Savages

and could they mix ina
salad
every once in a while because if she keeps wolfing down these starches they’ll need a forklift to get her out of here and deliver her to some fat farm in La Costa, which would make Paqu very happy and speaking of her mother …
    “You want to let me use the Internet,” she says through the door, “because if Moms doesn’t hear from me every twenty-seven minutes she
will
call the FBI and I think but I’m not sure that one of my stepfathers—Four, maybe?—anyway, it doesn’t matter, might have been in the FBI”—actually it was the FDIC but who fucking cares—“so she
knows
people, and, oh yeah, I want to contact my friends to let them know I’m all right, or at least some version of all right, and would it kill you to whip up a martini?”
    Esteban comes into her room.
    He doesn’t know what the fuck to say.
    She snaps, “Okay, what’s your name?”
    “Esteban.”
    “Nice,” O says. “Okay, Esteban, I want—”
    She repeats her demands.
    Esteban agrees to go ask.

172
     
    This gets kicked all the way upstairs.
    From the boys running the house where they have the girl stored, to Alex, to Lado, then to Elena.
    Who buys the Paqu argument.
    The last thing she wants is a “hunt for the missing girl” drama allover American television, so she says, yes, provide the girl a computer and supervised use of the Internet. See that she writes her mother—make sure she gives no clues as to where she really is—and let her write her friends, who are, after all, our business associates.
    I already have one rebellious spoiled daughter, Elena thinks.
    I need another one?

173
     
    O writes Paqu:
    Dear Mommy
,
Hello from Paris, or should I say bonjour from Paree. It’s very nice here, with the Eiffel Tower and all that. The pain au chocolat is awesome, but don’t worry, I’m not eating too much. All the French women are very skinny, the bitches. Talk to you soon.
    Your daughter
,
    Ophelia
    The BC folks aren’t idiots—they route the e-mail through one of their affiliates in France so the “sent at” matches up.
    Then O writes Chon and Ben:
    Hi guys
,
    Get me the fugh outta here.
    143
    O

174
     
    “They could just be writing it,” Chon says.
    “No, it’s her.”
    “How do you know?”
    “‘Fugh’?”
    They write back, “We’ll bring you back.”
    Then try to figure out how to make that the truth.

175
     
    Problem with that is
    The BC have relocated all their stash houses.
    Fun and games, fun and games but
    It’s the right move.
    An ounce of prevention, pound o’ cure. Lado and Elena put their heads together on it and made the call—new houses, new routes should solve the cash car prob for a little while, anyway, hopefully long enough to find the leak.
    So Ben and Chon are screwed for targets. They staked out the stashhouses in Dennis’s files and all the occupants are gone. Just moved out and abandoned the places.
    Here today, gone tomorrow, or
    In Chon’s experience
    Hero today, gonzo tomorrow.
    And while robbing themselves helps to throw off suspicion, you don’t make any money robbing yourself. With uninsurable items like dope and dope money, anyway. (“Hello, State Farm? What would the premiums be on a ton of Sweet Dreams and—hello, State Farm?”) Even that fucking gecko isn’t going to go for that, ditto the Neanderthal guys.
    And, anyway, you want to mix it up. It’s the relentless cycle of guerrilla warfare, Chon knows. You act, the enemy adjusts. You adjust again, the enemy readjusts. And on and on and on.
    “We could take them when they’re coming
in
for a dope pickup,” Ben says, because he’s, like, Butch Cassidy now. “But we’d get that money anyway, so what’s the point?”
    “No point.”
    But when they leave with the dope they just paid for …
    Because dope is as good as money. Better, really, in this economy. Dope never slides against the euro.
    So that’s the new new plan they come up with: sell the BC the dope, then rob them of the dope you just sold them.
    Because once it leaves the store …

176
     
    Reagan and Ford.
    A Republican robbery.
    Ben flat out refuses to wear the Reagan mask (for a half-ass Buddhist, Ben can hold a full-ass grudge) so Chon takes it. Ben puts on Ford and promptly bumps his head getting into the car.
    “I’m a method hijacker,” Ben explains.
    Chon doesn’t approve of the levity.
    “It could get ugly this time,” he warns.
    “It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye,” Ben