Of course, tonight hadn’t been boring.
García and Scotchman were known at the Coffee Stop. An 80-year-old counter girl with a jet-black beehive served them without being asked. She might have been eighteen when the sun set and aged through a long graveyard shift. No greeting, no conversation.
They didn’t talk about the zonk house. Stuart, stomach empty, was hungry but found the idea of food repulsive. He dunked a doughnut, then sucked coffee out of it.
Stuart felt gimlet eyes on his back. Now he knew what it was like to be with the Heat. Even at 4.30 a.m. the Stop was crowded. Thin old people and restless young ones. Night people. One or two teenagers wore discreet colours, almost as quiet as AIDS remembrance ribbons. Scotchman was the only anglo in the room. Stuart wasn’t quite the only black guy, but he was the only one who felt as though he were from outer space.
He could tell the night people knew he wasn’t a cop. He sensed eyes searching for a gun bulge under his pullover. Not being a cop wouldn’t be any protection if that black van cruised down the street and someone rolled down one of the reflective black windows to spray automatic gunfire at the Coffee Stop, shattering the window and perforating García and Scotchman as inconvenient semi-witnesses. Stuart would get just as many bullets.
A screen-fronted sphere above the counter gave out a smog forecast in Spanish. The golden-skinned weather-girl was one of the CGI simulacra so popular this season. It had only taken America fifteen years to catch up with Max Headroom. Traffic and crime stats stuttered across the image, those with an immediate effect highlighted in pulsing red.
A young Chicano walked over to the cops. He wore silver-tipped cowboy boots and tight black jeans. His hair was covered by a tied-at-the-back black bandana. If he slipped the bandana over his eyes, he would look like a masked avenger. Though clean-shaven, his eyebrows were slicked and teased like a Douglas Fairbanks moustache.
“Buenas noches, Vega,” Scotchman said, quietly. No doubt Vega merited his own file card.
The kid said something to Officer García and the cop inclined his head to think. Remembering GCSE Spanish, Stuart gathered the cops were invited to talk with someone called the Alcalde. “Alcalde” meant “Mayor”, but Stuart guessed Vega didn’t mean Krystina Jute, the controversial Mayor who wanted to change the city’s name to Las Angelas.
“The Alcalde is concerned about what went down this night with the Caldiares,” Vega explained, diplomatic but forceful like an ambassador of an overconfident superpower. “He would like to discuss this matter.”
García looked at Scotchman, who gave no signal. As one, the cops stood.
“Who is this Alcalde?” Stuart asked.
“Could call him a community leader,” García said.
As they all walked across the checkerboard floor, people at the tables cringed to give them air-space. The cops had a special saunter, probably from lugging all the iron around on their belts. The Colt Police Python on one hip was balanced by the multi-use stunstick on the other. Stuart, taller than García and within an inch of Scotchman, felt he was trotting in their wake like a tolerated younger brother.
At a table in the farthest alcove, the Alcalde held court. He was a white-haired man whose unlined face was adorned with a neatly-trimmed goatee beard, black but undyed. He wore a white jacket over a sparkly black shirt, and had a necklace with an animal-tooth fetish. Clustered around him were serious-looking kids like Vega, sharply dressed but without obvious gang colours. All were latino, save a girl with oriental eyes and a braided queue who might be half-Korean or Vietnamese.
If the Alcalde’s party had eaten or drunk anything, the waitresses had long ago cleared away the washing-up. The Alcalde smoked a thin cigar. He smiled at the cops and, speaking Spanish so slowly Stuart could follow with no trouble, invited them to sit with him.
Stuart found himself crammed on a squeaky seat between Scotchman and the half-oriental. He was aware of the cop’s holstered gun, pressing into his thigh as he was crowded against the girl. “This is a bad thing that has happened,” the Alcalde declared. “Blood spilled, lives wasted . . .”
Stuart expected Scotchman to comment on the occupation of the dead kids, but the cop said nothing.
“The Eyes are evil fools,” García said. “This was coming for months.”
The Alcalde waved the comment away. “This was not the work of the Eyes. They themselves suffered a similar attack three nights ago. A black van was seen.”
