The Water Knife

by Paolo Bacigalupi

  “It’s like these rights are cursed.”

  “Cursed or not, the real question is, Where are they now?”

  Both their gazes went to the laptop that Julio had stolen from Michael Ratan. Angel reached for it, but Lucy beat him to it.

  “No,” she said as she scooped it up. “This is my story. I’m in it. I want to know.”

  “Lot of people end up dead around these rights.”

  Lucy’s hand settled to the pistol that she’d laid on the counter. “Is that a threat?”

  “Would you let that go? I’m just saying this is a dangerous game.”

  “I’m not afraid.” She looked down at Julio and the dead cholobi. “I’m already in it anyway.”

  Angel was disturbed to find that some part of him was actually pleased that she was willing to fight to get closer to the story rather than run away.

  Women make men into fools. His father saying that. Back during the good years, before everything fell apart for Angel.

  “Fine,” Angel said. “But we’ve got to hole up, and I don’t want to use any of my safe houses. If Julio was willing to kill one of his own for this, there’s no telling who or what else he sold out while he was working down here.”

  “You think he was playing double agent?”

  Angel stared down at the body of the man he’d gunned down. “I think he was greedy. And that’s enough for me. We need someplace off the map. Someplace neither of us would normally use.”

  “I have friends,” Lucy said. “They’ll help us.”

  CHAPTER 28

  “Roaches come free,” Charlene said.

  The floor was springy beneath Lucy’s feet, barely shored up enough to hold her without crashing through to the squat below. They had climbed a ladder made of scavenged two-by-fours to reach it, and Lucy could hear footsteps echoing down from the family in the squat above. More squats pressed on either side, stack after stack after stack, all of them lapping around the edges of the Red Cross/China Friendship water pump.

  The squat was laid out in two rooms, one for living, with a knife-scored wooden table and a tiny LED lantern strung overhead, casting a harsh pale light.

  “You got a hot plate,” Charlene said doubtfully.

  In the other room, a pair of sagging mattresses covered the floor entirely.

  Conversation and entertainment programming filtered through the walls. A mash-up of drama clips and music videos echoing from the tinny speakers of hacked Chinese-language tablets, mixed with the languages and accents of refugees. People up from the Gulf, where they’d been driven off by hurricanes. People from the Cartel States, fleeing drought and narco violence. Huddled humanity, hoping for something better, crushed up against the hard walls of the State Sovereignty Act.

  “I gave you sheets,” Charlene said.

  “It’s good,” Lucy said. “More than good. It’s wonderful.”

  A baby was crying next door, its squalling spiking through the walls.

  “You can have any of the clothes the renters left,” Charlene said, pointing to a pile of black plastic trash bags and abandoned suitcases. “There’s good stuff in them. High-end. Designer and shit.” She grinned, showing her missing teeth. “You can dress classy. Prada and Dolce and Gabbana, Michael Kors, YanYan—all that kind of stuff. I use it for rags, mostly, but if you want anything…”

  “How did you get so much?”

  “People ditch it. Can’t carry it all when they go across to Cali or try to go north. Are you sure you don’t want to just crash with me?” Charlene asked. “I got a real house. You don’t have to be in this shithole.”

  Are you sure?

  The smell of overcooked eggs wafted up from the squat below. Lucy could feel humanity pressing in on her, claustrophobic. But the water knife had been adamant about wanting someplace untraceable.

  “This is perfect,” she said. “You don’t need to worry. I just need someplace to lie low.” She looked at Charlene significantly. “Someplace far away from people I know.”

  “Sure. Sure, I get that. But you got to know, this ain’t a great time to be stuck in with Texans. They been all riled ever since all those Coyote Killer bodies started getting dug out of the desert.” She shrugged. “They’re taking it all personal.”

  “Personal how?”

  “They’re all hair trigger. I’m just saying that if stuff starts to go wrong, get out.”

  “Anything I should look for?”

