Zero history

25. TINFOIL

Hollis found Milgrim giving his jacket to the Japanese girl at the bag check. “I’m finished,” she said. “We can go now, if you’re ready.”

Milgrim turned, took her hand, and led her away from the bag check.

“Is something wrong?”

“My phone,” said Milgrim, releasing her hand on the far side of the entranceway. “They’re listening through it.”

Tinfoil hats, people whose fillings broadcast thought-control messages. “ ‘They’ who?”

“Sleight. Bigend doesn’t trust him.”

“Neither do I.” She never had. And now that she thought of Sleight, Milgrim didn’t sound quite as automatically crazy. That was the trouble with Bigendland. People did things like that. The ones like Sleight did, anyway. Then again, Milgrim might just be crazy.

Or on drugs. What if he’d slipped? Gone back on whatever it was they’d gotten him off of in Switzerland? Where was the semi-absent character she’d met over tapas? He looked worked up, a little sweaty, maybe angry about something. He looked more like someone in particular, anyway, she realized, and that was what had been missing before. The lack of that was what had made him simultaneously so peculiar and so forgettable. She was looking into the eyes of someone experiencing the anxiety of sudden arrival. But Milgrim’s arrival, she somehow knew, was from within. But all because he thought he’d seen someone? Though someone, she reminded herself, she’d thought she’d seen too, in the basement. “I saw him,” she said. “Maybe.”

“Where?” Milgrim stepped back, allowing a pair of spryly geriatric American men to pass, headed for the stairs.

They looked to Hollis like aged hair-metal rockers in expensive mufti, and seemed to be talking golf. Did they collect vintage Chanel? “Downstairs,” she said. “I pushed the wrong button in the elevator. Then he came down the stairs. I think.”

“What did you do?”

“Got back in the elevator. Up. Didn’t see him again, but I was busy.”

“He’s here,” Milgrim said.

“You saw him?”

“I took his picture. Pamela wants it. I could show you, but the card’s not in my camera.”

“He’s here now?” She looked around.

“I saw him go out,” glancing toward the entrance. “Doesn’t mean he hasn’t come back.”

“I asked Bigend. He said they didn’t have anyone watching us.”

“Do you believe him?”

“Depends how much it matters to him. But we’ve got bad history, that way, between us. If he bullshits me again, and I find out about it, I’m gone. He understands that.” She looked Milgrim in the eye. “You aren’t high on anything, are you?”

“No.”

“You seem different. I’m worried about you.”

“I’m in recovery,” said Milgrim. “I’m supposed to be different. If I were high, I wouldn’t be different.”

“You seem angry.”

“Not with you.”

“But you weren’t angry, before.”

“It wasn’t allowed,” he said, and she heard his amazement, as if in saying this he’d discovered something about himself he’d never known before. He swallowed. “I want to find out if Sleight’s telling him where I am. I think I know how to do that.”

“What did Bigend say about Sleight?”

“He warned me to be careful of the Neo.”

“What’s that?”

“My phone. The brand. They’re bankrupt now.”

“Who is?”

“The company who made it. Sleight always knows where I am. The phone tells him. But I’ve known that.”

“You have?”

“I thought Bigend wanted him to. Did want him to, probably. It wasn’t a secret.”

“You think he listens through it?”

“He made me leave it in the hotel, yesterday. Charging. He does that when he wants to reprogram it, add or subtract applications.”

“I thought he was in New York.”

“He programs it from wherever he is.”

“Is he listening now?”

“It’s in my jacket. Over there.” He pointed at the bag check. “I shouldn’t leave it there for long.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Did Blue Ant make the hotel reservations?”

“I did.”

“By phone?”

“Through the hotel’s website. I didn’t tell anyone where we’d be. What do you want to do?”

“We’ll get a cab. You get in first, tell the driver Galeries Lafayette. Sleight won’t hear. Then I’ll get in. Don’t say anything about Galeries Lafayette, or about the hotel. Then I’ll block the GPS.”

“How?”

“I have a way. I’ve already tried it. He thought I was in an elevator.”

“Then what?”

“I’ll get out at Galeries Lafayette, you’ll go on, I’ll unblock my phone. And see if Foley comes to find me.”

“Who’s Foley?”

“Foliage green pants.”

“But what if someone’s here, and they just follow the cab?”

“That’s a lot of people. If they have a lot of people, there’s nothing we can do. They’ll follow you too.” He shrugged. “Where are we staying?”

“It’s called the Odeon. So is the street. And it’s by Odeon Metro. Easy to remember. Your room is on my credit card, and I’ve paid for one night. We have an eight o’clock dinner reservation, near the hotel. In my name.”

“We do?”

“With Meredith and George. I learned something, upstairs, but I think we might learn more, tonight.”

Milgrim blinked. “You want me there?”

“We’re working together, aren’t we?”

He nodded.

“Place called Les Editeurs. George says you can see it from the hotel.”

“Eight,” said Milgrim. “When I get my jacket, don’t forget the phone’s in it. Sleight. Listening. When we get a cab, you get in first, tell the driver Galeries Lafayette.”

“Why there?”

“It’s big. Department stores are good.”

“They are?”

“For losing people.” He was at the counter now, giving the girl his ticket. She passed him his jacket and his black bag. Hollis presented hers and the girl wheeled her roll-aboard out.

“Merci,” said Hollis.

Milgrim had put his jacket on and was already headed out the door.