Spook Country (31 page)

T he Guerreros were not waiting for him, when he left the dark bed of the truck, blinking under artificial sunlight. Instead he discovered Ochun, calm and supple amid this noise and iron, hundreds of engines, the shifting of great weights.

She lent him a looseness he wouldn’t have felt, otherwise, after meeting the madman in the gray car and, too suddenly, Oshosi.

Standing to one side of a crowded passage between stacked containers, he let the black rope snake off his ribs, swaying slightly to encourage it. When it lay at his feet, he picked up an end of it and coiled it, slinging it over his shoulder. Making sure his identification tag was visible, he picked up two sealed, almost empty cans of paint from a clutter of such things and walked on, making certain he walked a little more quickly, more purposefully, than the men around him. He stepped aside for specialized vehicles, forklifts, a first-aid wagon.

When he judged that he’d gone as far as he should, he circled a stack of containers and came back, still walking as quickly, a man whose paint was needed, and who knew exactly where he was going.

As indeed he did, as he was fifteen feet from the stack topped with the old man’s container when the bells and buzzers signaling the start of the midnight shift all sounded. Looking up, he thought he saw a disturbance in the air, there, moving quickly down the length of the turquoise container. He remembered the Guerreros twisting the air in Union Square. But they were not here.

He set his paint cans aside, where they wouldn’t be tripped over, took latex gloves from his pocket, put them on, and walked to the end of the stack of three containers. They were stacked with their doors at the same end, as he’d been told they would be. He wiggled the black respirator out of his jacket pocket and removed it from its bag. Pocketing the bag, he removed his hard hat, put the respirator on, adjusted it, put his hard hat back on. Neither of these things were particularly good for slack rope, he thought, but Ochun was accepting. He stepped aside, nodding, as a forklift drove past.

The doors of the containers were locked with hinged, vertical steel rods, sealed with tags of metal and colored plastic. He drew the plastic rectangle from the front of his jeans, pulled its paracord over his hard hat, and climbed up the three door-rods, the soles of his Adidas GSG9 boots easily gripping the painted steel of the doors. He climbed, as Ochun suggested, as though he were delighted to do so, with no more purpose in mind than proving that he could.

His breath was loud, in the black respirator. He ignored it. Reaching the damp-slick top of the turquoise container, he climbed up and moved in, away from the edge.

He crouched there, suddenly aware of something he couldn’t name. The goddess, the noise of the port, the old man, the ten painted disks slung around his neck like blank sigils. Something was about to change. In the world, in his life, he didn’t know. He closed his eyes. Saw the blue vase glowing softly, where he’d hidden it, on the roof of his building.

Accept this.

I do, he told her.

Crouching, he moved to the far end of the container. At each corner, as Garreth had explained, there was a bracket, a sort of loop, with which these boxes could be fastened together. He threaded one end of his rope through the bracket on the side furthest from the ocean he could not see. He moved to the opposite end, playing out his rope, and knotted its other end. The black rope slid off the side of the container’s roof, fastened at either end. He looked down at the slack rope, where it hung against the side of the blue container. He hoped he’d judged the give of the nylon correctly. It was good rope, climbing rope.

I do, he said to Ochun, and slid down the rope, slowing himself with the sides of his Adidas.

Slowly, gloved palms against the painted steel, he stood upright on the rope, knees slightly bent. Between the toes of his black shoes, concrete. Directly in front of his face was the first of Garreth’s bullet holes. The steel around it was bare, edges bright. He pulled the first of his magnets from its plastic pocket and placed it over the hole. It bonded with the container with a sharp click, trapping a fold of his latex glove. He carefully tore his hand free, picking off the dangling bit. He moved his left foot, his left hand, his right foot, his right hand. He covered the second hole, careful this time not to catch his glove. A forklift rolled past, beneath him.

He remembered bringing the old man the first of the iPods, in Washington Square, by the chess tables. Snow. He saw now how that had changed things, had brought him here. He covered the third hole. Moved on. He remembered having soup with Alejandro. The fourth disk clicked in place. He moved. Five. Three men walked past, beneath him, their hard hats round buttons of plastic, two red, one blue. He stood with his palms flat against the cold steel. Six. He remembered running with the Guerreros through Union Square. Seven and eight were within a foot of one another. Click, and click. Nine.

He climbed back up, feet against the blue wall. He undid the knot at that end and let the rope go. He walked to the other end, where it hung straight, coiling on the concrete below, and slid down. He pulled down the hot respirator, gulped cool unfiltered air, and flicked the second knot free. The rope fell into his arms and he quickly coiled it, then walked away.

