His eye went back to the Air. He sat down, logged on to Twitter. There was a message from Winnie: “Got my leave call me.”
“No phone,” he typed, then wondered how to describe where he was, what he was doing, “I think B has me on ice. Something’s happening.” It looked stupid, but he sent it anyway.
Refreshed twice. Then: “Get phone.”
“Okay.” Sent. Or tweeted, whatever it was. Still, he was glad she had leave. Was still here. He scratched his chest, stood up, put his shirt on, buttoned the front and a few of the cuff buttons on either sleeve, left it untucked, put on his new shoes. His old ones were more comfortable, but they wouldn’t go with whipcord. He went to the door, tried it. Not locked. He hadn’t thought it was. The driver whooped, twice.
He opened the door, stepped out, amazed to find the day gone. The filthiness of Benny’s garage, under bright fluorescent light, instantly made the cube seem surgically clean. Fiona and Benny were looking at Fiona’s bike, which now had a shiny white box with slightly inward-slanting sides fastened where Milgrim had sat, behind her. It looked solid, expensive, but sort of like a beer cooler. There was something on the side, in black, neatly lettered.
“Red crosses?” Fiona asked Benny.
Benny had a yellow power wrench in his hand, a red rubber hose trailing away from it. “Punters would be flagging you down for first aid. This is bog standard for hauling fresh eyeballs. Copied from one that does just that, by the look of it.”
“The name and numbers?”
“You see it as received. Truck was from a prop house, Soho.” He removed the cigarette tucked behind his ear, lit it. “Film and telly. That’s the plan, then? You’re doing telly?”
“Pornos,” said Fiona. “Saad’ll like that.”
“Won’t he just,” said Benny.
Fiona, noticing Milgrim, turned. “Hullo.”
“May I borrow your phone? Have to call someone.”
She fished in her slouchy armored pants, came up with an iPhone, not the one Milgrim had used with the Festo ray, and passed it to him. “Hungry? We can have doner sent in.”
“Dinner?”
“Doner. Kebab.”
“Ready for a curry, myself,” said Benny, studying the lit tip of his cigarette intently, as though it might suddenly offer curry reviews.
“I’ll just make this call-” He froze.
“Yes?”
“Is this… a Blue Ant phone?”
“No,” said Fiona. “Brand-new. So’s Benny’s. We’ve all been freshly resupplied, and the old ones taken away.”
“Thanks,” said Milgrim, and went back into the Vegas cube. He found Winnie’s card, on which he’d added the dialing prefixes, and dialed.
She answered on the second ring. “Yes?”
“It’s me,” said Milgrim.
“Where are you?”
“Suth-uk. Over the river.”
“Doing?”
“We had a nap.”
“Did you have story time first?”
“No.”
“You think something’s happening? You tweeted.”
The verb sounded off, the more particularly because he knew it wasn’t part of a nursery theme. “Something is. I don’t know what. He’s hired someone called Wilson, and delegated.” He was glad he’d remembered the word.
“Threat management,” she said. “He’s outsourcing. Shows he’s taking it seriously. Have you met Wilson?”
“No.”
“What’s Wilson telling them to do?”
“They put a box on the back of Fiona’s bike. The kind they haul eyeballs in.”
There was a perfect digital silence, then: “Who’s Fiona?”
“She drives. For Bigend. Motorcycles.”
“Okay,” said Winnie. “We’ll just start again. Tasking.”
“Tasking?”
“I want you to meet Wilson. I want to know about Wilson. Most importantly, the name of the firm he’s working for.”
“Isn’t he working for Bigend?”
“He works for one of the security firms. Bigend is the client. Don’t ask him. Just find out. Sneaky-ass, though. You can do sneaky-ass. Instinct tells me. Whose phone are you using?”
“Fiona’s.”
“I just e-mailed the number to someone, and they’re telling me the GPS is very amusing. Unless you’ve taken up marathon randomized teleportation.”
“It’s new. She just got it from Bigend.”
“That might be Wilson, the threat management consultant. Earning his keep, if that’s the case. Okay. You’re tasked. Go for it. Call, tweet.” She was gone.
The room filled with that weird chicken-scratch sub-Hendrix chord. He rushed out the door, tripped on part of an engine, and nearly fell, but managed to thrust the phone into Fiona’s hand. As he did so, he wondered whether or not it might be Winnie.
“Hullo? Yes. It’s on. Very convincing. Having my dampers replaced next. They’re a bit rough. You would? Certainly. I’ll borrow a bike. Fast? My pleasure.” She smiled. “What he was wearing yesterday?” She looked at Milgrim. “I’ll tell him.” She put the phone in her pants pocket.
Milgrim raised his eyebrows.
“Wilson,” Fiona said. “You’re required soonest, over the river. Wants to meet you. And you’re to bring what you were wearing yesterday.”
“Why?”
“Thinks kit from Tanky amp; Tojo doesn’t suit you.”
Milgrim winced.
“Taking the piss,” she said, bumping his arm with her fist. “You’re very smart. I’m borrowing a fast bike for the job while Saad does my dampers. Benny’s.”
“Feck,” said Benny softly, a small sound but filled with resignation, as to immemorial hardship. “Don’t bugger it again, can you?”
65. LEOPARD SKIN IN MINIATURE
She stood on Cabinet’s steps, looking at unexpected lights, beyond trees, in the privacy of Portman Square, Robert hovering watchfully behind her, after the tall Slow Foods van pulled away, driven by a young blonde with a cap worryingly like Foley’s.
Sounds of tennis. There was a court in there. Someone had decided to play a night game. She thought the court would be too wet.
When she went back in, Inchmale and Heidi were in the lobby, Inchmale strapping himself into his Japanese Gore-Tex. “We’re going to the studio to listen to some mixes. Come with us.”
“Thanks, but I’m needed.”
“Either offer stands, Tucson or Hampstead. You could stay with Angelina.”
“I appreciate it, Reg. I do.”
“Quietly stubborn,” he said, then looked at Heidi. “Beats violently obstreperous.” Back to her. “Consistent, anyway. Keep in touch.”
“I will.” She headed for the elevator. For the ferret, in its vitrine. Silently offering prayer: that Garreth’s scheme, whatever it was, be as ferrety as it needed to be, or that whatever had happened to this particular ferret, to earn it its timeless somnambulistic residence here, not happen to Garreth, to Milgrim, or to anyone else she cared for.
Its teeth looked bigger, though she knew that couldn’t be possible. She pressed the button, heard distant clanks from above, sounds from the Tesla machinery.
She hadn’t been aware of caring for Milgrim, really, until it became apparent that Bigend would so easily feed him to Foley and company, if that meant getting Bobby Chombo back. And it wouldn’t be Chombo Bigend needed, she knew, but something Chombo knew, or knew how to do. That was what bothered her, that and the fact of Milgrim having been reborn, or perhaps born, on a whim of Bigend’s, simply to see whether or not it was possible. To do that, and then to trade the resulting person, possibly to trade his life, for something you wanted, no matter how badly, was wrong.
When the lift arrived, she hauled the gate aside, opened the door, stepped in. Ascended.