The car had been wired. No way Deck could have known it, none at all. Make of it what you like, but if Deck gets nervous, I do what he says.
‘So I grabbed Little Ms Charming here and we left.’
‘You didn’t check in the parking lot under the hotel?’
Deck looked embarrassed. ‘Er, no. Not then. I forget that when you say you’re going to Quat’s you aren’t actually, you know, going there. Anyway: dragged us round Griffith, keeping on the move. It felt…I don’t know.’
‘What?’
Deck shrugged. ‘It felt like someone was following us. But I couldn’t see anyone. Tried your cellular at like fifteen-minute intervals. Busy. In the end decided I had no choice but to come back. This time I did check the lot, but you weren’t there.’
‘I made about five calls once I was out of the Net,’ I said, ‘all of them very short. Mainly to the machine at your place.’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘then your phone’s fucked. Talk to the weirdo about it. Where you been, anyhow?’
‘You were right,’ I said. ‘The guy who called the apartment did mean “now”. They turned up about five minutes after you left. I must have missed you by seconds.’
‘Who’s “they”?’ Laura asked.
I looked at her. ‘The guys in the grey suits.’
‘What the hell were they doing there?’
‘Looking for you, I would guess,’ I said. ‘What are the chances of you answering some questions?’
‘About what?’ she said, digging around in her bag. ‘How stupid you guys are?’
‘About why you blew Ray Hammond’s head off. And who these other guys might be.’
‘Don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said, smiling sweetly. ‘It never happened. You can polygraph me, if you like. I’m clean.’
‘Yes, but not for much longer,’ I said, on the edge of losing my temper. ‘I’ve got hold of a transmitter—from the same guy you dealt with.’ Laura’s smile vanished. ‘He’s delivering it tonight, and ten minutes later all this is going to be back in your head. And guess what? At that stage Deck and I get to walk away. But not you. You’re the only person the cops will be able to connect to the murder, and that’s just the least of your problems.’
‘So what’s the biggie, in your humble opinion?’ she asked, eyes hard.
‘These other guys. They’re a lot tighter on the case than the police are. They called by the Nirvana this morning. And I called your house. They were there. Looking for you.’
‘I don’t believe you. How would you know my number?’
‘Your organizer,’ I said. ‘Your best friend is called Sabi and your birthday’s in November.’
‘That’s private,’ she shouted. ‘That’s my life.’
‘So’s what I’ve got in my head, but you didn’t mind sharing that around. Question is: how did those guys know where you live?’
‘I don’t know. They don’t mean anything to me.’
‘You evidently mean something to them. They got to your house far too quickly from the hotel, by the way. Either there’s more than two of them, or something very strange is going on, which is why I’m not exactly keen to go up to the apartment just now. Whoever these guys are, they’re close on your tail.’
‘Not just mine,’ she snapped. ‘You heard your little friend here. After me, they asked for you.’
‘They’re only looking for me because they know I’ve got you. The flunky at the hotel snitched me under duress.’
‘Bullshit. You know what I’m saying is true.’
I looked out of the window. We were passing Herbie Crouton’s just then, included in the route in its capacity as one of Griffith’s finest architectural achievements. I sent it my customary beat of ill-will, but not with much attention. When I turned back, Deck’s eyes were on me.
‘She right?’ he asked.
I nodded. ‘Probably. The guy I spoke to said something pretty weird. I don’t know what it meant, but it meant something.’
‘No-one just walks away,’ Laura said quietly. ‘That’s not how life works.’ I couldn’t really disagree. In the rear-view mirror she looked small, and alone, and for a little while I wasn’t angry at her.
Seven
The Hard Prose Café is over in the warehouse district of Griffith. It’s not really a warehouse district, of course, just another chunk of reality-flavoured life. During the 80s and 90s people got so used to over-priced bars and restaurants being in cavernous old buildings that they forgot they weren’t originally planned that way. So, when they were laying Griffith out, they built a couple blocks of looming edifices and redeveloped them during construction—building walls and then knocking them out again immediately, to get that authentic feel. The block the Café is on actually has a fake wharf out front: it’s only when you walk right up to it and look down that you realize the ‘river’ is a Plexiglas roof over the subway. Sometimes I think we’ve got so used to chocolate-flavoured drinks that real chocolate would bring us out in a rash.
Laura took it hard when we walked in the Café. I guess it offended her aesthetic sensibilities. It was started by a bunch of Hollywood writers, who wanted somewhere dark to sulk between meetings. The service sucks, it has to be said. You have to book a table for about an hour before you want it, because the management works on the assumption that the clientele will deliver themselves late. It takes you years to attract a waiter’s attention, they’ll change your order in the kitchen without consulting you—and if your meal does ever arrive then someone you haven’t seen in months will pop up from nowhere and take 10 per cent of your food. The interior has never been properly finished, because the contractors only completed half the work before getting decorators’ block, and now spend the whole time revising what they’ve already done and whining about merchandising rights.
