DEBORAH WHEELER JAVIER, DYING IN THE LAND OF FLOWERS THE GROUP OF NEW-HIRES crowded together on a concrete slab that had once been part of a beachfront parking lot. Javier Gonzalez stood in front, pressing against the chain-link fence as he squinted at the sea. Waves made horizontal lines of light across the gray-blue water, cut by the wake of the boat from Tierra Flores Island. Gulls wheeled overhead, screeching. Further south, aluminum-hulled dinghies bobbed at the public pier. Illegals used them to net croaker and sculpin, scavenger fish too polluted for the regular markets. Behind the rows of crumbling, sunbleached hotels, enclosed pedestrian corridors stretched from the West City mall plexes to the private filtered bathing areas. But here on the landing, the only sunscreens were tin slats that stank of bird shit. Strips of burning light fell across the rusting benches. The seats had all been taken hours ago by men who didn't have jobs on the Island but were hoping for an inside tip that might lead to one. Some of the new-hires brought their families with them to see the Island boat and say goodbye. Javier's mother and sister had come with him on the electric tram from the East City barrio, but he'd already sent them back again. Mama had pulled away from him, leaving a film of sweat where they touched. Her eyes flashed, a ring of white around black. He wondered why she should be afraid now. All those years, he could have run with the cartel or been gunned down by them, or been zeroed out by drugs or lung crud. He could have blown his brains out like so many of his friends. But he hadn't. He was clean and mostly whole and now he'd landed a job -- a real job. Her plastic sandals scuffing the sand-gritted concrete, his sister, Ana, had followed Mama back into the glaring street, the baby sleeping exhausted on her shoulder. Blood spattered its lips where it had been coughing. Ana acted as if the baby were dead already, like the last one. Javier could feel the pain running like a sickness in her blood. Sometimes she hurt so much it made her crazy. He would take care of her and the baby, too. There was no one else, not after her husband got caught in the crossfire of a cartel raid. Javier looked from the boat to the crumbling beach town. He imagined what it would be like to be on that boat, coming back with cash and a second-class citizenship. Maybe something extra, some love-gift from a rich Angla. He'd seen how the barrio girls watched him through their eyelashes as he walked down streets at night. His hips were hard and slim, his skin honey-gold, a little reddish this past week as if he'd been careless enough to go out in the open sun, which puzzled him a little. But he didn't mind. Women liked a man who lived dangerously. The boat nudged up against the inflated bumpers of the pier, wide and white with its sunshaded deck, indoor cabins, its tablecloths and flowers. A man and two women got off, escorted under parasols by the green-uniformed crew to the limo parked beyond the guest gazebo. The man wore a protective jumpsuit and the women, billowy caftans of peacock and rose-colored silk. Metallicized wraparounds hid their eyes. The silk-robed women disappeared into the limo and the man beside Javier whistled under his breath. He was skinny and blond and his cheap boots bore a snakeskin pattern right down to the tips of the sharply tapered toes. "I hear that rich pussy is hot, real hot," he said. "I'm gonna get me some. Screw 'em so hard their eyeballs pop out." Javier shook his head in disgust. "Shit, man, didn't nobody teach you how to treat your women?" The hopefuls pricked their ears like slum rats scenting blood. "Better than you, barrio trash," Pointy-Toes shot back. Javier grabbed a fistful of Pointy-Toes's shirt and spun him around, slammed his back against the fence. The metal links rattled with the impact. Pointy-Toes turned flushed and pale in patches. His lips drew back from his clenched teeth. "Button it and keep it buttoned, you two!" One of the crew unlocked the gate and swung it open. "What's the matter, you trying to get yourselves fired before you even start?" Pointy-Toes's fist was inches from Javier's nose, his bared forearm gleaming with body oil and sweat. The veins stood out sharply. Blood that close to the skin, it spills real easy, Javier thought. He'd seen enough of his own to know. Heart pounding, Javier reminded himself why the hopefuls gathered at the docks every morning. Some days, they said, two out of three new-hires got sent back. But not me. I'm gonna be the one who makes it. He opened his hand and let Pointy-Toes pull free. Javier showed the crewman his job-offer papers along with the other new-hires. The crewman closed the gate after them and locked it. "That's it." "C'mon," whined one of the hopefuls. "You gotta give us somethin'." Javier laughed, his nerves still raw from the confrontation with Pointy-Toes. The crewman turned away from the hopefuls to glare at him. "What are you strutting about? Yesterday you were trash, no different from them. Tomorrow you gonna be trash again, just like that." He gestured at Pointy-Toes. "He won't make it one day." "Not me," said Pointy-Toes. "I got connections." The crewman shrugged and pointed below deck. "All of you, down there." They waited for two hours in the airless cabin, sweating out of sight while the crew loaded the new guests and their luggage. They could hear music above, light tapping footsteps and women's laughter. The two staff who'd gone ashore came down and sat in a comer by themselves. Pointy-Toes started a crap game. Javier watched the others lose the pay they hadn't got yet. From time to time, he touched his shirt pocket, just to hear the reassuring crinkle of his job offer papers. Last night, before the gunfire woke him, he dreamed about a man behind a featureless gray desk, an Anglo with a mouth like a shark's, starched green uniform over his paunch and a pistol at his hip. In his dream, the man pointed to Javier's job papers and said, "These are no good." But his papers were good. Salvador, his father's cousin, had gotten him the job interview even before the position opened up. The guy who'd had the job, some friend of another cousin, had saved enough from his rich Angla patrona to buy a little farm down by Rio Sonora. "You hear stories like that," Salvador had said, "and you think you got it made. You think you're in a goddamned candy store, you can have anything you want, and next thing you're thinking is how hot you are. But listen to