in hand, eyes focused in the middle distance, shouting.
"No, goddamnit, no! Not here. Jesus, are you a moron? I said *no*!"
Art reached out to touch her back, noticed that it was trembling, visibly tenseand rigid, and pulled his hand back. Instead, he quietly set about fishing inhis small bag for a change of clothes.
"This is *not* a good time. I'm at Art's grandmother's place, all right? I'lltalk to you later." She threw her comm at the bed and whirled around.
"Everything all right?" Art said timidly.
"No, goddamnit, no it isn't."
Art pulled on his pants and kept his eyes on her comm, which was dented andscratched from a hundred thousand angry hang ups. He hated it when she got likethis, radiating anger and spoiling for a fight.
"I'm going to have to go, I think," she said.
"Go?"
"To California. That was my fucking ex again. I need to go and sort things outwith him."
"Your ex knows who I am?"
She looked blank.
"You told him you were at my grandmother's place. He knows who I am?"
"Yeah," she said. "He does. I told him, so he'd get off my back."
"And you have to go to California?"
"Today. I have to go to California today."
"Jesus, today? We just got here!"
"Look, you've got lots of catching up to do with your Gran and your friendshere. You won't even miss me. I'll go for a couple days and then come back."
"If you gotta go," he said.
"I gotta go."
He explained things as best as he could to Gran while Linda repacked herbackpack, and then saw Linda off in a taxi. She was already savaging her comm,booking a ticket to LA. He called Fede from the condo's driveway.
"Hey, Art! How's Toronto?"
"How'd you know I was in Toronto?" Art said, but he knew, he *knew* then, thoughhe couldn't explain how he knew, he knew that Linda and Fede had been talking.He *knew* that Linda had been talking to Fede that morning, and not her fuckingex (God, he was thinking of the poor schmuck that way already, "fucking ex").Christ, it was *five in the morning* on the West Coast. It couldn't be the ex.He just knew.
"Lucky guess," Fede said breezily. "How is it?"
"Oh, terrific. Great to see the old hometown and all. How're things withPerceptronics? When should I plan on being back in Boston?"
"Oh, it's going all right, but slow. Hurry up and wait, right? Look, don't worryabout it, just relax there, I'll call you when the deal's ready and you'll goback to Boston and we'll sort it out and it'll all be fantastic and don't worry,really, all right?"
"Fine, Fede." Art wasn't listening any more. Fede had gone into bullshit mode,and all Art was thinking of was why Linda would talk to Fede and then book aflight to LA. "How're things in London?" he said automatically.
"Fine, fine," Fede said, just as automatically. "Not the same without you, ofcourse."
"Of course," Art said. "Well, bye then."
"Bye," Fede said.
Art felt an unsuspected cunning stirring within him. He commed Linda, in hercab. "Hey, dude," he said.
"Hey," she said, sounding harassed.
"Look, I just spoke to my Gran and she's really upset you had to go. She reallyliked you."
"Well, I liked her, too."
"Great. Here's the thing," he said, and drew in a breath. "Gran made you asweater. She made me one, too. She's a knitter. She wanted me to send it alongafter you. It looks pretty good. So, if you give me your ex's address, I canFedEx it there and you can get it."
There was a lengthy pause. "Why don't I just pick it up when I see you again?"Linda said, finally.
*Gotcha*, Art thought. "Well, I know that'd be the *sensible* thing, but myGran, I dunno, she really wants me to do this. It'd make her so happy."
"I dunno -- my ex might cut it up or something."
"Oh, I'm sure he wouldn't do that. I could just schedule the delivery for afteryou arrive, that way you can sign for it. What do you think?"
"I really don't think --"
"Come on, Linda, I know it's nuts, but it's my Gran. She *really* likes you."
Linda sighed. "Let me comm you the address, OK?"
"Thanks, Linda," Art said, watching the address in Van Nuys scroll onto hiscomm's screen. "Thanks a bunch. Have a great trip -- don't let your ex get youdown."
