddamn it!” He wrung his hands. Had they pried him out first or just cut him free, not realizing that there might
be a living, breathing human being inside? Had the float been salvaged or just dumped?

“He’s okay,
ninño.”
Wormy whirled. Two big desal guards stood on the catwalk behind him, blocking his escape. “We got him out first. Trespass
is a misdemeanor. He’ll be out in a few months.”

“Had to scrag his junk, though.” The other one made a sniggering noise. “Should have seen him cry over that crap.”

Wormy knew that that crap consisted of all Taichi-me’s earthly possessions, everything he’d been able to scavenge or buy with
his pitiful earnings over the past three years. Junk. That’s how they think of us, he thought. We’re just junk, barnacles
to be scraped off the pilings and fed to the bottom dwellers. Garbage.

One of the men started toward him. “Come on, now,
niño.
Don’t make no trouble for us, we won’t make no trouble for you.”

Wormy started to retreat, fumbling for his transmitter as he did so. “Go play in the ooze,
pendejos.”

The man’s expression darkened. “Don’t get smart with me, sperm trash.” He glanced meaningfully at the calm, receptive water
below. “You could have an accident.”

“So could you,” Wormy stammered with false bravado as he desperately aimed the transmitter.

The man stopped as if he’d run headlong into a ten-ton block of ice. Then he screamed and grabbed his ears. His partner looked
on in shock. Wormy turned and ran, sliding down a pipe to the next catwalk below, jumping a three-meter gap to dig his way
into a maze of piping and tubing. Security did not pursue. His last sight of the man on the catwalk showed
him kicking and moaning as his dazed companion bent over him. After a while he looked over the side of the catwalk, but by
then Wormy was away and gone.

His greatest fear was that they would send a boat out after him. His little inflatable’s radar silhouette was slight enough
to be overlooked, but they might trap him with a spotlight scan.

While almost silent, his craft’s tiny motor was not very powerful. Knowing that they could catch him easily, he was a writhing
knot of anxiety until he finally beached the inflatable beneath the massive codos that lined the shore. Without thinking,
he went through the motions of deflating and hiding it, wondering as he did so if he’d ever be able to make use of it again.

He’d hurt a guard, maybe badly. The modification of his transmitter had been driven by a theoretical notion of its potential.
Now he had some idea of what it could do. So would the feds once his unfortunate victim was examined. He was no longer just
a juvie parasite on the desal plant’s backside. He was a genuine threat. They’d leaven the search for him with some real intensity.

Hugging the transmitter like an injured baby, he hurried off into the city.

None of the locals knew Cardenas personally, but he didn’t have to introduce himself. His reputation preceded him. Besides,
any federale who survived into his fifties automatically acquired the respect of his colleagues.

Cardenas wandered into the room, his blue eyes searching. His big black drooping mustache saddled him with a perpetually hangdog
expression. Not that melancholy wasn’t present in his personality, but it was a consequence of his job, not his appearance.
He considered the doctor, the local lieutenant, and the man lying in the hospital bed.

They had asked him to come down from Nogales because they had run into something they weren’t familiar with and couldn’t explain.
Whenever this happened, people usually
found their way to Cardenas. It was a responsibility he accepted with resigned grace. After so many years on the force, he
had long since grown used to the attention, the sideways glances, the whispering behind his back.

At least his unglamorous appearance (he did not look good on the vits no matter how they photographed him) allowed him to
maintain a low profile. This pleased him. It was his experience that federales with high media exposure had a tendency to
have their careers violently cut short by excitable ninlocos or runners in search of revenge, reputation, or both.

After thirty years of working the Strip, he’d seen a lot, but nothing quite like the report on this little coastal contretemps.

He gazed down at the guard. The man was twice his size, massive and muscular. He looked competent enough. Then he spoke to
the lieutenant. “Some kid did this?”

The officer nodded. “That’s what the comedown says. They were excising squatters from the Desal Tres out in the Gulf; the
pipes out there are home to antisocs and weirds of every kind. This guy and his partner were in the process of netting another
one, when suddenly the ninloco points some piece of box junk at him, and his head goes berserk.”

“I read the report.” Cardenas looked back at the man in the bed. “Music, wasn’t it?”

The lieutenant nodded. “Nothing remarkable about that. According to our man here, what he could make of it sounded like your
usual babbling contemp trash. It wasn’t the music per se that was responsible for the injury, though. It was the way it was
broadcast. Or maybe received. It was more than just directional. His
compadre
never heard a thing. The lab’s been working on possibilities, but they’re still baffled. Presumably the ninloco knows how
he did it, but he got away.”

“And now he’s out in the city somewhere, and everybody’s nervous he might decide to play with his toy again.”

“Exactamente,
Sergeant.” The officer looked down at his stocky colleague. “The other guard got a good look at him. We’ve got a POV holo
out. Interestingly, it coordinated with
that of a ninloco booked earlier for murder who was released by mistake from Eastside station.”

Cardenas peered up at the lieutenant, blue eyes gleaming. “By mistake?”

The officer made a face. “Bureaucratic foul-up. They were supposed to release somebody else from the same cell. It was late;
this ninloco had just been booked in; nobody did their job.”

Cardenas shook his head. “And he was in for murder?”

“Sand fight, just a miseria; nobody knows. Found him unconscious with the murder weapon in his hand. Said he didn’t do it,
of course.”

“Of course.” Cardenas returned his attention to the man in the bed. “Anything else?”

The lieutenant sighed. “Damn little. Kid gave his name as Wormy G, wouldn’t tell us his real name… if he has one. No ID number.
No card, no bracelet. Typical ninloco outer. Didn’t look like much. Skinny little twerp.”

“Dangerous skinny little twerp,” Cardenas added. “Anybody check out his claim that he didn’t kill anybody?”

“Can’t do much without the prime subject to question.”

“Questions make these kids nervous.”

The lieutenant grunted. “If you want to see it, I’ve got the file in my box.”

Cardenas patted his shirt pocket where the police portable rested. “Already transferred. I’ll call you if I need you.”

“Don’t you want backup, a cruiser?” the lieutenant asked him.

Cardenas shook his head. “Not right away. I know Peñasco pretty good. Been here a few times on other business. Be easier trying
to find one kid melted into the wallwork if I can melt in a little myself.”

“Suit yourself.” The lieutenant watched the sergeant depart. He was glad when he was gone. He didn’t much like Intuits, not
even department types. They made him uneasy. Knowing how hard it was to lie to one kind of crimped normal conversation.

He wanted to ask the security guard some more questions, but couldn’t until they were printed up. Because the man in the bed
was now stone-cold deaf.

Wormy kept to the back alleys and the service ways, away from the lights. He spent the next day in a big recycle dumpster,
not daring to return to the desal platform. Probably his little cozy had been discovered and vacuumed by now, its hard-won
contents dumped into the Gulf alongside poor Taichi-me’s possessions.