Virtual Light

But Ski

But if Ski

He looked down the counter, taking in the early-morning profiles of the other customers. Americans. The fact that he was actually here, drinking coffee beside these people, still struck a chord of wonder. How extraordinary. He wrote in his notebook, the pen ticking against the screen.

The apartment is in a tall Victorian house, built of wood and very elaborately painted, in a district where the names of streets honor nineteenth-century American politicians: Clay, Scott, Pierce, Jackson. This morning, Tuesday, leaving the apartment, I noticed, on the side of the topmost newel, indications of a vanished hinge. I suspect that this must once have supported an infant-gate. Going along Scott in search of a cab, I came upon a sodden postcard, face up on the sidewalk. The narrow features of the martyr Shapely, the AIDS saint, blistered with rain. Very melancholy.

“They shouldn’t oughta said that. About Godzilla, I mean.”

Yamazaki found himself blinking up at the earnest face of the girl behind the counter.

“I’m sorry?”

“They shouldn’t oughta said that. About Godzilla. They shouldn’t oughta laughed. We had our earthquakes here, you didn’t laugh at us.”

7. See you do okay

Hernandez followed Rydell into the kitchen of the house in Mar Vista. He wore a sleeveless powder-blue jumpsuit and a pair of those creepy German shower-sandals, the kind with about a thousand little nubs to massage the soles of your feet. Rydell had never seen him out of uniform before and it was kind of a shock. He had these big old tattoos on his upper arms; roman numerals; gang stuff. His feet were brown and compact and sort of bearlike.

It was Tuesday morning. There was nobody else in the house. Kevin was at Just Blow Me, and the others were out doing whatever it was they did. Monica might’ve been in her place in the garage, but you never saw too much of her anyway.

Rydell got his bag of cornflakes out of the cupboard and carefully unrolled it. About enough for a bowl. He opened the fridge and took out a plastic, snap-top, liter container with a strip of masking-tape across the side. He’d written MILK EXPERIMENT on the masking-tape with a heavy marker.

“What’s that?” Hernandez asked.

“Milk.”

“Why’s it say ‘experiment’?”

“So nobody’ll drink it. I figured it out in the dorm at the Academy.” He dumped the cornflakes in a bowl, covered them with milk, found a spoon, and carried his breakfast to the kitchen table. The table had a trick leg, so you had to eat without putting your elbows down.

“How’s the arm?”

“Fine.” Rydell forgot about not putting his elbow down. Milk and cornflakes slopped across the scarred white plastic of the tabletop.

“Here.” Hernandez went to the counter and tore off a fat wad of beige paper towels.

“Those are whatsisname’s” Rydell said, “and he seriously doesn’t like us to use them.”

“Towel experiment” Hernandez said, tossing Rydell the wad.

Rydell blotted up the milk and most of the flakes. He couldn’t imagine what Hernandez was doing here, but then he’d never have imagined that Hernandez drove a white Daihatsu Sneaker with an animated hologram of a waterfall on the hood.

“That’s a nice car out there” Rydell said, nodding in the direction of the carport and spooning cornflakes into his mouth.

“My daughter. Rosa’s car. Been in the shop, man.”

Rydell chewed, swallowed. “Brakes or something?”

“The fucking waterfall. Supposed to be these little animals, they come out of the bushes and sort of look at it, the waterfall, you know?” Hernandez leaned back against the counter, flexing his toes into the nubby sandals. “Some kind of, like, Costa Rican animals, you know? Ecology theme. She’s real green. Made us take out what was left of the lawn, put in all these ground-cover things look like gray spiders. But the shop can’t get those fucking animals to show, man. We got a warranty and everything, but it’s, you know, been a pain in the ass.” He shook his head.

Rydell finished his cornflakes.

“You ever been to Costa Rica, Rydell?”

“No.”

“It’s fucking beautiful, man. Like Switzerland.”

“Never been there.”

“No, I mean what they do with data. Like the Swiss, what they did with money.”

“You mean the kvens?”

“You got it. Those people smart. No army, navy, air force, just neutral. And they take care of everybody’s data.”

“Regardless whatit is.”

“Hey, fucking ‘A.’ Smart people. And spend that money on ecology, man.”

Rydell carried the bowl, the spoon, the damp wad of towels, to the sink. He rinsed the bowl and spoon, wiped them with the towels, then stuck the towels as far down as possible behind the rest of the garbage in the bag under the sink. Straightening up, he looked at Hernandez. “Something I can do for you, super?”

“Other way around.” Hernandez smiled. Somehow it wasn’t reassuring. “I been thinking about you. Your situation. Not good. Not good, man. You never get to be a cop now. Now you resign, I can’t even hire you back on IntenSecure to work gated residential. Maybe you get on with a regular square-badge outfit, sit it that little pillbox in a liquor store. You wa

“No.”

“That’s good, ’cause you get your ass killed, doing that. Somebody come in there, take your little pillbox out, man.”

“Right now I’m looking at something in retail sales.”

“No shit? Sales? What you sell?”

“Bedsteads made out of cast-iron jockey-boys. These pictures made out of hundred-year-old human hair.”

Hernandez narrowed his eyes and shoved off the counter, headed for the bung room. Rydell thought he might be leaving, but he was only starting to pace. Rydell had seen him do this a couple of times in his office at IntenSecure. Now he turned, just as he was about to enter the living room, and paced back to Rydell.

“You got this bad-assed attitude sometimes, man, I du

“Just tell me what you want, okay?”

Hernandez stopped, turned, sighed. “Never been up to NoCal, right? San Francisco? Anybody know you up there?”

“No.”

“IntenSecure’s licensed in NoCal, too, right? Different state, different laws, whole different attitude, they might as well be a different fucking country, but we’ve got our shit up there. More office buildings, lot of hotels. Gated residential’s not so big up there, not ’til you get out to the edge-cities. Concord, Hacienda Business Center, like that. We got a good piece of that, too.”

“But it’s the same company. They won’t hire me here, they won’t hire me there.”

“Fucking ‘A.’ Nobody talking about hiring you. What this is, there’s maybe something there for you with a guy. Works freelance. Company has certain kinds of problems, sometime they bring in somebody. But the guy, he’s not IntenSecure. Freelance. Office up there, they got that kind of situation now.”