Zero history

52. THE MATTER IN GREATER DETAIL

Heidi said there was no cellular connection on the London subway, so Milgrim hadn’t bothered trying the dongle. The trip to Marble Arch had been a quick one, Milgrim seated and Heidi standing, ceaselessly eyeing the other passengers for signs of incipient Foleyism.

Heidi still had her jacket inside out. As she’d swayed in front of him, on the balls of her feet, he’d been able to look up, the jacket repeatedly swinging open, and identify what he’d earlier taken for a brooch as having been three darts, the kind they played a game with here, in pubs. He’d sometimes, on hotel television, glimpsed hypnotically tedious competitions that made golf seem like a contact sport. But now he understood what she’d done. There were two left. Not good. He supposed he should be grateful for her having done it, under the circumstances, but still, ungood. Though he noted that he didn’t find her frightening, however little he’d want to get on her bad side.

There was a KFC adjacent the Marble Arch exit, he saw as they emerged, but it was closed. It smelled horrible, and this struck him with some full and unexpected force of nostalgia and desire. Homesickness, he thought, another feeling he’d tamped down beneath the benzos, in whatever unventilated chamber of the self, however abstract the notion of home might be.

But then Fiona pipped her bike’s horn, twice, at the curb, gesturing to them. He walked over as she flipped her visor up, the particular angle at which the line of her cheekbone intersected the yellow helmet-edge striking him in some nameless but welcome way. “Coming with me,” she said, offering him the black helmet. Raising her chin slightly to make eye contact with Heidi, who’d come up beside Milgrim. “I’ll send a car for you.”

“Fuck it,” said Heidi, “I’m walking. Where’s Hollis?”

“At Cabinet. I’m taking Milgrim.”

“You do that,” said Heidi, taking the black helmet and placing it on Milgrim’s head. The hairspray was still there. She gave the helmet a sharp rap with her knuckles, in parting. Milgrim threw his leg over the seat behind Fiona and put his arms around her, conscious of girl within the armor. Blinking at the newness of that. Turned the helmet to see Heidi, dimly, through the miserable visor, marching away.

›››

“Faggot above a load,” said Bigend, seated behind a very basic white Ikea desk. It had a broken corner and was stacked with books of fabric samples.

“Excuse me?” Milgrim was perched on a ridiculous violet stool, deeply and cheaply cushioned.

“Archaic expression,” said Bigend. “Faggots, properly speaking, being pieces of firewood. When one had a faggot above a load, one was about to drop one. It meant that something was excessive, too busy.”

“Foley,” said Milgrim. “In the car in front of us.”

“I gathered as much.”

“Where’s Aldous?”

“Being questioned by various species of police. He’s good at that.”

“Will he be arrested?”

“Unlikely. But when Fiona debriefed you, in Paris, you told her that you’d gone to Galeries Lafayette. That Foley had followed you there, as you’d guessed he would, and that you’d slipped the Neo, having determined that Sleight was using it to allow Foley to track you, into, I believe she said, a pram.”

“Not a pram,” said Milgrim, “exactly. More modern.”

“Was there a reason for choosing that one particular pram?”

“The woman, the mother, was Russian. I’d been eavesdropping.”

“What sort of a woman did you take her to be?”

“The wife of an oligarch, would-be oligarch…”

“Or gangster?”

Milgrim nodded.

“Accompanied by at least one bodyguard, I would imagine?”

Milgrim nodded.

Bigend stared at him. “Naughty.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It isn’t as though I don’t want you to become more proactive,” said Bigend, “but now that I understand what you did, I see that you’ve been irresponsible. Impulsive.”

“You’re impulsive,” said Milgrim, surprising himself.

“I’m supposed to be impulsive. You’re supposed to be relatively circumspect.” He frowned. “Or, rather, not that you’re supposed to be, particularly, but that I expect it of you, on the basis of experience. Why did you do it?”

“I was tired of Sleight. I’ve never liked him very much.”

“One doesn’t,” agreed Bigend.

“And I’d never really thought about the idea of his being able to track me with the Neo before. I’d taken that for granted, assumed it was something you wanted him to do, but then you were expressing distrust for him, suspicion…” Milgrim shrugged. “I felt impatient, angry.”

Bigend studied him, the weird cathode blue of his suit seeming to float in Milgrim’s retina at some special depth. “I think I understand,” he said. “You’re changing. They told me to expect that. I’ll factor it in, in future.” He took an iPhone from an inner pocket and squinted at its screen, replaced it. “The woman in Seven Dials. The federal agent. I need to know more about that. All about it.”

