Zero history

51. SOMEONE

Hollis lay fully dressed on the embroidered velvet spread of the Piblokto Madness bed, watching the faint oscillation of huge curved shadows thrown by the halogens in the birdcage library, dialed down until they were almost off. In some sense, she decided, she literally no longer knew where she was. In Number Four, in Cabinet, certainly, but if she’d just been one of the subjects of an abduction attempt, as Fiona seemed to believe she had, was Number Four still the same place? A matter of context. The same place, but meaning differently.

Fiona had insisted on bringing her up here, and then had looked in the bathroom, and in the wardrobe, where in any case there was no room to hide. If the wooden sides of the bed hadn’t gone straight down to the carpet, Hollis guessed, Fiona would have looked under it as well. Put the chain on, Fiona had ordered, leaving to find Milgrim and Heidi, something she seemed relatively certain of being able to do. As far as she knew, Fiona had said, both were okay. She’d had no more idea about what the attempted truck-trapping had been about than Hollis did, it seemed, though she too had identified Milgrim’s Foley, their shadow from Salon du Vintage. What had Bigend called him? A fantasist? How would he have expected to get inside Aldous’s super-truck? The thing was capable of being sealed hermetically, she knew, because Aldous delighted in explaining its many features. It carried tanks of compressed air, and could be driven through clouds of tear or any other gas. He’d also told her that it could drive underwater, with a snorkel extended. A bank vault on wheels, its “glass” some hush-hush Israeli nano stuff that Aldous was particularly proud of Bigend’s having been able to source. Was it possible that Foley had simply had no idea what the silver pickup was about? It looked, after all, at least to Hollis, like any other truck, of that stretched, four-door, overly masculine sort, its bed shortened by half through the extension of the cab. The bed was covered with a ribbed lid, painted to match the bodywork. Perhaps that was where they kept the air supply. And what had happened to Foley since she’d seen him in Paris? An accident? A head injury?

There was a knock at the door. Two raps, brisk, quite sharp. “Miss Henry?” A man’s voice. “It’s Robert, Miss Henry.”

It did in fact sound like Robert. She sat up, stood up, crossed to the door. “Yes?”

“Someone to see you, Miss Henry.”

This was such a singular thing for a hotel security man to say, and delivered with such an uncharacteristic cheerfulness, that she stepped back, quickly scanned the nearest shelf, and seized the same spikey ebony head that Heidi had so tidily bull’s-eyed earlier that day. Inverted, it felt comfortingly heavy, its serrated hairdo adding teeth to blunt-instrument potential.

She unlocked the door, leaving the chain in place, and peered out. Robert stood there, smiling. Garreth looked up at her from about the level of Robert’s waist. She couldn’t put that together, and didn’t, until she’d opened the door, although she never managed, subsequently, to remember closing it or undoing the chain. Nor could she ever remember what she’d said, but whatever it was, she would remember, had caused a look of relief to flash across Robert’s face, and his smile to widen.

“Sorry I couldn’t return your call,” said Garreth.

She heard the ebony fetish hit the carpet, bounce. Saw Robert’s broad back disappearing through one of the green corridor’s spring-loaded doors.

He was seated in a wheelchair.

Or not a wheelchair, she saw, as the fingers of his right hand moved on a joystick, but one of those electric mobility scooters, black with gray pneumatic tires, like the offspring of a high-end Swiss office chair and some expensive 1930s toy. As it rolled forward, across the threshold, she heard herself say “Oh God.”

“Not as bad as it looks,” he said. “Playing the disability card for your doorman.” He unclipped a black cane from the scooter’s side, pressed a button. A quadrangle of rubber-tipped supports sprang open at its tip. “A bit, anyway.” Using the cane for support, he stood carefully, wincing, putting no weight on his right leg.

And then her arms were around him, one of his around her, her face wet with tears. “I thought you were dead.”

“Who told you that?”

“Nobody. But I imagined it as I was being told you’d jumped off that hideous building. And nobody knew where you were-”

“Munich, when you called. Intimate session with five neurosurgeons, three German, two Czech, getting some feeling restored to this leg. Why I couldn’t call. Wouldn’t give me the phone.”

“Did it work?”

“It hurts,” he said.

“I’m sorry.”

“That’s actually a good thing, in this case. Perhaps you should close the door?”

“I don’t want to let go of you.”

He rubbed her lower back. “Better behind a locked door.”

While she was putting the chain on, he asked: “Who’s this for?” She turned. He was looking down at the fetish head. “To do with this deep shit your lairy drummer says you’re in?”

“Heidi?”

“Left a voice mail herself. About an hour ago.”

“How did you convince Robert to bring you up here?”

