She knows too much about the processes responsible for the way product is positioned, in the world, and sometimes she finds herself doubting that there is much else going on. But this is a mood, she tells herself, a bad one in its low-key way, dealt by soul-delay. Somewhere that lagging part of her is being wound in, and her job here is simply to walk, to be in London and let her body know that she is here.
The rain has stopped but drops still fall from ledges and awnings, beading on the nylon of her new Rickson’s. Absently she reaches to touch the place where the tape should be, but it isn’t there. No hole. History erased via the substitution of an identical object.
Just now she wishes lives could be replaced as easily, but knows that that isn’t right. However odd things seem, mustn’t it be to exactly that extent of oddness that a life is one’s own, and no one else’s? Hers has never been without its share of oddness, but something in its recent texture seems to belong to someone else. She’s never lived her life in such a way as to generate sliding doors and secret passages, the hallmarks, she believes, of some basis in bullshit, of an underlying lack of honesty that she doesn’t believe has been hers. She hasn’t ever, previously, been a person to be burgled, followed, assaulted with intent to rob. All the time she’s spent in the world’s various streets, scouting cool for the commodifiers, these things hadn’t happened. Why now? What has she done wrong?
Or is it, she considers, simply that the world had gone in such a different direction, in the instant of having seen that petal drop, that nothing really is the same now, and that her expectations of the parameters of how life should feel are simply that, expectations, and increasingly out of line the further she gets from that window in the SoHo Grand.
Pausing now to stare through a sheet of glass at a Duffer of St. George anorak, weirdness of serotonin-lack coursing through her, she suddenly shivers, remembering the hard grip of the man in Roppongi, the one who’d come from behind. She hasn’t really felt the fear in that, before now, and now it comes up from her core, a cold thing and hard.
“He took a duck in the face.” Well, the other had, really. Took Cayce herself in the face, at however many sudden knots.
Food. In the prolonged absence of: craziness. She moves along until she finds a sandwich shop, small and preglobalized, but also rather smart, as she’s in St. Martin’s Lane by now. She gets egg salad on a narrow baguette, a cup of filter coffee, and carries them to a small table by the window, where she sits, looking out into the street and eating her sandwich.
She’d first seen Covent Garden after a heavy snow, walking with her hand in Win’s, and she remembers the secret silence of London then, the amazing hush of it, slush crunching beneath her feet and the sound made by trapezoidal sections of melting snow falling from wires overhead. Win had told her that she was seeing London as it had looked long ago, the cars mostly put away and the modern bits shrouded in white, allowing the outlines of something older to emerge. And what she had seen, that childhood day, was that it was not a place that consisted of buildings, side by side, as she thought of cities in America, but a literal and continuous maze, a single living structure (because still it grew) of brick and stone.
The Blue Ant cell rings, from the Luggage Label bag. Annoyed that she’s left it on to ring, interrupting her thoughts, she fumbles it out, expecting Boone.
“Hello?”
“Cayce. How are you? Have you slept?” Bigend.
“Yes, I did.”
“Where are you?”
“Saint Martin’s Lane.”
“Very close then. Come to Blue Ant. We need to talk.”
Basic business instinct suppresses the groan, but only barely. “When?”
“As soon as you can.”
“I’m having my breakfast.”
“When you’re done, then. I’ll send a car.”
“No,” wanting as much time as possible in which to get herself up to something like Bigend-speed. “I need to walk.”
“As soon as you can.” He clicks off.
It rings again, immediately.
“Hello?”
“Parkaboy. Where are you?”
“Saint Martin’s Lane.”
“London? I need to run something by you. We’re having a problem. With Judy.”
“Judy?”
“Judy Tsuzuki. Keiko.”
“The girl in the picture?”
