Jericho Iteration by Allen Steele Page A

first wave of boat people who had descended upon Miami. Chavez had eventually made his way from Liberty City to St. Louis, where he had successfully plied his natural gifts in auto repair toward making a livelihood.
    Chevy Dick got his nickname two ways. First, it was his pen name for “Kar Klub,” a weekly fix-it-yourself column he wrote for the Big Muddy. Second, he was on his fourth wife and claimed to have eleven children scattered across six states. When he got drunk, he bragged about all the NASCAR winners he had pit-stopped in his career. And when he got really drunk, this 300-pound gorilla with a handlebar mustache and a long braided ponytail might unzip his fly to show off his tool kit.
    “Shee-yit,” Chevy Dick growled as I stepped into the light, “you look like hell. What’d you do, man, fock some babe in a ditch?”
    “Just following your example, Ricardo,” I replied. “Why, did I get it wrong?”
    Chevy glowered at me. A couple of his friends murmured comments to each other in Spanish; they were all sitting on oil barrels and cinder blocks, a case of Budweiser tallnecks on the grease-stained asphalt between them. In the background was Chevy’s pride and joy: a coal black ’92 Corvette ZR-1, perfectly restored and completely illegal under the phase-out laws, right down to the vanity tags, which read PHUKU2. Perhaps they were hoping that Chevy would take it off the blocks, gas it up, and take it out Route 40 for another illicit midnight cruise that would drive the cops apeshit; with a speedometer calibrated up to 120 mph, Chevy Dick’s Corvette was arguably the fastest street rod in St. Louis, able to easily outrun any battery-powered police cruiser SLPD had on the road.
    That, or they were hoping Chevy Dick would pound the shit out of the wiseass little gringo. Chevy continued to stare at me. He took a step forward and I held my ground. He slowly reached up with his left hand and pretended to scratch at his mustache … then his right fist darted out to jab at my chest. I didn’t move. The fist stopped just an inch short of my solar plexus … and still I didn’t move.
    It was an old macho game between us. We had been playing this for months. The gang all moaned and hooted appreciatively, and Chevy Dick’s face broke into a grin. “You’re all right, man,” he said as he gave me a shoulder slap that made my knees tremble. “Now get yourself a beer.”
    It was a tempting notion. “I’d love to,” I said, “but I’m beat. If I start drinking now, you’ll have to carry me upstairs.”
    “Long night, huh, man?” Chevy’s face showed worry as he looked me up and down. “Jeez, you’re in some kinda rough shape. What happen, you run into ERA patrols?”
    “Something like that, yeah.” My eyes were fastened on the case. “If you could spare me one, though, I’d really appreciate it …”
    Without another word, Chevy Dick reached down to the case and pulled out a six-pack. There were a few grumbles from his drinking buddies, but he ignored them as he handed it to me. Chevy was no friend of ERA; as he had often told me, he hadn’t seen things this bad since he had lived in Havana under the old Castro regime. In his eyes, any enemy of the federates, was a friend of his.
    “Thanks, Ricardo,” I murmured, hugging the six-pack to my chest. “I’ll pay you back next Friday.”
    “Vaya con dios, amigo,” he rumbled. “Now go home and take a shower.” He grinned at me again, the half-light of an exposed 40-watt bulb glinting off his gold-capped molars. “Besides, you smell like shit.”
    The ragged laughter of his buddies followed me all the way up the fire escape to my apartment.
    I opened the first beer almost as soon as I crawled through the fire escape window and switched on the desk light. Home sweet home … or at least a place to get out of the rain.
    My one-room loft apartment was a wreck, which was nothing unusual. Clothes scattered across the bare wooden floor and a mattress