Virtual Light

He wanted a shower, but he didn’t know when he’d get one. Clean clothes were the next best thing.

Warbaby looked up when Rydell got back to his table. “Freddie’s told you a little about the bridge, has he, Rydell?”

“Says it’s all baby-eatin’ satanists.”

Warbaby glowered at Freddie. “Too colorfully put, perhaps, but all too painfully close to the truth, Mr. Rydell. Not at all a wholesome place. And effectively outside the reach of the law. You won’t find our friends Svobodov or Orlovsky out there, for instance. Not in any official capacity.”

Rydell caught Freddie start to grin at that, but saw how it was pinched off by Warbaby’s glare.

“Freddie gave me the idea you want me to go out there, Mr. Warbaby. Go out there and find that girl.”

“Yes” Warbaby said, gravely, “we do. I wish that I could tell you it won’t be dangerous, but that is not the case.”

“Well… How dangerous is it, Mr. Warbaby?”

“Very” Warbaby said.

“And that girl, she’s dangerous, too?”

“Extremely” Warbaby said, “and all the more because she doesn’t always look it. You saw what was done to that man’s throat, after all…”

“Jesus” Rydell said, “you think that little girl did that?”

Warbaby nodded, sadly. “Terrible” he said, “these people will do terrible things…”

When they got out to the car, he saw that he’d parked it right in front of this mural of J.D. Shapely wearing a black leather biker jacket and no shirt, being carried up to heaven by half a dozen extremely fruity-looking angels with long blond rocker hair. There were these blue, glowing coils of DNA or something spiraling out of Shapely’s stomach and attacking what Rydell assumed was supposed to be an AIDS virus, except it looked more like some kind of rusty armored space station with mean robot arms.

It made him think what a weird-ass thing it must’ve been to be that guy. About as weird as it had ever been to be anybody, ever, he figured. But it would be even weirder to be Shapely, and dead like that, and then have to look at that mural.

YET HE LIVES IN US NOW, it said under the painting, in foot-high white letters, AND THROUGH HIM DO WE LIVE.

Which was, strictly speaking, true, and Rydell had had a vaccination to prove it.

18. Capacitor

Chevette’s mother had had this boyfriend once named Oakley, who drank part-time and drove logging trucks the rest, or anyway he said he did. He was a long-legged man with his blue eyes set a little too far apart, in a face with those deep seams down each cheek. Which made him look, Chevette’s mother said, like a real cowboy. Chevette just thought it made him look kind of dangerous. Which he wasn’t, usually, unless he got himself around a bottle or two of whiskey and forgot where he was or who he was with; like particularly if he mistook Chevette for her mother, which he’d done a couple of times, but she’d always gotten away from him and he’d always been sorry about it afterward, bought her Ring-Dings and stuff from the Seven-Eleven. But what Oakley did that she remembered now, looking down through the hatch at this guy with his gun, was take her out in the woods one time and let her shoot a pistol.

And this one had a face kind of like Oakley’s, too, those eyes and those grooves in his cheeks. Like you got from smiling a lot, the way he was now. But it sure wasn’t a smile that would ever make anybody feel good. Gold at the corners of it.

“Now come on down here” he said, stressing each word just the same.

“Who the fuck are you?” Ski

The gun went off. Not very loud, but sharp, with this blue flash. She saw the Japanese guy sit down on the foor, like his legs had gone out from under him, and she thought the guy had shot him.

“Shut up.” Then up at Chevette, “I told you to get down here.”

Then Sammy Sal touched her on the back of her neck, his fingertips urging her toward the hatch before they withdrew.

The guy might not even know Sammy Sal was up here at all. Sammy Sal had the glasses. And one thing Chevette was sure of now, this guy was no cop.

“Sorry” the Japanese guy said, “sorry I…”

“I’m going to shoot you in the right eye with a subsonic titanium bullet.” Still smiling, the way he might say I’m going to buy you a sandwich.

“I’m coming” Chevette said. And he didn’t shot, not her, not the Japanese guy.

She thought she heard Sammy Sal step back acoss the roof, away from her, but she didn’t look back. She wasn’t sure whether she should try to close the hatch behind her or not. She decided not to because the guy had only told her to come down. She’d have to reach past the edge of the hole to get hold of the hatch and it might look to him like he was going for a gun or something. Like in a show.

She dropped down from the bottom rung, trying to keep her hands where he could see them.

“What were you doing up there?” Still smiling. His gun wasn’t anything like Oakley’s big old Brazilian revolver; it was a little stubby square thing made out of dull metal, the color of Ski

“Looking at the city” she said, not feeling scared, particularly. Not really feeling anything, except her legs were trembling.

He glanced up, the gun staying right when it was. She didn’t want him to ask her if was she alone up here, because the answer might hang in the air and tell him it was a lie. “You know what I’m here for.”

Ski

“Well” Ski

“Shut up.” When the automatic smile went away, it was like he didn’t have any lips. “I’m talking to her.”

Ski

“The glasses.” Now the smile was back. He raised the gun, so that she was looking right into the little hole. If he shoots me, she thought, he’ll still have to hunt for them.

“Hepburn” Ski

“Where?”

“My bike” hoping Sammy Sal didn’t bump into that old rusty wagon in the dark up there, make a noise.

He looked up at the roof-hatch, like he could hear what she was thinking.

“Lean up against the wall there, palms flat.” He moved in closer. “Get your feet apart…” The gun touched her neck. His other hand slid under Ski

He came back to Chevette. “You’re climbing down a ladder. Need yours in front.”

The thing was cool and slick and fused into itself as soon as he had it around her wrists. Flowed together. Moved by itself. Plastic ruby bracelets, like a kid’s toy. One of those tricks with molecules.