Virtual Light Page 21

  Mrs. Elliott had taken care of getting her husband’s brain relocated the night before, and she said it had made her kind of emotional, so she’d decided to rent this RV and drive it back to Altadena, just take her time and enjoy the trip. Trouble was, she didn’t know San Francisco, and she’d picked it up that morning at this rental place on sixth and gotten lost looking for a freeway. Wound up driving around in the Haight, which she said did not look at all like a safe neighborhood but was certainly very interesting.

  The loose handcuff kept falling out of the sleeve of Skinner’s jacket, but Mrs. Elliott was too busy talking to notice. Rydell was driving, Chevette was in the middle, and Mrs. Elliot was on the passenger side. The RV was Japanese, and had these three power-adjustable buckets up front, with headrests with speakers built in.

  Mrs. Elliot had told Rydell she was lost and did he know the city and could he drive her to where she could get on the highway to Los Angeles? Rydell had sort of gawked at her for a minute, then shook himself and said he’d be glad to, and this was his friend Chevette, who knew the city, and he was Berry Rydell.

  Mrs. Elliot said Chevette was a pretty name.

  So here they were, headed out of San Francisco, and Chevette had a pretty good idea that Rydell was going to try to talk Mrs. Elliott into letting them go along with her. That was all she could think of to do, herself, and here they were off the street and headed away from the guy who’d shot Sammy and from that Warbaby and those Russian cops, which seemed like a good idea to her, and aside from her stomach feeling like it was starting to eat itself, she felt a little better.

  Rydell drove past an In-and-Out Burger place and she remembered how this boy she knew called Franklin, up in Oregon, had taken a pellet-gun over to an In-and-Out and shot out the B and the R, so it just said IN-AND-OUT URGE. She’d told Lowell about that, but he hadn’t thought it was funny. Now she thought about how she’d told Rydell stuff about Lowell that Lowell would go ballistic if he ever found out about, and here Rydell was the next thing to a cop. But it bothered her how Lowell had been, the night before. There he was, all cool and heavy with his connections and everything, and she tells him she’s in trouble and somebody’s just shot Sammy Sal and they’re gonna be after her for sure, and him and Codes just sit there, giving each other these looks, like they like this story less by the minute, and then the big motherfucker cop in the raincoat walks in and they’re about to shit themselves.

  Served her right. She hadn’t had a single friend liked Lowell much, and Skinner had hated him on sight. Said Lowell had his head so far up his ass, he might as well just climb in after it and disappear. But she just hadn’t ever really had a boyfriend before, not like that, and he’d been so nice to her at first. If he just hadn’t started in doing that dancer, because that brought the asshole out in him real fast, and then Codes, who hadn’t ever liked her, could get him going about how she was just a country girl. Fuck that.

  ‘You know,’ she said, ‘I don’t get something to eat soon, I think I’ll die.’

  And Mrs. Elliott started making a fuss about how Rydell should stop immediately and get something for Chevette, and how sorry she was she hadn’t thought to ask if they’d had breakfast.

  ‘Well,’ Rydell said, frowning into the rear-view, ‘I really would like to miss the, uh, lunch-hour traffic here…’

  ‘Oh,’ Mrs. Elliott said. Then she brightened. ‘Chevette, dear, if you’ll just go in the back, you’ll find a fridge there. I’m sure the rental people have put a snack basket in there. They almost always do.’

  Sounded fine to Chevette. She undid her harness and edged back between her seat and Mrs. Elliott’s. There was a little door there and when she went through it the lights came on. ‘Hey,’ she said, ‘it’s a whole little house back here…’

  ‘Enjoy!’ said Mrs. Elliott.

  The light stayed on when she closed the door behind her. She hadn’t ever seen the inside of one of these things before, and the first thing she thought of was that it had nearly as much space as Skinner’s room, plus it was about ten times more comfortable. Everything was gray, gray carpet and gray plastic and gray imitation leather. And the fridge turned out to be this cute little thing built into a counter, with this basket in there, wrapped up in plastic with a ribbon on it. She got the plastic off and there was some wine, little cheeses, an apple, a pear, crackers, and a couple of chocolate bars. There was Coke in the fridge, too, and bottled water. She sat on the bed and ate a cheese, a bunch of crackers, a chocolate bar that was made in France, and drank a bottle of water. Then she tried out the tv, which had twenty-three channels on downlink.

