(eng) Paolo Bacigalupi by Zombie Baseball Beatdown (retail)

Author:Zombie Baseball Beatdown (retail) [Beatdown, Zombie Baseball]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 22

“Are you serious?” I looked from Miguel to Maximillian. “This guy isn’t our friend. Who knows what’s in these papers?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Miguel said. “Just sign it, Rabi.”

“Listen to your friend, Rabi.” Maximillian beamed. “It’s so much better when we’re all cooperating. This way, we all get what we want.”

Maximillian was slicker than snot. Nasty and slippery and totally out for himself. I couldn’t believe I’d trusted him for even a second. I’d been so stupid.

Maximillian offered us pens. “Let’s get these papers signed, and I’ll be on my way.”

“Who do you work for?” I asked again. “Who told you about us?”

“Does it really matter? Maybe the police talk too much on their radios. Maybe your neighbors talk too much about boys who are up to strange things. Maybe there are eyes and ears all around you, and you don’t even know it. Focus on your friend, Rabi. All you need to worry about is how to protect Miguel, and how you’re going to stay very, very quiet about all of this.”

“Milrow,” I guessed suddenly. “You work for Milrow Meats, and you want to cover all this up.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Miguel said, signing furiously. “Just sign it, Rabi.”

I’d never seen Miguel back down from anything in his life. But now it was like he didn’t have a bit of fight in him.

“What’s the matter with you?” I said. “We can’t let this guy push us around.”

Miguel shoved the papers over to Maximillian, and he looked so scared and sad and unhappy….

I finally got it.

I finally understood why Miguel was so scared of ICE, and the reason Lawrence Maximillian could just lean on him and expect him to crumple.

“Miguel?” I said. “You were born here, weren’t you?”

Miguel wouldn’t meet my eyes. He gave a shrug—kind of sad, kind of sorry, kind of giving up.

“Sorry, Rabi.”

He wasn’t American at all.

I mean, he was American, you know? We’d grown up together, and did all the stuff like Little League, and making bike jumps over creeks, and taking allowance money down to Casey’s to buy root beers… but he wasn’t American American. He was one of the people all the politicians kept screaming about on the news. The illegals. The ones who were supposed to be taking everyone’s jobs and spreading crime or whatever. And here he was, sitting at the kitchen table, looking run over by Lawrence Maximillian.

“My parents brought me here when I was just a little baby,” Miguel said. “I never had a birth certificate here in America.”

Maximillian looked like a satisfied lizard, sitting at my kitchen table and smiling.

“There’s nothing I can do,” Miguel said. “If he calls ICE…” He made a slicing motion across his neck. “It’s all over for me.”

Maximillian broke in. “It’s not like that at all, Miguel. With friends like Rabi and Joe, you’re in a much better position than you describe. Assuming all of you behave…”

“You mean you’re blackmailing all of us to be quiet about the zombies, or you’ll do something to Miguel,” I said.

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