Brasyl (39 page)

Where are Turkey-Feet and Treats?

Then Edson's corajoso flickers and is snuffed out. Six cops have just
come in, sat down at a table, big guns at their thighs, and are
studying the menu.

Two good-byes.

"Hey, my mama."

The custom in Cidade de Luz is that every sunset the women come out
of their houses to walk. Singly or in pairs, by three or fours, feet
encased in sports shoes worn only for this social occasion, elbows
pumping to maintain aerobic capacity, they pace a time-hallowed
route: the winding main road, the old High Road that runs parallel to
the rodovia, the long slow ascent of Rua Paulo Manendes where by some
economic gravitation only car-part factors and veterinarian supply
stores have taken root. Men too walk the walk. They set out half an
hour after the women and always walk widdershins, to meet the women
face-to-face. They are invariably younger men, or fresh divorcees.

In the fast German car, Edson caught up with Dona Hortense and her
walking friends outside the Happy Cats Veterinarian Supply Company
and cruised in to the curb beside her. Dona Hottense peered under the
brim of the white pimp's hat.

"Edson? That you? Kind of you to come over and see me rather
than sending that uneducated Treats round to my door to collect your
laundry."

"Come on, Mama, you know the trouble I'm in."

"I don't know, that's the thing." The girlfriends are
looking at him as they might a cop or a debt collector.

"Mama, this is not the place." Edson opened the door; Dona
Hortense slid into the car, ran her hand over the leather upholstery.

"This is nice. Is it yours? Where did you get it?"

"A man. Mama, I have to go away."

"I thought you might."

"A long way, a very long way. I don't know how long I'll be
away, but it will be a long time."

"Oh Edson, oh my love. But call me, pick up the phone, let me
know you're all right."

"I can't do that, Mama." The light was fast fading, and in
the dark of the car, behind polarized windows by Cidade's de Luz's
happenstance street lighting, Edson thought his mother might be
crying silently.

"What, they've no phones this place you're going? A letter,
something."

"Mama ... "

"Edson what is this? You're scaring me."

"I'll be all right, and I'll be back. I promise you, I'll find a
way back. Don't put me in the Book just yet."

"Is there anything I can say?"

"No. Not a thing. Now, kiss me and I'll drop you back at the
house, or do you want me to leave you back with the girls?"

"Oh, in a big flash car like this, drop me back at the house,"
said Dona Hortense.

And again, good-bye.

"This is probably the most romantic notion I have heard in my
entire life," said Mr. Peach. Geography is not always a subject
of the vast and slow, of eons and crustal plates. It can spring up in
a night; the new green space opened one afternoon by the next morning
is crisscrossed by footpaths, always mystically following the
shortest routes to the shops or the bus stop. In the days that Fia
has been a refugee at Fazenda Alvaranga, the old drying shed where
the sun loungers are stored in winter has been Sextinho and Mr.
Peach's Place.

"It's the last place they would think we'd go; back to where she
came from."

"And you, Sextinho? It sounds like a hard world, hers. Gray
skies, pollution, wrecked climates."

Fia's world was strange and challenging, but in those differences lie
opportunities a man of business and wit can exploit to make money. As
long as there was still an Ilhabela, and an ocean to wash the feet of
the house, he would make it there. His dreams had moved sideways.

"But no Angels of Perpetual Surveillance."

"No angels. You going to get one of those computers tattooed on
your belly?" It was a joke. Mr. Peach knows well Edson's
abhorrence of anything violating the sanctity of his skin. "But
one thing: you will be there."

"Of course I'll be there."

"No, I mean, there will be an Edson Jesus Oliveira de Freitas
somewhere in that city."

It was one of the first things that Edson had thought when he made
the decision to flee with Fia back to her São Paulo. He never
could resist a mirror: how would it reflect him? Richer, more
successful, a man of big business, marrried, dead? Worst, just some
dust-poor favelado? He could not bear that. It could not be any kind
of good luck to meet your ghost-self, but how could he fail to
intervene in a life like that? Closer than any twin or freaky
clone-thing but further than the farthest star. Him, in every atom.
He owed it to himself.

"It won't be the first time I've had to get a new identity,"
Edson said flipppantly, but he was spooked, iced in the vein. "Maybe
I'll even become Sextinho."