me -- boys like you come cheap out there. There's a hundred just as hungry who'll give them whatever they want. You can make it good with this job or you can piss it all away." Javier had clenched his jaw to keep from talking back. Sal didn't mean to run him down like he had no sense. It was Sal who'd taught him that whatever else a man might do, he took care of his family. Then Sal grabbed him by the back of the neck and hugged him like a son. "You're a good kid, I know that." Gotta watch it, Javier thought, remembering. That Pointy-Toes, he's got a death wish or something. He sure ain't worth getting into trouble for. Not when Igor Mama counting on me. Javier took turns with the other men at the porthole as they pulled up at the guest pier. Tierra Flores, the Island was called, acres of lawns and tennis courts, pools of every shape and temperature, villas shielded by groves of gardenia and dwarfed palm on the slopes from the central lodge to the sifted white sand. The buildings were white, as well as the filmy uv-canopies that covered the walkways and beaches. All of it was brought from the mainland, Santa Barbarita or Ventura, even the sand. The pier had been hung with streamers and balloons. Green-uniformed staff greeted the guests with smiles and strings of flowers. The women swayed and tilted their heads, but the wind carried away the sound of their voices. The staff landing was a fenced slab of cinderblock on the other side of the Island, well hidden from the guest areas. A handful of green-shirted men waited there. They surged forward as the boat tied up, pressing thin packets into the hands of one of the crew, the one who'd locked the gate. It didn't look to Javier like a drug deal. Then what? Two security men in body armor frisked Javier and the others before escorting them inside. The door led to a tunnel, down a short corridor and into a hot, bright-lit room. Here the new-hires stripped to their underwear. Their clothing went on a conveyor belt through the scanners. The guards took the new-hires through the screening room one at a time. Sirens shrieked when Javier passed the metal alarm. He froze, startled, as a barbed-wire cage dropped clanging around him. The security guard pointed to the chain around his neck, strung through the bullet the docs had pried out of his spine. "You gonna give me that thing, or you gonna turn around and go back home now?" Javier didn't want to hand it over, though he knew he had to. He felt naked without it, for it was the thing that should have killed him. He undid the clasp and held it out through the bars. The guard flipped up his face mask to take a closer look. His skin was ashy-brown, his nose broad and flat. He whistled softly as he held the bullet up. "Old style lead bullet smashed up good." He looked up. "They dig it out of you.?" Javier turned so the guard could see the scar running along his spine. "Jee-sus," the guard said. "Better you than me." He tossed it back and raised the cage. Javier's fingers closed around the warm metal. The guard jerked his chin toward the far door. "Disinfection and Medical through there." Javier hadn't seen a doc since he'd left the E-ward after being shot. He didn't see one now. The physical exam -- blood and semen samples, skin inspection, chest x-ray -- was performed by a tech using automated instruments. The tech reminded Javier of a kid he'd grown up with, but he never spoke or looked Javier in the eye. He pointed, pushed and jabbed with his needles, all without a word. Javier spent that night underground with the other new-hires, the six of them on narrow cots in an underground room. A security guard brought them food, soysteak in gravy, rubbery and bland. While the others settled down in bed, Javier tried the door. It was locked. "I saw this in a movie once," said Pointy-Toes. "Quarantine." "Whatever you got," Javier muttered, "don't give it to me." Javier lay for a long time in the darkened room, waiting for sleep. The paper sheets made unfamiliar sounds as the other men turned. Beyond that, nothing but silence. No gunfire, no creaking electric trams, no babies crying no night mercado with its mariachi band and women hawking backyard vegetables. He couldn't remember when he'd felt this tired, but something in the stale, clammy air set his nerves on edge. He thought of those days in the hospital when he drifted in and out of consciousness and no one knew if he was going to live or die. He thought of the hot white glare on the water as the boat came for him, and for a moment it burned away the dank shadows of the dormitory. Then he thought of going home, of Mama's face when he handed her his pay, more money than she'd see in a year. He'd buy her new shoes. She'd have a decent place to live, one that wasn't crawling with rats that would as soon take a bite out of you as run away, with water that didn't make you run bloody pus some days. And medicine for the baby, real stuff from a pharmacy, not street shit. THE NEXT morning, Javier followed the other new-hires into the staff offices underneath the central lodge. The room was long and rectangular, a windowless cell. Two chairs, aluminum tubing and orange plastic, sat below a rattling overhead fan. Pointy-Toes and another new-hire took them, their satchels at their feet. Javier and the other men stood along the wall. The name plate on the desk read, "S. Gibson, Personnel." S. Gibson strode into the room a few moments later, a woman in her fifties, tall and angular. She looked Latina, but her face had been artificially bleached so pale, as if she'd never been a minute out in the sun, that Javier couldn't be sure. Like the boat crew, she wore green, tailored and straight-skirted, not a wrinkle anywhere. She held a clipboard of papers in one hand. Her nails were long and curved, thick with layers of yellowed lacquer. Her eyes on the papers and not the men, she slid behind her desk. "Congratulations and welcome to Tierra Flores, gentlemen. I see you've all passed your physicals. I'm Gibson, your supervisor." Frowning, she picked up a pencil and rolled it between her fingers. "Which one of you is Javier Gonzalez?" Javier shifted from one foot to the other. "Yeah?" Without looking up, she jabbed the point of the pencil at the desk. "Let's get one thing straight from the beginning. It's, 'Yes, Miz Gibson' or 'Yes, ma'am.' Not 'lady' or 'buzz' or 'sugar' or whatever the trash calls women these days. Understand?" Javier smiled, slow and easy, No problem, lady. "Normally, we allow our staff a small amount