Midnight Lamp (12 page)

They finished the Ananda. Harry signalled to the limo, which opened its doors like a servant in a fairytale: they entered the freezing interior.

As sunset blanked the distant windows with an apricot glaze, they sat together on the bed in their oversized master bedroom, at sea in a creamy ocean of designer-linen. Sage had slept all day. Ax and Fiorinda had been out with Harry, discovering a different Los Angeles, a human city of funky streets, organic food stores, antique clothing markets. They’d searched for and found a special edition import of the Heads pre-Dissolution album
Bleeding Heart,
in a secondhand and rareties music store. Sage loaded it into his board and opened a place between the credited tracks. A shamelessly
pretty
confection of sound and light, edge and hue, rose around them: a castellated house with a tiny orchard, a stable inhabited by silver-maned, candy-coloured ponies. Indoors, enchanting furniture, hidden items in all the rooms, candy-coloured monsters to fight.

The hidden immix track was called ‘Fiorinda’s House’, built by Aoxomoxoa when he was pretending he had only big brotherly feelings for his brat. Fiorinda, a well-hard fifteen-year-old punk diva when
Bleeding Heart
came out, affected to find the dollhouse mortifying, but loved it dearly.

Ax thought (a guilty secret) that if he’d seen ‘Fiorinda’s House’, in those ancient days, he wouldn’t have been able to kid himself he wasn’t stealing Sage’s girl, when he made his move. But things happen as they must.

Sage tweaked the immersion so the house jumped in scale for their perception. They sat on a green marble floor, in a room with a fountain full of perfect little goldfish: they were tiny software people, hidden in the code.

‘We need a place of our own,’ said Ax. ‘I can’t stand hotels, anyway.’

After this morning, surveillance in the suite was not in doubt.

‘Yeah. We can’t be overheard now, but it’s fucking obvious we’re talking secrets. Whoo. This thing unfolds. Are you okay, Fee?’

‘I’m okay. Well?
Now
do you believe me?’

She ducked her head, retiring behind a matted veil of hair.

‘I believe what we saw,’ said Ax. ‘But this is
unreal
. Are we supposed to believe that Fred Eiffrich knows a team of scientists financed by his Defense Department is practicing
ritual human sacrifice
to help their project along, and Fred can’t pull the plug? We should never have come. I’m very, very sorry.’

‘Don’t be.’

‘Do we believe in Harry’s secret cabal?’ wondered Sage. ‘What did we see this morning? A couple of badges. Petty rivalry, which could have been staged for verisimilitude. Do we
know
those were FBI agents? How would we check?’

‘I thought I was supposed to be the paranoid.’

‘I’m just saying we’re out of the loop. We know nothing, we can only go by how it feels, and my feeling is that Roche was treating us like potential suspects, not visiting dignitaries. I started to think I was fucking glad we had an alibi.’

‘Me too,’ muttered Fiorinda.

‘No, no, I think Roche is okay. He’s in over his head, he’s stressing out, that’s what we were getting—’

‘Actually we don’t have an alibi,’ said Fiorinda. ‘My father was in Ireland when he was running Fergal. The Fat Boy candidate could be anywhere.’

‘Vireo Lake lab could be a blind? The real lab could be elsewhere?’

‘Vireo Lake?’ Fiorinda pushed back her hair. ‘
Forget
it. The bear said “kill me”, that’s our only clue. Except that we’re here… Did you get that the victims have been Hollywood scruffs? People Harry “might have known”?’

‘Yeah,’ said Ax. ‘I’m not following this, Fio. Where are you heading?’

She pressed her hands to her temples. ‘I’m not sure. Could you stop the immix, Sage? It isn’t helping. I can’t think in a doll’s house. Please stop it.’

‘Sorry.’

Fiorinda’s House vanished like a dream. They sat in silence.

Ax sighed, and got down from the bed.

‘Where are you going?’

‘To pray.
Facing Saudi
, which is something I really enjoy about my religion. I suppose I better pray that the evil empire endures in health and prosperity.’