Now, armed with Linda's fucking ex's name, Art went to work. He told Gran he hadsome administrative chores to catch up on for an hour or two, promised to havesupper with her and Father Ferlenghetti that night, and went out onto thecondo's sundeck with his keyboard velcroed to his thigh.
Trepan: Hey!
Colonelonic: Trepan! Hey, what's up? I hear you're back on the East Coast!
Trepan: True enough. Back in Toronto. How's things with you?
Colonelonic: Same as ever. Trying to quit the dayjob.
Trepan: /private Colonelonic Are you still working at Merril-Lynch?
## Colonelonic (private): Yeah.
Trepan: /private Colonelonic Still got access to Lexus-Nexus?
## Colonelonic (private): Sure -- but they're on our asses about abusing theaccounts. Every search is logged and has to be accounted for.
Trepan: /private Colonelonic Can you get me background on just one guy?
## Colonelonic (private): Who is he? Why?
Trepan: /private Colonelonic It's stupid. I think that someone I know is aboutto go into biz with him, and I don't trust him. I'm probably just beingparanoid, but...
## Colonelonic (private): I don't know, man. Is it really important?
Trepan: /private Colonelonic Oh, crap, look. It's my girlfriend. I think she'sscrewing this guy. I just wanna get an idea of who he is, what he does, youknow.
## Colonelonic (private): Heh. That sucks. OK -- check back in a couple hours.There's a guy across the hall who never logs out of his box when he goes tolunch. I'll sneak in there and look it up on his machine.
Trepan: /private Colonelonic Kick ass. Thanks.
##Transferring addressbook entry "Toby Ginsburg" to Colonelonic. Receiptconfirmed.
Trepan: /private Colonelonic Thanks again!
## Colonelonic (private): Check in with me later -- I'll have something for youthen.
Art logged off, flushed with triumph. Whatever Fede and Linda were cooking up,he'd get wise to it and then he'd nail 'em. What the hell was it, though?
23.
My cousins visited me a week after I arrived at the nuthouse. I'd never beenvery close to them, and certainly our relationship had hardly blossomed duringthe week I spent in Toronto, trying to track down Linda and Fede's plot.
I have two cousins. They're my father's sister's kids, and I didn't even meetthem until I was about twenty and tracking down my family history. They'reOttawa Valley kids, raised on government-town pork, aging hippie muesli, andcountry-style corn pone. It's a weird mix, and we've never had a conversationthat I would consider a success. Ever met a violent, aggressive hippie with anintimate knowledge of whose genitals one must masticate in order to get abuilding permit or to make a pot bust vanish? It ain't pretty.
Cousin the first is Audie. She's a year older than me, and she's the smart oneon that side of the family, the one who ended up at Queen's University for a BSin Electrical Engineering and an MA in Poli Sci, and even so finished up back inOttawa, freelancing advice to clueless MPs dealing with Taiwanese and SierraLeonese OEM importers. Audie's married to a nice fella whose name I can neverremember and they're gonna have kids in five years; it's on a timetable that sheactually showed me once when I went out there on biz and stopped in to see herat the office.
Cousin the second is Alphie -- three years younger than me, raised in the shadowof his overachieving sister, he was the capo of Ottawa Valley script kiddies, alow-rent hacker who downloaded other people's code for defeating copyrightuse-control systems and made a little biz for himself bootlegging games, porn,music and video, until the WIPO bots found him through traffic analysis andbusted his ass, bankrup
ting him and landing him in the clink for sixty days.
Audie and Alfie are blond and ruddy and a little heavyset, all characteristicsthey got from their father's side, so add that to the fact that I grew upwithout being aware of their existence and you'll understand the absence of anyreal fellow-feeling for them. I don't dislike them, but I have so little incommon with them that it's like hanging out with time travelers from theleast-interesting historical era imaginable.
But they came to Boston
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