Mona Lisa Overdrive

  Her nose began to bleed. "Poison?"

  Your father‘s vévés are altered, partially erased, redrawn. Though you have ceased to poison yourself, still the Horsemen cannot reach you. I am of a different order.

  There was a terrible pain in her head, blood pounding in her temples . . . "Please . . ."

  Hear me. You have enemies. They plot against you. Much is at stake, in this. Fear poison, child!

  She looked down at her hands. The blood was bright and real. The buzzing sound grew louder. Perhaps it was in her head. "Please! Help me! Explain . . ."

  You cannot remain here. It is death.

  And Angie fell to her knees in the sand, the sound of the surf crashing around her, dazzled by the sun. The Dornier was hovering nervously in front of her, two meters away. The pain receded instantly. She wiped her bloodied hands on the sleeves of the blue jacket. The remote’s cluster of cameras whirred and rotated.

  "It’s all right," she managed. "A nosebleed. It’s only a nosebleed . . ." The Dornier darted forward, then back. "I’m going back to the house now. I’m fine." It rose smoothly out of sight.

  Angie hugged herself, shaking. No, don‘t let them see. They‘ll know something happened, but not what. She forced herself to her feet, turned, began to trudge back up the beach, the way she’d come. As she walked, she searched the mountain jacket’s pockets for a tissue, anything, something to wipe the blood from her face.

  When her fingers found the corners of the flat little packet, she knew instantly what it was. She halted, shivering. The drug. It wasn’t possible. Yes, it was. But who? She turned and stared at the Dornier until it slid away.

  The packet. Enough for a month.

  Coup-poudre

  . Fear poison, child.

  4

  Squat

  Mona dreamed she was dancing the cage back in some Cleveland juke, naked in a column of hot blue light, where the faces thrusting up for her through the veil of smoke had blue light snagged in the whites of their eyes. They wore the expression men always wore when they watched you dance, staring real hard but locked up inside themselves at the same time, so their eyes told you nothing at all and their faces, in spite of the sweat, might have been carved from something that only looked like flesh.

  Not that she cared how they looked, when she was in the cage, high and hot and on the beat, three songs into the set and the wiz just starting to peak, new strength in her legs sending her up on the balls of her feet . . .

  One of them grabbed her ankle.

  She tried to scream, only it wouldn’t come, not at first, and when it did it was like something ripped down inside her, hurt her, and the blue light shredded, but the hand, the hand was still there, around her ankle. She came up off the bed like a pop-up toy, fighting the dark, clawing hair away from her eyes.

  "Whatsa matter, babe?"

  He put his other hand against her forehead and shoved her back, down into the pillow’s hot depression.

  "Dream . . ." The hand was still there and it made her want to scream. "You got a cigarette, Eddy?" The hand went away, click and flare of the lighter, the planes of his face jumping out at her as he lit one, handed it to her. She sat up quickly, drew her knees up under her chin with the army blanket over them like a tent, because she didn’t feel like anybody touching her then at all.

  The scavenged plastic chair’s broken leg made a warning sound as he leaned back and lit his own cigarette. Break, she thought, pitch him on his ass so he gets to hit me a few times. At least it was dark, so she didn’t have to look at the squat. Worst thing was waking up with a bad head, too sick to move, when she’d come in crashing and forgotten to retape the black plastic, hard sun to show her all the little details and heat the air so the flies could get going.

  Nobody ever grabbed her, back in Cleveland; anybody numb enough to reach through that field was already too drunk to move, maybe to breathe. The tricks never grabbed her either, not unless they’d squared it with Eddy, paid extra, and that was just pretend.

  Whichever way they wanted it, it got to be a kind of ritual, so it seemed to happen in a place outside your life. And she’d gotten into watching them, when they lost it. That was the interesting part, because they really did lose it, they were totally helpless, maybe just for a split second, but it was like they weren’t even there.

  "Eddy, I’m gonna go crazy, I gotta sleep here anymore."

  He’d hit her before, for less, so she put her face down, against her knees and the blanket, and waited.

  "Sure," he said, "you wanna go back to the catfish farm? Wanna go back to Cleveland?"

