Midnight Lamp (19 page)

‘You’re a strange kind of bodhisattva.’

‘I know. Let’s start with some basics. I do this with hippie kindergarten classes in England, you should be able to keep up.’

They worked intensely for an hour or two, talking Zen Self science and dissecting, bit-by-bit, the tricks that Jan and her code-monkeys used to make the best of their three-per-cent. It was Janelle who called a halt to the concentration, which pleased Sage very much. A break for compost juice, out on the deck.

‘Sage, are you in personal danger on this, this peace mission?’

‘In
danger
? I don’t b’lieve so. Why do you ask, how would I be?’

‘I don’t know. I get the feeling of wheels within wheels. Well, I’m glad,’ she said, seriously. ‘You’re important to me, Aoxomoxoa.’

‘You’re important to me, too.’

He meant it. He hadn’t the slightest memory of the sex, but he had rediscovered a kindred spirit, an equal, and that doesn’t happen often.

‘I’ll fix up a fitting for your lenses,’ she promised, as he was leaving. ‘They’ll be the best. You guys ought to try harder at the unreasonable demands. I told Lou—you know, Lou Branco? I told him he should be glad you have this craze for taking care of things yourselves. But he’s an agent. He expects his clients to come to him if they have a problem. You should remember that.’

He noted the malicious twinkle, and wondered what traps she had laid now. He was convinced Janelle had been behind the industrial espionage, though he didn’t expect to be able to prove it. But that’s Jan. She plays this game hard, because nobody was ever easy on her. And fair enough, very useful: we need to hone our survival skills.

‘We’ll bear it in mind. Thanks.’

At Sunset Cape the house was quiet. Fiorinda, as an authority on the European drop-out hordes, was speaking at a day-conference on LA County Homeless Persons. Rob and the Babes were with her. Sage checked in, to make sure she was okay…not including Fiorinda in the conversation, because she mustn’t feel watched. Thank God for the Few, and yet he resented the dilution. It should be just me and Ax
with her all the time
. That’s what life should be like…

He walked into one of the big, bland, reception rooms and was surprised to find Ax there, watching himself on tv. A superstar-anchor-person was asking about Yap Moss. Five hundred people dead in an afternoon, Mr Preston, in a bloody, brutal mediaeval battle in the Yorkshire countryside. Is that your idea of non-violence? The media folk were
fascinated
by the Islamic Campaign, Ax the rockstar-warlord; to Mr Preston’s disgust.

Sage sat on a different couch. ‘Why are you watching this?’

‘Reality check.’

On the tv, Mr Preston gave a decent, thoughtful, moderate answer. Looking good, guitar-man. Every thought of going into politics?

‘How was lunch?’

‘Diabolical.’

Click. The English, in a body, all smiles and kooky cameraderie, swanning into a music gig. ‘Mr Branco has discovered that I never headlined on Top Of The Pops, so he can’t work for the movie.’

‘Huh?’

‘You know that surveillance we had such fun subverting?’

The shipwrecked paparazzi had departed after the storm, with their ruined van on a recovery truck, thrilled and eternally grateful. They’d been asked no questions, no comments had been made. The English had decided it would be cooler just to see what happened. They’d been watching the Hollywood quantum computer output, but nothing clear-cut had surfaced.

‘Yeah?’

‘It wasn’t your friend Janelle. Or if she set it up, she did it for Mr Branco. He’s been watching our old videos, and never suspected a thing. Now he knows we made a fool of him, and he does not see the funny side.’

‘Oooh. Tha’s unfortunate. How bad is it?’

‘Dead in the water.’

‘Grovelling apology?’

‘Red rag to a bull. He didn’t confess. You could say I’m just guessing. But if I’m right, and I’m sure I am, an apology would be worse than useless. We’d just be telling him to his face we know we made an idiot of him.’

Ax continued his dour ego-search, and turned up a shopping channel that was auctioning antique Insanitude teeshirts. Sky-hook prices.

‘You did headline on the sucessor of TOTP,’ said Sage, at last. ‘October of Dissolution year, ‘Dark-Skinned They Were And Golden-Eyed’, Ax Preston
and the
Chosen Few, as I recall: and Jordan went mental.’

‘Oh yeah, I’d forgotten. But that was after I went into politics.’ He switched off and tossed the remote aside. ‘You know… Those stinking fights we used to have, it wasn’t always entirely Jor’s fault. I was hard on him.’

‘You had your eyes on the prize, my dear.’

