Zero history

17. HOMUNCULI

She found Heidi in Cabinet’s bar, monochromatically resplendent in a sort of post-holocaust drum majorette jacket, cut from several different shades and textures of almost-black.

“Fuckstick’s cards worked?”

“Two did,” said Heidi, raising a steaming glass of clear liquid in a highball glass. Her fresh-cut hair had been reblackened, likewise in several shades, and she seemed to have hit the makeup counter as well.

“What’s that?” Hollis asked, indicating the glass.

“Water,” Heidi said, and sipped.

“Want to go to Paris with me, tomorrow morning?”

“What for?”

“My day job. There’s a vintage clothing fair. I may have found someone who knows what Bigend wants me to find out. Part of it, anyway.”

“How did you find them?”

“I think she’s dating the keyboard player from the Bollards.”

“Small world,” said Heidi. “And he’s the only cute one. Rest are homunculuses.”

“Homunculi.”

“Little douche bags,” Heidi countercorrected. “I’ll pass. Throat’s bothering me. Fucking planes.”

“No, Eurostar.”

“I mean the one I came over on. When are you back?”

“Day after tomorrow, if I can find her tomorrow. I guess I’ll take Milgrim, then.”

“How was he?”

“Profoundly. Fucking. Peculiar.” Hollis blew gently on the thin tan island of foam afloat in her half pint of Guinness, to see it move, then drank some. Always a mysterious beverage to her. Unsure why she’d asked for it. She liked the way it looked more than how it tasted. How would it taste, she wondered, if it tasted the way she thought it looked? No idea. “Though maybe not in such a bad way. Not his fault Bigend found him. We know how that is.”

“Robert’s found me a gym. Old school. East side.”

“End. Not side.”

“He’s cute.”

“Don’t you dare. ‘No civilians,’ remember? If you’d stuck with the rule, you wouldn’t have to be divorcing fuckstick.”

“Look at you. Motherfucker’s on YouTube, jumping off skyscrapers in a flying-squirrel suit.”

“But it was your rule, remember? Not mine. After the boxers, you stuck with musicians.”

“Homunculuses,” Heidi said, nodding, “douche bags.”

“I could’ve told you that,” Hollis said.

“You did.”

The bar’s level of early-evening drinking-crowd noise tilted, suddenly. Hollis looked up and saw the Icelandic twins, their identical frosty pelts aglitter. Behind them, somehow worryingly avuncular, loomed Bigend.

“Shit,” said Hollis.

“I’m out of here,” said Heidi, putting down her water and standing, giving her shoulders an irritated shrug within her new jacket.

Hollis rose too, half-pint in hand. “I’ll have to speak with him,” she said. “About Paris.”

“You’re the one with the job.”

“Hollis,” said Bigend. “And Heidi. Delighted.”

“Mr. Bellend,” said Heidi.

“Allow me to introduce Eydis and Fridrika Brandsdottir. Hollis Henry and Heidi Hyde.”

Eydis and Fridrika smiled identically, in eerie unison. “A pleasure,” said one. “Yes,” said the other.

“I’m leaving,” said Heidi, and did, men turning to follow her with their eyes as she strode off through the bar.

“She isn’t feeling well,” said Hollis. “The flight’s affected her throat.”

“She is a singer?” asked either Eydis or Fridrika.

“A drummer,” said the other.

“May I speak with you for a moment, Hubertus?” Hollis turned to the twins. “Please excuse me. Take these seats.”

As they settled in the armchairs that Hollis and Heidi had vacated, Hollis stepped closer to Bigend. He’d forgone the blue suit this evening, and wore one in some peculiarly light-absorbing black fabric that somehow looked as though it didn’t have a surface. More like an absence, an opening into something else, antimatter paired with mohair. “I hadn’t known Heidi was here,” he said.

“We’re all surprised. But I wanted to tell you that I’m going to Paris tomorrow, to try to speak with someone who may know something about Hounds. I thought I’d take Milgrim.”

“You got along?”

“Well enough, considering.”

“I’ll have Pamela e-mail you in a few minutes. She can handle any reservations.”

“Don’t bother. I’ll keep track of expenses. But I don’t want to give up my room here, so I’ll keep it and you can cover that.”

“I already am,” Bigend said, “plus incidentals. Can you tell me anything about Paris?”

“I may have found someone who was involved with whatever the beginning of Hounds was. ‘May.’ That’s all I know. And it may not be true. I’ll call you from there. Anyway, you’ve got company.” Smiling in the direction of Eydis and Fridrika, now coiled like slender silvery arctic mammals in their matching armchairs. “Good night.”