“All five-eleven of her. She likes to drink, after work, so she started going over to Darryl’s place, and Darryl, he’s challenged in the girl department. So he gives her drinks and tries to impress her with how big his computer is. That doesn’t work, he demonstrates what a great linguist he is, and the effect her picture’s having on this dork in Japan. He reads her parts of Taki’s e-mails. She’s fucking furious with him, all five-eleven in a leather mini-skirt from the bar. Because he’s a dickhead to do this to this guy in Japan, this guy who’s saying things to her that no man has ever said before—”
“But he thinks she’s a schoolgirl—”
“I know, but she’s had a few drinks, so Darryl is a dickhead—”
“You’re a dickhead too. I’m a dickhead myself for going along with this.” Two older British women look at her as they enter. Look away.
“Let’s save the metaphysics for later. The problem is, Judy feels sorry for the guy, she’s pissed at Darryl, and by extension with us, and she wants to write him back. She wants to send him more pictures, attachments this time, and make him happy. That’s what she says she wants, and if Darryl doesn’t want to go along with it, she says she’ll go to this journalist from the Chronicle she was dating, before, and tell him about this pervy hacker in the Mission who’s working this scam on this guy in Tokyo—because the guy in Tokyo knows something big about that footage in the Net.”
“She knows it’s about that?”
“It’s evident from the translations of Taki’s e-mails. She got them away from Darryl and read them herself.”
“So what do you want from me?”
“How do we make her go away? Tell me.”
“You don’t. You can’t. Let her write to Taki.”
“You serious?”
“Of course I am. Try to keep her in character, if you want to keep it going. Remember, Taki’s in love with who you’ve told him she is.”
“I was afraid of that. Actually I’d pretty much come to the same conclusion. It’s just I hate the loss of control, you know?”
“It was probably an illusion that you were ever in control in the first place.”
“With a dickhead of Darryl’s caliber around, no fucking kidding. What’s happening on your end with that T-thing?”
“It’s being looked at.”
“Who by?”
“Friends of a friend. I don’t really know.”
“You okay, there? You sound tired.”
“I am, but I’m okay.”
“Keep in touch. Bye.”
She looks at the phone and wonders who Parkaboy is. Other, that is, than Parkaboy, ascerbic obsessive theorist of the footage. What does he do when he’s not doing this? She has no idea, and no idea what he looks like or, really, how he came to be as devoted as she knows he is to pursuing any further understanding of the footage. But now, in some way she can’t quite grasp, the universe of F:F:F is everting. Manifesting physically in the world. Darryl Musashi’s pissed-off Japanese-Texan barmaid seems to be an aspect of this.
But she’s glad that someone else dislikes what they’ve done to Taki.
THE phone rings again when she’s nearing Blue Ant.
“Where are you?”
“Almost there. Two minutes.”
He hangs up.
She walks on, past the window of a gallery where the central blue shape in a large abstract canvas reminds her of Taki’s T-bone. What is that? Why bury it in that flare of light? What else might be hidden in other segments?
As she’s reaching out to push the button on the Blue Ant intercom, the door is opened by a dark-ha
ired man in sunglasses, his nose elaborately braced with flesh-colored fabric tape. He freezes for an instant, does an odd little duck-and-weave, then pushes suddenly past her outstretched arm and sprints off down the street, in the direction she’s just come.
“Hey,” Cayce says, catching the door before it can close, the back of her neck prickling.
She steps inside.
“They’re waiting for you upstairs,” says the young receptionist, smiling, a stud glinting on the side of her nose.
“Dickheads,” Cayce says, and looks back at the door. “Who was that who just left?”
The girl looks puzzled.
“Tape on his nose.”
The girl brightens. “Franco. He drives Dorotea, from Heinzi and Pfaff. Been in an accident.”
“She’s here?”
“Waiting for you.” The girl smiles. “Third floor.”
24.
CYPRUS
Bernard Stonestreet, uncharacteristically sour and distracted, is passing the head of the stairs as she reaches the third floor, his upthrust thatch and immaculately disheveled black suit reminding her all too clearly of her previous visit.
