Spook Country

“Coming back,” another boy said, pointing.

Tito got to his feet, prepared to run. Suddenly the narrow park leapt into shivering, seemingly shadowless incandescence, the helicopter somewhere high above the new green leaves of the trees. Tito and three others, at the core of the beam. Two of them were resting a full-sized electric piano across the back of a bench, giving the helicopter the finger with their free hands. The other, gri

“Ramone.” As the light went out.

“You want to help us move, man? We got a new practice space. Beer.”

“Sure,” said Tito, knowing he needed to get off the street. “You play anything?” asked Igor. “Keyboards.”

The white dog licked Tito’s hand. “Awesome,” said Igor.

78. THEIR DIFFERENT DRUMMER

M y purse,” she said, as they drove back to Bobby’s. “It’s not in back.” Craning around the seat.

“Sure you didn’t give it to our dustmen?”

“No. It was right there, beside the tripod.” Garreth wanted to give the tripod to the friend who’d arranged the studio for them. It was a good one, he’d said, and his friend was a photographer. Everything else had been passed to his “dustmen,” who’d been waiting in the parking lot, two men in a concrete-spattered pickup, who were being paid to see that it became part of a warehouse foundation they were pouring that morning.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but we really can’t go back.”

She thought of Bigend’s scrambler, which she didn’t mind losing at all. But then she remembered the money from Jimmy. “Shit.” But then, strangely, she found she was glad to be done with that as well. Something oppressive about it, wrong. Otherwise, aside from her phone, the scrambler, the keys to the Phaeton and the flat, her license and her single credit card, there was only some makeup, a flashlight, and some mints. Her passport, she remembered now, was back at Bigend’s.

“They must’ve taken it by mistake,” he said. “But that was strictly a one-way transaction. Sorry.”

She considered telling him about the GPS tracker, but decided not to. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Were your car keys in your purse?” he asked, as they turned off Clark.

“Yes. It’s parked up the street and around the corner, here, behind a dumpster, just before you get to your…alley.” She’d just seen a tall figure in black, getting out of a small blue car parked behind the opalescent bulk of the Blue Ant Phaeton.

“Who’s that?”

“Heidi,” she said. As he drove past the blue car and the Phaeton, she saw Inchmale straighten up on the other side, bearded and more balding than she remembered him. “And Inchmale.”

“Reg Inchmale? Seriously?”

“Past the alley,” she said, “pull over here.”

He did. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know, but I’d better get them out of here. I don’t know what you still have to do, but I’ll bet there’s something. I’ll get them to rescue me. I think that’s probably what they’re here for.”

“Actually,” he said, “that’s a good idea.”

“How do I get back in touch with you?”

He handed her a phone. “Don’t use it to call anyone else. I’ll call you when things are bit more sorted, on our end.”

“Okay,” she said, and was out of the car, ru

“What’s going on?” demanded Heidi, tapping the palm of her hand with the gift-wrapped club.

“We’re getting out of here,” Hollis said, passing her. “How long have you been here?”

“Just got here,” said Heidi, turning.

“What’s that?” Indicating the club.

“An ax-handle.”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

“There she is,” Inchmale said, around the stub of a small cigar, as they reached the blue car. “Where the hell have you been?”

“Get us out of here, Reg. Now.”

“Isn’t that your car?” Pointing at the Phaeton.

“I’ve lost the keys.” Pulling at the rear door of the blue car. “Will you please unlock this?” It unlocked. “Take me somewhere,” she said, getting in. “Now.”

“YOUR PURSE,” said Bigend, “is near the intersection of Main and Hastings. Heading south on Main, currently. On foot, apparently.”

“It must have been stolen,” she said. “Or found. How fast can you get Ollie over here with a spare set of keys?” She’d told him, at the start of the conversation, that she was in this particular bar. Otherwise, she realized, she’d have had to worry.

“Almost instantly. You’re very near the flat. I know the place. They make a very decent piso mojado.”

“Have him bring the keys. I’m not feeling like sitting around in a bar.” She closed Inchmale’s phone and handed it back to him. “He says you should try the piso mojado,” she said.

Inchmale raised an eyebrow. “Do you know that that means ‘wet floor’?”

“Hush a minute, Reg. I need to think.” According to Bigend, he’d ordered Ollie away, when she’d told him to, shortly before midnight, from the live-work building on Powell Street. The GPS unit in the scrambler, Bigend had said, had remained there for about fifteen minutes, then had headed west. From its speed, obviously in a vehicle. A bus, Bigend guessed, because it had made a number of brief stops that weren’t at intersections. She imagined him watching this on that huge screen in his office. The world as video game. He’d assumed, he’d said, that this had been her, headed back to the flat, but then the GPS telltale had gone walkabout, through what Ollie told him was the poorest-per-capita postal code in the country. She had already decided, she knew, for reasons as powerfully visceral as they were mysterious, that she wanted nothing more to do with either Jimmy Carlyle’s fifty hundreds or Bigend’s bugged scrambler.

“Phone,” she said to Inchmale. “And a Visa card.”

He put his phone on the table in front of her and dug out his wallet. “If you’re making a purchase, I’d rather you use that Amex. That’s the one for business expenses.”

“I need their eight-hundred number to report my card stolen,” she said. Ollie arrived while she was dealing with Visa, which kept her from having to speak with him. Inchmale was good at getting rid of people like Ollie. Who left, quickly.

“Drink up,” she said, indicating Inchmale’s Belgian beer. “Where’s Heidi?”

“Chatting up the bartender,” he said.

Hollis leaned out of their white vinyl booth and spotted Heidi in conversation with the blonde behind the bar. Inchmale had insisted on her leaving the ax-handle in their blue Honda rental.

“What are you doing here?” she asked him. “I mean, I appreciate that you’ve come to make sure I’m okay, but how did you get to where you found me.”

“The Bollards weren’t ready to go into the studio, it turned out. Two of them had flu. I called Blue Ant. A number of times. They aren’t really in the book. Then I had to get through to Bigend himself, which was like reverse-engineering every ordinary concept of corporate structure. When I got him, though, he was all over me.”

“He was?”

“He wants ‘Hard to Be One’ for a Chinese car commercial. To run globally, I mean. Only the car is Chinese. He hadn’t heard it for a while. Seeing you jogged his memory. Swiss director, fifteen-million-dollar budget.”

“For a car commercial?”

“They need to make an impression.”

“What did you say?”

“No. Of course. The foot you always start with, right? No. But then he segued into this really interestingly textured bullshit about how concerned he was about you, up here in Vancouver. James Bond shit in the company car, you weren’t checking in, why didn’t I take the Blue Ant Lear up in about fifteen minutes and check on you.”

“So you did?”