Virtual Light

“End game. Al Cliver, Moira Chen, George Eastman, Gordon Mitchell. 1985.”

“Well, I was two” Rydell said, “but I didn’t see that one either.”

Sublett fell silent. Rydell felt sorry for him; the Texan really didn’t know any other way to start a conversation, and his folks back home in the trailer-camp would’ve seen all those films and more.

“Well” Rydell said, trying to pick up his end, “I was watching this one old movie last night—”

Sublett perked up. “Which one?”

“Du

Sublett closed his eyes, sca

“Du

Sublett opened his eyes. “Who was in it?”

“Got me.”

Sublett’s blank silver eyes widened in disbelief. “Jesus, Berry, you shouldn’t oughta watch tv, not unless you’re go

He wasn’t in the hospital very long, after he shot Ke

Wellington Ma’s business card was a rectangular slice of pink synthetic quartz, laser-engraved with his name, “The Ma-Mariano Agency” an address on Beverly Boulevard, and all kinds of numbers and e-mail addresses. It arrived by GlobEx in its own little gray suede envelope while Rydell was still in the hospital.

“Looks like you could cut yourself on it” Rydell said.

“You could, many no doubt have” said Karen Mendelsohn, “and if you put it in your wallet and sit down, it shatters.”

“Then what’s the point of it?”

“You’re supposed to take very good care of it. You won’t get another.”

Rydell never actually did meet Wellington Ma, at least not ’til quite a while later, but Karen would bring in a little briefcase with a pair of eyephones on a wire and Rydell could talk with him in his office in LA. It was the sharpest telepresence rig Rydell had ever used, and it really did look just like he was right there. He could see out the window to where there was this lopsided pyramid the color of a Noxzema jar. He asked Wellington Ma what that was and Ma said it was the old Design Center, but currently it was a discount mall, and Rydell could go there when he came to L.A., which was going to be soon.

Turvey’s girlfriend, Je

Rydell, having become a cop in trouble, was glad to find that Cops in Trouble was right there for him. They’d hired Aaron Pursley, for starters, and of course Rydell knew who he was from the show. He had that gray hair, those blue eyes, that nose you could split kindling with, and wore jeans, Tony Lama boots, and plain white oxford-cloth pima cotton cowboy business shirts with Navajo-silver bob-ties. He was famous and he defended cops like Rydell from people like Turvey’s girlfriend and her lawyer.

Je

“Recovering?” Rydell asked Karen Mendelsohn in his room in the airport Executive Suites. She’d just shown him the fax from Je

“Apparently he’d been to a meeting that very day” Karen said.

“What did he do there?” Rydell asked, remembering the Last Supper in drying blood.

“According to our witnesses, he openly horned a tablespoon of his substance of choice, took the podium by force, and delivered a thirty-minute rant on President Milibank’s pantyhose and the assumed current state of her genitalia. He then exposed himself, masturbated but did not ejaculate, and left the basement of the First Baptist Church.”

“Jesus” Rydell said. “And this was at one of those drug meetings, like A.A.?”

“It was” Karen Mendelsohn said, “though apparently Turvey’s performance has triggered an unfortunate sequence of relapses. We’ll send in a team of counselors, of course, to work with those who were at the meeting.”

“That’s nice” Rydell said.

“Look good in court” she said, “in the unlikely event we ever get there.”

“He wasn’t ‘recovering’” Rydell said. “Hadn’t even recovered from the last bunch he jammed up his nose.”

“Apparently true” she said. “But he was also a member of Adult Survivors of Satanism, and they are starting to take an interest in this case. Therefore, both Mr. Pursley and Mr. Ma feel it best we coast it but soon, Berry. You and me.”

“But what about the court stuff?”

“You’re on suspension from the Department, you haven’t been charged with anything yet, and your lawyer’s name is Aaron-with-two-a’s Pursley. You’re out of here, Berry.”

“To L.A.?”

“None other.”

Rydell looked at her. He thought about Los Angeles on television. “Will I like it?”

“At first” she said. “At first, it’ll probably like you. I know I do.”

Which was how he wound up going to bed with a lawyer– one who smelled like a million dollars, talked dirty, slid all around, and wore underwear from Milan, which was in Italy.

“The Kill-Fix. Cyrinda Burdette, Gudrun Weaver, Dean Mitchell, Shinobu Sakamaki. 1997.”

“Never saw it” Rydebb said, sucking the last of his grande decaf cold capp-with-an-extra-shot from the milky ice at the bottom of his plastic thermos cup.

“Mama saw Cyrinda Burdette. In this mall over by Waco. Got her autograph, too. Kept it up on the set with the prayer-hankies and her hologram of the Reverend Wayne Falbon. She had a prayer-hanky for every damn thing. One for the rent, one to keep the AIDS off, the TB…”

“Yeah? How’d she use ’em?”

“Kept ’em on top of the set” Sublett explained, and finished the inch of quadruple-distilled water left in the ski

“Prayer-hanky won’t keep any AIDS off” Rydell said. “Get yourself vaccinated, like anybody else. Get your momma vaccinated, too.” Through the de-mirrored window, Rydell could see a street-shrine to J.D. Shapely, up against the concrete wall that was all that was left of the building that had stood there once. You saw a lot of them in West Hollywood. Somebody had sprayed SHAPELY WAS A COCK-SUCKING FAGGOT in bright pink paint, the letters three feet high, and then a big pink heart. Below that, stuck to the wall, were postcards of Shapely and photographs of people who must’ve died. God only knew how many millions had. On the pavement at the base of the wall were dead flowers, stubs of candles, other stuff. Something about the postcards gave Rydell the creeps; they made the guy look like a cross between Elvis and some kind of Catholic saint, ski