Virtual Light

Orlovsky put his hairy fingers together and cracked his knuckles.

�He thought he might have lost them at a party� Warbaby offered, �someone might even have taken them.�

�What party?� Svobodov shifted on his stool and Rydell heard the hidden armor creak.

�Party at the Morrisey.�

�Whose party?� Orlovsky, over those glasses.

�Mr. Cody Harwood�s party� Warbaby said.

�Harwood� Svobodov said, �Harwood��

�Name �Pavlov� ring a bell?� Freddie said, to no one in particular.

Svobodov grunted. �Money.�

�None of it in Marlboros, either� Warbaby said. �Mr. Blix went down to Mr. Harwood�s party, had a few drinks��

�Had a BA level like they won�t need to embalm� Orlovsky said.

�Had a few drinks. Had this property in the pocket of his jacket. Next morning, it was gone. Called security at the Morrisey. They called IntenSecure. IntenSecure called me��

�His phone is gone� Svobodov said. �They took it. Nothing to tie him to anyone. No agenda, notebook, nothing.�

�Pro job� Orlovsky intoned.

�The glasses� Svobodov said. �What kind of glasses?�

�Sunglasses� Freddie said.

�We found these.� Svobodov took something from the side pocket of his London Fog. A Ziploc evidence bag. He held it up. Rydell saw shards of black plastic. �Cheap VR. Ground into the carpet.�

�Do you know what he ran on them?� Warbaby asked.

Now it was Orlovsky�s turn for show-and-tell. He produced a second evidence bag, this one from inside his black vest. �Looked for software, couldn�t find it. Then we x-ray him. Somebody shoved this down his throat.� A black rectangle. The stick-on label worn and stained. �But before they cut him.�

�What is it?� Warbaby asked.

�McDonna� Svobodov said.

�Huh?� Freddie was leaning across Warbaby to peer at the thing. �Mc-what?�

�Fuck chip.� It sounded to Rydell like fock cheap, but then he got it. �McDonna.�

�Wonder if they read it all the way down?� Freddie said, from the rear of the Patriot. He had his feet up on the back of the front passenger seat and the little red lights around the edges of his sneakers were spelling out the lyrics to some song.

�Read what?� Rydell was watching Warbaby and the Russians, who were standing beside one of the least subtle unmarked cars Rydell had ever seen: a primer-gray whale with a cage of graphite expansion-grating protecting the headlights and radiator. Fine rain was beading up on the Patriot�s windshield.

�That porn they found down the guy�s esophagus.� If Warbaby always sounded sad, Freddie always sounded relaxed. But Warbaby sounded like he really was sad, and Freddie�s kind of relaxed sounded like he was just the opposite.

�Lotta code in a program like that. Hide all sorta goodies in the wallpaper, y�know? Running fractal to get the skin texture, say, you could mix in a lot of text��

�You into computer stuff, Freddie?�

�I�m Mr. Warbaby�s technical consultant.�

�What do you think they�re talking about?�

Freddie reached up and touched one of his sneakers. The red words vanished. �They�re having the real conversation now.�

�What�s that?�

�The deal conversation. We want what they got on Blix, the dead guy.�

�Yeah? So what we got?�

�We?� Freddie whistled. �You just drivin�.� He pulled his feet back and sat up. �But it ain�t exactly classified: IntenSecure and DatAmerica more or less the same thing.�

�No shit.� Svobodov seemed to be doing most of the talking. �What�s that mean?�

�Means we tight with a bigger data-base than the police. Next time ol� Rubadub needs him a look-see, he�ll be glad he did us a favor. But tonight, man, tonight it just burrs his Russian ass.�

Rydell remembered the time he�d gone over to �Big George� Kechakmadze�s house for a barbecue and the man had tried to sign him up for the National Rifle Association. �You get a lot of Russians on the force, up here?�

�Up here? All over.�

�Kinda funny how many of those guys go into police work.�

�Think about it, man. Had �em a whole police state, over there. Maybe they just got a feel for it.�

Svobodov and Orlovsky climbed into the gray whale. Warbaby walked to the Patriot, using his alloy cane. The police car rose up about six inches on hydraulics and began to moan and shiver, rain dancing on its long hood as Orlovsky revved the engine.