“We saw . . .” Stuart began, then halted as Scotchman tapped his knee.
“The Caldiarres and the Eyes have made cases to me,” the Alcalde continued. “They say there will be no war.”
“As long as they’re in the zonk business, there’s war,” Scotchman said.
The Alcalde shook his head. “This is regrettable. This zonk is a poison, the Devil’s Milk. It is right that your Chief Ryu should wish it vanished from our streets.”
Vega nodded, eyes on the Alcalde. The kid reminded Stuart of Deal, the boy in Shadowstalk. The boy who shows the policeman where the evil comes from.
“But there are other poisons.”
Dawn seeped into the Coffee Stop, dispelling the grubby corpse light of crackling ceiling panels. Shadows appeared on the Alcalde’s face. Back in Britain, it was getting near bed-time. Stuart was exhausted to the point of dropping.
García and Scotchman stood, ending the audience. Stuart, reluctant to unbend from the soft seat, got up too. Formal farewells were exchanged. The cops walked to the door and the patrol car outside.
For an odd instant, Stuart stayed behind, looking at the faces of the Alcalde’s entourage. Vega, the oriental girl, others. He saw an intensity that touched a chord. Something he could use for the script.
Throughout the audience, the Alcalde had not seemed to notice Stuart. His followers, though, took turns to stare at him until he had nowhere to look away. Now the Alcalde looked straight at him and said, in precise English, “Take care, black man. This is a jungle.”
VI From the Corrido of Diego
“On February the 2nd, 1848, at the end of the Mexican-American War, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was executed. Mexico ceded to the United States territory greater in size than Germany and France combined. Aside from giving up claim to the Republic of Texas, which was taken promptly into the Union, Mexico yielded New Mexico, Arizona and California.
“By that time, I had walked away from my village. Runaway peons were traditionally hunted down and punished, returned in chains like the slaves of the Southern States. But the patrón, like everyone else, had come to regard me as invisible. I left the graves of my family and the ruin of my jacale to the dust and wind and followed the paths of the beasts. I drifted from place to place, never settling. Diego lived long months of hunger for the nights of the moon.
“I was greeted with suspicion by those I chanced across. I still saw the strange glow and I made my kills. Bandits, mostly; renegados, bad men. Some understood my situation; I was given shelter and food in the homes of the pobres, but never for long. For some years, I was with the Pueblo Indians, my mother’s people. They were less unsettled by my presence. A few even commented upon my situation with humour.
“Fox was known to them of old.
“Some moon nights, young girls would couple with Fox. With Diego, these girls were respectful and obedient, as if with the father or elder brother of a lover, but with Fox, they were passionate, enthusiastic, delighted. They wore zig-zag-zig scratches like badges of honour. I noticed some old women wore similar, long-healed marks, and thought occasionally of the viejo.
“In giving away California, Mexican negotiators believed they were disposing of an Indian-plagued wilderness inhabited by only 7,000 Christian souls and an indeterminate number of savages. They were unaware that nine days earlier an anglo by the name of James Marshall had struck gold in the Sacramento Valley. Within three years, 200,000 people had flooded into the territory. Not all the newcomers were anglos from the States; many were gambussinos,
experienced Mexican prospectors who headed North from Sonora to swell the population of the gold-fevered land.
“The anglo story has Marshall rushing into Fort Sutter shouting ‘gold, gold, gold!’ In truth, the word he used was ‘chispa’, Spanish for ‘bright speck’. In everything concerning gold, the anglos followed the Spanish. Conquistadores named California for the gold they believed they would find, and Mexicans were prising precious poisons from dirt long before Marshall got on his mule. In Nevada, the anglo Comstock was about to abandon an unsuccessful gold strike when a passing Mexican miner told him the bluish stuff he’d been discarding signalled that he’d hit upon the richest silver mine in the world.
“Gold and silver are poisons. This I know; once, much later, an Americano named Reid put a silver bullet in Fox. Sometimes, I limp still, after more than a century.