Fiorinda did not share her thoughts. The suite oppressed them: they went out in the dark to look for a restaurant on Hollywood Boulevard; where Harry had installed them, for the atmosphere, in a refurbished classic hotel. The night was soft and warm, the asphalt sparkled under the streetlamps. ‘Because it has broken glass in it,’ said Fiorinda. ‘I read that.’ Traffic poured by, never-ending, roaring, goggle-eyed monsters. They were savages, fresh from the rainforest. She walked ahead, the two men followed: not too closely, giving her space.

‘How d’you feel now? Will you be careful, in the restaurant?’

‘Knock it off. I’m fine. I had an energy crash, I needed sugar. How was I to know there’d be fat in the goop?’

Dried fruit, thought Ax. I’ll get some dried fruit, and have a supply with me. ‘I didn’t like the way Roche kept asking
her
the questions.’

‘I suspect he was addressing the person who would give him the time of day. I was out of it, and you… You can be scary when you’re angry, Mr Dictator. Did you know that?’

‘Ex-Dictator. Sage, they took tissue samples at the border.’

‘Allegedly not retained.’

‘Yeah, sure. A few cells would do it. What would her DNA tell them?’

‘Nothing. She’s Rufus O’Niall’s daughter, that’s all. There’s no genetic profile for what Fiorinda is. Identical twins can have wildly different brains, Ax.’

‘I’m afraid for her. I’m appalled at the Neurobomb shit, but they’re wrong and they’re not going to get anywhere so that’s okay. It’s Fiorinda I care about. I’m afraid of the affect of all this, but I’m more afraid of trying to take her away from it, because whatever’s happening, it’s brought her back.’

They were on the Walk of Fame, treading between the brass plates of a pavement crematorium. She had stopped to peer at some bygone illustrious name. They remembered a moment, in the Mexican forest, when she had almost fallen back into fugue: the light of sanity going out, the agonised flesh and bone ghost that would remain—

‘Me too,’ admitted Sage. ‘Thank God we’re in it together.’

The look that passed between them was so close, so needy it was like an embrace. It embarrassed them both. They took refuge in joining Fiorinda.

‘There are two ways to live,’ called Janelle, from her kitchen, ‘On the beach, and all other places, don’t you agree?’ She carried two fat-free bioactive juice cocktails to the sunny deck, above the white, untrodden sands of Rosa beach.

The Rosa Peninsula had once been the private property of a president’s mistress. It’d had its lapses, but currently it was desirable top range territory once more. Every morning that she woke here she thanked God she’d hung onto the cottage, when all else was falling apart. The house was tiny, but the décor indoors was individual without being pretentious (she told herself). And the location was perfect. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Shame you can’t have it both ways: that was her only complaint.

Sage was sitting up on the rail, in a loose white shirt and grey three-quarter pants. She remembered him at nineteen, explaining to interviewers that three-quarter pants were not his fashion choice. His height was so extraordinary in stunted little England, these were the only
traaasers
he could buy… She missed the mask. There was something so fucking
naïve
, so young, about a rockstar in a digital mask, a walking piece of music television. In ways she was sorry to know he hadn’t been stupid-drunk the other night, when she found him vomiting into the Pergola’s swanky fountain. But no, he’s recovering from a duel to the death with the world’s first actual evil magician. Heigh-ho.

She handed him the glass. ‘You’re never going to touch booze again?’

‘Thanks. Depends who you ask. I reckon I’m working up to my first taste soon. I believe a new liver
needs
a little exercise. But opinions differ.’

‘I’ll bet they do.’ She sat in a long chair, where she could look at him.

‘D’you mind if I ask a delicate question?’

‘Go ahead.’

‘Which of those two are you fucking? Is it Red or is it the guitar-man?’

‘Hahaha. I’m a bodhisattva, me. I don’t fuck anyone these days.’

‘You know, I heard that. Someone’s putting it about that the new Aoxomoxoa couldn’t get his rope to rise with a magic flute. I didn’t believe it.’

He smiled enigmatically, tested the drink and screwed his beautiful face up. ‘People can be so cruel. What is this, Janelle? It tastes like compost.’

‘Quinoa, spirogira algae, ginko, pear and lime. And a stack of life-enhancing bacteria and vitamins. It’s good food, drink it up. So, what? You tag along? Travelling around with them like a royal Zen chaplain?’