  "I just can’t make this anymore . . ."

  "Tomorrow."

  "Tomorrow what?"

  "That soon enough for you? Tomorrow night, private fucking jet? Straight up to New York? Then you gonna quit giving me this shit?"

  "Please, baby," and she reached out for him, "we can take the train . . ."

  He slapped her hand away. "You got shit for brains."

  If she complained any more, anything about the squat, anything that implied he wasn’t making it, that all his big deals added up to nothing, he’d start, she knew he’d start. Like the time she’d screamed about the bugs, the roaches they called palmetto bugs, but it was because the goddamn things were mutants, half of them; someone had tried to wipe them out with something that fucked with their DNA, so you’d see these screwed-up roaches dying with too many legs or heads, or not enough, and once she’d seen one that looked like it had swallowed a crucifix or something, its back or shell or whatever it was distorted in a way that made her want to puke.

  "Baby," she said, trying to soften her voice, "I can’t help it, this place is just getting to me . . ."

  "Hooky Green’s," he said, like he hadn’t heard her, "I was up in Hooky Green’s and I met a mover. He picked me out, you know? Man’s got an eye for talent." She could almost feel his grin through the dark. "Outa London, England. Talent scout. Come into Hooky’s and it was just ‘You, my man!’ "

  "A trick?" Hooky Green’s was where Eddy had most recently decided the action was, thirty-third floor of a glass highstack with most of the inside walls knocked down, had about a block of dancefloor, but he’d gone off the place when nobody there was willing to pay him much attention. Mona hadn’t ever seen Hooky himself, "lean mean Hooky Green," the retired ballplayer who owned the place, but it was great for dancing.

  "Will you fucking listen? Trick? Shit. He’s the man, he’s a connection, he’s on the ladder and he’s gonna pull me up. And you know what? I’m gonna take you with me."

  "But what’s he want?"

  "An actress. Sort of an actress. And a smart boy to get her in place and keep her there."

  "Actress? Place? What place?"

  She heard him unzip his jacket. Something landed on the bed, near her feet. "Two thou."

  Jesus. Maybe it wasn’t a joke. But if it wasn’t, what the hell was it?

  "How much you pull tonight, Mona?"

  "Ninety." It had really been one-twenty, but she’d figured the last one for overtime. She was too scared to hold out on him, usually, but she’d needed wiz money.

  "Keep it. Get some clothes. Not like work stuff. Nobody wants your little ass hanging out, not this trip."

  "When?"

  "Tomorrow, I said. You can kiss this place goodbye."

  When he said that, it made her want to hold her breath.

  The chair creaked again. "Ninety, huh?"

  "Yeah."

  "Tell me."

  "Eddy, I’m so tired . . ."

  "No," he said.

  But what he wanted wasn’t the truth or anything like it. He wanted a story, the story that he’d taught her to tell him. He didn’t want to hear what they talked about (and most of them had some one thing they wanted real bad to tell you, and usually they did), or how they got around to asking to see your bloodwork tickets, or how every other one made that same joke about how what they couldn’t cure they could put in remission, or even
what they wanted in bed.

  Eddy wanted to hear about this big guy who treated her like she didn’t matter. Except she had to be careful, when she told it, not to make the trick too rough, because that was supposed to cost more than she’d actually been paid. The main thing was that this imaginary trick had treated her like she was a piece of equipment he’d rented for half an hour. Not that there weren’t plenty like that, but they mostly spent their money at puppet parlors or got it on stim. Mona tended to get the ones who wanted to talk, who tried to buy you a sandwich after, which could be bad in its own way but not the kind of bad Eddy needed. And the other thing Eddy needed was for her to tell him how that wasn’t what she liked but she’d found herself wanting it anyway, wanting it bad.

  She reached down in the dark and touched the envelope full of money.

  The chair creaked again.

  So she told him how she was coming out of a BuyLow and he’d hit on her, this big guy, just asked how much, which had embarrassed her but she told him anyway and she’d said okay. So they went in his car, which was old and big and kind of damp-smelling (cribbing detail from her Cleveland days), and he’d sort of flipped her over the seat —

  "In front of the BuyLow?"

