All Tomorrow's Parties

10. AMERICAN ACROPOLIS

RYDELL managed to get part of the San Francisco grid on the Brazilian glasses coming in, but he still needed Creedmore to tell him how to get to the garage where they were leaving the Hawker-Aichi. Creedmore, when Rydell woke him for that, seemed uncertain as to who Rydell was, but did a fairly good job of covering it up. He did know, after consulting a folded business card he took from the watch pocket of his jeans, exactly where they should go.

It was an old building, in the kind of area where buildings like that were usually converted to residential, but the frequency of razor wire suggested that this was not yet gentrified territory. There were a couple of Universal square badges controlling entry, a firm that mostly did low-level industrial security. They were set up in an office by the gate, watching Real One on a flatscreen propped up on a big steel desk that looked like someone had gone over every square inch of it with a ball peen hammer. Cups of take-out coffee and white foam food containers. It all felt kind of homey to Rydell, who figured they'd be going off shift soon, seven in the morning. Wouldn't be a bad job, as bad jobs went.

'Delivering a drive-away, Rydell told them.

There was a deer on the flatscreen. Behind it the familiar shapes of the derelict skyscrapers of downtown Detroit. The Real One logo in the lower right corner gave him the context: one of those nature shows.

They gave him a pad to punch in the reservation number on Creedmore's paper, and it came up paid. Had him sign on the pad, there. Told him to put it in slot twenty-three, level six. He left the office, got back into the Hawker, swung up the ramp, wet tires squealing on concrete.

Creedmore was conducting a grooming operation in the illuminated mirror behind the passenger-side sun visor. This consisted of running his fingers repeatedly back through his hair, wiping them on his jeans, then rubbing his eyes. He considered the results. 'Time for a drink, he said to the reflection of his bloodshot eyes.

'Seven in the morning, Rydell said.

'What I said, Creedmore said, flipping the visor back up. Rydell found the number twenty-three painted on the concrete, between two vehicles shrouded in white dustcovers. He edged the Hawker carefully in and started shutting it down. He was able to do this without having to go to the help menu.

Creedmore got out and went over to urinate on somebody's tire.

Rydell checked the interior to see they hadn't left anything, undid the harness, leaned over to pull the passenger-side door shut, popped the trunk, opened the driver-side door, checked that he had the keys, got out, closed the door.

'Hey, Buell. Your friend's gonna pick this up, right? Rydell was pulling his duffel out of the Hawker-Aichi's weirdly narrow trunk, a space suggestive of the interior of a child's coffin. There was nothing else in there, so he assumed Creedmore was traveling without luggage.

'No, Creedmore said, 'they gonna leave it up here get all dusty.

He was buttoning his fly.

'So I give the keys to those Universal boys dowstairs?

'No, Creedmore said, 'you give 'em to me.

'I signed, Rydell said.

'Give 'em to me.

'Buell, this vehicle is my responsibility now. I've signed it in here.

He closed the trunk, activated the security systems.

'Please step back, said the Hawker-Aichi. 'Respect my boundaries as I respect yours. It had a beautiful, strangely genderless voice, gentle but firm.

Rydell took a step back, another.

'That's my friend's car and my friend's keys, and I'm supposed to give 'em to him. Creedmore rested his hand on the big roper's buckle like it was the wheel of his personal ship of state, but he looked uncertain, as though his hangover were leaning on him.

'Just tell him the keys'll be here. That's how you do it. Safer all 'round, that way. Rydell shouldered his bag and started down the ramp, glad to be stretching his legs. He looked back at Creedmore. 'See you 'round, Buell.

'Son of a bitch, Creedmore said, though Rydell took it to be more a reference to the universe that had created Rydell than to Rydell himself. Creedmore looked lost and disconnected, squinting under the greenish-white strip lighting.

Rydell kept walking, down the battered concrete spiral of the parking garage, five more levels, till he came abreast of the office at the entrance. The Universal guards were drinking coffee, watching the end of their nature show. Now the deer moved through snow, snow that blew sideways, frosting the perfectly upright walls of Detroit's dead and monumental heart, vast black tines of brick reaching up to vanish in the white sky.

They made a lot of nature shows there.

He went out into the street, looking for a cab or a place that made breakfast. Smelling how San Francisco was a different place than Los Angeles, and feeling that was fine by him. He'd get something to eat, use the Brazilian glasses to phone Tokyo.

Find out about that money.