of jewelry -- wedding bands and the like. Nothing flashy or attention-getting. If you want to keep that bullet around your neck, wear it out of sight." She handed them each a map. "Staff quarters are marked. There's an assignment roster on the compuscreen by the door -- check to see which shifts you're on today. You'll have half an hour to collect your uniforms from Room Minus-21. The minus means you go down to the sublevels. Any questions?" "Yea-ass, Miz Gibson," said Pointy-Toes. "We get any time off?" "You were told that at the time of the job offer." She frowned again, knotting her black brows. "Two half-days a week, on rotation. Check the schedule." Pointy-Toes sauntered to the desk, put both hands down and leaned forward. The edge of the desk caught him just below his crotch, accentuating the bulge as he thrust into it. His voice was lazy and hot, as if he was licking her. "And you . . . what do you do on your time off?" Javier felt the sudden rush of heat in the other men. Shit, man. Here comes trouble. One blush on that paper-white face and they'd have her, as sure as if they'd all ripped her clothes off. "I fire people," she said. "Starting with you." "Me? You gotta be kidding. Come on, lady, I was just asking a question." She reached down and pressed a button on her desk. The door opened and a male staff member stood there. Six foot six, big shoulders, mean blue eyes. "You can't fire me!" The whining note in Pointy-Toes's voice rasped on Javier's nerves. "I got connections." Don't beg. Oh man, don't let the bitch make you beg. It's only a job . . . It's only back to moldy surplus even a cockroach wouldn't eat and dodging the cartel runners and watching another baby die of lung crud. She lifted one eyebrow. "Harry, take the trash down to the dock and make sure he's on the next boat." Pointy-Toes picked up his satchel and jerked his arm away from Harry's big pink hands. "Someday, bitch, somebody's gonna get you." "Someday. But it won't be you." The plastic name tag said "J. Gonzalez." Javier wasn't used to wearing starched shirts and the uniform felt strange, all stiff and smooth. He trained with a quiet Asian man, Namese, who kept his eyes down, movements neat and precise, jaw clenched. He never took any notice of the beautiful things he handled. But Javier paid attention to each fold of the satin sheets, the crystal bowl of flowers on its lacy doily in the exact center of the marble table, the arrangement of the pillows and towels. The Gibson bitch would notice these details. It was like filling out the welfare forms; they'd use any excuse to shove them back in your face. He wouldn't give Gibson an excuse. He'd be the one in three who kept his job. If this ball-less squint could cut it, so could he. They finished the last villa. Javier paused in the doorway and looked back at the main room with its pale peach upholstery and gauzy drapes. The room shimmered in its own pastel light. Someday I'll have a room like this. Someday Mama will have a room like this. He stepped backwards on to the porch and nearly knocked down the woman who was standing there. She caught at him to keep her balance and her wide sleeves fell across his hands. The fabric was ivory silk, cool and light. Underneath it, his fingers grazed the skin of her arms. She was the softest thing he'd ever touched. Her perfume filled his head. He realized that she was an inch or so taller than he, and that her eyes were round and blue and rimmed with gold. Shell-pink lips curved in a smile. "Excuse me." She made the words into a kiss. Then she was gone, into the belly of the pale peach room, followed by three immaculate staff towing carts of luggage in creamy leather and a potted fruiting apricot tree on a rollered stand. Javier ran a few steps to catch up with the Namese. "The guest ladies all like that?" The Namese shrugged and said nothing. That evening there was beach cleanup, busing dishes and hanging paper lanterns on the veranda outside the main lodge. The lodge sat on a hill overlooking the sloping moon-bleached lawns. The staff entrance opened from the back, down below, hidden from view by masses of snowy azaleas. Javier stepped out into the cooling night and glanced up at the veranda. The arpeggio of a harp rippled on the breeze and dancing couples drifted from the veranda like blown petals across the lawns. She stood alone in the corner, the ivory-silk woman, her back to the music and curls spilling over her shoulders like spun glass. She turned and looked down to where he stood in the shadows, as if she could feel his eyes burning on her. He thought of her perfumed skin beneath his fingers. She swayed slightly, like the paper lanterns on the sea wind. The next moment she was gone from the corner, moving with sweeping strides to the stairs. The breeze caught her long filmy skirts against her legs. He saw the outline of her thighs, the mound above them where the fabric bunched, and then she was running, slipping through the shadows and into his arms. For a moment, he couldn't believe this was happening to him. The girl, the moonlight, the music were like something from a movie. Then her mouth, slippery with gloss, met his and he gave himself over to the heat of the moment. He forced her lips apart and thrust into her with his tongue. His heart pounded at the feel of her mouth all open to him. He ran his hands over the back of her dress, cupping her ass, fumbling for the opening. She twisted away and pulled his hand. "Not here." She led him through the pools of darkness behind the massed azaleas and around the curve of the hill by the Japanese waterfall garden to the villa. The moonlight smelled of carnations and roses. The gauzy dress fell in a heap on the carpet. Dios, she felt good. Rounded breasts with nipples hard and taut, fingertips tugging at his buttons. He pushed her back on the satin-covered bed and jerked loose his belt buckle. She watched him with gleaming eyes. He hadn't felt this wild, careening lust since the last time he'd had a virgin -- a girl from down the street who died the next year with a needle in her arm. He rode the hot bursting surge as it built and built until it hovered on the edge of pain. She cried out, something he couldn't understand, and arched upward, head so far back all he saw was the triangular outline of her jaw. He pulled out fast, just in time to squirt over her thigh. She grabbed his shoulder and yanked him over. Her nails dug into his skin. "What the hell do you think you're doing? Who told you to pull out?" She