“Hullo,” he says, with an instant’s confusion. “I’d wondered where you were. Meeting Hubertus and Dorotea?”
“Looks like it.”
“Is everything all right?” Seeming concerned at her tone.
“Dandy,” she says, biting it off between her front teeth.
“It’s a bit of a surprise, isn’t it?” Lowering his voice slightly, though there’s no one to hear. “Dorotea, I mean.”
“What about her?”
“He’s bringing her in as client liaison for graphics. Entirely counter to the way he structured it in the first place. Always insisted on the designers working directly with the client.” Bernard’s mouth has gone a bit narrow, telling her this. “Though of course she’s experienced.” He shrugs, the beautiful black shoulders of his suit jacket moving expressively. “She gave Heinzi notice—this morning.”
“When was she hired?”
Stonestreet looks surprised. “This morning. I’ve only just been told.”
“Where are they?”
“The room where we met. There.” Indicating a door.
She steps past him.
Opens that door.
“Good morning!” Bigend is seated where Stonestreet had sat, before, at the head of the long table. Dorotea is seated to his left, down the table’s side, toward the door, closer to Cayce. Boone opposite her.
Neither Boone nor Dorotea say anything.
Cayce closes the door behind her, hard.
“Cayce—” Bigend begins.
“Shut up.” It isn’t a voice Cayce has often heard, but she knows when she hears it that it’s her own.
“Cayce—” Boone, this time.
“What the fuck is going on here?”
Hubertus starts to open his mouth.
“Did you just hire her?” Pointing at Dorotea.
“It would be too much to expect you not to be angry,” Dorotea says, with the utmost calm. She’s wearing something soft-looking, in a very dark gray, but her hair is straining back as tightly as ever.
“The man,” Cayce says, turning to Bigend in mid-sentence, “who tried to mug me in Tokyo—”
“Franco,” Dorotea interrupts, quietly.
“Shut up!”
“Dorotea’s driver,” Bigend says, as though that explains everything. He looks, Cayce thinks, even more self-satisfied than usual.
“Mugger,” Cayce says.
“And what did poor Franco do, when he encountered you?” Dorotea asks.
“He ran.”
“Terrified,” Dorotea says. “The doctors in Tokyo told him that if you had been an inch shorter, you might have killed him. The cartilage in his nose might have been driven into his forebrain, is that the word? He’s concussed, has two black eyes, has to breathe through his mouth, and will probably require surgery.”
The lightness of Dorotea’s delivery stops Cayce, as much as the content.
“He isn’t driving, now,” Dorotea concludes, “certainly not for me.”
“Is he mugging, then?” But it’s not the same voice. Something is back in its accustomed box, now. She misses it.
“I’m sorry about that,” Dorotea says. “If I had been there, it wouldn’t have happened. Franco is not so heavy-handed, but someone was demanding results.” She doesn’t shrug, exactly, but somehow conveys the impression of having done so.
“Cayce,” Hubertus says, “I know you’re upset, but would you sit down, please? We’ve just been having an extraordinarily fruitful meeting. Putting our cards on the table. Dorotea knows a great deal about what’s going on, and all of it, it seems, concerns you directly. Very directly, as her business with you predates the Heinzi and Pfaff project—or, at least, our meetings here. Do. Sit.”
Boone, Cayce notes, to her considerable resentment, looks attentive but absolutely neutral, sitting there in his old black coat; some kind of major Chinese-guy poker face going on. He looks as though he should be whistling, but isn’t.
Cayce feels herself make a decision, though she couldn’t say what exactly it is, pulls out the chair at the end of the table and sits, but without putting her legs under the table. If she needs to stand and walk out, it’s one less movement.
“Boone,” Bigend says, “decided that it was necessary to tell me about your interactions with Dorotea, what you knew had happened and what you supposed might have happened.”
“ ‘Supposed’?”