Deck and I go there because it’s the only place in the whole of California where you’re allowed to smoke in a public place. Also I quite like the layout, though I sense I’m in a minority. It’s a huge room, two storeys high, with a big circular bar in the centre. Drinks orders come through pretty quickly: I think they’re considered a priority. There’s also a large piece of sculpture to one side, in the shape of—well, I don’t know what it’s in the shape of, to be honest. It was clearly designed to be a conversation piece, but I fancy the conversation generally goes like this:
‘What the fuck is that?’
‘Fucked if I know.’
‘It’s fucking hideous.’
‘Yeah. Let’s burn it.’
All around the sides of the room are wooden nooks and crannies with tables, tiered at irregular heights like paddy fields. In one corner, if you can be bothered, you can clamber up to a platform which is only a little lower than the ceiling, and sit gazing regally down upon a mini-cloud system of second-hand smoke.
I headed us in that direction. I don’t get a chance to act regal very often.
The top table had the additional advantage of being the position that would be most difficult for Laura to run from. She’d been quiet for the rest of the afternoon, sitting silently in the back seat and refusing a tofu burrito when offered one. Which was a relief, to be honest: neither Deck nor I had wanted to compromise our carnivore integrity by ordering one. We left her in the car a few times, when we got out to stretch our legs, but we didn’t go very far. She seemed docile, but I wasn’t going to let that fool me. Before the night was out I had every confidence she would do something trying. The only question was when.
When we’d got up to the high table Deck volunteered to go get some drinks, leaving the two of us alone. I lit a cigarette happily and offered her one, but she just stared at me. ‘I don’t smoke.’
‘Yeah you do. Kims.’
‘I took control of my life and quit.’
I laughed. ‘When, two days ago?’
‘Three, actually.’
‘Bully for you,’ I said, and turned away. Though it was only six, most of the tables below us were taken
, so I sat and watched the people for a while. I used to find it difficult to believe that other humans have lives, that they’re more than bit-part players in the B movie of my life. Only when you see them somewhere like a bar do you realize that they’ve come there for a reason, that they have relationships with the folks they’ve come to see, and that—appearances sometimes to the contrary—they must be actual people. Since I started memory work I didn’t find that so hard to believe. Sometimes, when I’m tired, I feel the distinctions fading away, and can almost believe that instead of being an individual I’m merely part of some continuum of experience: but glimpsing the reality of other people’s lives doesn’t make them any easier to understand, unfortunately. As far as I knew, no-one in the whole history of the world had ever been party to as large a chunk of someone’s actual life as I was with Laura Reynolds, and yet I still found her incomprehensible. I couldn’t see how she had gone from the girl she had been to the woman she was.
‘Does it have to be this way?’ she asked suddenly, startling me. I’d assumed I was in for long-term mute treatment.
‘What?’ I said. ‘I mean, okay, the decor’s kind of patchy, but…’
‘The transfer,’ she said. ‘Do I really have to take it back?’ She looked tired, blue shadows like faint bruises under her eyes. The long sleeves of her dress covered the scars on her wrists, but I knew they must be uncomfortable.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry, but you do. They catch me with your memories in my head and I’ll end up doing your time. And worse.’
She put her elbows on the table and propped her chin on her hands, looking up at me in a way that was clearly supposed to be appealing. It was, as it happens. ‘Why worse? Just because you’re a guy, or because you’ve got a record?’
‘I don’t. Never got caught, and no outstanding warrants.’ I hesitated, then thought what the hell. When she wasn’t being rude she was pleasant company. ‘A few years ago I was involved in a bad incident. Wasn’t my fault: I didn’t know it was going to go down that way. But some people got killed, and one cop in particular was extremely pissed about it. He chased me round the country for a couple years, but then I hired someone to wipe the crime. He had nothing left to hang on me and had to give it up.’
‘Couldn’t he just whack you anyway? Or frame you for something?’
I shook my head. The same thought had occurred to me, many times. ‘Apparently not. From what I can make out, he’s a pretty honourable guy.’
The corner of her mouth twitched sourly. ‘The last of a dying breed.’
‘Hey—I have my moments. Anyhow, this guy is leading the investigation into the murder of the man you killed.’
Laura raised her eyebrows, and seemed to accept that this might represent a problem. ‘Kind of a coincidence, isn’t it?’
I shook my head. ‘He’s a top homicide detective, and Ray Hammond was LAPD brass. It’s the obvious choice. And if he can get me on something legitimate, I’m fucked.’
‘But there’s nothing to link you to the murder. You know that. Like you said, if I’m unlucky, someone could connect me. You weren’t even there.’
‘Someone’s already made the connection. The guys in grey. I’m not spending the next five years looking over my shoulder. I’ve spent too much of my life doing that already.’ Down below I saw that Deck had made it through to the bar, and was ordering drinks in bulk. Sensible man.
Laura wasn’t giving up. ‘But does it have to come back to me? Can’t you just fire it off into the wide blue?’
I shook my head. ‘Doesn’t get rid of it. You do that, all that happens is that it will coalesce somewhere random, on a street or by some stream, and hang around like a cloud. Somebody walks through that cloud, and at least some of it will get into their head. They end up with False Memory Syndrome, think bad things have happened to them, and blame the people closest to them. Lot of families got hurt that way in the early days.’