  When she was done, she put the empty bottle and the torn paper and stuff in a little wastebasket built into the wall, cut the tv off, took off her shoes, and lay back on the bed.

  It was strange, to stretch out on a bed in a little room that was moving, she didn’t know where, and she wondered where she’d be tomorrow.

  Just before she fell asleep, she remembered that she still had Codes’ bag of dancer stuck down in her pants. She’d better get rid of that. She figured there was enough there to go to jail for.

  She thought about how it made you feel, and how weird it was that people spent all that money to feel that way.

  She sure wished Lowell hadn’t liked to feel that way.

  She woke up when he lay down beside her, the RV moving but she knew it must’ve stopped before. The lights were off.

  ‘Who’s driving?’ she said.

  ‘Mrs. Armbruster.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Mrs. Elliott. Mrs. Armbruster was this teacher I had, looked like her.’

  ‘Where’s she driving to?’

  ‘Los Angeles. Told her I’d take over when she got tired. Told her not to bother waking us up when she goes through at the state line. Lady like that, if she tells ’em she’s not carrying any agricultural products, they’ll probably let her through without checking back here.’

  ‘What if they do?’

  He was close enough to her on the narrow bed that she could feel it when he shrugged.

  ‘Rydell?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘How come there’s Russian cops?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘You watch on tv, like a cop show, about half the big cops are always Russian. Or those guys back there on the bridge. How come Russian?’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘they kind of exaggerate that on tv, ’cause of the Organizatsiya thing, how people like to see shows about that. But the truth is, you get a situation where there’s Russians running most of your mob action, you’ll want to get you some Russian cops…’ She heard him yawn. Felt him stretch.

  ‘Are they all like those two came to Dissidents?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘There’s always some crooked cops, but that’s just the way it is…’

  ‘What’ll we do, when we get to Los Angeles?’

  But he didn’t answer, and after a while he started to snore.

  29 Dead mall

  Rydell opened his eyes.

  Vehicle not moving.

  He held his Timex up in front of his face and used the dial-light. 3:15 PM. Chevette Washington was curled up beside him in her biker jacket. Felt like sleeping next to a piece of old luggage.

  He rolled over until he could find the shade over the window beside him and raise it a little. As dark out there as it was in here.

  He’d been dreaming about Mrs. Armbruster’s class, fifth grade at Oliver North Elementary. They were about to be let out because LearningNet said there was too much Kansas City flu around to keep the kids in Virginia and Tennessee in school that week. They were all wearing these molded white paper masks the nurses had left on their seats that morning. Mrs. Armbruster had just explained the meaning of the word pandemic. Poppy Markoff, who sat next to him and already had tits out to here, had told Mrs. Armbruster that her daddy said the KC flu could kill you in the time it took to walk out to the bus. Mrs. Armbruster, wearing her own mask, the micropore
kind from the drugstore, started in about the word panic, tying that into pandemic because of the root, but that was where Rydell woke up.

  He sat up on the bed. He had a headache and the start of a cold. Kansas City flu. Maybe Mokola fever.

  ‘Don’t panic,’ he said, under his breath.

  But he sort of had this feeling.

  He got up and felt his way to the front. A little bit of light there, coming from under the door. He found the handle. Eased it open a crack.

  ‘Hey there.’ Gold at the edges of a smile. Square little automatic pointing at Rydell’s eye. He’d swung the passenger-side bucket around and tilted it back. Had his boots up on the middle seat. Had the dome-light turned down low.

  ‘Where’s Mrs. Elliott?’

  ‘Mrs. Elliott is gone.’

  Rydell opened the door the rest of the way. ‘She work for you?’

  ‘No,’ the man said. ‘She’s IntenSecure.’

  ‘They put her on that plane to keep track of me?’

