Hunter's Run Part 22

She managed a smile at that, her black mood thinning a little.

Ramon surveyed the contents of her pantry carefully, consulting the freshness readouts on the sides of the cans and boxes and having a little trouble with them. He might have had a little too much of the whiskey. He just needed to seem sober long enough for a little of the alcohol to burn off.

He got a can of black beans, a couple of tortillas, some eggs from the back of the refrigerator, and a hunk of cheese. A little green chili, and it would be huevos rancheros huevos rancheros. It was a good meal because with a little practice it could be made in a single pan. Ramon had enough practice cooking it in his van that he could probably do it even a little drunk.

"So you gonna get a job in town now?" Elena asked.

"No," Ramon said. The beans dropped from their can to one side of the heating skillet, hissing and popping as the juice started to boil.

He reached for the eggs. "I figure I'll go talk to Griego about renting a van. I figure if I promise him a part of the cut, it'll only take me three or four good runs to pay the thing off."

"Three or four good runs," Elena said, as if he'd said s.h.i.t gold and s.h.i.t gold and p.i.s.s rosewater p.i.s.s rosewater. "When was the last time you had three or four good runs in a row? Did you ever?"

"I got some ideas," Ramon said, realizing as he did so that it was true. There was the struggling precursor of a plan at the back of his head. Maybe it had been there since the first time he'd had the dream of the Enye and understood what Maneck and its people were fleeing. He smiled to himself.

He knew what he was going to do.

"You should get a real job," Elena said. "Something steady."

"I don't need that. I'm a good prospector."

269 Elena raised her hand like a schoolgirl asking to speak. "Last time you went out, you came back three-quarters dead without any of your s.h.i.t."

"It was bad luck. It won't happen again."

"Oh. You control luck now, eh?"

"It's the European," Ramon said, flipping the eggs. "He was after my a.s.s. It was like a curse. It's gonna be fine next time."

"Sounds like you found G.o.d out there," Elena said, and then paused. When she spoke again, her voice was less surly. "Did you find G.o.d, mi hijo mi hijo?"

"No," Ramon said. He crumbled a handful of cheese over the beans, then slid the tortillas onto plates. Coffee. He needed to heat up some water. He knew he'd forgotten something. "I figured some other stuff out though."

"Like what?" Elena asked.

Ramon was silent as he served up the eggs, spooned the beans and cheese over the top, got the coffee brewing. He could feel her gaze on him, neither accusing nor sympathetic. He wondered what was going on behind her eyes; what the world meant to her. She was more predictable, more familiar, but in some ways she'd always been as alien to him as Maneck. He didn't trust her because he wasn't stupid, and yet there was something, some other impulse, that prompted him to speak.

"Like why I killed the European in the first place," he said.

He explained to her as best he could, his memory still a thing of shadows and dream, something he remembered knowing more than something he had partic.i.p.ated in firsthand. A reconstruction.

They'd been drunk, yes. Things got out of hand, yes. But it had happened for a reason. Ramon walked through it all again. He could explain what the cop had said; the woman, the laughter. He could guess from what his twin had and hadn't said, from what he knew about himself, about the sense of the whole bar turningagainst the European, and Ramon himself on the top of the swell.

He could tell with certainty what it had been like when, in the alleyway, they had all pulled back, all the people who'd been shouting him on. The sense of loss and betrayal. He'd been what they wanted him to be, and then they'd dropped him for it.

The European, the girl, the laughter. It hadn't really been about them at all. Ramon hadn't killed the man because the f.u.c.ker needed to die or because the woman was one of their own and the man an outsider, or to protect her from getting mauled. Ramon had done it so that the other people in the bar would think well of him. He'd killed out of a need to be part of something.

Ramon shook his head, smiling. Elena hadn't touched her food.

The coffee was warm, the beans cold as the table. Her eyes were locked on his, her expression unreadable. Ramon shrugged, waiting for her to speak.

"You were fighting over a f.u.c.king woman?" Elena breathed.

"No," Ramon said. "It wasn't like that. There was this lady he was with but-"

"And you didn't like how he was treating her, so you picked a fight. You drunk, selfish sonofab.i.t.c.h! And what the f.u.c.k was wrong with the woman you had waiting waiting for you here? You had to go risk getting your a.s.s killed for some for you here? You had to go risk getting your a.s.s killed for some puta puta because of what?" because of what?"