Milgrim cleared his throat, something he tried never to do in situations like this. His bag was at his feet, the laptop in it, and now he resisted the urge to look at it. “Winnie,” said Milgrim, “Tung Whitaker.”

“Why are you wearing the Sonny logo?” interrupted Bigend.

“Heidi bought it from a cleaner.”

“It’s a Chinese brand, if one can call it a brand. Logo, rather. Used for the African market.”

“I don’t think he was African. Slavic.”

“Jun,” called Bigend, “come here.”

A small man, Japanese, with round gold glasses, entered from the darkened shop. Milgrim hadn’t seen him when Fiona had ushered him in, only the other driver, the urine-sample man. “Yes?”

“Milgrim needs some clothes. Put an outfit together.”

“Would you mind standing, please?” asked Jun. He wore a type of pointedly British hunting cap, Milgrim thought by Kangol. Milgrim associated it with the Bronx of another era. He had a small, very neat mustache.

Milgrim stood. Jun walked around him. “A thirty-two waist,” he said. “A thirty-two inseam?”

“Thirty-three.”

He looked at Milgrim’s shoes. “Eight?”

“Nine,” said Milgrim.

“British eight,” said Jun, and went back to the darkened front of the shop, where Milgrim knew the urine-sample driver was sitting, with his umbrella.

“She’s not interested in you,” Milgrim said. “She thought you might be Gracie’s business partner. She had no way of knowing what she was watching, in Myrtle Beach. So she followed me back here. And I think…”

“Yes?”

“I think she wanted to see London.”

Bigend raised an eyebrow.

“But the police, authorities, wouldn’t really help her much with you. She said you were connected. With them.”

“Really?”

“But they asked her about your truck.”

“Asked her what?”

“They were curious about it.”

“But what did she want from you?”

“She’d thought that by learning more about you, she’d learn more about Gracie, about Foley. But as soon as she learned that you were just a competitor, that you were interested in U.S. military contracts yourself, she stopped being interested in you.”

“You told her that?”

“And she stopped being interested in you,” repeated Milgrim.

There was a silence. “I see what you mean,” said Bigend.

“I wasn’t volunteering information. I was responding to specific questions. I didn’t know what else to do.”

Jun returned, his arms full of clothing, which he put down on the desk, pushing the fabric samples aside. There was a pair of very new, very bright brown shoes. “Stand, please.” Milgrim stood. “Remove jacket.” Milgrim unzipped the Sonny and took it off. Jun helped him on with something made of fragrant tweed, immediately removed it, tried another, equally fragrant, walked around, buttoned the jacket, nodded.

“But why didn’t you tell me this at the time?” asked Bigend.

“Remove trousers, please,” said Jun, “and shirt.”

“I was too anxious,” said Milgrim. “I have an anxiety disorder.” He sat down on the horrible stool and began to remove his shoes. Taking them off, he stood and began removing his pants, grateful to have something to do. “I didn’t make her follow me. You sent me to Myrtle Beach.”

“You may have an anxiety disorder,” Bigend said, “but you’re definitely changing.”

“Remove shirt, please,” said Jun.

Milgrim did. He stood there in black socks and underpants from Galeries Lafayette, with a peculiar awareness of something just having shifted, though he wasn’t clear what. Jun had been busy unbuttoning and unfolding a tattersall shirt, which he now helped Milgrim into. It had a spread collar, Milgrim saw, and as he was buttoning the front he discovered that the barrel cuffs extended nearly to his elbows, with a great many pearl buttons.

“Have you been to Florence?” asked Bigend as Milgrim was fastening those very peculiar cuffs.

“Florence?” Jun had just handed him a pair of whipcord trousers.

“Tuscany,” said Bigend, “is lovely. Better this time of year. The rain. More subtle light.”

“You’re sending me to Italy?”

“Along with Hollis. I want you both out of here. Someone is angry with you. I’ll generate deep Blue Ant traffic, to the effect that you’re both in Los Angeles. Perhaps that will convince Oliver.”

Milgrim heard that scream, outside of Bank Station, took a breath, but found that no words came. He zipped up his new pants. Which were oddly narrow in the ankles, and cuffed.

“Sit, please,” said Jun, who was loosening the laces of the brown shoes. They were wing-tip brogues, but with a narrower toe than was traditional, and thick, cleated-looking soles. Milgrim sat. Jun knelt, helped Milgrim on with the shoes, then tightened the laces and tied them. Milgrim stood, shifting his weight. They fit, he decided, but were stiff, heavy. Jun handed him a narrow, heavy leather belt of a similar shade, with a polished brass buckle. He put it on. “Tie,” said Jun, offering one in paisley silk.

