The Lord of Opium

5

THE DOPE CONFEDERACY

The poppy fields were beautifully maintained, thought Matt, who had learned much about opium farming. Every third year a field was allowed to rest, and eejits patiently massaged manure into it with their fingers to make the soil soft and fertile. The result looked like fine, Colombian coffee grounds. These resting patches of earth brimmed with life. Birds, bees, and butterflies were everywhere. Lizards sunned themselves on fence posts. A falcon hovered over wild grass, looking for the bow-wave of a mouse underneath. Aztlán to the south had been a wasteland compared to Opium.

After a while Matt saw a large building looming in the distance. It had a red tile roof and grilles over the windows after the fashion of old Mexican forts. Outside were picnic tables under ramadas. A few Farm Patrolmen, seated at these tables, snapped to attention when the car stopped.

“At ease,” said Cienfuegos. “This is your new leader, amigos. See that you treat him with respect, or he’ll have you cockroached. You’d do that, wouldn’t you, mi patrón?”

“In a heartbeat,” said Matt, who didn’t know what the word meant. From the alarmed expressions on the men’s faces, he guessed that it was a serious threat.

“Hugh, get the map of the Dope Confederacy,” the jefe told a man with cold, humorless eyes. Matt recognized him. Long ago the boy had passed out from bad air near an eejit pen. The man who rescued him had been Hugh, but it hadn’t been an act of charity. Hugh had thrown him into the back of a truck and almost crushed the life out of him with a boot. Now the man looked slightly stunned to see his new lord. He hurried to obey.

Cienfuegos ordered everyone away and spread out the map. Matt had seen it before in the Alacrán library. It was a detailed chart of the border between the United States and Aztlán, and over the top was a title printed in gold leaf: THE DOPE CONFEDERACY.

At the western end was the Land of Cocaine, stretching from the Salton Sea to the Pacific Ocean. This had been ruled by Mr. MacGregor until he drank poisoned wine at El Patrón’s funeral. Matt wondered who controlled it now. At the eastern end of the Dope Confederacy, from the ruins of Ciudad Juárez to the Gulf of Mexico, were the lands of Marijuana, Hash, Tobacco, Meth, Snuff, and LSD. A tiny sliver—Matt had to squint to make it out—was labeled Ecstasy. Far and away the most impressive country was the one in the middle: Opium.

Matt’s heart swelled with pride.

“You do know that all the drug lords were poisoned at El Patrón’s funeral,” said the jefe.

“All?” said Matt. This was news.

“It left a power vacuum that immediately led to civil wars. Most of the Dope Confederacy was rotten to begin with, and it didn’t take much for law and order to break down.” A breeze lifted the edge of the map, and Cienfuegos pinned it down with a stiletto he flicked out of his sleeve.

Matt was momentarily distracted by the smooth way the jefe produced this weapon. One instant the man’s hand was empty. The next he had the slim knife poised for attack—fortunately, this time, on the map. But it could have been me, Matt thought.

“Whatever you might think of El Patrón, he was a genius at maintaining order,” the jefe continued. “If anything threatened Opium, the borders were locked down. Anyone who tried to enter or leave was annihilated by unmanned drones. Even during ordinary times, hovercrafts had to get permission before landing. You may have noticed how quiet the skies are over Opium.”

“They’ve been quiet for as long as I can remember,” said Matt.

“El Patrón never allowed jets over his territory. He wanted everything kept as it was a hundred years ago. Once, about fifty years ago, a passenger jet carrying two hundred forty-five people strayed into his airspace.”

“He didn’t—” said Matt.

“He did. Remember what I said about random acts of violence,” said Cienfuegos. “That’s how you maintain power. El Patrón only had to make his point once.”

“But two hundred forty-five innocent people!”

Cienfuegos signaled to someone Matt couldn’t see in the Armory, and presently a Farm Patrolman came out with lemonade. The jefe poured two glasses and used the jug to pin down another corner of the map. “Mm!” he said, taking a drink. “Not as good as pulque, but I promised Celia not to corrupt you.”

No, you’re only telling me it’s okay to shoot down two hundred forty-five people, thought Matt.

“What do you think would have happened if El Patrón had let that aircraft escape?” said Cienfuegos. “Next year another jet would have made a ‘mistake,’ and then another and another. Eventually it would have led to war. Many more people would have died.”

Matt tried to think of a counterargument and failed. “What about Illegals? Are they still trying to cross the border?”

The jefe grimaced. “Unfortunately, the border itself is a lethal force field, now that it is in lockdown. It gets them before we do. It’s a pity, because we need new workers. The life expectancy of an eejit isn’t long.”

Matt looked for signs of compassion in the man and found none. Cienfuegos might have been talking about a shortage of Thanksgiving turkeys.

“Show me the lockdown system, and I’ll try to open it,” said Matt.

“Not so fast. I haven’t finished,” the jefe cautioned. “The governments of Marijuana, Hash, Tobacco, Meth, Snuff, LSD, and Ecstasy collapsed. They were wide open for invasion, and the most vicious of the drug lords took control. You have to really shine in that area to stand out from the others. He was an African called Glass Eye Dabengwa.”

“Glass Eye,” murmured Matt. He recognized the name. One of El Patrón’s homework assignments had been to memorize drug contacts, and Africa was one of the major markets. Matt had to update his information constantly because accidents tended to happen, but Glass Eye had been durable. He’d weathered dozens of assassination attempts. Matt had seen him at Benito and Fani’s wedding, and a couple of times later at El Patrón’s parties.

He was almost a hundred years old and maintained his health, as did all drug lords, by raising clones. The truly frightening feature of the man was his ability to stare at someone without blinking. His eyes didn’t seem to need moisture, or perhaps his tear ducts had dried up long before. The whites had turned as yellow as an old crocodile’s.

The rest of the man was a dusty gray, except for his teeth. They were as strong and white as those of a man of twenty. And they really had come from a man of twenty, because you didn’t need a clone to transplant teeth. Glass Eye Dabengwa found himself a new donor every few years.

Matt looked at the map with dismay. The combined territories of the defeated drug empires were as large as Opium. “What about the Land of Cocaine? Can we ally ourselves with that?”

“Not anymore,” Cienfuegos said grimly. “When it became clear that Glass Eye planned to invade Cocaine, the United Nations launched a preemptive strike. They called it Operation Cold Turkey. They firebombed the coca plantations and in the process killed the eejits. Thousands of them. The land of Cocaine is now occupied by UN forces under the direction of Esperanza Mendoza.”

“Esperanza?” Matt was shocked to his very core. She was María’s mother. She was the one who had saved him in Aztlán and who’d promised to help him. This was her idea of help? But he also knew she was a fanatic. She’d abandoned her own children to follow political beliefs and might well consider killing eejits a small price to pay for stopping the drug trade. That’s no different from El Patrón shooting down a jet plane to avoid a war, he thought.

He heard doves calling in the palo verde trees and smelled dust raised by horses’ hooves in a corral. He heard men laughing as they played cards under the ramadas. It seemed so peaceful and normal, though of course it wasn’t normal. Opium thrived on the blood of Illegals. But if Esperanza had her way, might she not order everyone killed here, too?

“It isn’t easy being good, is it?” said Cienfuegos, cleaning his fingernails with the stiletto.