  "In back."

  Eddy never accused her of making any of it up, even though she knew he must have taught her the general outline somehow and it was always basically the same story. By the time the big guy had her skirt up (the black one, she said, and I had on my white boots) and his pants down, she could hear Eddy’s beltbuckle jingling as he peeled off his jeans. Part of her was wondering, when he slid into bed beside her, whether the position she was describing was physically possible, but she kept on going, and anyway it was working on Eddy. She remembered to put in how it hurt, when the guy was getting it in, even though she’d been really wet. She put in how he held her wrists, though by now she was pretty confused about what was where, except that her ass was supposed to be up in the air. Eddy had started to touch her, stroking her breasts and stomach, so she switched from the offhand brutality of the trick’s moves to how it was supposed to have made her feel.

  How it was supposed to have made her feel was a way she hadn’t ever felt. She knew you could get to a place where doing it hurt a little but still felt good, but she knew that wasn’t it. What Eddy wanted to hear was that it hurt a lot and made her feel bad, but she liked it anyway. Which made no sense at all to Mona, but she’d learned to tell it the way he wanted her to.

  Because anyway it worked, and now Eddy rolled over with the blanket bunched up across his back and got in between her legs. She figured he must be seeing it in his head, like a cartoon, what she was telling him, and at the same time he got to be that faceless pumping big guy. He had her wrists now, pinned above her head, the way he liked.

  And when he was done, curled on his side asleep, Mona lay awake in the stale dark, turning the dream of leaving around and around, bright and wonderful.

  And please let it be true.

  5

  Portobello

  Kumiko woke in the enormous bed and lay very still, listening. There was a faint continuous murmur of distant traffic.

  The air in the room was cold; she drew the rose duvet around her like a tent and climbed out. The small windows were patterned with bright frost. She went to the tub and nudged one of the swan’s gilded wings. The bird coughed, gargled, began to fill the tub. Still huddled in the quilt, she opened her cases and began to select the day’s garments, laying the chosen articles out on the bed.

  When her bath was ready, she let the quilt slide to the floor and climbed over the marble parapet, stoically lowering herself into the painfully hot water. Steam from the tub had melted the frost; now the windows ran with condensation. Did all British bedrooms contain tubs like this? She wondered. She rubbed herself methodically with an oval bar of French soap, stood up, sluiced the suds off as best she could, wrapped herself in a large black towel, and, after some initial fumbling, discovered a sink, toilet, and bidet. These were hidden in a very small room that might once have been a closet, its walls fitted with dark veneer.

  The theatrical-looking telephone chimed twice.

  "Yes?"

  "Petal here. Care for breakfast? Roger’s here. Eager to meet you."

  "Thank you," she said. "I’m dressing now."

  She pulled on her best and baggiest pair of leather slacks, then burrowed into a hairy blue sweater so large that it would easily have fit Petal. When she opened her purse for her makeup, she saw the Maas-Neotek unit. Her hand closed on it automatically. She hadn’t intended to summon him, but touch was enough; he was there, craning his neck comically and gaping at the low, mirrored ceiling.

  "I take it we aren’t in the Dorchester?"

  "I’ll ask the questions," she said. "What is this place?"

  "A bedroom," he said. "In rather dubious taste."

  "Answer my question, please."

  "Well," he said, surveying the bed and tub, "by the decor, it could be a brothel. I can access historical data on most buildings in London, but there’s nothing notable about this one. Built in 1848. Solid example of the prevalent classical Victorian style. The neighborhood’s expensive without being fashionable, popular with lawyers of a certain sort." He shrugged; she could see the edge of the bed through the burnished gleam of his riding boots.

  She dropped the unit into her purse and he was gone.

  She managed the lift easily enough; once in the white-painted foyer, she followed the sound of voices. Along a sort of hallway. Around a corner.

  "Good morning," said Petal, lifting the silver cover from a platter. Steam rose. "Here’s the elusive Mr. Swain, Roger to you, and here’s your breakfast."