  The man shrugged. Rydell noticed that the gun didn’t move at all when he did that. He was wearing surgical gloves, and that same long coat he’d had on when he’d gotten out of the Russians’ car, like an Australian duster made out of black micropore.

  ‘How’d she know to pick us up by that tattoo parlor?’

  ‘Warbaby had to be good for something. He had a couple of people on you for backup.’

  ‘Didn’t see anybody,’ Rydell said.

  ‘Weren’t supposed to.’

  ‘Tell me something,’ Rydell said. ‘You the one did that Blix guy, up in the hotel?’

  The man looked at him over the barrel of the gun. That small a bore, ordinarily, wouldn’t mean much damage, so Rydell figured the ammunition would be doctored some way. ‘I don’t see what it’s got to do with you,’ he said.

  Rydell thought about it. ‘I saw a picture of it. You just don’t look that crazy.’

  ‘It’s my job,’ he said.

  Uh-huh, Rydell thought, just like running a french-fry computer. There was a fridge and sink on the right side of the door, so he knew he couldn’t move that way. If he went left, he figured the guy’d just stitch through the bulkhead, probably get the girl, too.

  ‘Don’t even think about it.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘The hero thing. The cop shit.’ He took his feet off the center bucket. ‘Just do this. Slowly. Very. Get into the driver’s seat and put your hands on the wheel. Nine o’clock and two o’clock. Keep them there. If you don’t keep them there, I’ll shoot you behind your right ear. But you won’t hear it.’ He had this kind of slow, even tone, reminded Rydell of a vet talking to a horse.

  Rydell did like he was told. He couldn’t see anything outside. Just dark, and the reflections from the dome light. ‘Where are we?’ he asked.

  ‘You like malls, Rydell? You got malls back in Knoxville?’

  Rydell looked at him sideways.

  ‘Eyes front, please.’

  ‘Yeah, we got malls.’

  ‘This one didn’t do so well.’

  Rydell squeezed the foam padding on the wheel.

  ‘Relax.’

  Rydell heard him give the bulkhead a kick with the heel of one boot. ‘Miss Washington! Rise and shine, Miss Washington! Do us the favor of your presence.’

  Rydell heard the double thump as she startled from sleep, tried to jump up, hit her head, fell off the bed. Then he saw her white face reflected in the windshield, there in the doorway. Saw her see the man, the gun.

  Not the screaming kind. ‘You shot Sammy Sal,’ she said.

  ‘You tried to electrocute me,’ the man said, like he could afford to see the humor in it now. ‘Come out here, turn around, and straddle the central console. Very slowly. That’s right. Now lean forward and brace your hands on the seat.’

  She wound up next to Rydell, her legs on either side of the instrument console, facing backward. Like she was riding some cafe-racer.

  Gave him about a two-inch difference of arc between shooting either one of them in the head.

  ‘I want you to take your jacket off,’ he said to her, ‘so you’ll have to take your hands off the seat to do that. See if you can manage to keep at least one hand on the seat at all times. Take plenty of time.’

  When she’d gotten it to where she could shrug it off her left shoulder, it fell over against the man’s legs.

  ‘Are there any hypodermic needles in here,’ he said, ‘any blades, dangerous objects of any kind?’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘How about electrical charges? You don’t have a great record for that.’

  ‘Just the asshole’s glasses and a phone.’

  ‘See, Rydell,’ he said, ‘ “the asshole.” How he’ll be remembered. Nameless. Another nameless asshole…’ He was going through the jacket’s pockets with his free hand. Came up with the case and the phone and put them on the RV’s deep, padded dash-panel. Rydell had his head turned now and was watching him, even though he’d been told not to. He watched the gloved hand open the case by feel, take out the black glasses. That was the only time those eyes left him, to check those glasses, and that took about a second.

  ‘That’s them,’ Rydell said. ‘You got ’em now.’

  The hand put them back in their case, closed it. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Now what?’

  The smile went away. When it did, it looked like he didn’t have any lips. Then it came back, wider and steeper.

