All Tomorrow's Parties

23. RUSSIAN HILL

THE apartment is large and has nothing in it that is not of practical use. Consequently, the dark hardwood floors are bare and quite meticulously swept.

Seated in an expensive, semi-intelligent Swedish workstation chair, he is sharpening the knife.

This is a task (he thinks of it as a function) requiring emptiness.

He sits facing a nineteenth-century reproduction of a seventeenth-century refectory table. Six inches in from its nearest edge, two triangular sockets have been laser-cut into the walnut at precise angles. Into these, he has inserted a pair of nine-inch-long rods of graphite-gray ceramic, triangular in cross section, forming an acute angle. These ones fit the deep, laser-cut recesses perfectly, allowing for no movement whatever.

The knife lies before him on the table, its blade between the ceramic rods.

When it is time, he takes it in his left hand and places the base of the blade against the left hone. He draws it down, a single, smooth, sure stroke, pulling it toward him as he does. He is listening for any indication of imperfection, although this would only be likely if he had struck bone, and it has been many years since the knife struck bone.

Nothing.

He exhales, inhales, places the blade against the right hone.

The telephone rings.

He exhales. Places the knife on the table again, its blade between the hones. 'Yes?

The voice, emerging from several concealed speakers, is a voice he knows well, although it has been nearly a decade since he has shared physical space with the speaker. He knows that the words he hears come in from a tiny, grotesquely expensive piece of dedicated real estate somewhere in the planet's swarm of satellites. It is a direct transmission, and nothing to do with the amorphous cloud of ordinary human communication. 'I saw what you did on the bridge last night, the voice says.

The man says nothing. He is wearing a shirt cut from very fine gray cotton flannel, its collar buttoned but tieless, French cuffs secured with plain round links of sandblasted platinum. He places his hands on his thighs and waits.

'They think you're mad, says the voice.

'Who do you employ to tell you these things?

'Children, the voice says. 'Hard and bright. The best I can find.

'Why do you bother?

'I like to know.

'You like to know, the man says, adjusting the crease along the top of his left trouser leg, 'but why?

'Because you interest me.

'Do you fear me? the man asks. 'No, the voice says, 'I don't believe I do. The man is silent.

'Why did you kill them? the voice asks.

'They died, the man says. 'But why were you there?

'I wished to see the bridge.

'They think you went there knowing you'd attract someone, someone who'd attack you. Someone to kill.

'No, says the man, a note of disappointment in his voice, 'they died.

'But you were the agent.

The man shrugs. His lips purse. Then: 'Things happen.

' 'Shit happens, we used to say. Is that it?

'I am unfamiliar with that expression, the man says.

'It's been a long time since I've asked for your help.

'That is the result of maturation, I would think, the man says. 'You are less inclined now to move counter to the momentum of things.

Now the voice falls silent. The silence lengthens. 'You taught me that, it says finally.

When he is positive that the conversation has ended, the man picks up the knife and places the base of its blade against the top of the right hone.

He draws it, smoothly, down and back.