  “You just never know what sets shit off. Argument in the line for the pump. Sometimes gangs come in and try to teach the Texans lessons. Then you got a riot. Just don’t make me clean your blood out of the wood. Keep your head up.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  And yet still Charlene hesitated.

  “What’s bothering you?”

  Charlene looked at her sidelong, then finally said the thing that Lucy realized she’d been working up to all along. “I don’t know what story you wrote that pissed people off”—she held up her hands—“and I don’t want to know. But you got to remember that this is the Vet’s territory. Around here people are all kicking up to that psycho, and he’s got eyes on everything. Man gives kids bottles of water and candy if they keep their eyes out. You can never tell who’s on his payroll.”

  Lucy thought of the children in the squat below, solemnly watching as she climbed up the ladder with Charlene. “It’s not a narco thing,” she said, “if that’s what you’re wondering. I’m not doing anything with narcos.”

  Charlene didn’t hide her relief. “Oh. Good. He shouldn’t care, then.” She nodded, satisfied, and handed Lucy the keys to the flop’s padlock. “You can use this place as long as you want.” She dug in her jeans and pulled out another set of keys. “And I got you some wheels, too. You said you needed some, right?” Lucy started to thank her, but Charlene waved her off. “It’s just a cheapass Metrocar, but it’ll get you around. It’s hybrid, but the battery doesn’t charge, so don’t run out of gas, and don’t trust the range on it. It’s all screwed up. If you walk out to Guadalupe, there’s an old Target there. Vet’s got people who watch cars in the lot, and I got a deal with them. They’ll keep it from getting scrapped till you need it.”

  “Charlene. You’re amazing.”

  Charlene laughed. “Well, it’s got Texas plates still, so don’t thank me too much. I swear I got a bull’s-eye on my back when I’m driving that thing. Wouldn’t believe the nasty looks you get from people.” She shook her head. “Never really thought about how shitty it is to be a Texan until I drove that damn car.”

  “How’d you get it?”

  “Same as everything. Renters. Bought it off them before they went north.” She shrugged. “It’s a piece of shit, but figured I could scrap it. Plus I felt bad for them. They had a couple kids with them, so you knew they were going to pay through the nose to get across the border. Didn’t have the heart to bargain hard with them. It is a genuine piece of shit, though.”

  “It’ll be great.”

  “We’ll see if you’re still saying that when someone takes a potshot at you.”

  And then she was climbing down the ladder and heading out, back again to stripping subdivisions and hauling the scrap closer to the Red Cross pumps, where she would build even more squats, packing housing into the sprawl that Phoenix had left wide and open.

  Lucy took another quick tour of the squat. She had to give Charlene credit for her building skills. The makeshift apartment even had a tiny window. She peered out through the smudged and dusty glass. A good location. Close to the pump, and good views out back through the door, down into the alley that served the stacks. As much as any place in this crowded slum, it was possible to see who was coming.

  A few minutes after Charlene left, Lucy spied the water knife threading his way through the crowds around the pump.

  She lost him, then caught sight of him again, leaning against a wall. Chewing a toothpick, watching. He remained so still that Lucy found her eyes continually drawn to other activity, to
the food vendors, to the people standing in the water line, to the people selling PowerBars and black-market humanitarian rations from blankets spread around the edges of the plaza.

  The man simply blended. He was sitting beside another pair of men, and as Lucy watched, he leaned over and got a light from one of them for a cigarette. He offered the cigarette to them in return, sharing it, and in that moment he disappeared entirely. He wasn’t a lone individual anymore, but now a group, three friends sitting against the wall, idly chatting. One becoming three, becoming invisible. He could have been anything. Maybe Mexican. Maybe Texan. Maybe a day worker. Maybe someone who worked muscle for the Vet. Maybe just a tired family man, trying to get his family north, desperate to get out of his squat and away from screaming babies. Just another dusty person who’d seen hardship and, because of that, was invisible.