  ‘You think you could get me a Coke out of the fridge? All the windows, the door back there, are sealed.’

  ‘You want a Coke?’ Like she didn’t believe him. ‘You’re gonna shoot me. When I get up.’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘not necessarily. Because I want a Coke. My throat’s a little dry.’

  She turned her head to look at Rydell, eyes big with fear.

  ‘Get him his Coke,’ Rydell said.

  She got off the console and edged through, into the back, there, but just by the door, where the fridge was.

  ‘Look out the front,’ he reminded Rydell. Rydell saw the fridge-light come on, reflected there, caught a glimpse of her squatting down.

  ‘D-diet or regular?’ she said.

  ‘Diet,’ he said, ‘please.’

  ‘Classic or decaf?’

  ‘Classic.’ He made a little sound that Rydell thought might be a laugh.

  ‘There’s no glasses.’

  He made the sound again. ‘Can.’

  ‘K-kinda messy,’ she said, ‘m-my hand’s shakin’—’

  Rydell looked sideways, saw him take the red can, some brown cola dripping off the side. ‘Thank you. You can take your pants off now.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Those black ones you’re wearing. Just peel them down, slow. But I like the socks. Say we’ll keep the socks.’

  Rydell caught the expression on her face, reflected in the black windshield, then saw how it went sort of blank. She bent, working the tight pants down.

  ‘Now get back on the console. That’s right. Just like you were. Let me look at you. You want to look too, Rydell?’

  Rydell turned, saw her squatting there, her bare legs smooth and muscular, dead white in the glow of the dome-light. The man took a long swallow of Coke, watching Rydell around the rim. He put the can down on the dash-panel and wiped his mouth with the back of his gloved hand. ‘Not bad, huh, Rydell?’ with a nod toward Chevette Washington. ‘Some potential there, I’d say.’

  Rydell looked at him.

  ‘Is this bothering you, Rydell?’

  Rydell didn’t answer.

  The man made the sound that might’ve been a laugh. Drank some Coke. ‘You think I enjoyed having to mess that shitbag up the way I did, Rydell?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘But you think I did. I know you think I enjoyed it. And I did, I did enjoy it. But you know what the difference is?’

  ‘The difference?’

  ‘I didn’t have a hard on when I did it.
That’s the difference.’

  ‘Did you know him?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I mean like was it personal, why you did that?’

  ‘Oh, I guess you could say I knew him. I knew him. I knew him like you shouldn’t have to know anyone, Rydell. I knew everything he did. I’d go to sleep, nights, listening to the sound of him breathing. It got so I could judge how many he’d had, just by his breathing.’

  ‘He’d had?’

  ‘He drank. Serbian. You were a policeman, weren’t you?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Ever have to watch anybody, Rydell?’

  ‘I never got that far.’

  ‘It’s a funny thing, watching someone. Traveling with them. They don’t know you. They don’t know you’re there. Oh, they guess. They assume you’re there. But they don’t know who you are. Sometimes you catch them looking at someone, in the lobby of the hotel, say, and you know they think it’s you, the one who’s watching. But it never is. And as you watch them, Rydell, over a period of months, you start to love them.’

  Rydell saw a shiver go through Chevette Washington’s tensed white thigh.

  ‘But then, after a few more months, twenty flights, two dozen hotels, well, it starts to turn itself around…’

  ‘You don’t love them?’

  ‘No. You don’t. You start to wait for them to fuck up, Rydell. You start to wait for them to betray the trust. Because a courier’s trust is a terrible thing. A terrible thing.’

  ‘Courier?’

  ‘Look at her, Rydell. She knows. Even if she’s just riding confidential papers around San Francisco, she’s a courier. She’s entrusted, Rydell. The data becomes a physical thing. She carries it. Don’t you carry it, baby?’

  She was still as some sphinx, white fingers deep in the gray fabric of the center bucket.

  ‘That’s what I do, Rydell. I watch them carry it. I watch them. Sometimes people try to take it from them.’ He finished the Coke. ‘I kill those people. Actually that’s the best part of the job. Ever been to San Jose, Rydell?’