Ramon felt the rage swelling up in his breast. He'd told her, he'd bared his soul to Elena, and all she could do was turn it into some kind of bulls.h.i.t jealous fight. He'd been really talking to her, talking like real lovers are supposed to, and this was what he got for it.

Another f.u.c.king bunch of accusations. Another load of s.h.i.t. His face flushed, his fists clenched.

But then it faded, the bottom dropping out of the rage. Elena threw her plate at him, the food splattering against the wall, immediately gathering a swarm of skitterlings. Ramon watched it like it was all happening someplace else, to someone else. He'd known, hadn't 271 271 he? He'd known she wouldn't be able to hear him. That even if he explained himself the best way he could, she wouldn't understand. If If lions could speak, lions could speak, he remembered Ibrahim saying. he remembered Ibrahim saying.

"It's not happening," Ramon said, his voice gentle and matter-of-fact. His calm seemed to startle Elena out of her rage. He saw her trying to get it back, and rose to his feet. "You're not a bad person, Elena. You're a little crazy, but I don't see how anyone lives in this f.u.c.king city all the time without getting a little crazy. But this . . ."

He gestured at the food dripping down the wall, Elena's small hands curled tightly into fists, the apartment. He gestured at their life together.

"This isn't going to happen anymore," he said.

Elena tried. She baited him, she screamed. She shouted obscenities at him and taunted him about his s.e.xual inadequacies, all the things she had done before, the familiar, habitual sickness. When it was clear that he was going to leave, she wept and then grew quiet as if she were thinking through a puzzle. She barely raised her head as he closed the door behind him. An hour later, Ramon was walking down the riverside, listening to the music coming off the boats. He had a satchel packed with two changes of clothes, a toothbrush, a few doc.u.ments that he'd left at her apartment. Everything he owned.

The sun shone on the water, and the air was cool with the first bite of autumn. It was like being born again. He had nothing-and yet he couldn't stop smiling. And somewhere nearby, in one of the small apartments with their weedy courtyards and leaking roofs, Lianna was making her life. She wouldn't be that hard to find. And he was a free man.

First, though, there was Manuel Griego and the problem of the van. There was a future to create. And now, he had a plan to do it.

"Ramon Espejo?"

Ramon stopped, looking back over his shoulder. The man looked familiar, but it took the two uniformed brutes coming from the vanbehind him to give the face and voice context. The man from the constabulary. The cop. Ramon considered running. It was only a few yards to the river; he could dive in before they caught him. But then they could also get boats out and haul him up like the world's ugliest fish. Ramon raised his chin in greeting.

"You're that cop," Ramon said. His mind was racing. Elena. It had to be Elena. She'd called the cops and pa.s.sed on all he'd told her about the European. Johnny Joe Cardenas had just gotten his prayers answered.

"Ramon Espejo, I have a warrant from the governor for your de-tainment for questioning. You can come with us of your own free will, or I can put you in restraints. Any way you want."

There was a glitter in the cop's eye, a lilt in his voice. He was having a very good day.

"I didn't do anything," Ramon said.

"You aren't accused, Senor Espejo. We just need to talk to you about something."

The station house was one of the oldest in Diegotown, grown when the first colonists had arrived, and not updated since. Where the chitin superstructure showed, it had become gray with time. The plaster and paint had been freshened for the Enye, but the building still seemed old and sad and brooding, ominous.

The interrogation room wasn't entirely unfamiliar territory for Ramon. Dirty white tiles lined the walls, marred by unidentifiable stains and threatening dents and cracks. A long table set just a little too high, a metal chair bolted to the floor and set just a little too low, so you felt like a kid. The light was too bright, and blued to make anyone look dead. The air was stale and close and still as the grave; Ramon felt like he'd been breathing the same four lungfuls since he'd entered. There was no clock, no window. Nothing to tell him how far the hours had stretched. His only company had been the uniformed guard who'd told him he couldn't smoke, and the old flat-black sur-273 veillance camera set into the wall at the corner of the ceiling. The design was intended to make a man feel small, insignificant, and doomed. It worked pretty well, and Ramon found his resentment of it fueling his anger.