‘God, I was such a wanker. Why did anyone put up with me?’

‘Carn’ imagine.’

Ax stared at the pastel ceiling. ‘How was your session?’

‘Barbed, interesting. Dropping things in the quantum computer. Janelle is no pussycat, but… Oh.’ He had remembered that malicious twinkle. ‘You’re right. She knows about Branco. Shit. We are idiots. Why couldn’t we just block the signal, like Fee an’ Ammy said?’

‘Because we’re idiots.’

The bastard won’t even sit next to me, thought Ax, because he knows how I’m feeling. Thank God they no longer had to share a bed: that would have been awful, impossible. Every time Sage was near he flashed on unbelievable memories, how it felt to kiss the guy passionately, how it felt to hold this man’s naked body in his arms—

He laughed, Sage laughed. They didn’t explain why they were laughing.

‘Oh well,’ said Ax. ‘There goes world peace. I better tell Harry.’

Harry already knew. Harry was clearly one of those annoying people (make a note of this) who just
won’t
deliver bad news. He’ll leave you to find out for yourself, at the worst moment, like that forcible medical procedure at the border. Mr Branco had been so impressed with his stolen footage of the Few’s home life he’d decided to package it and sneak it onto the grey market, anonymously: a ploy within normal limits for Hollywood, if a little cavalier about his clients’ privacy. A routine international copyright search had turned up the cuirous resemblance to a legitimately published work, and if the thing had ended there there’d have been no harm done. Alas, the story of how Mr Big got dusted, by a mere ex-dictator from a minor European state, had leaked, and was being whispered (in secret worlds foreign visitors couldn’t penetrate), all over tinsel town. Branco was
furious
. And it got worse. Much as many people hated him, it was going to be next to impossible to find an agent who’d take on the movie Lou had dumped, and dumped with menaces.

The A&R man was shattered, and he couldn’t hide it.

The Internet Commissioners, who had passed on vital information to their prisoners all through the data quarantine, were still keeping in touch. They special-delivered the news of Westminster’s Bonded Labour Bill to Ax, which pissed him off, because he didn’t want to know: but he had to be grateful when he met the hostile question:
is this your post-modern alternative to the Welfare State, Mr Preston? The rich take the poor into private ownership?
, in his next interview. The Commissioners hadn’t told him about Jordan, agreeing to accept a fancy country house from the government. He had to field the question about
Does this imply that your brother’s being groomed for the Ceremonial Head Of State job?
Completely unprepared. Fuck’s sake, Jor. Couldn’t you have waited? Did you have to take the bait right next to the Bonded Labour Bill? But probably Jordan saw no connection. Ax would have killed to get back to El Pabellon, but he had to keep
handling
these questions, doing what Ax Preston used to do.

It was maddening.

At last the President of the United States came to Bellevue, his beloved retreat in the San Gabriel Mountains. The former rulers of the Rock and Roll Reich were invited to his Memorial Weekend barbecue. They drove from LA in the Rugrat, with a second car full of minders (studio minders, they weren’t allowed to take their own security): ran the gauntlet of big fences and heavily armed soldiers in a crawling motorcade, waited in line and passed through the cattle-gates where the great and the good were scanned for bio-weaponry and suicide bombs, and made their bows with the throng, to the leader of the free world.

Fiorinda was dressed as Fiorinda, in the kind of small-waisted, full-skirted party frock that had been her signature when she was a teenage punk diva: blue satin, with a random pattern of gold scribbles in oblique ref to the flag of Europe, but this dress didn’t come from a charity shop. She hadn’t paid for it at all, which felt like a demotion. In England she had never taken freebies, never allowed herself to be used as a designer’s dummy. The president shook her hand, able to do so because she’d been scanned by something fearsomely invasive, and said, ‘I’m proud to meet you, Ms Slater. I’m Kathryn’s uncle Fred, you know. She talks about you so much. You’re a very brave lady, I thank God you came through.’

Kathryn Adams, Ax’s sponsor the US trip that had ended so badly, had been Fiorinda’s secret lifeline, when the Green Nazis were in power and everyone else thought Ax was dead; but she couldn’t form a sentence for her friend’s uncle. She was having trouble with this VIP crowd. If she didn’t get away quickly, she would be cursing the fucking lot of them… She smiled, and scooted: crossed the Japanese-landscaped terrace where the barbecue was being served, and hid behind a screen of trees. Forested ridges stretched away forever. The heat was leaden, the light strangely layered through a gleaming overcast—

‘Fiorinda?’