‘They need somebody to lose at Scrabble. What’s your interest in the state of my cock, anyway?’ He leered, a stunning blast of magnetism. ‘Is it personal?’

She laughed. ‘Just a pure passion for dirty gossip. Okay, forget it, smartass. I’ll find out. Well, you want to know how virtual Hollywood works? It works the way Hollywood always did. Parties, agents, deals, wheels. We tried, believe me, but movie business without the stars is like the paperless office, it’s a basic misconception. They’re Unionised, they’re tough, and they have agents. Geekie-techies make the virtual movies. The stars take the money, oh, and they do the human touch, promotion and lifestyle, mainly on the tv. They’re indispensable, it’s been legally confirmed.’

‘And it all happens here?’

‘It happens in Hollywood’s silicon valley, just up the freeway. There was no percentage in starting a new capital city, Sage. The movie business belongs here: cheek by jowl with a crawling, sprawling, falling apart, searing hot metropolis where monsters roam and water doesn’t come out of the taps… Maybe it’s the light, maybe it’s the history, but there’s power in this location, and somehow it’s still a fabulous place to live.’ She grinned, ‘Shit, this is where global culture comes from, it’s the beating heart of the modern world. Who’s going to quit that, and move to San Diego?’

‘Uhuh…’ He nodded. ‘What d’you think of Harry’s movie?’

‘I think it’s an excellent project,’ she answered, briskly. ‘You have a terrific human story, boy-next-door becomes king of England: a free sound track and romantic British locations, which the studio will be able to create easily from file. Harry’s lucky no one else thought of it first, and he’s luckier than hell that the studio is going to let him do it. Do you know how old he is? He’s twenty five. All you have to do is keep it personal, personal, personal. Europe was in turmoil, yeah: but no rhetoric, and no environmental horror stories. Stay off Islam. And remember, Ax didn’t want to be king, he only wanted to play guitar. He was forced into it, for the good of the people.’

‘Right.’

‘This is a conservative community, in case no one ever told you. They fear our native eco-warriors like the plague, they hate the Counteculture and they’re twitchy about refugees: we have our own, we call them Mexico. Don’t make the internet collapse a big deal, some folk around here already think you are plague carriers. Oh, and having the free sound track is good, but not too much about rock music in the narrative, because that’s a rival sector of the organisation.’

‘Shouldn’t you be telling Harry all this?’

‘I tell him these things. I’m Harry’s little Jiminy Cricket. You need to keep an eye on the boy wonder, because he’s not
arrogant
, he just sometimes doesn’t see the pitfalls. You’ll have script approval, use it. But the main thing you have to do is get yourselves liked. Be fun, be modest, be quirky: but not alien.’

‘Okay.’

‘And watch out for dirty tricks.’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘You have enemies. First, there’s the producers at Digital Artists who didn’t get the money because it went to Harry: and all the people involved in the projects that didn’t make it. Then there’s the classic-film establishment. They may not be making movies on the backlots but they still live here, they despise us, they can’t believe how successful we are, and they’ll screw things up for any virtual movie, if they get the chance. Last but not least, there’s the liberals. Your secret agenda has been leaking like a sieve, everybody in town knows that the President of the United States wants this vehicle to raise the profile of Ax Preston, the guy he’s chosen as the face for his peace and love campaign. That’s not going to do you any favours anywhere, but your worst enemies are the mavericks with the liberal opinions. They don’t rate the president as a force for good, and they’ll hate having the British muscle-in on their tiny patch.’

‘English.’

‘And
never
correct anyone when they say something that sounds out of touch from your perspective. You’re the strangers here. Do like the Romans do.’

‘You’re absolutely right to call me on that.’

‘And you should tell Fiorinda-’

At the sound of her name, he’s
on
, she noticed. His whole being quietly snaps to attention: not even sexually, more like a guard dog. She’d seen it at the party. The eccentric English have no discernable bodyguards, but Fiorinda’s lover and his lanky white homey are constantly on the alert. At any moment you may bet they know where she is, who is near her; and just how fast they could reach her if they had to. It’s eerie.