We might as well eat now. he said, reaching back for Sallys canvas carryall.
Angie undid her harness and unzipped the black sweatshirt Under it, she wore something tight and white, a childs smooth tanned flesh showing in the scoop neck above young breasts. She took the bag from him and began unwrapping the sandwiches Sally had made for him. Whats wrong with your brother? she asked, handing him half a sandwich.
How do you mean?
Well, theres something... He drinks all the time, Sally said. Is he unhappy?
I dont know, Turner said, hunching and twisting the aches out of his neck and shoulders. I mean, he must be, but I dont know exactly why. People get stuck, sometimes.
You mean when they dont have companies to take care of them? She bit into her sandwich.
He looked at her. Are you putting me on?
She nodded, her mouth full Swallowed A little bit I know that a lot of people dont work for Maas. Never have and never will Youre one, your brothers another. But it was a real question. I kind of liked Rudy, you know? But he just seemed so -
Screwed up, he finished for her, still holding his sandwich. Stuck. What it is, I think theres a jump some people have to make, sometimes, and if they dont do it, then theyre stuck good. And Rudy never did it.
Like my father wanting to get me out of Maas? Is that a jump?
No. Some jumps you have to decide on for yourself.
Just figure theres something better waiting for you somewhere... He paused, feeling suddenly ridiculous, and bit into the sandwich.
Is that what you thought?
He nodded, wondering if it were true.
So you left, and Rudy stayed -
He was smart Still is, and hed rolled up a bunch of degrees, did it all on the line. Got a doctorate in biotechnology from Tulane when he was twenty, a bunch of other stuff. Never sent out any resumes, nothing. Wed have recruiters turn up from all over, and hed bullshit them, pick fights... I think he thought he could make something on his own. Like those hoods on the dogs I think hes got a couple of original patents there, but... Anyway, he stayed there. Got into dealing and doing hardware for people, and he was hot stuff in the county. And our mother got sick, she was sick for a long time, and I was away.
Where were you? She opened the thermos and the smell of coffee filled the cabin.
As far away as I could get, he said, startled by the anger in his voice.
She passed him the plastic mug, filled to the brim with hot black coffee.
How about you? You said you never knew your mother.
I didnt. They split when I was little. She wouldnt come back in on the contract unless he agreed to cut her in on some kind of stock plan. Thats what he said anyway.
So whats he like? He sipped coffee, then passed it back.
She looked at him over the rim of the red plastic mug, her eyes ringed with Sallys makeup. You tell me, she said. Or else ask me in twenty years. Im seventeen, how the hell am I supposed to know?
He laughed. Youre starting to feel a little better now?
I guess so. Considering the circumstances.
And suddenly he was aware of her, in a way he hadnt been before, and his hands went anxiously to the controls.
Good. We still have a long way to go.
They slept in the hovercraft that night, parked behind the rusting steel lattice that had once supported a drive-in theater screen in southern Pennsylvania, Turners parka spread on the armor-plate floorboards below the turbines long bulge. Shed sipped the last of the coffee, cold now, as she sat in the square hatch opening above the passenger seat, watching the lightning bugs pulse across a field of yellowed grass.
Somewhere in his dreams still colored with random flashes from her fathers dossier she rolled against him, her breasts soft and warm against his bare back through the thin fabric of her T-shirt, and then her arm came over him to stroke the flat muscles of his stomach, but he lay still, pretending to a deeper sleep, and soon found his way down into the darker passages of Mitchells biosoft, where strange things came to mingle with his own oldest fears and hurts. And woke at dawn to hear her singing softly to herself from her perch in the roof hatch.
My daddy hes a handsome devil
got a chain bout nine miles long
And from every link
A heart does dangle
Of another maid
Hes loved and wronged.
22 JAMMERS
JAMMERS WAS UP twelve more flights of dead escalator and occupied the rear third of the top floor. Aside from Leons place, Bobby had never seen a nightclub, and he found Jammers both impressive and scary. Impressive because of its scale and what he took to be the exceptional quality of the fittings, and scary because a nightclub, by day, is somehow inately unreal. Witchy. He peered around, thumbs snagged in the back pockets of his new jeans, while Jackie conducted a whispered conversation with a long-faced white man in rum-pled blue coveralls. The place was fitted out with dark ultrasuede banquettes, round black tables, and dozens of or-nate screens of pierced wood. The ceiling was painted black, each table faintly illuminated by its own little recessed flood aimed straight down out of the dark There was a central stage, brightly lit now with work lights strung on yellow flex, and, in the middle of the stage, a set of cherry-red acoustic drums. He wasnt sure why, but it gave him the creeps; some sidelong sense of a half-life, as though something was about to shift, just at the edge of his vision...
Bobby, Jackie said, come over here and meet Jammer.
He crossed the stretch of plain dark carpet with all the cool
he could muster and faced the long-faced man, who had dark, thinning hair and wore a white evening shirt under his coveralls. The mans eyes were narrow, the hollows of his cheeks shadowed with a days growth of beard.
Well, the man said, you want to be a cowboy? He was looking at Bobbys T-shirt and Bobby had the uncomfortable feeling that he might be about to laugh.
Jammer was a jockey, Jackie said. Hot as they come.
Werent you, Jammer?
So they say, Jammer said, still looking at Bobby. Long time ago, Jackie. How many hours you logged, running? he asked Bobby.
Bobbys face went hot. Well, one, I guess.
Jammer raised his bushy eyebrows. Gotta start somewhere. He smiled, his teeth small and unnaturally even and, Bobby thought, too numerous.
Bobby, Jackie said, why dont you ask Jammer about this Wig character the Finn was telling you about?
Jammer glanced at her, then back to Bobby. You know the Finn? For a hotdogger youre in pretty deep, arent you? He took a blue plastic inhaler from his hip pocket and inserted it in his left nostril, snorted, then put it back in his pocket. Ludgate. The Wig. Finns talking about the Wig? Must be in his dotage.
Bobby didnt know what that meant, but it didnt seem like the time to ask. Well, Bobby ventured, this Wigs up in orbit somewhere, and he sells the Finn stuff, sometimes...
No shit? Well, you coulda fooled me. I woulda told you the Wig was either dead or drooling. Crazier than your usual cowboy, you know what I mean? Batshit. Gone. Havent heard of him in years.
Jammer, Jackie said, I think its maybe best if Bobby just tells you the story. Beauvoirs due here this afternoon, and hell have some questions for you, so you better know where things stand...
Jammer looked at her. Well. I see. Mr. Beauvoirs calling in that favor, is he?
Cant speak for him, she said, but that would be my guess. We need a safe place to store the Count here. What count?
Me, Bobby said, thats me.
Great, Jammer said, with a total lack of enthusiasm. So come on back into the office.
Bobby couldnt keep his eyes off the cyberspace deck that took up a third of the surface of Jammers antique oak desk It was matte black, a custom job, no trademarks anywhere. He kept craning forward, while he told Jammer about Two-a-Day and his attempted run, about the girl-feeling thing and his mother getting blown up. It was the hottest-looking deck hed ever seen, and he remembered Jackie saying that Jammer had been such a shithot cowboy in his day.