All Tomorrow's Parties

He has become the words, what they mean.

Breguette hands. Tapestry dial. Bombay lugs. Original stem. Signed.

The rain slows, stops. The fat man, who wears plastic sandals, brings Silencio a thick dry cloth.

The fat man peers at him. 'Watches, you say he likes? the fat man asks the black man. 'Yes, the black man says, 'he seems to like watches.

The bearded man drapes the towel around Silencio's shoulders. 'Does he know how to tell time?

'I don't know, says the black man.

'Well, says the fat man, stepping back, 'he doesn't know how to use a towel.

Silencio feels confused, ashamed. He looks down.

'Leave him alone, Andy, the black man says. 'Get me those clothes I brought.

THE black man's name: Fontaine. Like a word in the language of los projectos, a meaning about water. The warm rain in the wooden room.

Now Fontaine leads him through the upper level, where some people call out, selling fruit, past others selling old things spread on blankets, to where a thin dark man stands waiting beside a plastic crate. The crate is upturned, its bottom padded with foam and ragged silver tape, and this man wears a striped cloth thing with pockets down his front, and in the pockets are scissors, and things like the thing Raton liked to run endlessly through his hair, when he had balanced the black perfectly with the white.

Silencio is wearing the clothes Fontaine has given him: they are large, loose, not his own, but they smell good. Fontaine has given him shoes made of white cloth. Too white. They hurt his eyes.

The soap and the warm rain have made Silencio's hair strange as well, and now Fontaine tells Silencio to sit upon the crate, this man will cut his hair.

Silencio sits, trembling, as the thin dark man flicks at his hair with one of the Raton-things from his pockets, making small noises behind his teeth.

Silencio looks at Fontaine.

'It's okay, Fontaine says, unwrapping a small sharp stick of wood and inserting it into the corner of his mouth, 'you won't feel a thing.

Silencio wonders if the stick is like the black or the white, but Fontaine does not change. He stands there with the stick in his mouth, watching the thin dark man snip away Silencio's hair with the scissors. Silencio watches Fontaine, listens to the sound of the scissors, and to the new language in his head.

Zodiac Sea Wolf. Case very clean. Screw-down crown. Original bezel.

'Zodiac Sea Wolf, Silencio says.

'Man, says the thin dark man, 'you deep.

18. SELWYN TONG

RYDELL had a theory about virtual real estate. The smaller and cheaper the physical site of a given operation, the bigger and cheesier the web site. According to this theory Selwyn F.X. Tong, notary public, of Kowloon, was probably operating out of a rolled-up newspaper.

Rydell couldn't figure out a way to skip the approach segment, which was monolithic, vaguely Egyptian, and reminded him of what his buddy Sublet, a film buff, had called 'corridor metaphysics. This was one long-ass corridor, and if it had been physical, you could've driven a very large truck down it. There were baroque sconce lights, virtual scarlet wall-to-wall, and weird tacky texture mapping that tended to gold-flecked marble.

Where had Laney found this guy?

Eventually Rydell did manage to kill the music, something vaguely classical and swelling, but it still seemed to take him three minutes to get to Selwyn F.X. Tong's doors. Which were tall, very tall, and mapped to resemble some generic idea of tropical hardwood.

'Teak, my ass! Said Rydell.

'Welcome, said a breathless, hyper-feminine voice, 'to the offices of Selwyn FX Tong notary public.

The doors swung open Rydell figured that if he hadn't killed the music, it would be peaking about now.

Virtually, the notary's office was about the size of an Olympic pool but scarce on detail. Rydell used the rocker-pad on his glasses to scoot his POV right up to the desk, which was about the size of a pool table, and mapped in that same ramped-down wood look. There were a couple of nondescript, metallic-looking objects on it and a few pieces of virtual paper.

'What's the 'F.X. stand for? Rydell asked.

'Francis Xavier, said Tong who presented as a sort of deadpan cartoon of a small Chinese man in a white shirt black tie black suit His black hair and the black suit were mapped in the same texture, a weird effect and one Rydell took to be unintentional.

'I thought you might be in video' Rydell said, 'like it's a nickname: FX, 'effects, right?

'I am Catholic, Tong said, his tone neutral.

'No offense, Rydell said.

'None taken, said Tong, his plastic-looking face as shiny as his plastic-looking eyes.

You always forgot, Rydell reflected, just how bad this stuff could look if it hadn't been handled right.

'What can I do for you, Mr. Rydell?

'Laney didn't tell you?

'Laney?

'Cohn, Rydell said. 'Space. Laney.

'And…?

'Six, Rydell said. 'Zero. Four. Two.

Tong's plastic-looking eyes narrowed.

'Berry.

Tong pursed his lips. Behind him, through a broad window, at a different rate of resolution, Rydell could see the skyline of Hong Kong.

'Berry' Rydell repeated.

'Thank you, Mr. Rydell, the notary said. 'My client has authorized me to give you this seven-digit identification number. A gold fountain pen appeared in Tong's right hand like a continuity error in a student film. It was a very large pen, elaborately mapped with swirling dragons, their scales in higher resolution than anything else in the site. Probably a gift, Rydell decided. Tong wrote the seven digits on one of the sheets of virtual paper, then reversed it on the desktop so that Rydell could read it. The pen had vanished, as u

'Why not?

'Issues of encryption, Tong said obscurely. 'You have as long as you like to memorize the number.

Rydell looked at the seven digits and began to work out a mnemonic. He finally arrived at one based on his birthday, the number of states when he was born, his father's age when he'd died, and a mental image of two cans of 7-Up. When he was certain that he'd be able to recall the number, he looked up at Tong. 'Where do I go to get the credit chip?

'Any automated teller. You have photo identification?

'Yes, Rydell said.

'Then we are finished.

'One thing, Rydell said.

'What is that?

'Tell me how I get out of here without having to go back down that corridor of yours. I just want a straight exit, right?

Tong regarded him blandly. 'Click on my face.

Rydell did, using the rocker-pad to summon a cursor shaped like a neon green cartoon hand, pointing. 'Thanks, he said, as Tong's office folded.

He was in the corridor, facing back the way he had come. 'Damn, Rydell said.

The music began. He worked the rocker-pad, trying to remember how he'd killed it before. He wanted to get a GPS fix on the nearest ATM, though, so he didn't unplug the glasses.

He clicked for the end of the corridor.

The click seemed to trigger a metastatic surge of bit rot, every bland texture map rewritten in some weirder hand: the red carpet went gray-green, its knap grown strange and unevenly furry, like something at the bottom of a month-old cup of coffee, while the walls went from whore house marble to a moist fish belly pallor the sconce lights glowing dim as drowned corpse candles. Tong's fake-classical theme cracked and hollowed, weird bass notes rumbling in just above the threshold of the subsonic.

It all took about a second to happen, and it took Rydell maybe another second to get the idea that someone wanted his undivided attention.