The Lord of Opium

“Put your hand on the screen,” said Cienfuegos in a tense voice. When Matt obeyed, a thousand tiny ants swarmed over his skin and his heart raced madly. He’d felt this reaction before. It was what happened when El Patrón’s defense mechanism was deciding whether you were friend or foe. He saw the jefe step away.

The sensation passed. The screen dissolved into a long, dark tunnel swirling with milky vapors. It looked for all the world like a passageway you could climb into, and Matt found himself attracted to it. He smelled the sharp odor of rain falling on dust.

“Stay back!” shouted Cienfuegos from somewhere nearby. Matt realized he’d been about to fall into the tunnel.

The holoport found its destination, and the scene cleared. A nun, sitting at a table, was embroidering a portrait of the Virgin of Guadalupe. She was as real as someone seen through an open window, so close that Matt felt he could reach out and touch her.

The nun dropped her embroidery. “Oh! Oh! It’s a transmission! What do I do? What do I do?”

“Don’t be frightened. I only want to talk to you,” Matt said, surprised at her panic.

“I shouldn’t be here at all,” the woman protested. “I’ll get into such trouble. I never thought the holoport would activate—”

“If you aren’t allowed to talk, please call Doña Esperanza,” said Matt. But at that moment Esperanza herself came in.

“Sor Artemesia, you booby!” scolded the woman. “You’re going to get your head handed to you for poking into places where you don’t belong.”

“I meant no harm! This was such a nice room to sew in while María was at the hospital—”

“Weren’t you supposed to be teaching her math?”

“Well, I meant to. Really I did. But she didn’t want to study. She says that visiting the sick is a greater duty and that Saint Francis—”

“Go find her!” thundered Esperanza. Sor Artemesia fled.

Esperanza was a small, extremely fierce-looking woman with black braids pinned across her head like a crown. She was dressed in black and wore silver rings on every finger and a large silver brooch with the portrait of an Aztec god. The jewelry did nothing to lighten her appearance. She reminded Matt of a crow on a piece of roadkill. “You survived,” she said without a trace of a smile.

“I survived,” Matt said, staring back.

“Is that Cienfuegos lurking in the background? Somebody must have left a screen door open.”

“I love you, too, Doña Esperanza,” said Cienfuegos.

“Well, get me Señor Alacrán or that lump my daughter married, Steven. Whoever’s in charge. We’ve got to unseal the border and allow a peacekeeping mission to enter.”

She doesn’t know, Matt thought. But how could she know that everyone who had attended El Patrón’s funeral was dead, including Esperanza’s husband and her older daughter Emilia? “They—uh, they can’t come,” said Matt, searching for the right words.

“Don’t stall for time,” the little woman spat at him. “You may enjoy swanking it up in your old home, but I have world affairs to consider. Don’t worry, chiquito. You’ll be well cared for.”

“I thought you were going to have me declared the heir,” said Matt, stung at being called a little kid.

“Yes, probably. In due time.” Esperanza waved her hand impatiently. “If you can’t find anyone else, you can rustle up that good-for-nothing husband of mine.”

“You have to tell her,” said Cienfuegos.

“Tell me what?” the woman snapped. “That they don’t want to open the border? Give me a break! Either they let the international peacekeepers in or the whole country will starve to death.”

Everything that Cienfuegos had said about the destruction of Cocaine came back to Matt’s mind. What would happen if he allowed the so-called peacekeepers in? Esperanza didn’t care whether the innocent suffered. She was a fanatic. Somewhere deep inside Matt an old, old voice whispered, I’m like a cat with nine lives. As long as there are mice to catch, I intend to keep hunting.

El Patrón, thought Matt, shocked. It was like the voice he’d heard in the kitchen—an actual person whispering in his ear! It frightened him because it was so real, but also comforted him because in a strange way he had found an ally.

“You don’t need to have me declared the heir,” he said in words he barely recognized as his own. “I am the Lord of Opium, the only Alacrán left.”

Esperanza’s eyes opened wide.