  The sun was starting to set, an angry red ball against the smoky, dusty skyline. People were coming back from their work. Lining up to buy water by the gallon. Some of them filling, then going back in the line to avoid the increasing rates that came from high-volume pumping.

  For the last ten years she’d documented people like this, and now she was one of them. Part of the story, just as she’d always known she would be.

  Anna would have said she was an idiot. Even Timo, who spent plenty of time around death, at least knew how to circle the edge of the vortex without getting sucked in. Timo had the survival instinct. When things got too crazy, he stepped way the fuck back.

  And here she was, diving in deeper.

  What was wrong with her? How could she explain to Anna that she’d gone to the Taiyang, trying to hunt down Jamie’s last contacts? Following leads to a death that could only put her in danger?

  You put yourself in that chair.

  She remembered telling her torturer everything she knew, dredging up details, desperate to make the hurting stop. She felt soiled now, thinking about how desperate she’d been to please him, to have him compliment her on her recollections.

  “You’ve got a good memory,” he’d said at one point.

  And then he’d lit her up again.

  “It ain’t personal.”

  And that was the true horror. It hadn’t been personal. It hadn’t been about her at all. She was just meat with a mouth, one that might or might not have information he wanted.

  And still she pursued this, even after she knew how dangerous it had become. Anna would never understand.

  There was a knock at the door. Lucy let Julio’s killer inside. He was moving stiffly, but he didn’t complain about pain. Just examined the squat, wandering in and out of each room.

  “Tell me about the lady who’s giving you this place,” he said.

  “Charlene is fine. I’ve known her for a long time. I trust her.”

  “I used to trust Julio.”

  He sidled up to the window and peered down at the pump below.

  “You look paranoid.”

  He glanced back at her sardonically. “I am paranoid. Julio knew a hell of a lot about me. He knew the ID codes on my car. He knew one of the names I was using while I’m down here.”

  “What is your name, anyway?”

  He shrugged. “Whatever you want.”

  “Seriously?”

  He just went back to searching the squat.

  “I don’t think you’re going to find any bugs here.”

  “Not looking for bugs. Tell me about your friend again. Who is she?”

  “I did a story about her a long time ago,” Lucy said. “She guts houses for scrap. She helped me get my solar panels. She’s safe, really.”

  “You mean she helped you steal them?” He walked the perimeter walls, pausing, pressing his ear to the scavenged wood. “And here I thought you were one of the good guys.” He pulled his pistol and tapped a chipboard wall with the butt, listening to the hollow sound. He went into the bedroom, stepping over the mattresses to tap the walls there as well.

  “Charlene calls it repurposing,” Lucy called after him.

  “Oh yeah?”

  She could still remember lowering the panels off a roof in the middle of the night, her heart pounding. Expecting at any moment to be nailed by the Junk Patrol and trying to think how she’d explain herself.

  “Charlene wouldn’t let me profile her unless I came along and helped her on a job. I didn’t know she was going to give me the solar panels until after we’d already taken them.”

  “Got some extra cash out of the story, then.”

  “I try to make my J-school professors proud.”

  He came out of the bedroom and peered again out the window’s spider-cracked glass, eyeing the ad hoc electricity line that ran from the power pole through the window, to terminate in a makeshift squid of plugs that then spread in all directions through holes drilled in the floor and ceiling and walls, disbursing power to the rest of the hacked-together apartments.

  “So now she’s a landlord?” he asked.

  “She started building these a couple years back. People need to live close to the pumps. A lot of them can’t afford to keep cars anymore, so they need places where they can catch a bus, and where they can get water without having to walk so far.”

  “Who’s she paying off?”

  “There’s a gangster called the Vet. This is his territory. Why?”

  He shrugged. “Julio had that cholobi with him. Don’t know what he’s about. Maybe he was just muscle, maybe Julio had friends. Maybe those friends come looking for payback.”