pulled him on top of her again, her mound thrusting against his limp cock. Soon he got hard again with her ramming him back into her. She moaned and wet her lips as he ground away, but it was no good. His lower back cramped and his sweat turned cold. After a few minutes, she tightened her legs around him and gestured for him to roll over, with her on top. He'd seen that in movies but never done it before. It was hot, really hot, the way she twisted and fingered herself and jerked and screamed when she came. He woke up shivering with a patch of moonlight on his face, feeling like he'd just washed up on a beach. The girl was asleep across his chest, her white hair spread out across his bare skin, one thigh across his groin. The weakness passed, leaving him cool and heady. The girl stirred, perhaps roused by the change in his breathing. "Mm, that was all right." He smoothed her hair. "I gotta get back. I got work in the morning." She rolled on her side and began tracing circles around his nipple, dragging her nails across the skin and tugging the hairs that surrounded it in a sparse circle. "I thought you were supposed to keep the guests . . . happy." "You happy?" "Did they also tell you who I am?" He'd found that out before dinner from two giggling cleaning girls. "Charity Bradford. Miss Charity Bradford." "I think . . . " she murmured as he began stroking her, already wet, "I think I'll have you reassigned as my house boy . . . mm, oh yes, yes harder . . . take you away from here . . . oh, that's good . . . to my own . . . private . . . . " Just before dawn, Javier returned to the staff quarters where he shared a room with two other men. The hot shower made his skin itch, but he couldn't see anything--no sign of body lice, no rash. He stared at his reflection in the mirror, surprised at the dusky color of his face. Even his eyes looked red. He supposed all-night fucking did that to you. He tossed his green shirt into the laundry chute, put on his second one and pinned on his name tag. This morning he was on kitchen duty, then cabins. Coffee, doughnuts and some kind of cardboard-colored mush had been set out in the staff area behind the kitchen. The smell of the food made his stomach chum. He took a sip of the coffee. Strong and bitter, it was the real stuff, but he couldn't force it down. He carried stacks of dishes and tableware to the tables. After only a few loads, he was sweating cold and his heart thumped so hard he could hardly hear anything else. The clatter of the dishes sounded tinny and far off. "You okay?" asked the head waiter, who was supervising the setting of the tables. Javier shook his head. He set the tray of dishes down on the nearest table. His arms had turned to jelly. His vision whirled and his mouth tasted sour. He tried to say, "I don't need nobody's help," when suddenly the room slid sideways and he saw someone who looked like himself, wearing a sweat-darkened green shirt, crumple to the floor. Javier woke up lying on a paper-sheeted table. Cabinets lined the walls and sunlight filtered through a frosted glass window. He raised his head and focused on a sink, a wheeled stool and a goose-necked floor lamp. A middle-aged man in a doc's coat pushed the door open without knocking. He carried a slip of yellow lab paper in one hand. "Javier Gonzalez?" He spoke with a faint accent and sounded as if he were in a hurry. "Have you been feeling ill or tired lately?" "I been fine." Javier sat up, holding his breath as the room spun and then slowly settled down. "You know how it is on a new job, you work extra hard." "Headaches? Visual disturbances? Itching, worse in a hot bath?" Javier remembered the crawling sensation as the steamy shower beat down on him. "How long has your skin been red?" Javier started sweating. "I musta got sunburned yesterday on the boat." "Yesterday?" "Well, maybe a week. But it's just a long night and a sunburn, that's all." The doc looked down at the lab slip again and suppressed a sigh. "No, I'm very much afraid that isn't all. While you were unconscious, we reran your intake tests to confirm the diagnosis. Have you ever heard of polycythemia?" "Huh?" "I didn't think so. The word means too many red blood cells. The blood's too thick and it forms clots that eventually kill the patient. It used to be that with treatment, the patient might live for years. Now we've got this new syndrome, which seems to be triggered by something in the untreated mainland water. It isn't contagious, if that's any concern to you. I won't insist on a medical discharge as long as you can work." "Whoo-ah!"Javier held up his hands. His head whirled. "You telling me there's something wrong with my blood.?" The doc nodded. "And it's gonna . . . gonna . . ." "Kill you. Yes. It will kill you. As I said, what you will most likely die from is thrombosis, a blood clot lodging in your brain or heart." "There's something you can do, isn't there? A cure?" The muscles of Javier's belly tightened. "We can remove blood." The doc stared out the bank of windows that looked on to the eastern lawns. "It might buy you some time. Sometimes, once or twice in a thousand cases, there's a spontaneous remission. The only treatment recognized as effective is gene-replacement, which is," he paused, pursing his lips, "costly." "But it works--there's something that works?" "Of course it works!" the doc snapped, and for the first time looked directly at Javier. "Do you think the State would let citizen-firsts die of something like this?" "But all those tests you did on me . . . " Javier said, still unbelieving. "How could they miss something like this?" The doc's eyes glided past Javier. For a long moment he said nothing. In his silence, Javier understood that the tests had been only for the protection of the Island patrons. "Come in back, we'll get started with the phlebotomy, the bloodletting" the doc said. "Every other day until your hematocrit values come down. You'll feel better for a week or two, maybe a month. But in your case, with the speed of onset. . ." He paused, his lips working then added in a tired voice. "I wouldn't expect much more." Javier lay on the table in the staff clinic room, clenching and unclenching his fist. He was alone. The Latino tech, the same one who'd run the tests when he'd first come to the Island, had set him up and left him. A coldness spread upwards from the needle in his arm. His blood ran through a clear tube into a bag out of his line of sight. He didn't know what would happen to it when they were done. He'd grown