Virtual Light

The handcuff was rubbing on the rash where the red worm had been. “You a cop?”

“No.”

“Security? Like from the hotel?”

“Uh-uh.”

“Well” she said, “what are you?”

Streetlight sliding across his face. Seemed like he was thinking about it. “Up shit creek. Without a paddle.”

The first thing Rydell saw when he got out of the Patriot, in the alley off Haight Street, was a one-armed, one-legged man on a skateboard. This man lay on his stomach, on the board, and propelled himself along with a curious hitching motion that reminded Rydell of the limbs of a gigged frog. He had his right arm and his left leg, which at least allowed for some kind of symmetry, but there was no foot on the leg. His face, as if by some weird osmosis, was the color of dirty concrete, and Rydell couldn’t have said what race he was. His hair, if he had any, was covered by a black knit cap, and the rest of him was sheathed in a black, one-piece garment apparently stitched from sections of heavy-duty rubber i

Rydell stood there, Samsonite dangling, and watched him go.

Then something rattled beside him. The hardware on Chevette Washington’s leather jacket. “Come on” she said, “don’t wa

“You see that?” Rydell asked, gesturing with his suitcase.

“You hang around back in here, you’ll see worse than that” she said.

Rydell looked back at the Patriot. He’d locked it and left the key under the driver’s seat, because he hadn’t wanted to make it look too easy, but he’d forgotten about that back window. He’d never been in the position before of actively wanting a car to be stolen.

26. Colored people

You sure somebody’ll take that?” he asked her.

“We don’t get out of here, they’ll take us with it.” She started walking. Rydell followed. There was stuff painted on the brick walls as high as anyone could reach, but it didn’t look like any language he’d ever seen, except maybe the way they wrote cuss-words in a printed cartoon.

They’d just rounded the corner, onto the sidewalk, when Rydell heard the Patriot’s engine start to rev. It gave him goosebumps, like something in a ghost story, because there hadn’t been anybody back in there at all, and now he couldn’t see the skateboard man anywhere.

“Look at the ground” Chevette Washington said. “Don’t look up when they go by or they’ll kill us…”

Rydell concentrated on the toes of his black SWATs. “You hang out with car-thieves much?”

“Just walk. Don’t talk. Don’t look.”

He heard the Patriot wheel out of the alley and draw up beside them, pacing them. His toes were making little squelching noises, each time he took a step, and what if the last thing you knew before you died was just some pathetic discomfort like that, like your shoes were soaked and your socks were wet, and you weren’t ever going to get to change them?

Rydell heard the Patriot take off, the driver fighting the unfamiliar American shift-pattern. He started to look up.

“Don’t” she said.

“Those friends of yours or what?”

“Alley pirates, Lowell calls ’em.”

“Who’s Lowell?”

“You saw him in Dissidents.”

“That bar?”

“Not a bar. A chill.”

“Serves alcohol” Rydell said.

“A chill. Where you hang.”

“ ‘You’ who?”

“This Lowell, he hang there?”

“Yeah.”

“You too?”

“No” she said, angry.

“He your friend, Lowell? Your boyfriend?”

“You said you weren’t a cop. You talk like one.”

“I’m not” he said. “You can ask ’em.”

“He’s just somebody I used to know” she said. “Fine.”

She looked at the Samsonite. “You got a gun or something, in there?”

“Dry socks. Underwear.”

She looked up at him. “I don’t get you.”

“Don’t have to” he said. “We just walking, or you maybe know somewhere to go? Like off this street?”

“We want to look at some flash” she said to the fat man. He had a couple of things through each nipple, looked like Yale locks. Kind of pulled him down, there, and Rydell just couldn’t look at them. Had on some kind of baggy white pants with the crotch down about where the knees should’ve been, and this little blue velvet vest all embroidered with gold. He was big and soft and fat and covered with tattoos.

Rydell’s uncle, the one who’d gone to Africa with the army and hadn’t come back, had had a couple of tattoos. The best one went right across his back, this big swirly dragon with horns and sort of a goofy grin. He’d gotten that one in Korea, eight colors and it had all been done by a computer. He’d told Rydell how the computer had mapped his back and showed him exactly what it was going to look like when it was done. Then he had to lie down on this table while this robot put the tattoo on. Rydell had imagined a robot kind of like a vacuumcleaner, but with twisty chrome arms had needles on the end. But his uncle said it was more like being fed through a dot-matrix printer, and he’d had to go back eight times, one time for each color. It was a great dragon, though, and lots brighter than the tattoos on his uncle’s arms, which were American eagles and a Harley trademark. When his uncle worked out in the backyard with Rydell’s set of Sears weights, Rydell would watch the dragon ripple.

This fat bald guy with the weights through his nipples had tattoos everywhere except his hands and his head. Looked like he was wearing a suit of them. They were all different, no American eagles or Harley trademarks either, and they sort of ran together. They made Rydell feel kind of dizzy, so he looked up at the walls, which were covered with more tattoos, like samples for you to pick from.

“You’ve been here before” the man said.

“Yeah” Chevette Washington said, “with Lowell. You remember Lowell?”

The fat man shrugged.

“My friend and I” she said, “we wa

“I haven’t seen your friend before” the fat man said, perfectly nice about it but Rydell could hear the question in his voice. He was looking at Rydell’s suitcase.

“It’s okay” she said. “He knows Lowell. He’s a ’Land boy, too.”

“You bridge people” the fat man said, like he liked bridge people. “That storm was just terrible, wasn’t it? I hope it didn’t do you people too much damage… We had a client last month brought in a wide-angle Cibachrome he wanted done as a back-piece. Your whole suspension span and everything on it. Beautiful shot but he wanted it inked just that size, and he just wasn’t broad enough…” He looked up at Rydell. “Would’ve fit, on your friend here…”

“Couldn’t he get it?” she asked, and Rydell caught that instinct to keep people talking, keep them involved.

“We’re a full-service shop here at Colored People” the fat man said. “Lloyd put it on a graphics engine, rotated it thirty degrees, heightened the perspective, and it’s gorgeous. Now, were you interested in seeing some flash for yourself, or for your big friend here?”

“Uh, actually” Chevette said, “we’re looking for something for both of us. Like, uh, matching, you know?”

The fat man smiled. “That’s romantic…”

Rydell looked at her.

“Just come this way.” The fat man sort of jingled when he walked, and it made Rydell wince. “May I bring you some complimentary tea?”

“Coffee?” Rydell asked hopefully.

“I’m sorry” the fat man said, “but Butch left at twelve and I don’t know how to operate the machine. But I can bring you some nice tea.”

“Yeah” Chevette said, urging Rydell along with little elbow-jabs, “tea.”

The fat man took them down a hallway and into a little room with a couple of wallscreens and a leather sofa. “I’ll just get your tea” he said, and shuffled out, jingling.