  "Hello," the man said, stepping forward, his hand extended. Pale eyes in a long, strong-boned face. Lank mouse-colored hair was brushed diagonally across his forehead. Kumiko found it impossible to guess his age; it was a young man’s face, but there were deep wrinkles under the grayish eyes. He was tall, with the look of an athlete about his arms and shoulders. "Welcome to London." He took her hand, squeezed and released it.

  "Thank you."

  He wore a collarless shirt, very fine red stripes against a pale blue ground, the cuffs fastened with plain ovals of dull gold; open at the neck, it displayed a dark triangle of tattooed flesh. "I spoke with your father this morning, told him you’d arrived safely."

  "You are a man of rank."

  The pale eyes narrowed. "Pardon?"

  "The dragons."

  Petal laughed.

  "Let her eat," someone said, a woman’s voice.

  Kumiko turned, discovering the slim dark figure against tall, mullioned windows; beyond the windows, a walled garden sheathed in snow. The woman’s eyes were concealed by silver glasses that reflected the room and its occupants.

  "Another of our guests," said Petal.

  "Sally," the woman said, "Sally Shears. Eat up, honey. If you’re as bored as I am, you feel like a walk." As Kumiko stared, her hand came up to touch the glasses, as though she were about to remove them. "Portobello Road’s a couple blocks. I need some air." The mirrored lenses seemed to have no frames, no earpieces.

  "Roger," Petal said, forking pink slices of bacon from a silver platter, "do you suppose Kumiko will be safe with our Sally?"

  "Safer than I’d be, given the mood she’s in," Swain said. "I’m afraid there isn’t much here to amuse you," he said to Kumiko, leading her to the table, "but we’ll try to make you as comfortable as possible and arrange for you to see a bit of the city. It isn’t Tokyo, though."

  "Not yet, anyway," said Petal, but Swain seemed not to hear.

  "Thank you," Kumiko said, as Swain held her chair.

  "An honor," Swain said. "Our respect for your father — "

  "Hey," the woman said, "she’s too young to need that bullshit. Spare us."

  "Sally’s in something of a mood, you see," Petal said, as he put a poached egg on Kumiko’s plate.

  Sally Shear
s’s mood, it developed, was one of barely suppressed rage, a fury that made itself known in her stride, in the angry gunshot crack of her black bootheels on icy pavement.

  Kumiko had to scramble to keep up, as the woman stalked away from Swain’s house in the crescent, her glasses flashing coldly in directionless winter sunlight. She wore narrow trousers of dark brown suede and a bulky black jacket, its collar turned up high; expensive clothing. With her short black hair, she might have been taken for a boy.

  For the first time since leaving Tokyo, Kumiko felt fear.

  The energy pent in the woman was almost tangible, a knot of anger that might slip at any moment.

  Kumiko slid her hand into her purse and squeezed the Maas-Neotek unit; Colin was instantly beside her, strolling briskly along, his hands tucked in the pockets of his jacket, his boots leaving no imprint in the dirty snow. She released the unit then, and he was gone, but she felt reassured. She needn’t fear losing Sally Shears, whose pace she found difficult; the ghost could certainly guide her back to Swain’s. And if I run from her, she thought, he will help me. The woman dodged through moving traffic at an intersection, absently tugging Kumiko out of the path of a fat black Honda taxi and somehow managing to kick the fender as it slid past.

  "You drink?" she asked, her hand around Kumiko’s forearm.

  Kumiko shook her head. "Please, you’re hurting my arm."

  Sally’s grip loosened, but Kumiko was steered through doors of ornate frosted glass, into noise and warmth, a sort of crowded burrow lined in dark wood and worn fawn velour.

  Soon they faced each other across a small marble table that supported a Bass ashtray, a mug of dark ale, the whiskey glass Sally had emptied on her way from the bar, and a glass of orange squash.

  Kumiko saw that the silver lenses met the pale skin with no sign of a seam.

  Sally reached for the empty whiskey glass, tilted it without lifting it from the table, and regarded it critically. "I met your father once," she said. "He wasn’t as far up the ladder, back then." She abandoned the glass for her mug of ale. "Swain says you’re half gaijin. Says your mother was Danish." She swallowed some of the ale. "You don’t look it."