Sage had followed her. Damn, he’s always watching.

‘I’m okay. It was the crush at the entrance: everything went a bit unreal. I’m good, I’ll come and mingle.’

She reached up to straighten his black tie, which did not need straightening, and laid her hands lightly on his shoulders. ‘You two look
fantastic
in formals. I’m good. It’s just, that nice middle-aged bloke sh-shakes my hand, and I think of Pigsty Liver. Deja fucking vu, you know? Government receptions are difficult.’

‘My brat. I know you’re okay.’

‘Hey, not the nose. Don’t kiss my nose. Not in public!’

‘Nyah, we’re behind a tree. Listen, Ax has been told that the unofficial meeting won’t be ’til late. You an’ I don’t have to stay. We can leave now, if you like.’

‘Please don’t baby me. I need to look around. I can work a crowd, thanks.’

In the front hall of the house, a seasoned, mellow log-cabin on the grand scale, they were accosted by a whey-faced young woman, with tiny eyes and lank, colourless hair, wearing a purple trouser suit that did nothing for her bulk.

‘Hi,’ she said, shyly, ‘Fiorinda? I’m Kathryn. I missed you at the meeting, greeting. Oh, it’s so cool that you’re here—’

Kathryn had been a trisomy, a Downs Syndrome baby. Her parents had had the cognitive and internal problems fixed, but no cosmetic treatment, because they were Christians. Grown up, she’d decided to stick with the deal. She and Fiorinda had never met in person before.

‘Text pal! Oh, how great! It’s very cool to
be
here!’

Sage stayed long enough to be sure that Fee was really happy, and went to join Ax: blissed out on a vision of his brat’s old starry smile. They walked around noting the exits, distribution of concealed-arms guards, the layout. They couldn’t stop themselves doing this; could only hope she wouldn’t notice. They were popular: plenty government and industry luminaries wanting to say hi. It would be a different story, alas, when the news got out that their movie was on the rocks. People are so shallow. The ex-dictator got into a conversation and Sage wandered off. A female suit in very sober formal wear came up, soon as she saw him alone, murmured that the president was waiting, and led him away. He’d made a private appointment, and the President hadn’t forgotten.

Mr Eiffrich was in his study: by the bookshelves when Sage was shown in, somewhat stageily examining a volume of poetry. He peered, over the top of his reading glasses, like a schoolmaster. ‘Do you know Houseman, Mr Pender? Or should I say Aoxomoxoa?
“What God abandoned, these defended, and saved the sum of things for pay…
”’

‘Sage, please.’

‘Okay. Come on in, sit down with me’ He didn’t say,
call me Fred
.

He brought the book with him to the rustic fireplace, where a pair of armchairs presided over a summer firebasket of decorative logs and cones.

‘
To save the sum of things for pay
… That’s what it means to be a soldier:
soldari
,
solidus
, a man who has sold himself, sold his will and his bodily strength to be freely spent, hopefully in a cause he can believe in.’ The President studied Sage carefully. ‘I remember my niece Kathryn and her friends, smart young kids, going
wild
over Aoxomoxoa, years ago. It was a mystery to me, I have to admit.’

‘No problem.’

‘But you gave it all up. You didn’t run out, you stayed to serve your country in time of need. I admired that.’ He seemed to trying to locate the admirable bit, and failing. ‘You won’t be joining us, at the meeting later?’

‘No, I’ll be taking Fiorinda home.’

‘I see!… Well, er, Sage, this is your gig. What did you want to discuss?’

Sage had met some strange reactions on this trip. He hadn’t expected open hostility from Kathryn’s uncle Fred, but there you go. Blame it on Aoxomoxoa.

‘I don’t want to discuss anything. I’d like to give you this.’ Sage reached in his pocket (and saw the President react despite himself, the fight/flight twitch, hey,
compadre
), for a glassine envelope, containing a pinch of white crystals.

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s cocaine, Mr President. Organic cocaine, from Drumbeg Castle, Rufus’s place. I got hold of it from the
Gardia
, that’s the Irish police, some months ago.’

‘I know who the
Gardia
are. I’m sorry, I don’t—?’

‘When Ax was rescued, last year, organic cocaine was found in the kidnap house. I want to know if Rufus’s supply was by any chance from the same source. The Mexican authorities don’t have the evidence any more, but if it still exists, I bet you could have access.’