  “They wouldn’t know about us anyway.”

  “Unless Julio was talking to people.” He kept circling the squat. It raised Lucy’s hackles. He was like some kind of strange dog, sniffing about. He stood stock-still in the middle of the room. Listening. “I dunno. Place makes me nervous.”

  “You really are paranoid. This is about as far off the grid as you can fall.”

  “I just keep thinking about Julio, and I don’t like it. I got rid of my car and destroyed my cell.”

  “That Tesla?”

  “Probably joyriding around the city by now.”

  “You’re serious. You just threw that car away? Charlene would have bought it off you.”

  He shook his head. “Nah. I don’t want that thing connected to me.”

  “You really are paranoid.”

  “No. I’m alive.” He went to the door and looked out at the gathering darkness. “It’ll do,” he said finally, and closed the door with a purposeful air. He hooked the padlock through its interior loops, securing the place. If he’d been Sunny, looking like that, he would have just successfully pissed on every car tire and dusty fire hydrant within a hundred yards.

  With a start, she realized that Sunny was back at home. “My dog.”

  He gave her a warning look. “Have someone else check on it. Not someone who knows where we are, though.”

  “What do you think is going to happen?”

  “I don’t know.” He shook his head, frustrated. “I wish I knew more about what Julio was into down here. He was willing to kill his own guy for a payoff, and that makes me think he’d be willing to do other things for cash, too. Maybe sell out his network to the Calies. Maybe partner with some narcos…” He trailed off, studying the squat. “It’ll do,” he said again, mostly to himself.

  He eased into a chair and set the dead Cali’s laptop on the table, started poking at it.

  “Do you even know what you’re doing?” she asked.

  “Just checking things out.”

  “Look—” Lucy paused.

  What am I doing with this guy?

  “I can’t work with you if I don’t at least know your name. Lie if you want, but give me a name. Give me something.”

  The water knife looked up at her. Smiled slightly. “Okay. You can call me Angel.”

  “Really?” She almost made fun of it, but something in his eyes made her hold back. It’s his real name. “Angel.”

  “Angel.” He said it in the Spanish way, the g
making a soft h. Anhel. He caught her doubtful expression. “My mother thought I was going to turn out better than I did.”

  “In Mexico?” Lucy prodded.

  “Long time ago.” He stripped off his jacket, wincing and careful. The makeshift bandage she’d made for him was rusty with dried blood. He didn’t seem to care. He turned his attention to the computer again.

  “And you were in a gang,” Lucy said. “Those are the tattoos.”

  He didn’t look up. “Long time ago. Not in Mexico.”

  “And now you’re a water knife.”

  He shrugged as he continued to peck at the computer.

  “Do you still see your mother?” she asked.

  “She’s dead,” he said.

  “Let me guess: a long time ago?”

  He didn’t answer.

  So much for connections. She went to the window, amusing herself by watching the traffic around the pump. People coming and going. Texans lining up with empty jugs. People lying out on the heat of the pavement, content to have a scrap of sidewalk close to the water.

  At last Angel said, “I can’t crack this. Do you know anyone down here who does security work?”

  Lucy glanced back, surprised. “I would’ve thought you had plenty of those people.”

  “Yesterday, I’d say I could get anything I wanted, anytime I wanted. Now I just got this feeling that the place is rotten with moles. If I reach out to anyone who was in Julio’s old network, it feels like a good way to get the wrong kind of attention. So you got someone who can work this, or do I got to find a way to get this computer up to Vegas, just to get a look inside?”

  Lucy frowned. “I’ve got a friend. He works the blood rags. He might have someone we can use.”

  “That Timo boy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He’ll be low-key, right? I don’t want to end up as page one.”

  “Do you trust me or not?”

  He smiled a little at that.

  CHAPTER 29

  Maria watched Toomie coming home from work, rattling down the street as the hot sun sank red over the abandoned subdivision.