“Like a sudden wind rising, the empty lands were crowded. Rarely was I alone on the trails. I fell in with gambussinos, and, from boredom rather than need, took to prospecting.
“Many speak proudly of their ‘Spanish heritage’, as if their ancestors were ricos, born on silk sheets in Madrid and sent to the colonies to win fortunes. It is a fact that when California became a state in 1850, over one-half of the Spanish-speaking population had arrived within the previous two years, gambussinos in search of gold. To be Chicano has nothing to do with the Dons of Aragon and Castile; it is to be the sons of miners and peons and Indians.
“I have been a miner, a peon and an Indian.
“With gold came guns. The rich flow of metal attracted men and women whose business was to dig their goods out of the purses of the men who had dug it from the ground. Mining camps bristled with vice and violence, then turned to ghost towns as a strike petered out. Cities were founded and abandoned. Deserts were littered with possessions cast away when they became too heavy.
“Eventually, there were more miners than could be supported by the wealth of the earth. At many strikes, gambussinos were more successful than anglos who left Philadelphia or Kentucky for fabulous riches without troubling to discover, for instance, what fresh-mined gold actually looked like. Many expected to unearth shining bricks, brush off a little dirt and take them to the bank.
“It was from these men that I first heard the expression ‘greaser’. It was to these men that I first applied the expression ‘gringo’. Both words cannot be said without a snarl of hate.
“The new-born State Legislature, flexing anglo-dominated muscle, passed laws with official names like the Greaser Act of 1851, which limited the rights of the pobres to stake mining claims, raise livestock or buy land. Of course, laws only applied selectively. Rico and anglo embraced like long-lost cousins, each searching for the other’s purse. Don Patrón was never a greaser to his face.
“It was to be expected that ill-educated anglos would be unable to comprehend the finer points of our new laws. Documents subtly worded to weight a balance in their favour were interpreted in the field as bestowing the legal right to murder Mexicans and steal their goods. Towns appointed Sheriffs and Vigilance Committees to do the murdering and thieving.
“Under the light of the full moon, gold shines pale like silver, like the faces of those I must kill. Fox was almost blinded by shining silver-white faces in an ocean of gringos. Diego learned quickly that he could not visit all who deserved the zig-zag-zig on their cheek.
“But I still had to try.”
“There was a man, surnamed Murieta, called Joaquin. He lived, he died, he did few of the things ascribed to him. He was a miner, then he was a bandit. Driven from his claim by anglos, he raided the makeshift banks of the mining camps for the gold he was no longer allowed to dig with his hands. There were very many like him. Sheriffs put up posters offering a reward for anyone by the name of Joaquin. There were many Joaquins, and many were bandits. When the gringos said Joaquin, they meant upwards of five men who were called by that name.
“I was myself a notorious Joaquin.
“Another man, named Salomon Maria Pico, was a bandit also. Often, it could not be decided whether a thing had been done by a Joaquin or by Pico. To the gringos, we were all one. When they pickled the head of Joaquin Murieta, they were satisfied. He had come to stand for us all, a legend more than a man. The head of ‘the renowned bandit’ was exhibited at various places throughout California. As an added attraction, the hand of another ‘notorious robber and murderer’, Three Fingered Jack, was also exhibited.
“But a legend cannot be killed like a man. This, I know. Many were convinced that Joaquin Murieta lived still. And there were many called Joaquin, ready to take his place.”
VII
It was hard to believe Millennium Plaza, a cross between a high-tone shopping mall and a Japanese Garden, was part of the same city as the Jungle. It was impossible to believe the hanging dead boy was in the same California demographic as the ornamental creatures grazing all around.
Everything was new in this Pastel Inferno. Men and women wore chinoiserie robes over swimming costumes and ambled with remote, beatific smiles. A few retro sharpies in shoulderpad suits moved faster than the herd. Discreet public speakers inside statuettes of Buddha and the Tasmanian Devil broadcast whale songs and purred reminders that smoking was illegal outside the red-marked areas.
After less than three hours of hotel sleep, Stuart was in a headachy fug. The Plaza’s air of reassurance and safety was subtly aggravating. He was sure the security guards registered his black face and typed him as a zonkbrain, marking him for a back-clap with a palm-pad stun-gun.