up knowing that any day he could be slashed up in a knife fight or shot by the cartel runners. He'd imagined his life running out with his blood, flowing over the cracked pavement, turning the street into a lake of red. He saw Mama dipping her fingers into it, heard her sobbing, "Ay, Javier, no! Not my son, my son. . . ." After a time, the tech came back and removed the needle. As he pressed a patch bandage over the puncture site, his eyes flickered over Javier's. "The docs don't know everythings" he said, his voice a rasping whisper. "All their fancy therapies are just for rich Anglos. They never bother with anything else. There are other ways. The clinics in Ensenada. And I hear that sometimes the thing just bums itself out --" Javier shook his head and stood up, cutting the man off. "Thanks, but I'm gonna make it just fine." AFTER WORK there was Charity, waiting for him on the little porch outside her villa. She wore a kimono of patterned pink and gold, and her eyes were ringed with circles of the same colors. Javier took her into his arms and pulled her into the rose-smelling cave. He slipped one hand inside her kimono and felt her nipples harden. There was a moist hot crescent under each breast, as if someone had licked her there. "I'm sorry I was such a bitch last night -- about your pulling out and all," she said, laughing softly. "You don't need to, you know. I've had the contraceptive shots." She started unbuttoning his shirt. "I take care of my women," he said, his voice husky. He was already hard and the way she tugged at his belt drove him crazy. His head felt as if it would burst and his heart pounded like mad. This time they didn't even make it to the bed. He stayed inside her and she came again and again on the thick pale carpet. At the end of the week, Javier felt so good he stopped going in for the blood drains. The doc must have made a mistake -- what did he know, anyway? Or maybe it was one of those miracle cures. In the daytime, he worked beaches, meal cleanups and villas, stripping the vacated rooms before the cleaning girls came and then setting all the details after they'd done. The Namese even loosened up enough to tell him he was doing a good job. Charity went ashore for three days, without any warning. She'd left all her belongings in the villa, even the apricot tree, so Javier knew she had to be coming back. Yet he paused whenever he got a clear view of the guest pier, stealing a few moments to watch for the boat. Finally he saw her get off and the knotted tension in his belly eased. It was well after dark when he finished work and knocked at her door. In answer, she screamed at him in a language he didn't know, French or Russian maybe. Just as he turned away, the door swung open and she peeked out. The blackout drapes had been drawn tight, engulfing the room behind her in shadow. She motioned for him to come in. For a moment he thought, To hell with her, I'd rather sleep. And there was something about the room that didn't smell right. As he closed the door behind him and she toppled into his arms, he realized what it was. She reeked of opal-dust, nasty stuff that gave bizarre erotic visions when sprinkled over naked skin. It cost a bundle and could turn mean when mixed with enhancers. He half-dragged, half-carried her to the bed and collapsed next to her on the rumpled satin. She curled her fingers around his shirt and twisted, pulling herself across his chest. He put his arms around her. "Damned backlash," she moaned. "Every time, I swear it'll be the last. But you're here now." She sighed and abruptly fell asleep. Javier lay with Charity's weight across his ribs as his body got heavier and deader. The darkness didn't change when he closed his eyes. He opened them some time later and sat up. The nightstand light was on, filling the room with a peach-rose glow. Charity lay beside him, propped up on one elbow. His shirt was gone. He thought it was still night, but couldn't be sure. Charity fingered the bullet as it swung from his neck on its chain. She stared at it as if she'd never seen it before. "What's this? A souvenir?" He closed his fingers around hers. His thoughts moved slowly. Out, he had to get out. "From that scar on your back? It's all right to tell me, you know." Her pale eyes looked opaque, like gravestone marble. He tried to get up, but she wouldn't let go of the bullet. Suddenly she pushed him away and went to the dresser, dug in the piles of lace and silk for a pouch of gold-stitched brocade. It was long and thin, heavier than he expected when she jerked the drawstring loose and slid it out into his hand. "That's it," she said, "the thing that almost killed me." Javier looked down at six inches of steel, hinged and folded like a knife. He touched the handles inlaid with mother-of-pearl and something smooth and creamy. "Real ivory," Charity said. "Can you imagine, some elephant died to make this thing?" She took the knife and snapped it open. "Maybe the last one there ever was." The light glinted off the squared blade. "It's called a cut-throat razor," she went on. "And it damned near cut mine, except I made a mess of it. The scars are gone now, the plastic surgeons saw to that." Slowly she ran her hand along the razor's edge and watched the blood welling up in a narrow line. Javier had seen cuts like that -- the sharper the knife, the longer they bled. She probably couldn't even feel it yet. He caught the expression on her face, the mixture of horror and fascination as one dark drop after another fell on her sheer gown. He grabbed the razor from her and folded it closed. Javier had helped the Namese restock the medicine cabinets with the usual toiletries and sanitary supplies -- and packets of styptic powder for those gentlemen who still shaved with blades. He brought out several, along with bandages. Charity held out her hand like a child as he sprinkled it over the cut. The blood clotted immediately. He swabbed her hand with disinfectant and bandaged it. "You shouldn't be playing with this." He held up the folded razor. "You could really hurt yourself." "That was the idea, wasn't it?" Then she gulped and looked away. "You know, I think you're right. I don't really. . .I can't trust myself with it." She shivered. "You keep it for me." "Me?" "And I'll keep this." She curled her fingers around the bullet and tugged. The chain bit into his skin. Javier's muscles hardened in denial. The razor, even if the ivory wasn't real, was worth a bundle, and the bullet. . . . She slipped the chain over