�Jesus� Rydell said, �they don�t care who sees �em comin�, do they?�

�They want you see �em coming� Freddie said, obscurely, as Warbaby opened the right rear passenger door and began the process of edging his stiff-legged bulk into the back seat.

�Take off� Warbaby said, slamming the door. �Protocol. We leave first.�

�Not that way� Freddie said. �That�ll get us Candlestick Park. That way.�

�Yes� said Warbaby, �we have business downtown.� Sad about it.

Downtown San Francisco was really something. With everything hemmed in by hills, built up and down other hills, it gave Rydell a sense of, well, he wasn�t sure. Being somewhere. Somewhere in particular. Not that he was sure he liked being there. Maybe it just felt so much the opposite of L.A. and that feeling like you were cut loose in a grid of light that just spilled out to the edge of everything. Up here he felt like he�d come in from somewhere, these old buildings all around and close together, nothing more modern than that one big spikey one with the truss-thing on it (and he knew that one was old, too). Cold damp air, steam billowing from grates in the pavement. People on the streets, too, and not just the usual kind; people with jobs and clothes. Kind of like Knoxville, he tried to tell himself, but it wouldn�t stick. Another strange place.

�No, man, a left, a left� Freddie thumping on the back of his seat. And another city-grid to learn. He checked the cursor on the Patriot�s dash-map, looking for a left that would get them to this hotel, the Morrisey.

�Don�t bang on Mr. Rydell�s seat� Warbaby said, a sixfoot scroll of fax bunched in his hands, �he�s driving.� It had come in on their way here. Rydell figured it was the jacket on Blix, the guy who�d gotten his throat cut.

�Fassbinder� Freddie said. �You ever hear of this Rainer Fassbinder?�

�I�m not in a joking mood, Freddie� Warbaby said. �No joke. I ran Separated at Birth on this Blix, man, scanned this stiff-shot the Russian sent you before? Says he looks like Rainer Fassbinder. And that�s when he�s dead, with his throat cut. This Fassbinder, he musta been pretty rough-looking, huh?�

Warbaby sighed. �Freddie��

�Well, German, anyway. Clicked with the nationality��

�Mr. Blix was not German, Freddie. Says here Mr. Blix wasn�t even Mr. Blix. Now let me read. Rydell needs quiet, in order to adjust to driving in the city.�

Freddie grunted, then Rydell heard his fingers clicking over the little computer he carried everywhere.

Rydell took the left he thought he was looking for. Combat zone. Ruins. Fires in steel cans. Hunched dark figures, faces vampire white.

�Don�t brake� Warbaby said. �Or accelerate.�

Something came spinning, end over end, out of the crow-shouldered coven, splat against the windshield; clung, then fell away, leaving a smudge of filthy yellow. Hadn�t it been gray and bloody, like a loop of intestine?

Red at the intersection.

�Run the light� Warbaby instructed. Rydell did, amid horns of protest. The yellow stuff still there.

�Pull over. No. Right up on the sidewalk. Yes.� The Patriot�s Goodyear Streetsweepers bouncing up and over the jagged curb. �In the glove compartment.�

A light came on as Rydell opened it. Windex, a roll of gray paper towels, and a box of throwaway surgical gloves.

�Go on� Warbaby said. �Nobody bother us.�

Rydell pulled a glove on, took the Windex and the towels, got out. �Don�t get any on you� he said, thinking of Sublett. He gave the yellow smear a good shot of Windex, wadded tip three of the towels in his gloved hand, wiped until the glass was clean. He skinned the glove down around the wet wad, the way they�d shown him in the Academy, but then he didn�t know what to do with it.