Juarez Square and Other Stories by D.L. Young

hummed a pop song as he lazily swiped his finger across the slate’s surface, basking in the heat of Chang’s growing frustration. “Hmmm, been four months since the last full-blown diagnostics. Everything looked fine back then.” He looked up from the slate at Chang and lifted his eyebrows. “You want to stick around while I run some new ones? It’ll only take a few hours.”
    Even with half his face obscured by the mask, Deke could see Chang was losing it. “A few hours, here? ” The possibility of spending so much time dumpside seemed to horrify him.
    Deke chuckled. “Well, not right here. You can wait in my trailer while I run all the—”
    “Enough!” Chang took a menacing step toward Deke. “Let me keep it simple for you. Your job is to keep those robots running and keep the daily take up. My job is to keep my employer’s businesses running smoothly.”
    Deke swallowed. Chang took another step forward and said, “So if one of his whores won’t put out, I have her beaten until she does. And if a crank peddler skims profits, I cut his hand off. Now listen to me close, you fat fuck. You’re no less replaceable than any random whore or crank pusher. And if I have to come back out here it won’t be for a chat, you get me?”
    Chang turned around and disappeared down the path. It was several minutes before Deke stopped shaking.
    ***
    Nighttime was always peaceful dumpside. The solar-powered bots hibernated until morning and the only sound was the soft rustling of windblown paper and debris. The light from the windows of Deke’s trailer was the only illumination for miles in every direction, a beacon in a sea of darkness.
    “I don’t see no good coming of this, Mister Deke.” Timo looked troubled as he placed their dinner plates on the small folding table. “Why don’t you just go down to the city and get a whore? Tijuana’s full of whores.”
    Deke exhaled. Ever since Chang showed up dumpside two days ago, Timo had been a nervous hand-wringing nuisance.
    “Look,” Deke said, “I don’t want a whore. I can get a whore anytime.”
    Timo sat and chewed his lower lip. “That Chang’s a monster. Not the kind of fella we want pissed off at us.”
    Deke took a bite of stew. “I told you you’ve got nothing to worry about. Chang doesn’t know you help with the bots. He thinks you just run errands and make food for me. This whole thing is on my head, understand?”
    The boy’s face didn’t change. “That still don’t make me feel no better, Mister Deke.”
    “You’re going to make yourself sick worrying so much,” Deke said, chewing. He forced himself to look unconcerned as the image of Chang’s scowl flashed across his mind, the menace in his eyes more a promise than a threat. Two days had passed since Deke had sabotaged the dump bots’ search patterns. The daily take was down to nearly nothing.
    Deke looked out the window. Chang was out there somewhere, flipping through his slate, growing angrier as the latest figures came in, each report worse than the last.
    No daily take meant no money coming in, and the longer the situation persisted, the more Chang’s coveted role as right hand man was at risk. And while he might bluster and threaten, eventually Chang’s pragmatism would overcome his rage. Deke was counting on that.
    Leverage .
    Deke had the leverage, and if he held firm and didn’t back down, Chang would have grant him an audience with the Dump Lord. That was the plan, anyway.
    Timo fiddled with his spoon, his food untouched. “And what if you do get that meeting, Mister Deke? You just gonna ask the big boss to let you bring a woman in here?”
    Deke smiled. Every time he started to think Timo had half a brain, the boy would say something that changed his opinion. “It won’t be that simple,” Deke answered. “It’s a long play. First I tell him about ‘the crisis,’ how the dump bots can’t find anything because they’ve harvested all the easy surface-level resources.