‘I wish I was, Ronnie,’ he said. ‘I wish I was.’
‘So does Jesus, Kipper.’
From anyone else, he’d have taken offence. But Ronnie and he went way back and he knew she meant only the best.
‘You coming in tomorrow?’ he asked.
‘As if you need to ask.’
‘I’m sorry. I’m on the edge of a decision here. I think I’m going to front Blackstone. Demand he release the councillors and ease off the restrictions on people.’
‘Set my people free?’ Ronnie smiled.
‘Something like that.’
‘And what if he throws you in the clink, too?’
‘Well, we all have our choices to make, don’t we?’
‘We do. And I’m sure you’ll make the right ones.’
Kipper didn’t reply at first, instead looking out the window at the largely empty city centre. ‘You look after Heather,’ he said at last. ‘She’s a good girl, but she’s lost.’
‘She wouldn’t be the first stray we took under our care. Or the last, I’ll wager. And you look after yourself, Kip. Don’t sit here all night. Get yourself home. Your family need you too.’
‘I will, Ronnie. Good night.’
He turned back to the window as she left, staring out into the rain. The city was dark, with only a few lights burning here and there in offices where he could see other people moving around working. As he watched, a few of the lights flickered out too. He tried to pick out the smouldering red light of the Wave but failed. The weather was really closing in.
Ronnie was right. Time to go home.
The walk back to his car was uncomfortable, the rain constant and stinging. They said a big chemical plant had gone up in the Portland blaze, and he thought he could feel it in the pores of his skin where the water soaked through.
It was an uneventful drive home to Mercer Island, thankfully. No riots. No ambushes. Only the usual military checkpoints, through which he sailed without delay, thanks to a new upgraded pass from Blackstone. He tortured himself the whole way, wondering if he should have followed Barney out the door. If they all should have.
He could see candles burning in the kitchen at home as he pulled up, and a curtain twitched aside. He turned off the motor and hurried up the driveway as the door opened.
‘Come in, Kip. Hurry up. That rain’s gone bad again, they say.’
‘Hang on, Barb,’ he said, shaking off as much moisture as he could on the porch, and removing his muddy boots.
‘Come on. I’ve kept some dinner warm by the fire. And I poured you a whisky.’
‘Thanks, darlin’. That’s just what I need.’
‘Barney called,’ she said.
‘Oh. He told you?’
‘Everything… I’m so sorry, Kip. All those people killed. You must feel awful.’
He dried off with an old towel she handed him, and closed the door. It felt good to shut out the weather.
‘Yeah. It wasn’t a great day,’ he replied wearily. ‘And this thing with Barney and the council, I’m just -’
Barb shushed him and took him by the arm through to the lounge room, where a small fire crackled and glowed in the hearth. A plate, covered in foil, sat near the flames, and a tumbler of whisky waited for him on the coffee table.
‘I’m sorry about this morning,’ said Barb. ‘I was a bitch. I shouldn’t have put all that pressure on you. I’m sorry’
‘Damn.’ He squeezed his eyes shut.
‘What?’
He looked at his wife helplessly. ‘I forgot the fucking Piglet DVD.’
She stared at him for a full second before they both burst out laughing.
28
HONOLULU, HAWAII
Admiral Ritchie was wrong. Jedediah Armstrong Culver, of the Louisiana Bar, did not take three or four business suits along with him on vacation. He only ever took one, just in case. As soon as he’d learned of the Disappearance, however, he’d gone straight downtown and bought four new outfits, off-the-rack, but quickly tailored to fit his ample frame. As always, they were either blue pin-striped and single-breasted, or charcoal grey, ditto. Two Brooks Brothers, one Zegna and a rather subdued Armani. He put the charge on one of his European cards, a Visa issued by Barclays Bank in London, where he had worked for three years as an equity partner with Baker amp; McKenzie before moving home to set up his own firm. The Barclays Visa he normally saved for annual trips to Europe with Marilyn, but none of his US-issued plastic was working. Diners, Amex and Mastercard, none of them were any good. The local merchants had stopped taking them in payment or their billing systems simply locked up when presented with the account details.
For now, at least, there was no such problem with his English credit card. Even so, aware that some might think his use of credit an imposition on the goodwill and touching naпvetй of Mr Rajiv Singh, the owner of the swish gentlemen’s outfitter on Beretania Street where he bought all four suits, Culver had explained exactly how quickly Singh needed to lodge his accounts this month. Which was to say, immediately.
‘And don’t take no guff from those sons a bitches neither,’ he’d advised. ‘Get your money fast, and if you’re in the market for some further and better advice – get the hell out of the suit business, too. Ain’t gonna be much call for all these fancy duds soon.’
Mr Singh had not needed telling twice. Eighty per cent of his business came from mainland tourists dropping disgraceful amounts of money on exclusive leisurewear. Business attire was a sideline. The next time Jed Culver drove past the shop it was closed. He never saw Singh again.
‘Best damn investment I ever made,’ he said to himself while climbing into the jacket of his new favourite, the Armani.
‘What’s that, Jedi Master?’ his wife called out, distracted, from the lounge room where she was glued to the television.
Culver tugged at his shirt cuffs as he walked through into the main living area of the Embassy Suites serviced apartment. Marilyn, his third wife, and definitely his favourite, sat curled up at the end of the lounge nearest the TV, ignoring the glorious vista of Waikiki Beach and Mamala Bay in the floor-to-ceiling picture windows. The pollution storm had not yet reached this far around the world, and the advice they had was that the worst of it probably wouldn’t drift so far south anyway. Intensifying low-pressure systems were likely to draw the poisoned banks of cloud back up to the northern latitudes. Even so, Marilyn, a forty-year-old who looked thirty and sometimes acted twenty, remained at the end of the sofa, a black three-seater covered in a strikingly dense pineapple motif.
She was, he thought fondly, a bear of little brain, but such a beautiful bear, and so cuddly and loving that he couldn’t help but love her all the more. She was just so much easier to live with than the harsh, angular carnivorous bitches he’d married by mistake the first two times. (And if there was one upside to the otherwise unmitigated horror of the last week, it was realising that those two life-sucking trolls had winked out of existence.)