Zero history

38. GETTING HOTTER

Bigend was having the No. 7 Breakfast: two fried eggs, black pudding, two slices of bacon, two slices of bread, and a mug of tea. “They get the black pudding right, here,” he said. “It’s so often overcooked. Dry.”

Milgrim and Fiona were having Thai noodle dishes, which Milgrim found an unexpected option in a place serving the sort of breakfast Bigend was having, but Fiona had explained that the Thais had quite seamlessly integrated the two, much in the way Italians had once learned to offer the full English, in a setting of pasta, but even more convincingly.

It was a tiny place, crowded, not much larger than Bigend’s Vegas cube, the clientele a mixture of office workers, builders, and the arts-oriented, consuming lunch or late breakfast. The china and tableware were random, unmatched, and Bigend’s mug of tea bore a smiling teddy bear.

“You don’t think Foley was following me in Paris?”

“You went back to the hotel,” Bigend said. “I phoned and said that Aldous would be picking you up. You were using a phone Sleight gave you, but I didn’t say where you were going, or who you were meeting. Fiona followed the Hilux.” He nodded in her direction.

“No tails,” said Fiona.

“But I’d phoned Hollis first,” Bigend said, “to find out where she’d be, in order to send you there. They might have overheard that. But if your Foley was there just as you arrived, I imagine he either followed Hollis to Selfridges or knew that she’d be going there.”

“Why would they be interested in Hollis? What does she have to do with Myrtle Beach and those army pants?”

“You,” said Bigend, “and me. They may have seen us all together at lunch, the day before. Sleight has allies within Blue Ant, almost certainly. They would assume that Hollis may be involved with our contracting project. And she is, of course.” Bigend forked a large piece of bacon into his mouth, and chewed.

“She is?”

Bigend swallowed, drank tea. “I’d like to see what the Gabriel Hounds designer could do for us for military contracting.”

Milgrim glanced at Fiona, curious to see whether she’d respond to the mention of the brand, but she was deftly picking shrimp from her noodles with chopsticks. “Hollis is upset,” Milgrim said to Bigend. “Her boyfriend.”

“Really? She has one?”

“Had,” said Milgrim. “They aren’t together. But she’s learned he was in an accident.”

“What kind of accident?”

“Automobile,” said Milgrim, which was literally true.

“Nothing serious, I hope,” said Bigend, tearing a slice of bread in half.

“She thinks it may have been,” said Milgrim.

“I can keep her on track,” said Bigend, sopping up yolk.

Milgrim looked at Fiona, who was looking at Bigend quite coldly now, he thought, but then went back to her noodles.

“You want the Gabriel Hounds designer to design for the U.S. military?”

“If a great deal of men’s clothing today is descended from U.S. military designs, and it is, and the U.S. military is having trouble living up to their heritage, and they are, someone whose genius lies in some recombinant grasp of the semiotics of mass-produced American clothing… Foolish not to look at the possibilities. In any case, it’s getting hot now,” said Bigend.

“What is?”

“The situation. The flow of events. It always does, when people like Sleight decide to have a go. And the person in my position is expected to focus, narrowly, on the situation at hand. Terrible waste, tactically. You can often make a killing in the market, while an attempted coup is under way.” He wiped up yolk and grease with his final bit of bread and popped it into his mouth, leaving his plate perfectly clean.

Fiona put down her chopsticks, having picked a last shrimp from her noodles. “And where will I be taking Mr. Milgrim?”

“Holiday Inn, Camden Lock,” said Bigend. “Everyone seems to know about Covent Garden.”

“I saw one of the Dottirs, in Paris, at the restaurant,” said Milgrim, “and Rausch.”

“I know,” said Bigend. “You told Fiona, last night.”

“But was it an accident that we were there? When they were?”

“It appears to have been,” said Bigend, cheerfully, wiping his fingers with a paper napkin. “But you know what they say.”

“What?”