Yamazaki watched as Kutnik, played by a young British actress, recalled, from a patio in Rio, her first meeting with Shapely. Id been struck by the fact that his T-cell count that day was over 1,200, and that his responses to the questionnaire seemed to indicated that safe sex, as we thought of it then, was, well, not exactly a priority. He was a very open, very outgoing, really a very innocent character, and when I asked him, there in the prison visiting room, about oral sex, he actually blushed. Then he laughed, and said, well, he said he sucked cock like it was going out of style The actress-Kutnik looked as though she were about to blush herself. Of course she said, in those days we didnt really understand the diseases exact vectors of infection, because, grotesque as it now seems, there had been no real research into the precise modes of transmission
Yamazaki cut the set off. Dr. Kutnik would arrange Shapelys release from prison as an AIDS research volunteer under Federal law. The Sharman Groups project would be hindered by fundamentalist Christians objecting to the injection of HIV-tainted blood into the systems of terminally ill AIDS patients. As the project foundered, Kutnik would uncover clinical data suggesting that unprotected sex with Shapely had apparently reversed the symptoms of several of her patients. There would be Kutniks impassioned resignation, the flight to Brazil with the baffled Shapely, lavish funding against a backdrop of impending civil war, and what could only be described as an extremely pragmatic climate for research.
But it was such a sad story.
Better to sit here by candlelight, elbows on the edge of Skinners table, listening for the song of the central pier.
He kept saying he was from Tennessee and he didnt need this shit. She kept thinking she was going to die, the way he was driving, or anyway those cops would be after them, or the one who shot Sammy. She still didnt know what had happened, and wasnt that Nigel whod plowed into that tight-faced one?
But hed hung this right off Bryant, so she told him left on Folsom, because if the assholes were coming, she figured she wanted the Haight, best place she knew to get lost, and that was definitely what she intended to do, earliest opportunity. And this Ford was just like the one Mr. Matthews drove, ran the holding facility up in Beaverton. And shed tried to stab somebody with a screwdriver. Shed never done anything like that in her life before. And shed wrecked that black guys computer, the one with the haircut. And this bracelet on her left wrist, the other half flipping around, open, on three links of chain He reached over and grabbed the loose cuff. Did something to it without taking his eyes off the street. He let go. Now it was locked shut.
Whyd you do that?
So you dont snag it on something, wind up cuffed to the door-handle or a street sign
Take it off.
No key.
She rattled it at him. Take it off.
Stick it up the sleeve of your jacket. Those are Beretta cuffs. Real good cuffs. He sounded like he was sort of happy to have something to talk about, and his driving had evened out. Brown eyes. Not old; twenties, maybe. Cheap clothes like K-Mart stuff, all wet. Light brown hair cut too short but not short enough. She watched a muscle in his jaw work, like he was chewing gum, but he wasnt.
25. Without a paddle
Where we going? she asked him.
Fuck if I know he said, gunning the engine a little. You the one said left
Who are you?
He glanced over at her. Rydell. Berry Rydell.
Barry?
Berry. Like straw. Like dingle. Hey, this a big fucking Street, lights and everything
Right.
So where should I
Right!
Okay he said, and hung it. Why?
The Haight. Lots of people up late, cops dont like to go there
Ditch this car there?
Turn your back on it two seconds, its history.
They got ATMs there?
Uh-uh.
Well, heres one Up over a curb, hunks of crazed safety-glass falling out of the frame where the back window had been. She hadnt even noticed that.
He dug a soggy-looking wallet out of his back pocket and started pulling cards out of it. Three of them. I have to try to get some cash he said. He looked at her. You wanna jump out of this car and run he shrugged, then you just go for it. Then he reached in his jacket pocket and pulled out the glasses and Codess phone that shed scooped when the lights went out in Dissidents. Because she knew from Lowell that people in trouble need a phone, most times worse than anything. He dropped them in her lap, the assholes glasses and the phone. Yours.
Then he got out, walked over to the ATM, and started feeding it cards. She sat there, watching it emerge from its armor, the way they do, shy and cautious, its cameras coming out, too, to monitor the transaction. He stood there, drumming his fingers on the side, his mouth like he was whistling but he wasnt making any noise. She looked down at the case and the phone and wondered why she didnt just jump out and run, like he said.
Finally he came back, thumb-counting a fold of bills, stuck it down in his front jeans pocket, and got in He sailed the first of his cards out the open window at the ATM, which was pulling back into its shell like a crab. Dont know how they cancelled that one so quick, after you put that thing through Freddies laptop. Flicked another. Then the last one. They lay in front of the ATM as its lexan shield came trundling down, their little holograms winding up in the machines halogen floods.
Somebodyll get those she said.
Hope so he said, hope they get em and go to Mars. Then he did something in reverse with all four wheels and the Ford sort of jumped up and backward, into the street, some other car swerving past them all brakes and horn and the drivers mouth a black O, and the part of her that was still a messenger sort of liked it. All the times theyd cut her off. Shit he said, jamming the gear-thing around until he got what he needed and they took off.
The handcuff was rubbing on the rash where the red worm had been. You a cop?
No.
Security? Like from the hotel?
Uh-uh.
Well she said, what are you?
Streetlight sliding across his face. Seemed like he was thinking about it. Up shit creek. Without a paddle.
The first thing Rydell saw when he got out of the Patriot, in the alley off Haight Street, was a one-armed, one-legged man on a skateboard. This man lay on his stomach, on the board, and propelled himself along with a curious hitching motion that reminded Rydell of the limbs of a gigged frog. He had his right arm and his left leg, which at least allowed for some kind of symmetry, but there was no foot on the leg. His face, as if by some weird osmosis, was the color of dirty concrete, and Rydell couldnt have said what race he was. His hair, if he had any, was covered by a black knit cap, and the rest of him was sheathed in a black, one-piece garment apparently stitched from sections of heavy-duty rubber inner-tube. He looked up, as he hitched past Rydell, through puddles left by the storm, headed for the mouth of the alley, and said, or Rydell thought he said: You wanna talk to me? You wanna talk to me, you better shut your fuckin mouth