Her name? Oh yeah, I forgot you’re tapin’ all this. How do I look? Not bad for a guy goin’ on twenty, huh? Yeah, yeah. Her name’s Jade Diamond, keenest-looking piece of— No, that ain’t her real name. ’Course not. Her real name was Juanita Dominguez. I knew her before she changed it. And her eyes. Like I said, she was real beautiful. Naturally. Without the implants and the eye job. They changed her eyes ’cause most of the big spenders are Japs.
Anyway, she was supposed t’be protected just like all the hookers. Except that the [deleted] [deleted] Controllers don’t take nobody’s payoffs—that’s what they say, at least.
So there was Jade in the holdin’ jug down at city hall and here was me makin’ a living out of old TV sets and tape players, anything to do with electrical stuff. Where? In the junkyards, where else? You don’t think I stole anything, do you? Why would I have to risk my butt goin’ into the tracts and breakin’ into people’s houses when they throw away their stuff every year and it all winds up in the junkyards?
Yeah, I know the stuff is all supposed to be recycled. That’s what I do. I recycle it before the [deleted] recyclers get their [deleted] claws on it.
Look, you wanna know about the Chairman and Jade and me or you wanna talk about business?
Okay. I was in love with Jade, that’s why I did what I did. Sure, I knew she was a pro. You’d be too if you’d grown up in the city. We don’t exist, y’know. Not legally. No records for any of us, not even the [deleted] police bother to keep records on us anymore. Not unless we done somethin’ out in the tracts. As far as your [deleted] mother-[deleted] computer files are concerned, we weren’t even born. So of course we don’t die. If we don’t bury our own, the [deleted] sanitation robots just dump our bodies into a pit and bulldoze ’em over. After they’ve taken out all the organs they wanna use for transplants, that is. And we sure don’t get nuthin from your sweetheart of a government while we’re alive. Nuthin but grief. Lemme tell ya—
Okay. Okay. Jade and the Chairman.
None of it would’ve happened if the Controllers hadn’t picked up Jade. I guess they picked her up and the other girls ’cause the Chairman was comin’ to Philly to make a speech and they wanted the streets to look clean and decent. First time I saw a sanitation robot actually cleanin’ the [deleted] street. First time in my life! I swear.
Anyway, there Jade was in the tank and here I was at the junkyard and all I could think of was gettin’ Jade out. I knew I needed help, so first thing in the morning I went to Big Lou.
His name’s kind of a joke. You know? Like, he’s even shorter than me, and I been called a runt all my life. His face is all screwed up, too, like it was burned with acid or somethin’ when he was a kid. Tough face. Tough man. I was really scared of Big Lou, but I wanted to get Jade outta the tank so bad I went to him anyway.
The sun was just comin’ up when I got to the old school building where Big Lou had his office. He wasn’t there that early. So I stooged around out in the street until he arrived in his car. It was polished so hard it looked brand new. Yeah, a regular automobile, with a driver. What’s it run on? How the hell would I know? Gasoline, I guess. Maybe one of those fancy other fuels, I don’t know.
At first Lou told me to get lost, like I figured he would. I was just small-time, a junkyard dog without the teeth, far as he was concerned. See, I never wanted to be any bigger. I just wanted to live and let live. I got no hatred for nobody.
But while I’m beggin’ Big Lou for some help to spring Jade he gets a phone call. Yeah, he had a regular office in the old school building in our neighborhood. I know, they shut down all the schools years ago, before I was even born. They’re supposed to abandoned, boarded up. Hell, most of ’em were burned down long ago. But not this one. It’s still got a pretty good roof and office space and bathrooms, if you know how to turn the water on. And electricity. Okay, sure, all the windows were smashed out in the old classrooms and the rest of the building’s a mess. But Lou’s office was okay. Clean and even warm in the winter. And nobody touched his windows, believe me.
Y’know, down in South Philly, from what I hear. Oh yeah, you people don’t know Philly that well, do you? Where you from, New York? Washington? Overseas? What?
Okay, okay. So you ask the questions and I do the answerin’. Okay. Just curious. Where was I?
Big Lou, right. He had an office in the old school building. Yeah, he had electricity. Didn’t I tell ya that already? There was a couple TVs in the office and a computer on his desk. And he had a fancy telephone, too. I had put it together myself, I recognized it soon as I saw it. Damned phone had its own computer chips: memory, hunt-and-track, fax—the works. I had sold it to Lou for half a peanut; cost me more to put it together than he paid for it. But when you sell to Big Lou you sell at his price. Besides, who the [deleted] else did I know who could use a phone like that?
Anyway, I’m sittin’ there in front of his desk. Big desk. You could hold a dance on it. I had figured that Big Lou could talk to a couple people, put a little money in the right hands, and Jade could get out of the tank before the [deleted] Controllers fried her brains and sent her off to Canada or someplace.
Lou gets this phone call. I sit and wait while he talks. No, I don’t know who called him. And he didn’t really do much talkin’. He just sort of grunted every now and then or said, «Yeah, I see. I gotcha.» His voice is kinda like a diesel truck in low gear, like whatever burned his face burned the inside of his throat, too.
Then he puts down the phone and smiles at me. Smiles. From a face like his it was like a flock of roaches crawlin’ over you.
«I got good news for you, Vic,» he says. «I’m gonna help you get your spiff outta the tank.» All with that smile. Scared the [deleted] outta me.
«The hearings for all the bimbos they rounded up are three o’clock this afternoon. You be there. We’re gonna make a commotion for you. You grab your [deleted] and get out fast. Unnerstand me?»
I didn’t like the sound of that word commotion. I wasn’t sure what it meant, not then, but I figured it would mean trouble. All I wanted was for Big Lou to buy Jade’s way out. Now it sounded like there was goin’ to be a fight.
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve had my share of fights. I’m on the small side and I’m sure no jock, but you can’t even exist in the city if you can’t protect yourself. But I didn’t like the idea of a fight with the city police. They like to beat up on guys. And they carry guns. And who knew what in hell the Controllers carried?
«You unnerstand me?» Big Lou repeated. He didn’t raise his voice much, just enough to make me know he wanted the right answer outta me.
«Yeah,» I said. My voice damned near cracked. «Sure. And thanks.» I got up and scooted for the door.
Before I got to it, though, Big Lou said, «There’s a favor you can do for me, kid.»
«Sure, Lou,» I said. «Tonight, tomorrow, when? You name it.»
«Now,» he said.
«But Jade—»
«You’ll be done in plenty time to get to city hall by three.»
I didn’t argue. It wouldn’t have done me no good. Or Jade.
What he wanted was a fancy electronic gizmo that I had to put together for him. I knew it was important to him because he told one of his goons—a guy with shoulders comin’ straight out of his ears, no neck at all, so help me—to drive me all the way downtown to the old navy base. It had been abandoned before I was born, of course, but it was still a treasure island of good stuff. Or so I had been told all my life. I had never even got as far as the electrified fence the Feds had put up all around the base, let alone inside the base itself. You had to go through South Philly to get to the base, and a guy alone don’t get through South Philly. Not in once piece, anyway.