his neck. "I need something to remind me that I'm not alone. That I have someone I can count on." Her eyes searched his. "We all need that, don't we?" The bone-tiredness crept hack deeper day by day, despite Javier's efforts to ignore it. It was lack of sleep, he told himself. Awake half the night with Charity and then up before dawn, working the beach cleanup crew, that was all. Every morning he raked the powdery sand, scrubbed the chairs and tables with rust suppressant, swept the walkways. To be outdoors and yet protected was still new enough to bring its own pleasures. Once he found a gold dangle earring beneath one of the lounge cushions. The crew head told him to take it to Gibson's office. She weighed the glittering trinket in her hand before placing it in the lockbox in her desk. Javier stood, fists at his sides, watching. What did she think, he'd tried to steal it? "You've passed your probation." Gibson held out an envelope. "There's your pay. You're also entitled to one free passage to the mainland each month, but you have to tell me if you're taking your two half-days off together so I can shift schedules." Javier imagined himself on the boat, approaching the pier. The dusty beachfront hotels blending with the burnt-grass hills. And Mama's face when he gave her the money. His memory wavered, blurring her image. Something held him, some invisible tie, as if the bullet chain still hung around his neck. He told himself this was a bad time to leave Charity, just when she needed him. He was a man who took care of his women. "Next time, maybe. Keep it on my account." "You can have it sent to the mainland, you know. Wired direct to a checking account or-- "her voice softened imperceptibly, "-- there are ways of sending cash." "How much?" "Ten percent off the top, but it'll get there. The captain's honest." Javier nodded and gave Mama's address. Gibson put the pay packet away. "One thing more . . ." she said. "The doc says you've missed your last three clinic appointments." What do you care what happens to me? Javier stared at her, his muscles tightening. The only reason she hadn't chucked him like Pointy-Toes was that he couldn't give anything contagious to her precious guests. "I can take care of myself." "Can you? You're all so young, so arrogant." She paused, her lips narrowing and her eyes going blank as if she were no longer talking to him. "You think getting out of the barrio is the hard part. You think that once you're out, nothing worse can ever happen to you." His next free half-day, Javier want back to the staff clinic and mentioned how tired he was. "We can take more blood, for all the good it'll do," the doc said. "Or you could try one of the free clinics on the mainland. But if it were me . . . " He shrugged and turned away. It's not the end, Javier thought. I still got time. I still got Charity. She'd just stepped out of a shower and wrapped herself in a pale-peach towel, with another around her head. She wore his bullet around her neck, next to her skin. She saw him outside the sliding door and sat at the vanity table with her back to him, watching him in the mirror. He crossed the carpet to stand behind her. Dizziness touched him with icy fingers. The room slipped, steadied. "Something's wrong," she said, twisting around on the stool to face him. "I just seen the doc--" "Shit!" She leapt to her feet. "What kind of crud did you give me? You're supposed to be screened!" "No! It's not catching. The doc, he says --" "What is it, then?" "Something called poly -- poly --" "Polycythemia?" Pursing her lips, she crossed to the bed. "Where will they send you, the Camarillo Hospice?" He sat beside her and felt her thighs naked beneath the towels. She looked up at him as he cupped her/ace and kissed her. Caressed her lips, stroked her mouth with his tongue until he heard her breath quicken. The towel loosened and fell away. "It's so good what we have together," he murmured. "I love you, Charity." "Love me. Yes." "And I would keep on loving you . . . if only . . ." "The genetic treatment, you mean." "The doc says it works . . ." He started down the side of her neck, little kisses that sent her shivering, "but it costs. . ." He worked his way past her breasts, down across her belly as she lay back and spread her legs wide for him. "I'd pay you back, you know that. And I'd be with you. . .whenever you want me . . .doing this . . . and this. . . ." "Oh yes. Oh yes, yes . . . ." When Javier left her, she didn't even open her eyes. He drew the sheets over her naked body. Tiredness dragged at him, but he hardly felt it. He'd done it, fucked her brains out. To hell with the doc-- to hell with all of them. He and Charity would blow the Island and he'd be set. A survivor, that's what he was. Out of the barrio and on to the beach. Hauling himself out of bed before dawn the next morning was hell, as if he weighed a million pounds. He felt better after he'd eaten and finished the breakfast shift. Villa clean-up was busy that morning. A bunch of guests had checked out, more were arriving in the afternoon, and the shift was shorthanded. The third villa they did was Charity's. Javier stood in the doorway and stared at the silent room. He took a step inside, It still smelled of her perfume. He could see where she'd lain on the rumpled sheets, how she'd pushed them aside getting up. The towels in the bathroom were damp, the potted apricot tree gone. The Namese pushed past him and began ripping the sheets off the bed, bundling them for the cleaning girls. He emptied the flower bowls, tossing the still-lush blossoms in the trash. In the top drawer of the dresser, Javier found an envelope, thick creamy paper, addressed to him. Inside was a month's wages and a note which read, "Keep the razor. You'll need it." Cold seeped up Javier's legs from the pale-peach carpet. He dashed down the path to the little vista of the beach. The boat had already pulled away from the pier. Something inside of Javier screamed, Bitch! His chest heaved, his eyes swam with red. Bitch! I'll get you for this, bitch! Then he was running, the sea wind Whistling in his ears, down past the kitchen and the snowball azaleas, down to the beach. He sped past the bathers, sheltered beneath the billowing uv-canopies. None of the guests looked up. The boat's triangular wake made a shadow against the glare of the waves. Javier's chest burned with each breath. His vision turned blurry and gray. Without conscious thought, his hands clenched into fists. He thought of Charity's face and