Out of sight of the old man’s container, he tossed the rope, the respirator, and the bag it had come in into a dumpster. He left his shredded gloves on the fender of a forklift. The green jacket went into an empty cement bag, and into another dumpster.

He pulled the hood of his black sweatshirt up and put his hard hat on. Ochun was gone. Now he must get out of this place.

He saw a diesel train-engine rumble slowly past, a hundred yards in front of him, painted with black and white diagonals. It was pulling a train of flatcars, each one carrying a container.

He walked on.

HE WAS ALMOST OUT, when the helicopter came, out of nowhere, sweeping the tracks with its bubble of insanely bright light. He’d just taken ten minutes, trying to find a path through brambles, after jumping off his train. He’d thought he was well clear, that he had plenty of time. Now here he was, jeans caught on wire, on top of this six-foot fence, like a child, no systema at all. He saw the helicopter swing up, then out, toward where the sea must be. Still turning. Coming back. He threw himself off the fence, feeling his jeans tear.

“Dude,” someone said, “you gotta know they got motion detectors in there.”

“Coming back,” another boy said, pointing.

Tito got to his feet, prepared to run. Suddenly the narrow park leapt into shivering, seemingly shadowless incandescence, the helicopter somewhere high above the new green leaves of the trees. Tito and three others, at the core of the beam. Two of them were resting a full-sized electric piano across the back of a bench, giving the helicopter the finger with their free hands. The other, grinning, had a white, wolf-shouldered dog on a red nylon lead. “I’m Igor, man.”

“Ramone.” As the light went out.

“You want to help us move, man? We got a new practice space. Beer.”

“Sure,” said Tito, knowing he needed to get off the street. “You play anything?” asked Igor. “Keyboards.”

The white dog licked Tito’s hand. “Awesome,” said Igor.

M y purse,” she said, as they drove back to Bobby’s. “It’s not in back.” Craning around the seat.

“Sure you didn’t give it to our dustmen?”

“No. It was right there, beside the tripod.” Garreth wanted to give the tripod to the friend who’d arranged the studio for them. It was a good one, he’d said, and his friend was a photographer. Everything else had been passed to his “dustmen,” who’d been waiting in the parking lot, two men in a concrete-spattered pickup, who were being paid to see that it became part of a warehouse foundation they were pouring that morning.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but we really can’t go back.”

She thought of Bigend’s scrambler, which she didn’t mind losing at all. But then she remembered the money from Jimmy. “Shit.” But then, strangely, she found she was glad to be done with that as well. Something oppressive about it, wrong. Otherwise, aside from her phone, the scrambler, the keys to the Phaeton and the flat, her license and her single credit card, there was only some makeup, a flashlight, and some mints. Her passport, she remembered now, was back at Bigend’s.

“They must’ve taken it by mistake,” he said. “But that was strictly a one-way transaction. Sorry.”

She considered telling him about the GPS tracker, but decided not to. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Were your car keys in your purse?” he asked, as they turned off Clark.

“Yes. It’s parked up the street and around the corner, here, behind a dumpster, just before you get to your…alley.” She’d just seen a tall figure in black, getting out of a small blue car parked behind the opalescent bulk of the Blue Ant Phaeton.

“Who’s that?”

“Heidi,” she said. As he drove past the blue car and the Phaeton, she saw Inchmale straighten up on the other side, bearded and more balding than she remembered him. “And Inchmale.”

“Reg Inchmale? Seriously?”

“Past the alley,” she said, “pull over here.”

He did. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know, but I’d better get them out of here. I don’t know what you still have to do, but I’ll bet there’s something. I’ll get them to rescue me. I think that’s probably what they’re here for.”

“Actually,” he said, “that’s a good idea.”

“How do I get back in touch with you?”

He handed her a phone. “Don’t use it to call anyone else. I’ll call you when things are bit more sorted, on our end.”

“Okay,” she said, and was out of the car, running back along the sidewalk, to intercept a biker-jacketed Heidi Hyde, striding toward her with some sort of three-foot paper-wrapped club in her hand. She heard the van pull away, behind her.

“What’s going on?” demanded Heidi, tapping the palm of her hand with the gift-wrapped club.

“We’re getting out of here,” Hollis said, passing her. “How long have you been here?”

“Just got here,” said Heidi, turning.

“What’s that?” Indicating the club.

“An ax-handle.”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

“There she is,” Inchmale said, around the stub of a small cigar, as they reached the blue car. “Where the hell have you been?”

“Get us out of here, Reg. Now.”

“Isn’t that your car?” Pointing at the Phaeton.

