Sleepless (9 page)

She pulled the customized four-finger glove from her left hand. The fifth finger on all her left gloves had been rendered superfluous at a time in the distant past when she had chosen to make a point of some kind by cutting off the pinkie on that hand.

She set the glove aside.

"It sounds hideous."

I nodded.

"Most definitely. In every possible way."

She pulled off her other glove, this one traditionally fingered.

"And the price is beyond you?"

I shook my head.

"Not at all. Which is not to suggest that it is in any way inexpensive. But no, it is not the work itself I need from you."

I turned and looked south, where we once could have expected to see, on an especially clear night, smoothly circling dots of light, tranquilized gnats, dense air traffic over LAX.

"I operate quite well on a local level, but secure cross-country shipping has become a chancy operation at best, and toxically expensive."

I faced her again.

"I am more than capable of bearing all the expenses, but having done so, I don't care to trust anything but the most reliable of transportation services."

Her left thumb folded across her palm and rubbed the nubbin of scar where her finger once was. A gesture that gave every appearance of unconsciousness, yet one I was certain originally had been adopted to unnerve. But in the realms of power and influence where she now moved, I doubted that very many were disconcerted by the prospect of self- mutilation. I imagined that the calculated detachment that informed the movement had been employed so long that it had evolved now to possess the spontaneity to which it had once only aspired.

An observation that might have gotten me killed had I given it voice. Chizu did not care to have her psychology plumbed. It implied the plumber's interest in the whys and wherefores of her dealings. An interest that could never be considered healthy. For the interested party.

She stopped rubbing the scar.

"You would like access to my infrastructure."

If I had been free to, I would have raised a hand in denial.

"I wish to place a shipping order. And to ask that you personally see that the order is carried out."

She rose, a grace that suggested a thread running from the ceiling to the very top of her head, pulling her gently to her bare feet.

"To have shipped a hideous painting?"

I faced the windows again, looking north this time, the inexhaustible glow of the wildfires above the rim of the Santa Monicas as evening fell.

"It's meant to be part of my apocalypse collection."

She came around the worktable, her hedgehog haircut no higher than my shoulder.

"In the face of this view, I see no need for such a collection."

I shrugged, helpless in the grip of one of my obsessions.

"I can't help but think that the creation of this piece was an undeniable sign that the end was looming. Even if it wasn't regarded."

She stood at the window, confronting her reflection.

"Does it have a name, this harbinger?"

I smiled at her reflection.

"'Greeting Card.'"

Her lips twitched and drew into a smile that she allowed.

"Yes. I see the appeal."

I joined her at the window.

"I thought you might."

I looked down at her profile, admiring the smoothness of her complexion, how it showed in youthful contrast to her gray hair, telling the story of a long impassive life, the dearth of wrinkles speaking of displeasures concealed, laughter abated, furrowed brows smoothed, pursed lips straightened.

To eke a smile from that visage was a great pleasure.

So I bowed my head in thanks.

"And for you, Lady Chizu, what do you need found?"

The smile left, and she looked up at me.

"What is your opinion of these anachronisms?"

She glanced back at the wall of obsolete machines.

"My collection."

A thick wad of purple scar tissue behind my ear throbbed. There was shrapnel still under there, decades old, that sometimes reminded me of its presence when odd atmospheric changes were nigh.

I pursed my lips.

"Some are quite beautiful. Others not. I admire its completeness. The fact that no machine seems weighted with more value than any other. The fact that they are clearly organized with purpose. Whatever the guiding principle may be, it is not readily visible. Not age, country of manufacture, color, design specifications, size, condition. All these qualities are distributed randomly, but not necessarily evenly. There is undeniable balance. And order. I am not drawn to these things, but I understand the need for such a collection. And I admire it."

She looked out at the night.

"The typewriters around which the others are arranged, the singularities that define the collection, are those upon which suicide notes were written. And not another word, after."

I looked again at the devices and saw, in this new light, a subtle emphasis put on certain of them, a seeming willful distancing on the part of the surrounding machines, as if even the inanimate wished to avoid proximity to tragedy and madness.

"Ah."

I nodded.

"Yes."

I turned to her.

"I see."

And bowed my head again, in appreciation of her trust, sharing this detail with me.

Her mutilated hand lifted slightly from her side, dismissing my tribute.

"The provenance of these particular typewriters is unquestionable. Must be so. But they do not, of late, draw me as they have in the past. They seem dulled. And I wonder. An appetite such as I have had for these things."

A muscle in her forearm pulsed several times, causing the heart to beat beneath the dragon's breast.

"What will possibly fill it?"

She looked at me; eyes nearly black showed the same rim of fire as the mountains.

"A portable hard drive. It contains property of mine. It must be returned to me. And no memory of it remain."

I bowed a final time, accepting the contract.

Noticing as I did so, a tension revealed in the sternocleidomastoid and trapezius muscles of her neck, betraying an intense effort. An effort, I had no doubt, that was preventing an opposing tension, one that would produce the unmistakable stiff-neck posture that was the first outward sign of sleeplessness.

I turned away, not wishing to betray my discovery. And thus I betrayed to myself my own doubt that I could employ the blade concealed upon my person before she realized I had discerned her new weakness and let loose the dragon her tattoo proclaimed was just beneath her skin, waiting, not patiently.

Chapter 5.

