He made the dressings progressively smaller, each time he changed them. The rest of Frank was that aerial Kansas patchwork of found-object dermis, reassuringly leg-shaped if a bit withered from the nonuse.
Most animals, he’d told her, apparently seriously, preferred bilaterally symmetrical mates, to the extent that it formed a sort of biota-wide bottom line, and that he’d understand if she felt that way. She’d told him that the bottom line as far as she was concerned was men who didn’t sound like utter fucking idiots, and had kissed him. After which, more kissing, much else, laughter, some tears, more laughter.
Now she lay in the minute glow of LEDs, and willed silence, absence of messaging, an empty in-box, this peace, here in the Piblokto Madness bed, which now no longer seemed that, to her, the arch of the right whale’s jawbone even bespeaking something matrimonial, if she thought about it, which she was still unwilling generally to do.
But okay right now. Okay so far. His breathing beside her.
Beneath her pillow, the iPhone began to vibrate. She slid her hand under, cupped it, considered the option of skipping the call. But these were not times for skipped calls.
“Hello?” she whispered.
“What’s wrong?” It was Milgrim.
“Garreth’s sleeping.”
“Sorry,” whispered Milgrim.
“What is it?’
“It’s complicated. Someone needs to speak with Garreth.”
“Who?”
“Please don’t get the wrong idea,” whispered Milgrim, “but she’s a U.S. federal agent.”
“That’s as wrong an idea as I’ve heard in a while,” said Hollis, forgetting to whisper.
“What is?” asked Garreth.
“It’s Milgrim.”
“Give him to me.”
She covered the phone, realizing she had no idea where its microphone might be, or if covering it would help. “He wants you talk to a U.S. agent.”
“Ah,” he said, “the odd bits emerge now. The localized high-pressure zone of weird begins to manifest. Always does. Give me the phone.”
“I’m scared.”
“Makes perfect sense.” He reached over, squeezed her arm reassuringly. “Phone, please.”
She handed him the phone.
“Milgrim,” he said. “Been networking, have we? Slow down. Does she have a name?”
And she heard a pen on paper as he wrote in the dark, something he was very good at.
“Does she? Really? She put it that way herself?” She felt him prop himself on the pillows. When he opened the laptop, its light was light of some weird and other moon. A lucky one, she hoped. She heard him begin to type, with one hand, while he asked Milgrim questions, brief ones, and listened to longer answers.
74. MAP, TERRITORY
The heels of Milgrim’s Tanky amp; Tojo brogues, as he sat astride the high, raked pillion of Benny’s Yamaha, didn’t quite touch the cobbles of this tiny square. Something about the angle of his feet recalled some childhood line-drawing from Don Quixote, though whether those feet had been the knight’s or Sancho Panza’s, he didn’t know. Fiona sat, saddled lower, in front of him, boots firm on the pavement, holding them upright. He held her iPhone behind her back, seeing exactly where they were now, on the bright little window, via the application she’d shown him earlier: amid these narrow lanes, his eye backtracking to Farringdon, the straight run to the bridge, river, Southwark, Vegas cube. Comprehending the route for the first time.
He’d phoned Winnie from this courtyard, reading off the number Garreth had given him. He’d written it on the back of her card, which was becoming a softer object, its sharp corners blunted. She’d repeated it back to him, made him check it. “Good work,” she’d said. “Stand by in case I can’t reach him.”
But that had been eight minutes ago, so he assumed she was on the phone with Garreth.
Fiona’s yellow helmet turned. “Finished?” she asked, muffled by the visor.
He looked down at the screen, the glowing map. Saw it as a window into the city’s underlying fabric, as though he held something from which a rectangular chip of London’s surface had been pried, revealing a substrate of bright code. But really, wasn’t the opposite true, the city the code that underlay the map? There was an expression about that, but he’d never understood it, and now couldn’t remember how it went. The territory wasn’t the map?
“Done,” he said passing her the bright chip. She turned it off, pocketed it, while he put on Mrs. Benny’s helmet and fastened the chinstrap, scarcely noticing the hairspray.
He put his feet on the pegs as she rolled forward, and curled in closer to her armored back, watching day-bright vignettes of headlit wall-texture as she wheeled them around, the Yahama’s engine sounding as though it were anxious for the bridge.
What would Winnie and Garreth be talking about? he wondered as Fiona drove out of the courtyard and down the lane to Farringdon Road.
Watching Garreth as he listened to his headset, she wondered what the American agent was saying.
She’d watched him free a phone she hadn’t seen before, from a vacuum-sealed plastic bag, then install a card selected from a black nylon wallet containing a few dozen more, like the duplicates folder in a very dull stamp collection. He’d connected the new phone to a power unit, and then, with another cable, to something black, and smaller. When the new phone rang, the tone was a variant on Old Phone, her own most frequent choice.
Now he listened, occasionally nodding slightly, eyes on the screen of his laptop, forefinger poking, as if of its own accord, at keys and mouse-patch. He was down his darknets again, she knew, communicating with the old man, or unspecified third parties. There seemed to be no advertising on Garreth’s darknets, and relatively little color, though she supposed that was because he tended mainly to read documents.
Now a color photograph of a woman appeared, Chinese, thirtyish, her hair center-parted, expressionless, in the style of a biometric passport photograph. Garreth leaned forward slightly, as if for a better look, and wrote something in his notebook. “That wouldn’t actually be of much help,” he said. “I have better numbers than that myself.” He fell silent again, listening, opening screens on his desktop, making notes. “No. I have that. I don’t think you can really do much for me. Which is a pity, considering your willingness. What I could really use would be something heavier. Massive, really. And the goods will be there. Worth massive’s time, amply. Massive’ll come along, I imagine. But massive immediately would be the business.” He listened again. “Yes. Certainly. Do. Good night.” He touched the keyboard, the photograph vanishing. He looked at Hollis. “That was well queer.”
“That was her, the photograph?”
“Probably.”
“What did she want?”
“She was offering something. Didn’t really have what I’d most like, but may be able to get it.”
“You won’t tell me?”
“Only because you’d be less safe knowing at this point.” He stroked her hair back from her face, on one side. “Do you know what you’d take with you, if you were going away forever? No more than you can carry at a brisk run.”
“Forever?”
“Probably not. But best to assume you wouldn’t come back here.”
“Not the author’s copies,” indicating the boxes.
“No. But seriously. Pack.”
“I’m not going anywhere without you.”
“That’s the plan. But pack now, please.”
“Is this too big?” indicating her roll-aboard.
“Perfect, but keep it light.”