"Do you know what's so silly, and so impossible? I want to go
too. All my life I've been teaching the multiverse. I know the
theory, I know the math; they prove it more accurately and
beautifully than any gross human sense, bur I want to see it with my
eyes. I want to experience it, and then I'll truly know. If I taught
you one thing about physics, Sextinho, it's passion. Physics is love.
Why would anyone do this thing, beat their lives against truths we
can barely understand, if not for love? Fia says that when you enter
superposition, you experience all the other universes at once. So
many questions answered. But you, you little bastard, you won't even
appreciate what you're seeing. Go on, hero, do well."

Among the moldering showerheads and aluminum nets and scoops for
fishing leaves out of the pool, by the cleaning robot's little hutch,
Mr. Peach hugged Edson to him. The kid was so small, so thin and
frail-looking, but strong beneath, all sinews and wires. Hard to
embrace.

"Just one question," Edson said. "When you cross over,
do you think it hurts?"

Treats and Turkey-Feet bowl in eighteen minutes late, laughing and
swaggering and acting cool cool cool. Edson is ice with them; they
make to laugh at his anger but then see that none of the others are
smiling.

"Why are you late?"

"We were starving, so we got something to eat and a couple of
Chopps."

"You've been drinking?"

"Oh, come on Edson ... "

"You're drawing attention to yourselves and to me. We are
friends meeting up for a meal after work. Now, whether you've eaten
or not, go up and get something from the buffet. No beer. This is an
alcohol-free operation."

All the while he watches the policemen go up to the counter for
seconds.

They're fat, ordinary cops, civils; they're just out like Edson and
his team for a bite with friends after work. Edimilson and Jack
Chocolate the mechanics tell track-side tales from Interlagos. Edson
hardly hears them; every second that ticks away on the countdown in
the corner of his I-shades is slower than the one before until they
freeze like drips in an icebox.

I can't do it. I can't do it. It's all just something I made up.

Then he sees himself pushing his plate away from him, standing up,
straightening his cuffs, spiking up his hair, and hears his voice
say, "Are we all done? Then let's go."

Tremendous scuff, that corajoso.

The lift hits as he pulls the bandana up over his face. His heart
kicks; his breath is shallow and fast and fills him with fire. It's
not the corajoso; it's old hot liquid adrenaline, molten in his
skull. It's hitting the best deal; it's that Number One Business plan
clicking into place.

Turkey-Feet has the Q-blade out. Two searing passes and the rear gate
is free from its hinges. Emerson and Big Steak lower it lightly to
the ground. The guys are already moving as the lasers try to get
retina lock. No luck there, militars: everyone's I-shades are stacked
with stolen eye-scans. As the alarms kick off woo woo woo, the drone
goes in so low over Edson's head he can feel its downdraft muss up
his careful gel-spikes. It's an old Radio Sampa traffic-report drone
that Hamilcar and Mr. Smiles got in a jeitinho deal and
recondiitioned to their own gray purposes. It circles like a little
spook from a kids' cartoon, pumping out enough variant DNA to bust
the budget of any forensics company that tries to profile the crime
scene. Lovely boys, clever boys.

It might only be graveyard shift at the car pound, but the militars
are quick—nothing on Globo Futebol tonight, then—and
tooled for general assault. Firing from cover, Big Steak and Emerson
Taser the first two out of the trap. Unlike his kid-times-six
brother, Emerson enjoyed his army service. Even as the cops hit the
ground twitching, Treats and Turkey-Feet are on top of them. Turkey
Feet has his Q-blade at the dazed, dazzled policeman's throat. The
guy can't move, can't speak, can only follow the dancing blade with
his eyes. Blue on blue. Edson smells piss: the Tasers do that, he's
heard. So does fear. It's a hostage situation now: the remaining four
nightwatch throw down their weapons and up their hands. They can read
the time and geography as well as Edson: twenty seconds, maybe thirty
if they've had a big dinner, for the regional headquarters to assess
the threat. Another thirty to establish level of response, another
twenty to alert units. They won't tender out to seguranças.
The military police enjoy a good fire fight too much. Surveillance
drones will be over the target within two minutes of the general
alert. Surface units will converge within five minutes. But Edson has
it timed to the tick, and the garage van is bowling in over the
felled gate, pulling up beside the maimed Cook/Chill Meal Solutions
trailer. Edimilson has already run the hydraulic jack in and is
easing up the left side like he is a superhero: Captain Pitstop. Jack
Chocolate takes a wheel off in fifteen seconds with the power wrench.
Emerson and Big Steak drag the slashed, hemi-tires away and roll the
new ones out of the back of the van. The militars boggle at the skill
and speed.