Anger at Elena and the constabulary, the European and the alien hive and his dead twin. It wasn't rational, it wasn't even coherent, but it was what he had to carry him through this, and so he cultivated it.

He didn't have money for a lawyer. There would be no one to defend him besides himself. And what defense could he give? That he was so drunk he didn't remember doing it? Elena would be more than happy to flirt with the judge, say what she knew, and sink that story forever. That it was in his own defense? The defense of the straight-haired woman? He couldn't even remember what had happened, not in any real detail. He'd be better off claiming he hadn't been at the El Rey when it happened, no matter what all the witnesses said or the fingerprints on the gravity knife showed.

No, as far as he could tell, he was well and rightly f.u.c.ked. By the time the door opened and the sound of voices at last cut the thick air, Ramon had just about decided that he might as well a.s.sault whatever poor pendejo pendejo they sent in to talk to him. At least he could do some damage going down. And he might have done it if a human had come into the room. they sent in to talk to him. At least he could do some damage going down. And he might have done it if a human had come into the room.

The Enye was like a boulder; its green-black skin the texture of lichen, oyster-silver eyes set in pale, fleshy, wet gouges. A tiny pucker of a mouth-lipless and round-marked where its beak lay con-cealed. The stink of acid and soil filled the room as the thing lumbered into the corner below the surveillance camera and hunkered down, its eyes on Ramon. The constable who'd visited him in the hospital and collared him on the street came in behind it. The man was less pleased with himself now, his mouth set in a professional scowl, his shirt freshly starched and ironed and looking uncomfortable. He carried a black cloth case in one hand and a cigarette in theother. A second man followed him; older and better dressed. The poor f.u.c.ker's boss. Ramon looked up into the black mechanical eye of the camera and wondered who else was watching him.

"Ramon Espejo?" the constable said.

"Better be," Ramon said, then gestured at the alien with his chin.

"The f.u.c.k is this?"

"We're going to ask you some questions," the constable said. "You are under warrant from the governor to answer completely and hon-estly. If you fail to do so, you will be charged and punished. Do you understand what I've just said?"

"I been arrested before, ese ese. I know how this works."

"Good," the constable said. "Then we can get straight to business."

He lifted the cloth case to the table, unzipped it, and pulled something out. With a flourish that the cabron cabron must have practiced for an hour, he unrolled something. must have practiced for an hour, he unrolled something.

Dirty rags, colorless where they weren't bloodstained, cut almost to ribbons in places. They might have once been leather or a thick cloth. It was his robe. The one he'd worn tracking through the northern wilderness, the one he'd wrapped around his arm in the final knife fight with his twin. The one Maneck's aliens had given him. He looked up into the Enye's glistening eyes and saw nothing he could understand. The alien hissed and whistled to itself.

"Senor Espejo," the constable said. "Would you please tell us exactly where you got this?"

Chapter 27.

They began G.o.d only knew how far away, how many hundreds or thousands-or, with time dilation, s.h.i.t, maybe millions-of years ago. They came up from some alien sludge under some forgotten star; struggling and fighting and evolving just like humanity rose from small, unlikely mammals dodging the dinosaurs. And then the Silver Enye came, killed their children, and scattered them to the stars. Centuries in the darkness, fleeing blind. One group carried this way, another that. So many lost. And then here, to So Paulo, far to the north where they pulled the mountains up over them like a child with a blanket. Don't let the monsters see me.

So long, and so far, and then to have everything rest on some selfish f.u.c.k more than half in trouble with the law. Ramon almost felt sorry for them.

I will kill you all, Ramon had thought, back on that first day, the G e o r g e R . R . M a r t i n Ramon had thought, back on that first day, thesahael newly dug into his flesh. newly dug into his flesh. Somehow, I will cut this thing out of Somehow, I will cut this thing out of my throat, and then I will come back and kill you all. my throat, and then I will come back and kill you all.

And now here was his chance. He scratched his arm even though it didn't itch.

"Can I have a cigarette?" he asked.

"Why don't you answer my question first," the constable said, his jaw tense.