‘But…’
‘And even if you don’t give a shit about them,’ I interrupted, ‘there’s forensic recallists who can build up a profile of where the memory originally came from. Either way, I’m not doing it.’
‘So that’s it? You just dump it back in me and run away?’
I shrugged. ‘Give me your account details and I’ll get your money back to you—which I think is fairly cool of me, given that you’ve cost me a week’s work and a whole stack of brownie points with my employer.’
‘But what am I supposed to…’
Suddenly I felt tired. ‘I’m sick of answering questions, Laura. Why don’t you try it, for a change? This is your mess, not mine. Why did you kill him? Why did you try to kill yourself last night? What are your problems, and why can’t you deal with them?’
‘Mind your own business, asshole,’ she said, and turned away.
At that moment Deck arrived at the table, followed by a couple of waiters struggling under the weight of trays loaded with drinks.
‘Having fun, are we?’ Deck asked.
‘Unimprovable,’ I said.
At twenty to eight I was standing at the bar, checking my watch. I was considering the best way to run the pick-up, and getting another round of drinks. Laura had insisted, as she’d already done several times. She was pretty drunk, and had got that way quickly. It took me a little while to realize that she might have been draining the bottle in her bag during the afternoon. When I did so, I felt embarrassed for her. I’m no stranger to alcohol-based beverages, nor unfamiliar with their effects. But I drink for fun, and because I like the taste. Occasionally as a cheap escape hatch from life, real or otherwise. Laura didn’t take it that way. Nobody but Russians drink vodka for the flavour, and they seldom mix it with cranberry juice. Laura drank in gulps, as if taking medicine, and with a grim determination—as if some part of her mind was prescribing a remedy which she knew could only make things worse. It was none of my business, and there was nothing I could do about it. I needed her to stay where she was and not give us grief, so I ordered her another drink.
I was fairly confident that just as soon as the bartender had finished being cool, he’d serve it to me, along with the others I’d ordered. He was one of those people who have to load every single action with a little flourish and twirl, and he was really getting on my nerves. I don’t want added value from bartenders: I just want my fucking drink.
My plan was that Deck should stay up at the table with Laura, and that at eight I’d come back down and walk the floor. Quat would presumably have furnished the hacker with a description of me, and he’d implied that the guy would be fairly easy to spot. Once that was done we’d return to the hotel, I’d get someone to baby-sit Laura for a few minutes, or lock her in the car, and Deck and I would fetch the receiver from my apartment. Deck disagreed with this part of the plan, and had done so all afternoon, saying we should have gone and got the receiver first. Going back to the apartment constituted taking a risk, and I didn’t want to have to do that until as late in the day as possible. Assuming that part of the evening passed off without incident I’d find a motel, effect the transfer, and tell Laura she was free to go. A night full of paid dreams, and tomorrow would see me right back where I had been a week ago. I felt keyed up, but no more than that.
I was waiting to finger the credit slip, and glaring at the frieze painted around the top of the bar, when the evening started to go weird. The painting showed, in stylized daubs, the gods and goddesses of classical mythology, and I was thinking how dull our understanding of gods was. A Goddess of Love, a God of War, a God in charge of Being Drunk: all like Vice-Presidents in some Earth Inc., under the Chairmanship of Mr Zeus, Snr. No vague spirits, no shadowed presences, no essence in spaces and gaps; just a good old line management structure. Modern religions are even worse, on the whole: simply a streamlining. In the old days at least God was a kind of Howard Hughes figure, with a bit of pizzazz: now He comes across like the ageing senior partner of a provincial firm of accountants. A small office above the main dra
g in some backwater town, the ticking of clocks on slow afternoons, dusty rooms full of guys who belong to the Rotary and genuinely give a shit when the new Buick’s coming out.
Yet still people reach out, like they still want to believe in UFOs. You’d think by now, when there have been so many false alarms, and so much waiting, and still the black obelisk hasn’t turned up, that we’d have lost interest in the idea of aliens. But still we wait for little guys with pointy ears to ask politely to be taken to our leader, just as we still go to psychiatrists and faith healers when the only reality they offer are their bills. We don’t trust ourselves with our lives, and we’re all still waiting for the deus ex machina.
Something made me turn around. By this time I was a few beers down myself, and I thought maybe I’d caught a reflection of someone I recognized in the mirror behind the bar. I couldn’t tell whether it had been a man or a woman, and when I looked I didn’t see anyone I knew. Bunch of people sitting at tables, talking loud and fast: young guys in over-designed suits; women buoyant with the kind of unnecessary attractiveness that makes you wish they’d go somewhere else so you wouldn’t waste your evening covertly staring at them. I panned my eyes slowly over the throng, seeing nothing more out of the ordinary than you’d expect in a Griffith bar. Yet suddenly I felt on edge.
‘Sir?’ The barman was waving the credit slip at me, everything in his demeanour suggesting he’d been waiting for a couple of days instead of a few seconds. Still distracted and scoping the crowds, I rested my finger on the pad at the bottom of the slip, where the sensor would read my DNA, cross-reference to my bank account, and debit the amount required. ‘There’s a space there for a gratuity,’ the young man helpfully pointed out.
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