stunner.
"No!" Naismith's shout was a reflex born of having grown up with slug guns and
later having lived through the first era in history when life was truly sacred.
The kid went down and lay twitching in the grass. Mike holstered his pistol and
struggled to his feet, his right hand clutching at the wound. It looked
superficial, but it hurt like hell. "Gall Seymour," Mike grated at the old man.
"We're going to have to carry that little bastard to the station."
TWO
The Santa Ynez Police Company was the largest protection service south of San
Jose. After all, Santa Ynez was the first town north of Santa Barbara and the
AztlЗn border. Sheriff Seymour Wentz had three full-time deputies and contracts
with eighty percent of the locals. That amounted to almost four thousand
customers.
Wentz's office was perched on a good-sized hill overlooking Old 101. From it one
could follow the movements of Peace Authority freighters for several kilometers
north and south. Right now, no one but Paul Naismith was admiring the view.
Miguel Rosas watched gloomily as Seymour spent half an hour on the phone to
Santa Barbara, and then even managed to patch through to the ghetto in Pasadena.
As Mike expected, no one south of the border could help. The rulers of AztlЗn
spent their gold trying to prevent "illegal labor emigration" from Los Angeles
but never wasted time tracking the people who made it. The sabio in Pasadena
seemed initially excited by the description, then froze up and denied any
interest in the boy. The only other lead was with a contract labor gang that had
passed though Santa Ynez earlier in the week, heading for the cacao farms near
Santa Maria. Sy had some success with that. One Larry Faulk, labor contract
agent, was persuaded to talk to them. The nattily dressed agent was not happy to
see them:
"Certainly, Sheriff, I recognize the runt. Name is Wili Wachendon." He spelled
it out. The W's sounded like a hybrid of zu with v and b. Such was the evolution
of Spanolnegro. "He missed my crew's departure yesterday, and I can't say that I
or anyone else up here is sorry."
"Look, Mr. Faulk. This child has clearly been mistreated by your people." He
waved over his shoulder at where the kid ў Wili ў lay in his cell. Unconscious,
he looked even more starved and pathetic than he had in motion.
"Ha!" came Faulk's reply over the fiber. "I notice you have the punk locked up;
and I also see your deputy has his arm bandaged." He pointed at Rosas, who
stared back almost sullenly. "I'll bet little Wili has been practicing his
people-carving hobby. Sheriff, Wili Wachendon may have had a hard time
someplace; I think he's on the run from the Ndelante Ali. But I never roughed
him up. You know how labor contractors work. Maybe it was different in the good
old days, but now we are agents, we get ten percent, and our crews can dump on
us any time they please. At the wages they get, they're always shifting around,
bidding for new contracts, squeezing for money. I have to be damn popular and
effective or they would get someone else.
"This kid has been worthless from the beginning. He's always looked
half-starved; I think he's a sicker. How he got from L.A. to the border is... "
His next words were drowned out by a freighter whizzing along the highway
beneath the station. Mike glanced out the window at the behemoth diesel as it
moved off southward carrying liquefied natural gas to the Peace Authority
Enclave in Los Angeles. "... took him because he claimed he could run my books.