“I’ve lost the keys.” Pulling at the rear door of the blue car. “Will you please unlock this?” It unlocked. “Take me somewhere,” she said, getting in. “Now.”

“YOUR PURSE,” said Bigend, “is near the intersection of Main and Hastings. Heading south on Main, currently. On foot, apparently.”

“It must have been stolen,” she said. “Or found. How fast can you get Ollie over here with a spare set of keys?” She’d told him, at the start of the conversation, that she was in this particular bar. Otherwise, she realized, she’d have had to worry.

“Almost instantly. You’re very near the flat. I know the place. They make a very decent piso mojado.”

“Have him bring the keys. I’m not feeling like sitting around in a bar.” She closed Inchmale’s phone and handed it back to him. “He says you should try the piso mojado,” she said.

Inchmale raised an eyebrow. “Do you know that that means ‘wet floor’?”

“Hush a minute, Reg. I need to think.” According to Bigend, he’d ordered Ollie away, when she’d told him to, shortly before midnight, from the live-work building on Powell Street. The GPS unit in the scrambler, Bigend had said, had remained there for about fifteen minutes, then had headed west. From its speed, obviously in a vehicle. A bus, Bigend guessed, because it had made a number of brief stops that weren’t at intersections. She imagined him watching this on that huge screen in his office. The world as video game. He’d assumed, he’d said, that this had been her, headed back to the flat, but then the GPS telltale had gone walkabout, through what Ollie told him was the poorest-per-capita postal code in the country. She had already decided, she knew, for reasons as powerfully visceral as they were mysterious, that she wanted nothing more to do with either Jimmy Carlyle’s fifty hundreds or Bigend’s bugged scrambler.

“Phone,” she said to Inchmale. “And a Visa card.”

He put his phone on the table in front of her and dug out his wallet. “If you’re making a purchase, I’d rather you use that Amex. That’s the one for business expenses.”

“I need their eight-hundred number to report my card stolen,” she said. Ollie arrived while she was dealing with Visa, which kept her from having to speak with him. Inchmale was good at getting rid of people like Ollie. Who left, quickly.

“Drink up,” she said, indicating Inchmale’s Belgian beer. “Where’s Heidi?”

“Chatting up the bartender,” he said.

Hollis leaned out of their white vinyl booth and spotted Heidi in conversation with the blonde behind the bar. Inchmale had insisted on her leaving the ax-handle in their blue Honda rental.

“What are you doing here?” she asked him. “I mean, I appreciate that you’ve come to make sure I’m okay, but how did you get to where you found me.”

“The Bollards weren’t ready to go into the studio, it turned out. Two of them had flu. I called Blue Ant. A number of times. They aren’t really in the book. Then I had to get through to Bigend himself, which was like reverse-engineering every ordinary concept of corporate structure. When I got him, though, he was all over me.”

“He was?”

“He wants ‘Hard to Be One’ for a Chinese car commercial. To run globally, I mean. Only the car is Chinese. He hadn’t heard it for a while. Seeing you jogged his memory. Swiss director, fifteen-million-dollar budget.”

“For a car commercial?”

“They need to make an impression.”

“What did you say?”

“No. Of course. The foot you always start with, right? No. But then he segued into this really interestingly textured bullshit about how concerned he was about you, up here in Vancouver. James Bond shit in the company car, you weren’t checking in, why didn’t I take the Blue Ant Lear up in about fifteen minutes and check on you.”

“So you did?”

“Not immediately. I don’t like being gamed, and your man’s all game.”

Hollis nodded.

“I was having lunch with Heidi. I ran it by her. And of course she bit. Became worried about you. And I caught it, then. Even though I could see that it would be to his advantage to get us both up here, bit of harmless adventure, then he’d pitch it to the two of us.”

“Pitch what?”

“The Chinese car commercial. He wants us to rerecord ‘Hard to Be One’ with different lyrics. Chinese car lyrics. But I was getting this secondhand paranoia off our different drummer over there. So then she and I are in her car, headed for Burbank. I think it took us longer to drive to Burbank than it took the plane to get up here. I had my passport, she had her driver’s license, and we both got here with what we were standing up in.”

“And she bought an ax-handle?”

“We got to that neighborhood where you’d left the car, and she didn’t like it. I said she was misreading it completely, missing the cultural subtexts, and that it wasn’t actually dangerous, not that way. But she stopped at a lumberyard and tooled up. Didn’t offer me one.”

“It wouldn’t suit you.” She reached under her jacket and scratched her ribs, hard. “Come on. I need a shower. I was where there was ground glass, earlier. And cesium.”

“Cesium?”

She stood, picking up the two blank white cards that Ollie had left.