“Showed him the head-mount video of the Burj jump. Handicapped access is through the rear here. Your man had to help me in. When you weren’t here, I said I’d wait in the rear lobby, do some work on my laptop. He came back to check on me, of course. Saw the video, we got talking. I explained I was a friend of yours.” He smiled. “Is that whiskey?”

“Want some?”

“Can’t. Painkillers. Thought you might. You’re looking a bit pale.”

“Garreth…”

“Yes?”

“Missed you.” It sounded incredibly stupid.

“Mutual.” He wasn’t smiling now. “Knew I’d fucked up, really. When the Lotus hit me, actually.”

“You shouldn’t have jumped.”

He shook his head. “Shouldn’t have left.” He went slowly to the bed, supporting himself with the four-footed cane. Turned, as slowly, and carefully sat. “Himself,” he said, “sends regards.”

She had no idea how old the old man was. She would have thought seventy, at least. “How is he?”

“None too happy with me. I’m not likely to be that operational again for him. I think he sees the tricks are over, for both of us.”

She poured herself a half-inch of whiskey, in a highball glass. “I never understood exactly what motivated him,” she said.

“Some sort of seething Swiftian rage,” he said, “that he can only express through perverse, fiendishly complex exploits, resembling Surrealist gestes.” He smiled.

“And that was one, in Vancouver?”

“That was a good one. And I met you.”

“And then you went off to do another, before the election?”

“Night of the election, actually. But that was different. We were simply making certain that something didn’t happen, that time.”

The whiskey burnt the back of her throat. Made her eyes water. She sat down, gingerly, beside him, fearing that she might hurt him if she made the mattress move.

He put his arm around her waist. “I feel like a schoolboy at the theater,” he said. “With a date who can’t stand whiskey.”

“Your hair’s longer,” she said, touching it.

“Grows out in hospital. Quite a few procedures. Yet to murder a physiotherapist, but then I’ve not had my last chance.” He took the glass from her, sniffed at it. “Deep shit, your Heidi said. Harsh woman. Tell me: how deep?”

“I don’t know. I was in a truck tonight, in the City, leaving a meeting with Bigend, and a car cut us off. Our driver went into a passage, sort of alley, and I think we were meant to, because another car drove in at the other end, and drove right up to us. That driver had a balaclava, pulled down. We were trapped between the two cars.”

“What happened?”

“Aldous, our driver, pushed the car in front back out into the street, then crushed the front corner of it. It’s an armored truck, a Toyota, like a tank.”

“Hilux,” he said. “Jankel-armored?”

“How did you know?”

“It’s a specialty of theirs. Whose is it?”

“Bigend’s.”

“Thought you wanted shut of him.”

“I did. Do, actually. But he came back, a few days ago, and I agreed to a job. But it’s all gone sideways.”

“Pear-shaped. But how exactly?”

“His IT man and security expert’s defected. He has big plans for military contracting. In the United States.”

“The IT man?”

“Bigend. He wants to design clothing. For the military. Says it’s recession-proof.”

He looked at her. “It is that,” he said. “Do you know who was after your truck?”

“Someone Bigend pissed off. Another contractor. I heard the name earlier tonight but can’t remember it. An American arms dealer, I think.”

“Who told you that?”

“Milgrim. Someone who works for Bigend. Or is a hobby of his, more like it.”

“Crepuscular in here,” he said, looking around.

She got up, carefully, and went to the control. Turned up the halogens.

“Someone’s been to a lot of boot sales,” he said. “Regular Museum of Mankind in here.”

“A club,” she said. “Inchmale joined. It’s all like this.”

He looked up at the whale ribs. “Portobello Road on acid.”

She saw that the right leg of his black trousers had been split neatly up the inner seam, from hem to crotch, and reclosed with small black safety pins. “Why is your leg pinned up?”

“Going goth. Difficult to find just the right black ones. Change the dressings myself, this way. Have the kit for it in back of my invalid chair.” He smiled. “Sutures are already starting to itch.” Then he frowned. “Not pretty, though. Best leave that.” He sniffed at the whiskey again, took a tiny sip. Sighed. “That’s your deep shit, then?”

“There was a tracker bug in this,” she said, picking up the Blue Ant figurine from the nightstand. “It may have been there since Vancouver, or it may have been put in later.” She opened a drawer and produced the bug, in its baggie. “Bigend? Sleight?”

“Who’s that?”

“Bigend’s IT specialist. The recent defector. Ajay left it out, when Heidi put this back together for me. Said there were more options, leaving it out.”

“A.J.?”

“Ah-jay. Heidi’s favorite sparring partner, at her new gym, in Hackney. He’s a fan of yours. Total fanboy.”

“That would be a change,” he said, “wouldn’t it?” Then he patted the embroidered velour beside him. “Come back and sit here. Make an old man happy.”