He wasn't going to gain anything by lying. Maneck and the aliens had used him. Had created him as a tool, for their own selfish purposes. Turning them over to the Enye would settle his score with them and make him a hero in the governor's eyes, all at the same time. He had every reason to tell them everything. Just the way he'd had every reason to keep to himself in the El Rey. But on the other side of the balance were the kii, kii, the young. Killed for no reason that Ramon or Maneck could fathom. the young. Killed for no reason that Ramon or Maneck could fathom.

That and the fact he didn't like the idea of dancing to some pinche pinche alien's tune, no matter if it was Maneck or the Enye. alien's tune, no matter if it was Maneck or the Enye.

"Maybe you could tell me," Ramon said, "what the f.u.c.k business it is of yours?"

The constable's boss glanced at the Enye and then the surveillance camera and back. Just a flicker, like a poker player's tell.

"We'd like to know," the constable said.

"The governor wants to know about my f.u.c.king bathrobe?"

Ramon said. "He gonna have you sniff my panties too? f.u.c.k off."

The Enye spoke. Its voice was high and piping and awkward; a being speaking a language not merely foreign to it but nearly unthinkable.

"Why do you refuse?"

Ramon gestured to the constable with his chin.

"I don't like this motherf.u.c.ker," Ramon said.

The Enye considered this, its long tongue flickering out to cover its body in saliva. The constable flushed nearly purple with rage, but 277 277 said nothing. The alien was running the show now, the power shifting visibly. Ramon tried to keep his body relaxed while his thoughts darted and spun. Part of his mind was bright with panic, another part defiant and amused. It was like being in a fight.

He enjoyed it.

"You," the Enye said. "The one called Paul."

The constable took on an att.i.tude of respect just short of clicking his heels. Ramon shook his head in disgust.

"You are removed. Leave. Do not return."

The constable blinked, his mouth gaping for a moment, then audibly closing. He looked at his supervisor, who shrugged and nodded to the door. The constable-Paul-walked out of the interrogation room, stiff as a man with a broom up his a.s.s. Ramon lifted a finger to the remaining human.

"Hey, ese, ese, " he said. "I get that cigarette now?" " he said. "I get that cigarette now?"

The supervisor was an older man, and his anger had room for amus.e.m.e.nt at the corners of his eyes. He took a cheap self-lighting cigarette from his pocket, struck it on the floor and rolled it, burning, across the table to Ramon. It smelled like old cardboard and tasted like somebody's a.s.s. Ramon sucked the smoke in deep and let it float out as he spoke.

"It's my bathrobe," Ramon said, pointing with his left hand. "Had it for years. There was this accident with my van. I was sleeping.

That's all I got out in. f.u.c.king pain not having shoes, too. I still got blisters."

"Where did it come from?" the Enye fluted.

By now, Ramon had come up with his lie. For short notice, he was proud of it.

"From you," he said.

In the ensuing silence, the supervisor leaned forward a centimeter. His voice was equal parts warm avuncular joking and cold steel threat.

"Don't push it, hijo hijo."

The Enye shifted back and forth, its eyes rolling slowly. Its tongue, thankfully, had retreated inside its hidden beak. Ramon knew from his time, years before, that when an Enye stopped licking itself, it was p.i.s.sed off.

"I got it on the trip over," Ramon said. "From Earth. On an Enye ship. There were a couple of you people wanted to learn how to play poker. We had a game going, so we let them in on it. They sucked.

One time I was drunk, I let this one big pendejo pendejo put this f.u.c.king bathrobe in instead of whiskey. He said it was a battle souvenir or some such s.h.i.t. I didn't catch it all. Anyway, he loses fours and sevens to my three queens, and I got me a bathrobe. It was bigger then. I had to make him cut it down to fit me, but it held up pretty good until now." He paused to take another drag. "So you want to tell me what's so important about it?" put this f.u.c.king bathrobe in instead of whiskey. He said it was a battle souvenir or some such s.h.i.t. I didn't catch it all. Anyway, he loses fours and sevens to my three queens, and I got me a bathrobe. It was bigger then. I had to make him cut it down to fit me, but it held up pretty good until now." He paused to take another drag. "So you want to tell me what's so important about it?"

A stench like rotting eggs and boiling turnips filled the room, intense enough to make his eyes water. "This one will be isolated," the Enye said. Its eyes were still on Ramon, but it was clear enough that it was speaking to the supervisor. "There will be no communication."