High above the walk-ways, sun-screens stretched across sky, a parasol for the Plaza. Parasol, that was another one. Stuart was noticing the number of Spanish loan-words in California English. Millennium Plaza was a controlled environment, with musical fountains and an artificial, rose-scented breeze. Finally, a Californian dream was achieved: outdoor air conditioning.
The smiling security guards were bulked out in white Star Wars armour. A young black goon with a gold nostril-plug played with bejewelled kids, lumbering like Frosty the Snowman. Tan mothers in wide hats with scarf bands exchanged bleeping business cards by an espresso robot. Their children dressed like mini-adults, with child-sized Rolexes, Rodeo Drive harem outfits and thousand-dollar Nikes.
A street market for millionaires, Millennium Plaza was a subliminal laxative for the bank account. Tasteful products were displayed on stands, like art objects in an exhibition. A card in a slot and a tapped-in code number could make payment in a second. The purchase would automatically be delivered to your upscale address.
All buildings were identical so he couldn’t find New Frontier. He was twenty-five minutes late for the meeting and wasn’t one of the personnel in whom tardiness was permitted. He was to be kept waiting, not to keep others waiting.
He queued by a free-standing mapscreen. A console listed companies, individuals and institutions he might wish to visit. If you pressed a stud next to the name, a path-way lit up from this spot to the address. A father and son team were taking advantage of the mapscreen’s general function to decide which film to see. Pressing “Movie Theaters”, they made the grid light like an electrified web. There were over a hundred screens at six locations in Millennium Plaza, offering upwards of forty movies. The map could access information on films by classification (automatically excluding NC-17), start time, finish time, genre category (teenage zombie comedy), box office gross, and star rating averaged from a poll of ninety nationally-syndicated critics. Stuart felt as if he were in a Post Office with one small parcel, stuck behind a pensioner who hadn’t talked to anyone since last week and needed a full half-hour of therapy with the bewildered counter clerk.
The family unit (a divorcé spending court-ordered quality time with his son) finally opted for the film which had made the most money: if so many others had seen it, they must know something the crix didn’t. Stuart, trying not to be desperate, returned the father’s shrug-and-grin combo and stepped casually up to the console, then ran his
eyes up and down columns. There were dozens of companies called New Something; he found New Frontier between New Front and New Fruitz. A tiny squiggle appeared by the pulsing You Are Here dot. The New Frontier offices were just across the Square.
Alerted, he could see the NF logo on a building’s shield-like marker-plate. The quickest path was through the crowded grass-and-pool area.
As he force-walked, Stuart saw a lot of white armour. Goons gathered around a group of chanting women in black. Old and young, the women didn’t fit with Millennium Plaza: their clothes were not only an unfashionable colour but shapeless. Bodies deviated from the emaciated ideal: some had light moustache furrings, others wore unsubtle face paint. Thick ankles, barrel-waists, angry faces. They chanted in sing-song Spanish. A young woman hooded like an agonized nun held a placard which listed, in micro-letters, hundreds of names, almost all obviously latino.
The guards were antsy, armour plates shifting in insectile clicking. A young man with a rank insignia on his breastplate argued reasonably with an emotional spokeswoman. Stuart didn’t have time to find out what it was about, but a wide woman blocked the walkway and chattered at him in rapid Spanish he couldn’t follow, presenting a clipboard and a pen. On the board was a sheet half-covered with signatures.
This was all to do with Los Disaparidos, the Disappeared Ones. That usually meant political dissidents “vanished” by the apparatus of a police state. He knew about these women: mothers, wives, sisters, sweethearts, daughters. This must be some Latin American protest. He looked about for an Argentine Consulate or a Paraguayan Trade Commission.
The woman would not let him by, so he scribbled his name on the petition. The goon he’d seen earlier, with the gold in his nose, glared as if he were giving succour to the enemy. Once Stuart had signed, he became the large woman’s best friend. He was embraced and passed on to the other women.
The Best New Horror 6 Page 44