how he wanted to smash it. He saw blood bursting from those soft full lips, saw them split apart like overripe fruit, felt her teeth splinter, saw her blue eyes widen and bulge. Pain in his hand brought Javier back to his body. He was clutching the folded razor so tightly his muscles had cramped. Waves lapped at his ankles. He snapped the razor open and traced a line in his skin. Like a man in a dream, he stared at his hand. The line looked white for an instant before it welled up with bright blood. His heartbeat slowed. He cut again, deeper this time, and watched the blood seep out. There was no pain. Javier shook his hand and a drop of blood fell into the foamy green water. For a moment, he saw the ocean turn the color of blood, saw dark red waves sweep across the beach and drench the sand, all that fine rich white sand. He pictured himself standing on the boat, looking back at the beach, pictured the guests' faces. Heard their cries as they tried to scrub the stains from their feet. It would be so easy to keep on, slashing deeper and deeper into his flesh, filling the ocean with his blood. But that was Charity's way out, the one she'd chosen for him. Only there would be no fancy doctors to stitch him back together. If I'm gonna die, it's not gonna be on some damned rich lady's beach. A throb of pain brought him back to the present, from a trickle of sweat running into the cut. The blood was already beginning to clot. He had, without thinking, folded the razor closed. Javier put it in his pocket and walked slowly up the trail to the main lodge. He met the Namese with the cart of cleaning supplies and they stood there for a moment. The Namese said in his soft, whispering voice, "What you do now?" "Go home," said Javier. Die. "Family. Is best -- family." The Namese reached into his shirt pocket and took out an old-style laminated photograph. Javier made out a row of solemn-looking old people crammed together on a sofa, a few adults standing or crouching beside them, and children on everyone's laps. He wondered if the Namese's pay supported them all. Javier continued up the path. As if for the first time, he noticed the gleaming paint on the benches, the newly weeded flower beds, the pristine gravel of the path. There was not a scrap of litter, not a faded leaf, not a pebble out of place. He thought of all the people whose work it was to keep things that way. S. Gibson looked up from a stack of papers as he knocked on the opened door and entered her office. Before, the room had seemed a windowless cell. Now he was struck by how impersonal it was, and how hare. She had no pictures anywhere, not on the walls, not on her desk. No flowers, either. Just racks and piles of papers, a cup of pens and one of paper clips. The upholstery of her chair had been worn through around the edges, the only sign a real person ever sat there. "I'm going home," he said. For a moment she said nothing, just stared at him. He noticed the tightness in her mouth, the shadows around her eyes that even her heavy makeup could not hide. She took out a ring of keys and unlocked her desk drawer. "You have some additional pay coming," she said. And, he reminded himself, there was the extra money from Charity. Maybe he could find some mainland doc -- No, he thought. The money was for Mama, for his sister Ans and the baby, if he was still alive. Javier was a man who took care of his family. "The boat will take you over this afternoon," Gibson said, each word bitten off. "Thank you." He paused, for a moment not sure if he should ask, half-expecting her to accuse him of theft. But what more did he have to lose now? His job, his life? He held out the razor. "You know someplace I could get money for this?" She picked it up, ran her fingertips over the handle. "It's antique, worth something with this ivory. Try Rosten's on Wilshire, West City. Say you're from the Island. A lot of our people sell things there, no questions asked. They won't give you top dollar, but they won't cheat you blind, either." She wrote the name down on a piece of paper and slid it with the razor across the desk to him. "A family could live for a year in the barrio on that. But it won't buy you the genetic therapy." Something in her voice said, No amount of money can. As Javier's fingers closed around the razor, his mouth curved into a smile. "I got everything I need." THE CAPTAIN let Javier watch from the deck as the boat pulled away from the Tierra Flores dock and then, almost apologetically, said he must go below. He was the only member returning that trip and he had the porthole all to himself. He braced himself against the movement of the boat and watched the waves spatter against the salt-pitted glass. After a while, Javier sat down and closed his eyes. He couldn't feel the boat going anywhere, just swaying like a cheap carnival ride while the ocean rose up around him, vast and deep and colder than he'd imagined possible. Javier must have dozed off, for the next thing he knew, the heaving motion of the boat had stopped. He picked up the plastic bag with the few things he'd brought with him and touched the pocket where the razor rested. It was still there, along with the envelope tucked under his belt. Outside, seagulls dove in circles, crying out to one another. The sun hurt Javier's eyes as he clambered on to the dock. He'd forgotten how bright it was out here, with the unscreened light reflecting off the concrete. Across the landing past the guest gazebo with its uv-canopy and trailing roses, men with dark, anxious faces pressed up against the wire fence. Their fingers hooked through the chain links. They drew back as one of the boat crew unlocked the gate. As Javier pushed his way past them, one touched his arm in a way that made him pause. "Anything for the Lopez family?" " Sorry." At the edge of the crumbling pavement, Javier took a deep breath, smelled bird shit and rust. One of the hopefuls trudged toward him, a sunwithered man with gray in his hair and a knife scar across one cheek. "No luck this time?" Javier asked. "There's too many, like always. Some been waiting since last night. You know how it is, you go out every day and it's always the same. But you got to do it anyway. What about you, man? You get kicked out or something?" Laughter bubbled up in Javier's chest and sent him coughing. He reeled and put out one hand to steady himself on one of the sun-screen posts. His hand met something solid, but he felt nothing. The world went gray and cold. He couldn't catch his breath