“Correctly supposed, in every case.” Bigend leans back in his chair. He needs the Stetson now, she thinks; he’s started to play to it. “She was very rude and unfriendly, she did burn your jacket, she did send Franco and his associate to burgle your friend’s flat and install a keystroke recorder on the computer there. She did deliberately expose you to an image she knew would unsettle you, during your second meeting here, and she did leave a toy, again meant to frighten you, outside your friend’s apartment. Your friend’s phone is also bugged, incidentally, and Franco has followed you at various times, including your stroll with Boone, during your first meeting together. And of course in Tokyo.”
Cayce gives Boone a look she hopes will be read as “I’ll get to you when I have the time.” Then she swings back to Bigend. “And? What, Hubertus? Knowing that, you hire her?”
“Yes,” Bigend nods, patiently, “because we need her on our side. And now she is.” He looks to Dorotea.
“Cayce,” Dorotea says, “it’s a career decision for me.” She puts a particular stress on “career” that might once have been heard more often on “religious.” “Blue Ant is where I need to be. Hubertus knows this.”
“But, Hubertus,” Cayce offers, “what if Dorotea is . . .”
“Yes?” He leans forward, palms flat on the table.
“A vicious lying cunt?”
Bigend giggles, a deeply alarming sound. “Well,” he says, “we are in the business of advertising, after all.” He smiles. “But you are talking about loyalty, not honesty. And I have a strong yet simple faith that Dorotea can be counted on to be absolutely loyal to . . .” He looks at Dorotea, his expression suddenly quite cold. “Her career.”
Reluctantly, Cayce realizes he may be right.
He’s buying Dorotea’s allegiance with the one thing that literally no one else can offer her: a potentially fast-track position in Blue Ant. And as Cayce recognizes this, she’s suddenly very curious as to what it is that Dorotea knows.
“Then tell me,” she says, facing Dorotea, pointedly ignoring Boone, “what Hubertus imagines I’ll find so very interesting.”
“I like your jacket,” Dorotea says. “Is it new?”
And Cayce will later think that Franco, just then, had come very close to not being the only one to risk having had nasal cartilage driven into his forebrain, but Dorotea is out of immediate reach and Cayce refuses to rise to the bait.
Dorotea smiles. ??
?Three weeks ago,” Dorotea begins, “I took a call in Frankfurt from someone in Cypress. Russian. A tax lawyer, he said. At first it seemed to be about a possible contract for Heinzi, but quickly it became obvious that he required services from my previous line of work.” She raises one eyebrow at Cayce.
“I know about that.”
“He wanted someone made sufficiently uncomfortable to not accept a position at a particular firm. This firm. And you, of course, are that person.” Dorotea folds her hands in her lap. “He came from Cyprus immediately, if indeed he was from Cyprus, and we met. He told me, then, who you were, and of course I had some sense of that from my knowledge of the business, this business. He was clearly aware both of my background and of the way I was positioned vis-à-vis Blue Ant. I noted that, carefully.”
“He was Russian?”
“Yes. Do you know Cyprus?”
“No.”
“It is a tax-shelter domain, for the Russians. It caters to them. There are many Russians there. I was given information regarding you, and paid a retainer.”
“Dorotea,” Boone says, “I didn’t want to interrupt, when you were telling us this earlier, but what form did payment take?”
“U.S. dollars.”
“Thank you.” Boone falls silent again.
“What information?” Cayce asks.
“When did you stop seeing Katherine McNally?” Dorotea asks in reply.
“In February,” Cayce answers automatically, feeling her scalp creep.
“My Russian from Cyprus gave me typescripts of what seem to be her notes.”
Katherine had taken notes, during the sessions, in shorthand.
“From this I learned about your sensitivity to—”
“You don’t need to go into that.” Cayce cuts her off. Could her therapist have betrayed her, this way? Katherine had had doubts about Cayce concluding, it was true, but they had come to an agreement, and had had a good closure. Katherine had wanted to work on her issues around Win, and his disappearance, but Cayce had been living them, and hadn’t wanted to. “I can’t believe that Katherine—”