Zero history

8. CURETTAGE

Milgrim, cleaning his teeth in the brightly but flatteringly lit bath room of his small but determinedly upscale hotel room, thought about Hollis Henry, the woman Bigend had brought along to the restaurant. She hadn’t seemed to be part of Blue Ant, and she’d also seemed somehow familiar. Milgrim’s memory of the past decade or so was porous, unreliable as to sequence, but he didn’t think they’d met before. But still, somehow familiar. He switched tips on the mini-brush he was using between his upper rear molars, opting for a conical configuration. He would let Hollis Henry settle down into the mix. In the morning he might find he knew who she was. If not, there was the lobby’s complimentary MacBook, in every way preferable to trying to Google on the Neo. Pleasant enough, Hollis Henry, at least if you weren’t Bigend. She wasn’t entirely pleased with Bigend. He’d gotten that much on the walk to Frith Street.

He switched to a different tool, one that held taut, half-inch lengths of floss between disposable U-shaped bits of plastic. They’d fixed his teeth, in Basel, and had sent him several times to a periodontal specialist. Curettage. Nasty, but now he felt like he had a new mouth, if a very high-maintenance one. The best thing about having had all that done, aside from getting a new mouth, was that he’d gotten to see a little bit of Basel, going out for the treatments. Otherwise, he’d stayed in the clinic, per his agreement.

Finishing with the floss, he brushed his teeth with the battery-powered brush, then rinsed with water from a bottle whose deep-blue glass reminded him of Bigend’s suit. Pantone 286, he’d told Milgrim, but not quite. The thing Bigend most seemed to enjoy about the shade, other than the fact that it annoyed people, was that it couldn’t quite be re-created on most computer monitors.

He was out of his mouthwash, which contained something they used in tap water on airplanes. You were only allowed to take a little bit of liquid with you on the plane, and he didn’t check luggage. He’d been rationing the last of that mouthwash, in Myrtle Beach. He’d ask someone at Blue Ant. They had people who seemed able to find anything, who had doing that as a job description.

He put out the bathroom lights, and stood beside the bed, undressing. The room had slightly too much furniture, including a dressmaker’s dummy that had been re-covered with the same brown and tan material as the armchair. He considered putting his pants in the trouser press, but decided against it. He’d shop tomorrow. A chain called Hackett. Like an upscale Banana Republic but with pretensions he knew he didn’t understand. He was turning down the bed when the Neo rang, emulating the mechanical bell on an old telephone. That would be Sleight.

“Leave the phone in your room tomorrow,” Sleight said. “Turned on, on the charger.” He sounded annoyed.

“How are you, Oliver?”

“The company that makes these things has gone out of business,” Sleight said. “So we need to do some reprogramming tomorrow.” He hung up.

“Good night,” Milgrim said, looking at the Neo in his hand. He put it on the bedside table, climbed into bed in his underwear, and pulled the covers to his chin. He turned out the light. Lay there running his tongue over the backs of his teeth. The room was slightly too warm, and he was aware, somehow, of the dressmaker’s dummy.

And listened to, or at any rate sensed, the background frequency that was London. A different white noise.