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Something about being in there made Rydell feel like he was in one of those old-fashioned submarine movies, the part where they shut off the engines and wait, really quiet, for the depth charges they know are on the way. It was that quiet in here, probably because the bank was so solidly built; the only sound was the ru
The thought added to the illusion.
'Okay, Rydell said, 'assuming all that works, who is it you're looking for, and what was that you said about people dying?
'European male, mid to late fifties, probably has a military background but that was a long time ago.
'That narrows it to maybe a million probables, up here in NoCal.
'How this is going to work, Rydell, is he'll find you. I'll tell you where to go and what to ask for, and one thing and another will bring you to his attention.
'Sounds too easy.
'Coming to his attention will be easy. Staying alive once you do will not'.
Rydell considered. 'So what am I supposed to do for you when he finds me?
'Ask him a question.
'What question?
'I don't know yet, Laney said, 'I'm working on it.
'Laney, Rydell said, 'what's this all about?
'If I knew that, Laney said, and suddenly he sounded very tired, 'I wouldn't have to be here. He fell silent. Clicked off.
'Laney?
Rydell sat listening to the toilet run. Eventually he got up, took his bag down from the hook, and exited the cubicle. He washed his hands in a trickle of cold water that ran into a black imitation marble sink crusted with yellowish industrial soap and made his way back along a corridor made narrow by cartons of what he took to be janitorial supplies.
He hoped that Creedmore and the country music mamma would've forgotten about him, gone away.
Not so. The woman was working on her own plate of eggs, while Creedmore, his beer clipped between his denim thighs, was staring balefully at the two enormous, gypsum-dusted construction workers.
'Hey, Creedmore said, as Rydell walked past, carrying his bag.
'Hey, Buell, Rydell said, heading for the door to the street.
'Hey, where you going?
'To work, Rydell said.
'Work, he heard Creedmore say and 'shit, but the door swung shut behind him, and he was on the street.
15. BACK UP HERE
CHEVETTE stood beside the van, watching Tessa release God's Little Toy. The camera platform, like a Mylar muffin or an inflated coin, caught the day's watery light as it rose, wobbling, then leveled out, swaying, at fifteen feet or so.
Chevette felt very strange, being here, seeing this: the concrete tank traps, beyond them the impossible shape of the bridge itself. Where she had lived, though it now seemed a dream, or someone else's life, atop the nearest cable tower. Way up in a cube of plywood there, sleeping while the wind's great hands shoved and twisted and clawed, and she'd heard the tendons of the bridge groan all in secret, a sound carried up the twisted strands for only her to hear, Chevette with her ear pressed against the graceful dolphin back of cable that rose through the oval hole sliced for it through Ski
Now Ski
But she'd had no way to grieve him in Los Angeles, and now it all came up, came back, the time she'd lived with him. How he had found her, too sick to walk, and taken her home, feeding her soups he bought from the Korean vendors until she was well. Then he'd left her alone, asking nothing, accepting her there the way you'd accept a bird on a windowsill, until she'd learned to ride a bicycle in the city and become a messenger. And soon the roles had reversed: the old man failing, needing help, and she the one to go for soup, bring water, see that coffee was made. And that was how it had been, until she'd gotten herself into the trouble that had resulted in her first having met Rydell.
'Wind'll catch that, she cautioned Tessa, who had put on the glasses that let her watch the feed from the floating camera.
'I've got three more in the car, Tessa said, pulling a sleazy-looking black control glove over her right hand. She experimented with the touch pads, revving the platform's miniature props and swinging it through a twenty-foot circle.
'We've got to hire someone to watch the van, Chevette said, 'if you want to see it again.
'Hire someone? Who?
Chevette pointed at a thin black child with dusty dreadlocks to his waist. 'You. What's your name?
'What's it to you?
'Pay you watch this van. We come back, chip you fifty. Fair? The boy regarded her evenly. 'Name Boomzilla, he said.
'Boomzilla, Chevette said, 'you take care of this van?
'Deal, he said.
'Deal, Chevette said to Tessa.
'Lady, Boomzilla said, pointing up at God's Little Toy, 'I want that.
'Stick around, Tessa said. 'We'll need a grip.
Tessa touching fingers to black-padded palm. The camera platform executing a second turn and gliding out of sight, above the tank traps. Tessa smiling, seeing what it saw. 'Come on, she said to Chevette and stepped between the nearest traps.
'Not that way, Chevette said. 'Over here. There was a path you followed if you were just walking through. To take another route indicated either ignorance or the desire to do business.
She showed Tessa the way. It stank of urine between the concrete slabs. Chevette walked more quickly, Tessa behind her.
And emerged again into that wet light, but here it ran not across the stalls and vendors of memory, but across the red-and-white front of a modular convenience store, chunked down front and center across the entrance to the bridge's two levels, LUCKY DRAGON and the shudder of video up the trademark tower of screens.
'Fucking hell, said Tessa, 'how interstitial is that?
Chevette stopped, stu
'It's what they do, Tessa said. 'Prime location.
'But it's like… like Nissan County or something.
' 'Gated attraction. The community's a tourist draw, right?
'Lots of people won't go where there's no police.
'Autonomous zones are their own draw, Tessa said. 'This one's been here long enough to become the city's number-one postcard.
'God-awful, Chevette said. 'It… ruins it.
'Who do you think Lucky Dragon Corp is paying rent to? Tessa asked, swinging the platform around for a pan across the store.
'No idea, Chevette said. 'It's right in the middle of what used to be the street.
'Never mind, Tessa said, moving on, into the pedestrian traffic flowing to and from the bridge. 'We're just in time. We're going to document the life before it's theme-parked.
Chevette followed, not knowing what it was exactly that she felt.
THEY ate lunch in a Mexican place called Dirty Is God. Chevette didn't remember it from before, but places changed names on the bridge. They changed size and shape too. You'd get these strange mergers, a hair place and an oyster bar deciding to become a bigger place that cut hair and sold oysters. Sometimes it worked: one of the longest-ru
But Dirty Is God was just Mexican food and Japanese music, a pretty straightforward proposition. Tessa got the huevos rancheros and Chevette got a chicken quesadilla. They both had a Corona, and Tessa parked the camera platform up near the tented plastic ceiling. Nobody noticed it up there apparently, so Tessa could do documentary while she ate.