properly. No, it's too soon. I'm not home yet. Something warm and solid caught him, buoyed him up. His vision steadied. The hopeful ducked his head as he swung one of Javier's arms over his own shoulders. Javier pulled back, although he felt almost too dizzy to stand. A man without a job might steal for what was in another man's pockets, or might kill for it. But the black eyes which met his were clear and honest, the voice resonant with a familiar cadence. "Just get me to the tram stop," Javier said. "I can make it on my own from there." As he rode along at the back of the tram car, Javier's right arm went numb, as if it no longer belonged to him. Richly textured patterns flowed past his eyes, the coils of rested barbed wire that marked the East City boundary, graffiti, tattoo blue and resset against the softness of stucco turning to powder, the peppering of bullet holes on walls. Javier was struck with the feeling he had never seen these things before. He wondered if he were really dying or if it was only that the Island had in some treacherous way left its mark on him. For a long moment after he got off the tram, Javier stood on the sidewalk and stared, as if he'd suddenly found himself in the middle of a strange neighborhood with no idea how he'd gotten there. None of the shops with their baskets of backyard-grown avocados, lemons, and fresh chiles looked familiar. On the other side of the street, shaded by the shop awnings, old men sat in a row, drinking from bottles in plastic bags. As a trio of boys darted from the nearby alley, one of the men called out to one of them, "Hola, Chico! Your Mama's been looking for you." A few feet from Javier, two women in long-sleeved dresses and straw hats chattered in Spanish, bargaining for vegetables and packets of lard. One held a toddler by the hand, its face shiny with cheap sunblock. The other balanced a baby on her hip. Suddenly the baby convulsed, coughing and gasping. The sound of the air wheezing through its tiny lungs sent a shiver of fear through Javier. He thought of Ana's baby, of her joy at his birth and the awful hurting craziness that ate into her day by day as she watched her child grow weaker. You gotta make it, baby. You gotta make it for both of us. The baby might very well die, of course, just like Javier on any day of his life. Even if he survived the lung crud, he could be caught by a bullet or end up running with the dopers. But for today, all he needed was a chance. Not even an edge, just a chance. The closer Javier got to the apartment on Temple Street, the more flashes of familiarity came to him, as if these shambling buildings with their patches of weeds and abandoned automobiles occupied a more tenacious hold on his memory. Even the air smelled stronger out here. A cartel lookout stood on the comer, face patterned with stripes of blue and white zinc oxide and Uzi pistol in plain sight. He squinted at Javier and suddenly Javier's ears rang with the memory of gunfire and his body jerking and spinning and slamming to the pavement. Mama had found him before the ambulancers came and even now he heard her broken whispers. Ay, Javier . . . my son . . . But this time Javier was not lying in the street in a pool of his own blood, he was limping down it. He felt stiff, fragile, trapped in an old man's body. But somewhere in the back of his mind, Mama still wept for him. There was nothing he could buy for her that would take that memory away. What did she want with a pale peach room or a pair of fancy shoes? She wanted him, him and never the money. She had been right to fear for him when he left for the Island. Thinking this, Javier felt stronger, as if some of her old woman's stubbornness flowed into him. She would fight for him and hold on to him, right up to the very last breath. She would never let go, never. She would struggle, she would pray, she would ply him with her own chile diablo, that she swore would frighten away demons, until he had a gut on him the size of a watermelon. She would go clear to Ensenada for snake oil and folk remedies -- Ensenada. In a flash, Javier remembered what the medical tech had said, how he'd waited until they were alone, as if passing a secret. There are other ways, he'd said. At the time, Javier had been so fired-up, he hadn't wanted to listen. But what if the tech were right, what if the thing sometimes burned itself out or there were some other treatment? Would the Island clinic doc have told him? Would the doc have even known about anything else? All the guests were rich enough to afford the fancy gene therapy. Javier halted at the bottom of the outdoor stairs, breathing hard. He had to get up them. He had to find a way. He was too close to give up now. In the end, he left the plastic bag on the ground and used his good hand to haul himself up by the rested metal railing, sucking in his breath with every step. The apartment door swung open before Javier reached it. Music blared away inside. Ana stood there, mouth opened in surprise, but for that first instant, he didn't see her against the shadowed room. He saw only the laughing rosy-cheeked baby in her arms. A bubble of milk rested in the comer of his mouth. His eyes were so clear that looking into them was like looking up at a starless night. For a moment, Javier dared not breathe. He climbed the final step and reached out with his good hand to see if the baby were real or only something he'd wished for so hard he'd made it so. The baby grabbed one of his fingers. His skin against Javier's was moist and surprisingly soft. Ana turned her head and shouted, "Mama!" The next instant, Mama appeared beside her, eyes glittering, mouth straight. She started chattering away in Spanish, the sound of her voice drowned in the noise of the radio and a dog which had started barking in the street below. When she stepped forward and took Javier into her arms, she smelled of soap and spices and herself, smells he remembered from his childhood. Javier looked down at his hand. He could still feel the imprint of the baby's touch, as if it were flesh of his own flesh, bone of his own bone, blood of his own blood. It was the strongest thing he'd ever felt, that lingering touch. Stronger than all the things that had almost killed him -- the smashed-up bullet, the red fury on the beach. It would stay with him for the rest of his life. Javier closed his eyes and rested his head against his mother's shoulder. Weariness dropped from him. Everything seemed to come clear at last. "Mama," he whispered, "I'm home."