"You should see them at Interlagos," says Treats, gun
trained on his close knot of hostages.

"Fuck up," says Turkey-Feet.

The first wheel is on. The second. Edson glances at the timer: the
truck should be arriving now. And there it is, rounding the
intersection with two fragrant biodiesel belches from its chromed
exhausts. Waguinho swings it through the gap in the fence, wheels
round and backs up close as a kiss to the trailer. Last wheel is on;
the Interlagos brothers throw their gear in the back of the van;
Emerson and Big Steak jump in behind it. Edson hauls himself up into
the truck cab beside Waguinho and Furação. The trailer
locks, Waguinho engages, and Cook/Chill Meal Solutions rolls. As they
sweep out through the gate Edson sees Treats and Turkey-Feet back
toward the open rear of the van. At the last minute Emerson and Big
Steak scramble them in. The militars at once go for their guns, but
Edimilson spins the wheels and roars out of the pound onto the
street. In the wing-mirror Edson watches the van turn in the opposite
direction. They'll burn it and scatter on foot from the drop-point.
Edson sees the DNA-drone skip over the cab roof, climb vertically,
and vanish among the rooftop water tanks. He pulls off his bandana,
leans back into the seat. The butt of the gun is hard and unexpected
against his belly muscles as an erection. He never drew it. He kept
that honor; he never showed the gun. Edson pushes his head back into
the seat-rest, stares at the rosary and the icon of St. Martin
dangling from the interior light fitting. Joy beyond utterance cracks
through him; he can barely hold himself still from the huge, shaking
energy. He did it. He did it. He stole four quantum computers from
the São Paulo Zona Norte Military Police car pound. He wants
Fia. He wants her waiting for him at the pickup point with nothing
but him in her manga eyes; he wants her spread and begging on the
hood of Waguinho and Furação's truck saying,
You're
The Man, Edson, malandro of malandros, you are Lord of the Crossings.
What you did will be talked up and down the ladeiras for years; that
Edson Jesus Oliveira de Freitas, that was wit, that was malicia.

That Edson Jesus Oliveira de Freitas, Dona Hortense's crazy son;
whattever happened to him? That is what they will say. Where did he
go?

Edson pulls one knee up onto the seat, hugs his knee to him. The
in-cab display shows police cars converging on the car pound. They
may not have an arfid lock, but they have a description of the
trailer and an idea where it might be headed. Can he hear sirens?
Woo
woo all you like, militars. In a moment I will pull my last, best
trick
. On the far side of the city, parked up behind a bakery
that does good pão de queijo, Hamilcar and Mr. Smiles glance
at an icon on their I-shades and scatter Cook/Chill Meal Solutions's
cloned arfid ID around fifty vehicles in the truck's immediate
vicinity. A smart trick and an expensive one, but there had been
enough change from Hamilcar and Mr. Smiles to convert into six cut
Amazonian emeralds: They nestle in lubricated, folded latex in
Edson's colon. When he gets to the other side, he's going to require
some convertibility.

And there she is, sitting on the wall where the light from the soccer
ground next door falls brightest. She registers the truck swinging in
across the stream of taillights; she jumps up and down in
un-self-conscious joy. Her little pack bounces on her back. Edson
cannot rid himself of the image of her Hello Kitty panties. The truck
bowls across the parking lot past the decaying glass and steel hulk
of the food court, draws up under the lights and stops in a gasm of
airbrakes.

"Great choice of location, Edson," Fia says. "Between
soccer jocks over there whistling at me and alcos and junkies."
Then she runs and kisses him hard full right then right there where
he's dropped to the hardtop, standing on her tiptoes. Maybe it's
relief, maybe it's the blaze of success, maybe it's his corajoso
leaving him, but Edson feels as if the soccer ground floods have
broken into a shower of light raining down on him; photons, actual
and ghost, pounding him cleaning him, bouncing softly from the
stained concrete, entangled as kitten-wool with other lives, other
histories. The city and its ten thousand towers spin around him: he
is the axis of Sampa, of all Brasil, of the whole wide planet and all
its manifestations across the multiverse in this instant in the
parking lot of a dead mall.