Montezuma Strip by Alan Dean Foster Page A

are crazy.”
    Another fed showed him a micropolaroid. “Prints on knife. Your prints. Knife in your hand. Sorry,
niño.
We got a match. You got shit.”
    Wormy was waking up real fast since someone had started running his guts through a garbage disposal. “Hey, that’s crazy, homber!
     That don’ make no sense.”
    “I didn’t think you ninlocos liked to make sense,” the tech replied. “I thought you liked to make crazy.”
    “No, hey, no.” He began to kick, to howl, but he had about as much chance of breaking free of the big fed as he did of winning
     the Sinaloa lottery.
    They threw him in the back of a cruiser and let him scream all he wanted to in the soundproofed compartment, let him pound
     on the opaqued glass and dig at the nyproy upholstery. By the time they reached the station, he was exhausted from fighting,
     unable to cry.
    He let them lead him through the bureaucratic maze, refusing to respond to questions, ignoring the faces that poked into his
     own with varying degrees of concern, hostility, boredom. Let them book him for murder. Allowed them to put him in a holding
     cell, where he ignored the cheers and jeers of fellow juvie inmates. The other occupants of his cell ignored it all in favor
     of continued sleep. It was late. One rolled over, squinted indifferently in his direction, coiled back to sleep.
    Wormy stumbled into the farthest corner and stood there,staring at the smooth, antiseptic polystyrene wall. He was still numb, he was not cataleptic. His brain continued to work.
    Some Tesla had gutted the Sangre. Then they had unconscioused Wormy and planted the bloody knife in his hand for the federales
     to find. That much was simple, obvious enough. Of course, there was no hope of the federales believing such a story. It was
     a tale any ninloco would tell to try to save his skin. No one would listen to a dumb street kid’s excuses. They had his prints
     on the knife; that was all they needed. There were no witnesses to the killing except the members of both gangs, and why should
     they say anything to save him? He wasn’t even a gang member. Just a goofy citizen unlucky enough to be in the wrong place
     at the
equivocado
time.
    They would send him to Hermosillo, to the juvie farm there. With luck he might get out in four years. If the other inmates
     didn’t make tacostuff out of him first. Wormy knew he’d have nothing going for him in facility, nothing to offer except his
     body, which wasn’t particularly attractive. It wouldn’t matter. They would chew him up and spit him out, and nobody would
     give a shit, nobody at all.
    Paco. It helped to think about the sneering, good-looking neg. Maybe Paco had put the knife in his hand. Paco would do something
     like that. Maybe he was even the killer. Wormy felt better. It helped to have something to hate (he discovered he could hate
     Paco now). Something to focus his tormented thoughts on. He concentrated on Anita’s neg; on his grinning, handsome, ugly face;
     on his arm, which was always around
dulce
Anita. The muscular, powerful, tattooed arm that Wormy often envisioned feeding to the hammerheads that haunted the pilings
     beneath the desal plant.
    A bored voice approaching. “Danny Mendez; let’s go.” Wormy turned. A tired guard stood outside the grille. Probably just getting
     off shift; indifferent to his surroundings, thinking of home. “C’mon,
niño,
get your lazy ass in gear.”
    Wormy’s eyes flicked to the occupied bunk bed. Its occupant slept soundly. Instinctively, he moved forward. It was dark; the
     guard was into himself. This probably wouldn’t go anyfarther than the gate, he knew, but he had nothing to lose by finding out. Maybe a kick or a fist in the groin when he was
     discovered, but he could deal with that. It lay in the future.
    The guard hardly glanced at him. “Got your street clothes on; good.” He pivoted.
    Wormy followed, hardly daring to breathe. Was there a chance? Everything had happened real