Virtual Light

Rydell continued to check out the San Francisco Homicide look. Which seemed to be old tan raincoats over black flak vests over white shirts and ties. The shirts were button-down oxfords and the ties were the stripey kind, like you were supposed to belong to a club or something. Cuffs on their trousers and great big pebble-grain wingtips with cleated Vibram soles. About the only people who wore shirts and ties and shoes like that were immigrants, people who wanted it as American as it got. But layering it up with a bullet-proof and a worn-out London Fog, he figured that was some kind of statement. The streamlined plastic butt of an N & K didn’t exactly hurt, either, and Rydell could see one peeking out of Svobodov’s open flak vest. Couldn’t remember the model number, but it looked like the one with the magazine down the top of the barrel. Shot that caseless ammo looked like wax crayons, plastic propellant molded around alloy flechettes like big nails.

“If we knew what you already know, Warbaby, maybe that makes everything more simple.” Svobodov looked around the little diner, took a pack of Marlboros out of his raincoat.

“Illegal in this state, buddy” the waitress said, pleased at any opportunity to threaten somebody with the law. She had that big kind of hair. This was one of those places you ate at if you worked graveyard at some truly shit-ass industrial job. If your luck held, Rydell figured, you’d get this particular waitress into the bargain.

Svobodov fixed her with a couple of thousand negative volts of Cop Eye, tugged a black plastic badge-holder out of his flak vest, flipped it open in her direction, and let it fall back on its nylon thong, against his chest. Rydell noticed the click when it hit; some kind of back-up armor under the white shirt.

“Those two Mormon boys from Highway Patrol come in here, you show that to them” she said.

Svobodov put the cigarette between his lips.

Warbaby’s fist came up, clutching a lump of gold the size of a hand grenade.

He lit the Russian’s cigarette with it.

“Why you have this, Warbaby?” Svobodov said, eyeing the lighter. “You smoking something?”

“Anything but those Chinese Marlboros, Arkady.” Mournful as ever. “They’re fulla fiberglass.”

“American brand” Svobodov insisted, “licensed by maker.”

“Hasn’t been a legal cigarette manufactured in this country in six years” Warbaby said, sounding as sad about that as anything else.

“Marl-bor-ro” Svobodov said, taking the cigarette out of his mouth and pointing to the lettering in front of the filter. “When we were kids, Warbaby, Marlboro, she was money.”

“Arkady” Warbaby said, as though with enormous patience, “when we were kids, man, money was money.”

Orlovsky laughed. Svobodov shrugged. “What you know, Warbaby?” Svobodov said, back to business.

“Mr. Blix has been found dead, at the Morrisey. Murdered.”

“Pro job” Orlovsky said, making it one word, projob. “They want we assume some bullshit ethnic angle, see?”

Svobodov squinted at Warbaby. “We don’t know that” he said.

“The tongue” Orlovsky said, determined. “That’s color. To throw us off. They think we think Latin Kings.”

Svobodov sucked on his cigarette, blew smoke in the general direction of the waitress. “What you know, Warbaby?”

“Hans Rutger Blix, forty-three, naturalized Costa Rican.” Warbaby might have been making the opening remarks at a funeral.

“My hairy ass” Svobodov said, around the Marlboro.

“Warbaby” Orlovsky said, “we know you were working on this before this asshole got his throat cut.”

“Asshole” Warbaby said, like maybe the dead guy had been a close personal friend, a lodge-brother or something. “Man’s dead, is all. That make him an asshole?”

Svobodov sat there, puffing on his Marlboro. Stubbed it out on the plate in front of him, beside his untouched tuna melt. “Asshole. Believe it.”

Warbaby sighed. “Man had a jacket, Arkady?”

“You want his jacket” Svobodov said, “you tell us what you were supposed to be doing for him. We know he talked to you.”

“We never spoke.”

“Okay” Svobodov said. “IntenSecure he talked to. You freelance.”

“Strictly” Warbaby said.

“Why did he talk to IntenSecure?”

“Man lost something.”

“What?”

“Something of a personal nature.”

Svobodov sighed. “Lucius. Please.”

“A pair of sunglasses.”

Svobodov and Orlovsky looked at each other, then back to Warbaby. “IntenSecure brings in Lucius Warbaby because this guy loses his sunglasses?”

“Maybe they were expensive” Freddie offered, softly. He was studying his reflection in the mirror behind the counter.

Orlovsky put his hairy fingers together and cracked his knuckles.

“He thought he might have lost them at a party” Warbaby offered, “someone might even have taken them.”

“What party?” Svobodov shifted on his stool and Rydell heard the hidden armor creak.

“Party at the Morrisey.”

“Whose party?” Orlovsky, over those glasses.

“Mr. Cody Harwood’s party” Warbaby said.

“Harwood” Svobodov said, “Harwood…”

“Name ‘Pavlov’ ring a bell?” Freddie said, to no one in particular.

Svobodov grunted. “Money.”

“None of it in Marlboros, either” Warbaby said. “Mr. Blix went down to Mr. Harwood’s party, had a few drinks—”

“Had a BA level like they won’t need to embalm” Orlovsky said.

“Had a few drinks. Had this property in the pocket of his jacket. Next morning, it was gone. Called security at the Morrisey. They called IntenSecure. IntenSecure called me…”

“His phone is gone” Svobodov said. “They took it. Nothing to tie him to anyone. No agenda, notebook, nothing.”

“Pro job” Orlovsky intoned.

“The glasses” Svobodov said. “What kind of glasses?”

“Sunglasses” Freddie said.

“We found these.” Svobodov took something from the side pocket of his London Fog. A Ziploc evidence bag. He held it up. Rydell saw shards of black plastic. “Cheap VR. Ground into the carpet.”

“Do you know what he ran on them?” Warbaby asked.

Now it was Orlovsky’s turn for show-and-tell. He produced a second evidence bag, this one from inside his black vest. “Looked for software, couldn’t find it. Then we x-ray him. Somebody shoved this down his throat.” A black rectangle. The stick-on label worn and stained. “But before they cut him.”

“What is it?” Warbaby asked.

“McDo

“Huh?” Freddie was leaning across Warbaby to peer at the thing. “Mc-what?”

“Fuck chip.” It sounded to Rydell like fock cheap, but then he got it. “McDo

“Wonder if they read it all the way down?” Freddie said, from the rear of the Patriot. He had his feet up on the back of the front passenger seat and the little red lights around the edges of his sneakers were spelling out the lyrics to some song.

“Read what?” Rydell was watching Warbaby and the Russians, who were standing beside one of the least subtle unmarked cars Rydell had ever seen: a primer-gray whale with a cage of graphite expansion-grating protecting the headlights and radiator. Fine rain was beading up on the Patriot’s windshield.

“That porn they found down the guy’s esophagus.” If Warbaby always sounded sad, Freddie always sounded relaxed. But Warbaby sounded like he really was sad, and Freddie’s kind of relaxed sounded like he was just the opposite.

“Lotta code in a program like that. Hide all sorta goodies in the wallpaper, y’know? Ru

“You into computer stuff, Freddie?”

“I’m Mr. Warbaby’s technical consultant.”

“What do you think they’re talking about?”

Freddie reached up and touched one of his sneakers. The red words vanished. “They’re having the real conversation now.”

“What’s that?”

“The deal conversation. We want what they got on Blix, the dead guy.”