Grapefruit cans Turvey said. Fulla concrete.
No shit?
Watch Turvey said, and brought the thing to his shoulder. It had a sort of breech, very intricately machined, a trigger-thing like part of a pair of vise-grip pliers, and a couple of flexible tubes. These latter ran down, Rydell saw, to a great big canister of gas, the kind youd need a hand truck to move, which lay on the floor beside the couch.
There on his knees, on the girlfriends dusty polyester carpet, hed watched that muzzle swing past. It was big enough to put your fist down. He watched as Turvey took aim, back through the open bedroom door, at the closet.
Turvey he heard himself say, wheres the goddamn kids?
Turvey moved the vise-grip handle and punched a hole the size of a fruit-juice can through the closet door. The kids were in there. They mustve screamed, though Rydell couldnt remember hearing it. Rydells lawyer later argued that he was not only deaf at this point, but in a state of sonically induced catalepsy. Turveys invention was only a few decibels short of what you got with a SWAT stun-grenade. But Rydell couldnt remember. He couldnt rememher shooting Kenneth Turvey in the head, either, or anything else at all until he woke up in the hospital. There was a woman there from Cops in Trouble, which had been Rydells fathers favorite show, but she said she couldnt actually talk to him until shed spoken with his agent. Rydell said he didnt have one. She said she knew that, but one was going to call him.
Rydell lay there thinking about all the times he and his father had watched Cops in Trouble. What kind of trouble we talking here? he finally asked.
The woman just smiled. Whatever, Berry, itll probably be adequate.
He squinted up at her. She was sort of good-looking. Whats your name?
Karen Mendelsohn. She didnt look like she was from Knoxville, or even Memphis.
You from Cops in Trouble?
Yes.
What you do for em?
Im a lawyer she said. Rydell couldnt recall ever actually having met one before, but after that he wound up meeting lots more.
Gunheads displays were featureless slabs of liquid crystal; they woke when Rydell inserted the key, typed the security code, and ran a basic systems check. The cameras under the rear bumper were his favorites; they made parking really easy; you could see exactly where you were backing up. The downlink from the Death Star wouldnt work while he was still in the car wash, too much steel in the building, but it was Subletts job to keep track of all that with an ear-bead.
There was a notice posted in the staff room at IntenSecure, telling you it was company policy not to call it that, the Death Star, but everybody did anyway. The LAPD called it that themselves. Officially it was the Southern California Dosynclinical Law Enforcement Satellite.
Watching the dashboard screens, Rydell backed carefully out of the building. Gunheads twin ceramic engines were new enough to still be relatively quiet; Rydell could hear the tires squish over the wet concrete floor.
Sublett was waiting outside, his silver eyes reflecting the red of passing taillights. Behind him, the sun was setting, the skys colors bespeaking more than the usual cocktail of additives. He stepped back as Rydell reversed past him, anxious to avoid the least droplet of spray from the tires. Rydell was anxious too; he didnt want to have to haul the Texan to Cedars again if his allergies kicked up.
Rydell waited as Sublett pulled on a pair of disposable surgical gloves.
Howdy Sublett said, climbing into his seat. He closed his door and began to remove the gloves, gingerly peeling them into a Ziploc Baggie.
Dont get any on you Rydell said, watching the care with which Sublett treated the gloves.
Go ahead, laugh Sublett said mildly. He took out a pack of hypo-allergenic gum and popped a piece from its bubble. Hows ol Gunhead?
Rydell scanned the displays, satisfied. Not too shabby.
Hope we dont have to respond to any damn stealth houses tonight Sublett said, chewing.
Stealth houses, so-called, were on Subletts personal list of bad calls. He said the air in them was toxic. Rydell didnt think it made any sense, but he was tired of arguing about it. Stealth houses were bigger than most regular houses, cost more, and Rydell figured the owners would pay plenty to keep the air clean. Sublett maintained that anybody who built a stealth house was paranoid to begin with, would always keep the place locked up too tight, no air circulation, and youd get that bad toxic buildup.
If thered been any stealth houses in Knoxville, Rydell hadnt known about them. He thought it was an L.A. thing.
Sublett, whod worked for IntenSecure for almost two years, mostly on day patrol in Venice, had been the first person to even mention them to Rydell. When Rydell finally got to answer a call to one, he couldnt believe the place; it just went down and down, dug in beneath something that looked almost, but not quite, like a bombed-out drycleaning plant. And it was all peeled logs inside, white plaster, Turkish carpets, big paintings, slate floors, furniture like hed never seen before. But it was some kind of tricky call; domestic violence, Rydell figured. Like the husband hit the wife, the wife hit the button, now they were making out it was all just a glitch. But it couldnt really be a glitch, because someone had had to hit the button, and there hadnt been any response to the password call that came back to them three-point-eight seconds later. She mustve messed with the phones, Rydell thought, then hit the button. Hed been been riding with Big George Kechakmadze that night, and the Georgian (Tbilisi, not Atlanta) hadnt liked it either. You see these people, theyre subscribers, man; nobody bleeding, you get your ass out, okay? Big George had said, after. But Rydell kept remembering a tension around the womans eyes, how she held the collar of the big white robe folded against her throat. Her husband in a matching robe but with thick hairy legs and expensive glasses. Thered been something wrong there but hed never know what. Not any more than hed ever understand how their lives really worked, lives that looked like what you saw on tv but werent.
L.A. was full of mysteries, when you looked at it that way. No bottom to it.
Hed come to like driving through it, though. Not when he had to get anywhere in particular, but just cruising with Gunhead was okay. Now he was turning onto La Cienega and the little green cursor on the clash was doing the same.
Forbidden Zone Sublett said. Herve Villechaize, Susan Rydell, Marie-Pascal Elfman, Viva.
Viva? Rydell asked. Viva what?
Viva. Actress.
Whend they make that?
1980.
I wasnt born yet.
Time on tvs all the same time, Rydell.
Man, I thought you were trying to get over your upbringing and all. Rydell de-mirrored the door-window to better watch a redheaded girl pass him in a pink Daihatsu Sneaker with the top off. Anyway, I never saw that one. It was just that hour of evening when women in cars looked about as good, in Los Angeles, as anything ever did. The surgeon general was trying to outlaw convertibles; said they contributed to the skin-cancer rate.
End game. Al Cliver, Moira Chen, George Eastman, Gordon Mitchell. 1985.
Well, I was two Rydell said, but I didnt see that one either.
Sublett fell silent. Rydell felt sorry for him; the Texan really didnt know any other way to start a conversation, and his folks back home in the trailer-camp wouldve seen all those films and more.
Well Rydell said, trying to pick up his end, I was watching this one old movie last night
Sublett perked up. Which one?
Dunno Rydell said. This guys in L.A. and hes just met this girl. Then he picks up a pay phone, cause its ringing. Late at night. Its some guy in a missile silo somewhere who knows theyve just launched theirs at the Russians. Hes trying to phone his dad, or his brother, or something. Says the worlds gonna end in short order. Then the guy who answered the phone hears these soldiers come in and shoot the guy. The guy on the phone, I mean.