Just toss it Warbaby said from inside. Rydell did. Then he walked back from the car, five paces, and threw up. Wiped his mouth with a clean towel. He got back in, shut the door, locked it, put the Windex and the towels in the glove compartment.
You gonna gargle with that, Rydell?
Shut up, Freddie Warbaby said. The Patriots suspension creaked as Warbaby leaned forward. Leavings from a slaughterhouse, most likely. he said. But its good you know to take precautions. He settled back. Had us a group here once called Sword of the Pig. You ever hear of that?
No Rydell said, I never did.
Theyd steal fire-extinguishers out of buildings. Re-charge them with blood. Blood from a slaughterhouse. But they let it out, you understand, that this blood, well, it was human. Then theyd go after the Jesus people, when they marched, with those same extinguishers.
Jesus Rydell said.
Exactly Warbaby said.
You see that door, there? Freddie said.
What door? The lobby of the Morrisey made Rydell want to whisper, like being in church or a funeral home. The carpet was so soft, it made him want to lie down and go to sleep.
That black one Freddie said.
Rydell saw a black-lacquered rectangle, perfectly plain, not even a knob. Now that he thought about it, it didnt match anything else in sight. The rest of the place was polished wood, frosted bronze, panels of carved glass. If Freddie hadnt told him it was a door, exactly, he would have taken it for art or something, some kind of painting. Yeah? What about it?
Thats a restaurant Freddie said, and its so expensive, you cant even go in there.
Well Rydell said, theres lots of those.
No, man Freddie insisted, I mean even if you were rich, had money out your ass, you could not go in there. Like its private. Japanese thing.
They were standing around by the security desk while Warbaby talked to somebody on a house phone. The three guys on duty at the desk wore IntenSecure uniforms, but really fancy ones, with bronze logo-buttons on their peaked caps.
Rydell had parked the Patriot in an underground garage, floors down in the roots of the place. He hadnt seen anything like that before: teams of people in chefs whites putting together a hundred plates of some skinny kind of salad, little Sanyo vacuum-cleaners bleeping along in pastel herds, all this back-stage stuff youd never guess was there if you were just standing here in the lobby.
The Executive Suites, where hed stayed in Knoxville with Karen Mendelsohn, had had these Korean robot bugs that cleaned up when you werent looking. Theyd even had a special one that ate dust off the wallscreen, but Karen hadnt been impressed. It just meant they couldnt afford people, she said.
Rydell watched as Warbaby turned, handing the phone to one of the guys in the peaked caps. Warbaby gestured for Freddie and Rydell. Leaned on his cane as they walked toward him.
Theyll take us up now he said. The cap Warbaby had handed the phone to came out from behind the counter. He saw Rydell was wearing an IntenSecure shirt with the patches ripped off, but he didnt say anything. Rydell wondered when he was going to have a chance to buy some clothes, and where he should go to do it. He looked at Freddies shirt, thinking Freddie probably wasnt the guy to ask.
This way, sir the cap said to Warbaby. Freddie and Rydell followed Warbaby across the lobby. Rydell saw how he jabbed his cane, hard, into the carpeting, the brace on his leg ticking like a slow clock.
Sometimes, when she rode hard, when she could really proj, Chevette got free of everything: the city, her body, even time. That was the messengers high, she knew, and though it felt like freedom, it was really the melding-with, the clicking-in, that did it. The bike between her legs was like some hyperevolved alien tail shed somehow extruded, as though over patient centuries; a sweet and intricate bone-machine, grown Lexan-armored tires, near-frictionless bearings, and gas-filled shocks. She was entirely part of the city then, one wild-ass little dot of energy and matter, and she made her thousand choices, instant to instant, according to how the traffic flowed, how rain glinted on the streetcar tracks, how a secretarys mahogany hair fell like grace itself, exhausted, to the shoulders of her loden coat.
And she was starting to get that now, in spite of everything; if she just let go, quit thinking, let her mind sink down into the machinery of bone and gear-ring and carbon-wound Japanese paper
But Sammy Sal swerved in beside her, bass pumping from his bikes bone-conduction beatbox. She had to bunny the curb to keep from going over on a BART grate. Her tires left black streaks as the particle-brakes caught, Sammy Sal braking in tandem, his Fluoro-Rimz strobing, fading.
Something eating you, little honey? His hand on her arm, rough and angry. Like maybe some wonder product makes you smarter, faster? Huh?
13. Tweaking
Let me go.
No way. I got you this job. Youre gonna blow it, Im gonna know why. He slammed his other palm on the black foam around his bars, killing the music.
Please, Sammy, I gotta get up to Skinners
He let go of her arm. Why?
She started to cough, caught it, took three deep breaths. You ever steal anything, Sammy Sal? I mean, when you were working?
Sammy Sal looked at her. No he said, finally, but I been known to fuck the clients.
Chevette shivered. Not me.
No Sammy Sal said, but you dont pull tags all the places I do. Sides, you a girl.
But I stole something last night. From this guys pocket, up at this party at the Hotel Morrisey.
Sammy Sal licked his lips. How come you had your hand in his pocket? He somebody you know?
He was some asshole Chevette said.
Oh. Him. Think I met him.
Gave me a hard time. It was sticking out of his pocket. You sure it was his pocket this hard time sticking out of? Sammy Sal she said, this is serious. Im scared shitless. He was looking at her, close.
That it? You scared? Stole some shit, you scared?
Bunny says some security guys called up Allied, even called up Wilson and everything. Looking for me.
Shit Sammy Sal said, still studying her, I thought you high, on dancer. Thought Bunny found out. Come after you, gonna chew your little bitch ear off. You just scared?
She looked at him. Thats right.
Well he said, digging his fingers into the black foam, what you scared of?
Scared theyll come up to Skinners and find em.
Find what?
These glasses.
Spy, baby? Shot? Looking, like Alice n all? He drummed his fingers on the black foam.
These black glasses. Like sunglasses, but you cant see through em.
Sammy Sal tilted his beautiful head to one side. Whats that mean?
Theyre just black.
Sunglasses?
Yeah. But just black.
Huh he said, you had been fucking the clients, but only just the cute ones, like me, youd know what those are. Tell you dont have that many upscale boyfriends, pardon me. You date you some architects, some brain-surgeons, youd know what those are. His hand came up, forefinger flicking the corroded ball-chain that dangled from the zip.tab at the neck of Skinners jacket. Those VL glasses. Virtual light.
Shed heard of it, but she wasnt sure what it was. They expensive, Sammy Sal?
Shit, yes. Bout as much as a Japanese car. Not all that much more, though. Got these little EMP-drivers around the lenses, work your optic nerves direct. Friend of mine, hed bring a pair home from the office where he worked. Landscape architects. Put em on, you go out walking, everything looks normal, but every plant you see, every tree, theres this little label hanging there, what its name is, Latin under that
But theyre solid black.
Not if you turn em on, they arent. Turn em on, they dont even look like sunglasses. Just make you look, I dunno, serious. He grinned at her. You look too damn serious anyway. That your problem.