Idoru

“I guess not.”

“In which case,” Blackwell said, “I have two options. Either I leave the silly bastard to his own resources, or I stay and I do my job and try to adjust to whatever it is this is going to become. And at the end of the bloody day, Laney, regardless, I have to remember where I’d be if he hadn’t come behind the walls at Pentridge to give that solo concert. Aren’t you going to eat that?” Looking at the scrambled eggs going cold on Laney’s plate.

“My job’s done,” Laney said. “It didn’t work out the way you wanted it to, but I did it. Agreed?”

“No question.”

“Then I’d better go. Get me paid off, I’m out of here today.”

Blackwell looked at him with new interest. “That fast, eh? What’s your hurry? Don’t find us agreeable?”

“No,” Laney said. “It’s just that that way’s better all ’round.

“Not what Yama’s saying. Rez either. Not to mention her otherness, who no doubt will voice an opinion in that regard. I’d say you were set to become the court prognosticator, Laney. Unless, of course, that whole business with the Kombinat turns out to be absolute bollocks, and it’s discovered that you simply make that nodal nonsense up—which I for one would actually find quite amusing. But no, your services are very much desired now, you might even say required, and none of us would currently be happy to see you go.”

“I have to,” Laney said. “I’m being blackmailed.”

This brought Blackwell’s lids to half-mast. He leaned slightly forward. The pink worm of scar tissue squirmed in his eyebrow. “Are you?” he said softly, as though Laney had just ventured to confess some unusual sexual complication. “And may I ask who by?”

“Slitscan. Kathy Torrance. It’s sort of personal, for her.”

“Tell me about it. Tell me all about it. Do.”

And Laney did, including the 5-SB trials and their record for eventually turning the participants into homicidal stalkers of celebrities. “I didn’t want to bring that up, before,” Laney said, “because I was afraid you might think I was at risk. That I might go that way.”

“Not that I haven’t had experience with the type,” Blackwell said. “We have a young man in Tokyo right now who is the author of all of the songs Lo and Rez have ever written, not to mention Blue Ahmed’s complete output for Chrome Koran. And he’s an explosives expert. Watch him closely. But we have that capacity, you see. So the safest place for you, Laney, in the event you go werewolf on us, would be right here, at the watchful heart of our security apparatus.”

Laney thought about it. It almost made sense. “But you won’t want me around if Slitscan runs that footage. I won’t want myselfaround. I don’t have any family, nobody else for it to damage, but I’m still going to have to live with it.”

“And how do you propose to do that?”

“I’ll go somewhere where people don’t watch that shit.”

“Well,” said Blackwell, “when you find that fair land, I will go there with you myself. We’ll live on fruit and nuts, commune with all that’s left of bloody nature. But ’til then, Laney, I’m going to have a conversation with your Kathy Torrance. I will explain certain things to her. Nothing complicated. Simple, simpleprotocols of cause and effect. And she will neverallow Slitscan to run that footage of your doppelgänger.”

“Blackwell,” Laney said, “she dislikesme, she has her motive for revenge, but she wants, she needs, to destroy Rez. She’s a very powerful woman in a very powerful, fully global organization. Some simple threat of violenceon your part isn’t going to stop her. It’ll only up the ante; she’ll go to hersecurity people—”

“No,” said Blackwell, “she won’t, because that would be a violation of the very personalterms I will have established in our conversation. That’s the key word here, Laney, ‘personal.’ ‘Up close, and.’ We will not meet, we will not carve out this deep and meaningful and bloody unforgettable episode of mutual face-time as representatives of our respective faceless corporations. Not at all. It’s one-on-one time for your Kathy and I, and it may well prove to be as intimate, and I may hope enlightening, as any she ever had. Because I will bring a new certainty into her life, and we allneed certainties. They help build character. And I will leave your Kathy with the deepest possible conviction that if she crosses me, she willdie—but only after she’s been made to desire that, absolutely.” And Black-well’s smile, then, giving Laney the full benefit of his dental prosthesis, was hideous. “Now how was it exactly you were supposed to contact her, to give her your decision?”

Laney found his wallet, produced the blank card with the pencilled number. Blackwell took it. “Ta.” He stood up. “Shame to waste a good breakfast that way. Ring the hotel doctor from your room and get yourself sorted. Sleep. I’ll deal with this.” He tucked the card into the breast pocket of his aluminum jacket.

And as Blackwell left the room, Laney noticed, centered on the bodyguard’s squeegeed plate and standing upright on its broad flat head, a one-and-a-half-inch galvanized roofing-nail.

Laney’s ribs, an ugly patchwork of yellow, black, and blue, were sprayed with various cool liquids and tightly bound with micropore. He took the hypnotic the doctor had offered, showered at great length, climbed into bed, and was suggesting the light turn itself off when a fax was delivered.

It was addressed to C. LANEY, GUEST:

DAY MANAGER GAVE ME MY WALKING PAPERS. “FRATERNIZING.” ANYWAY, I’M SECURITY HERE AT THE LUCKY DRAGON, MIDNITE ON, YOU CAN GET ME FAX, E-MAIL, PHONE’S BIZ ONLY BUT THE PEOPLE ARE OKAY. HOPE YOU’RE OKAY. FEEL RESPONSIBLE. HOPE YOU’RE ENJOYING JAPAN, WHATEVER. RYDELL

“Good night,” Laney said, putting the fax on the bedside module, and fell instantly and very deeply asleep.

And stayed that way until Arleigh phoned from the lobby to suggest a drink. Nine in the evening, by the blue clock in the corner of the module-screen. Laney put on freshly ironed underwear and his other blue Malaysian button-down. He discovered that White Leather Tuxedo had sprung a few seams in his only jacket, but then the boss Russian, Starkov, hadn’t let the man come with them in the van, so Laney figured they were even.

Crossing the lobby, he encountered a frantic-looking Rice Daniels, so tense that he’d reverted to the black head-clamp of his Out of Control days. “Laney! Jesus! Have you seenKathy?”

“No. I’ve been asleep.”

Daniels did a strange little jig of anxiety, rising on the toes of his brown calfskin loafers. “Look, this is toofucking weird, but I swear– I think she’s been abducted.”

“Have you called the police?”

“We did, we did, but it’s all fucking Martian, all these forms they tick through on their notebooks, and what blood typewas she… You don’t knowwhat blood type she is, do you, Laney?”

“Thin,” Laney said. “Sort of straw-colored.”

But Daniels didn’t seem to hear. He seized Laney’s shoulder and showed him teeth, a rictus intended somehow to indicate friendship. “I have real respect for you, man. How you don’t have any issues.”

Laney saw Arleigh wave to him from the entrance to the lounge. She was wearing something short and black.

“You take care, Rice.” Shaking the man’s cold hand. “She’ll turn up. I’m sure of it.”

And then he was walking toward Arleigh, smiling, and he saw that she was smiling back.