7/9/10

CAPTAIN BARTOLOME HAD me arrested again. Old-timers named Hounds and Kleiner. They took Ecstasy (30 tablets of Belgian Blue), Demerol (15 commercial caps) and Valium (20 commercial) from my stash and replaced them with what appeared to be no more than an ounce of poor quality Mexican marijuana. Captain says the busts are still the safest way for us to talk face-to-face. I say the arrest record tells too much to anyone who takes a look. I keep getting picked up and kicked loose. Doesn't matter that the booking is always at a different precinct with different cops. Anyone who makes an effort looking in the file will put it together. Either I'm a snitch or I'm undercover. Either way I'll be against the wall. Bartolome says not to worry. He says no one but other cops see the jacket. I say that's what I'm worried about. Hounds and Kleiner. What would it take to buy those two? Or maybe not. Just because they're pre-Rampart, that doesn't make them dirty. Or not any dirtier than any narcs cherry-picking from a dealer's stash. But if not them, then some other cop. Some other cop could be paid off to look in my jacket. Bartolome says it won't happen. He says he won't push it too far. I say it's already too far. Too long. I've been doing this too long. Sitting and talking with him, I worried as much about the customers blowing up my phone as I did about letting Rose know I was okay. Bartolome says that dealers always make their customers wait. He says it's like "part of their credo." But he's not out there. The people he wants me dealing to are not used to waiting. That was supposed to be the whole point of me doing this. He says my client list is getting too big, anyway. He says there is no point in keeping them for more than a few weeks. He says we're not trying to bust users, we're trying to find Dreamer. "If they don't connect to Dreamer, stop taking their texts." But I need the good referrals to get the new customers. And some of them, they need what I get for them.

Srivar Dhar left five messages. He's in final stages, the suffering, and only Shabu keeps him from falling into waking REM states. Every time he hits a REM cycle, he hallucinates the Kargil War. He was an officer in the frontal assaults on Pakistani positions that were inaccessible to Bofors howitzers and airpower. Uphill at eighteen thousand feet, near zero Fahrenheit, in darkness. His house is built on a slope. In REMs he charges the slope, falls on his stomach, and starts to crawl, shivering and crying. He says he can feel the cold. Smoking Shabu keeps him fully awake. He's more aware of his body, the pain, but he says it's better than going back to Kargil.

Bartolome wants me to dump him.

I told him that Srivar introduced me to a whole community of western-educated wealthy Kashmiris. The kind who have connections to bootleg South Asian Dreamer. Dumping him before he dies would alienate all of them. He didn't say anything. But he didn't insist on getting rid of Srivar. Other than maybe a few bottles worth of loose pills, the bootlegs are the only Dreamer we've seen dealt in quantity. Busts of scale, the only kind he's interested in. Maybe the little ones are the only ones we'll get. Maybe the Dreamer distribution chain is just that tight. Maybe no one is dirty enough to try and steal from that supply. No one greedy enough to risk it. I said something like that to Bartolome once. He didn't laugh out loud, but only because he stopped himself. He says, "There's always someone dirty and greedy enough when there's that kind of money to be made. If they aren't dirty and greedy to start with, the money will make them that way." He can't imagine there aren't busts to be had. Big Dreamer busts. I hope he's wrong. But he's probably right. So I have to keep looking.

Something weird when I told him about the murders at the gold farm. He did that thing where he stares at me and knocks on the tabletop while he stares at me. I'm still not sure if it's an intimidation thing or if he's knocking on the table intead of my head. It's completely unlike anything my father would have done but carries some of the same exasperation. My father would have become utterly still. I'd have had to check his pulse to know he was alive. Then he would have asked something like, "Tell me, Parker, do you think that is wise?"

"I've submitted a Personal Qualifications Essay and begun prepping for the LAPD Academy tests."

Followed by the long stillness.

"Tell me, Parker, do you think that is wise?"

Anyway, when Captain Bartolome does the knocking thing, I get the same kind of feeling that I used to get when my father asked that question. A feeling like I want to either explain myself fully so that he'll understand, or knock him down and kick his teeth in. But Bartolome didn't ask if I thought something was "wise," he asked, "What the hell were you doing at the gold farm?"

He didn't want me there. Told me a couple weeks back to cut them off my client list.

Said they weren't "upscale" enough to connect to Dreamer. I'd been trying to explain to him that they were not only plenty upscale but that they were natural connectors for all social levels.

I didn't get it at first. At first Beenie was just a customer when I was building my cover dealing medical marijuana, but he was the one who got me to see the potential, and then he got me into the farms.

People don't leave home. Gas is too expensive to go anywhere you don't have to go. And people are getting more and more afraid to go outside, anyway. The servers that support most of the Internet have backup power for emergencies. Even when local Internet service is out or when you lose power, the Internet itself is still there. And so are the games. And these people, they're using the game environments not just for the usual adventures, they're using them socially. Families on opposite coasts can't afford to fly or drive to see one another, and who knows what the phone service might be like, but an online virtual world like Chasm Tide is there. And the more time people spend in-world, the more committed they are. The demand for in-world artifacts, gold, highly advanced characters, is huge. The real-market value on virtual money, possessions, and people keeps going up as the stock market continues to flounder. Now people are trading in Chasm Tide gold futures. Farmers who spend their time hacking up orcs and zombies and collecting their treasure until they have enough to push it onto the market are building almost equal value in real-world currency. Most of it in dollars. Euro and yuan are weaker against the dollar than Chasm gold is at this point.

Where you're from or what you're worth doesn't matter in Chasm. There's no class distinction in-world. The level 100 Eldritch Knight is the clerk at your local bodega. The level 2 Stone Druid is your boss. And they have a venue for interaction that wouldn't be there otherwise.