“I don’t wear them, thanks,” said Milgrim.

Jun put the tie down on the desk, helped Milgrim into the jacket, then picked up the tie again, folded it, and tucked it into the jacket’s inside breast pocket. He smiled, patted Milgrim on the shoulder, and left.

“That’s better,” said Bigend. “For Florence. Bella figura.”

“Am I going back to Camden?”

“No,” said Bigend. “That was why I had you give Fiona your key. She’s gone ’round to pick up your things, check you out.”

“Where am I going?”

“You aren’t,” said Bigend. “You’re sleeping here.”

“Here?”

“A foam mattress and a sleeping bag. We’re just around the corner from Blue Ant, but they don’t know.”

“Know what?”

“That I’m Tanky.”

“What does that mean?”

“Tanky and Tojo. Name of the shop. I’m Tanky, Jun’s Tojo. He’s amazing, really.”

“He is?”

“You look,” said Bigend, “like a foxhunting spiv. His grasp of contradiction is brilliantly subversive.”

“Is there wifi?”

“No,” said Bigend, “there isn’t.”

“What she most particularly wanted to convey to you,” Milgrim said, “Winnie Tung Whitaker, is that Gracie believes you’re his competitor. Which means, to him, that you’re his enemy.”

“I’m not his enemy,” said Bigend.

“You had me steal the design of his pants.”

“ ‘Business intelligence.’ If you hadn’t thrown Foley under some random Russians, this would all be much easier. And it wouldn’t be distracting me from more important things. I am, however, glad that we had this opportunity to discuss the matter in greater detail, privately.”

“Bent cops are one thing,” said Milgrim. “A bent former major in the Special Forces, who does illegal arms deals? I think that might be something else.”

“A businessman. I’m one myself.”

“She said he believes he can do anything,” said Milgrim. “She said they sent him to schools.”

“He wouldn’t be my first arms dealer, you know,” said Bigend, getting up. He straightened his suit, which Milgrim noted was in need of a pressing. “Meanwhile, you and Hollis can do the museums, enjoy the food. It’s extraordinary, really.”

“The food?”

“What they managed to do with you in Basel. I’m really very impressed. I see now that it’s all taken a while to gel.”

“That reminds me,” said Milgrim.

“Of what?”

“I’m starving.”

“Sandwiches,” said Bigend, indicating a brown paper bag on the desk. “Chicken and bacon. Seedy bread. I’ll be in touch tomorrow, when the travel’s been arranged. You’ll be locked in here. The alarm system will be activated. Please don’t try to leave. Jun will be in at ten thirty or so. Good night.”

When Bigend had gone, Milgrim ate the two sandwiches, carefully wiped his fingers, then removed his new shoes, examined the Tanky amp; Tojo logo stamped into the orange leather insoles, smelled them, and put them on the white desk. The gray vinyl floor was cold through his socks. The door to the front of the shop, which Bigend had closed behind him, looked cheap, hollow-core. He’d once watched a dealer called Fish chisel the thin wooden skin from one side of a door like that. It had been filled with plastic bags of counterfeit Mexican Valium. Now he pressed his ear against this one, held his breath. Nothing.

Was the urine-sample man still sitting out there with his umbrella? He doubted it, but he wanted to be sure. He found the light switch, pressed it. Stood for a moment in darkness, then opened the door.

The shop was lit, but dimly, by wonky columnar lanterns of white paper, floor lamps. The display window, from here, looked like one of those big Cibachromes in an art gallery: photograph of a blank brick wall across the street, faint ghost of graffiti. Suddenly someone passed, in a black hoodie. Milgrim swallowed. Closed the door. Turned the lights back on.

He went to the rear, no longer bothering to be quiet, opened a similar but smaller door, finding a clean little room with a very new toilet and corner sink. No other doors. No rear entrance. The neighborhood, like much of London, he guessed, not having alleys in the American sense.

He found a virginal white slab of foam, five inches thick, double-wide, rolled into a thick upright cylinder. It was secured with three bands of transparent packing tape, the Blue Ant logo repeated along them at regular intervals. Beside it was a fat, surprisingly small sausage of what appeared to be a darkly iridescent silk, and a plastic liter bottle of still spring water, from Scotland.

The desk’s top drawer contained its Ikea assembly instructions and a pair of scissors with colorless transparent handles. The other two drawers were empty. He used the scissors to cut the tape, releasing the foam, which remained slightly bent, in the direction in which it had been rolled. He put the concave side down, on the cold vinyl, and picked up the silken sausage. mont-bell was embroidered on one side. He fumbled with the plastic lock on the draw cord, loosened it, and worked the densely compacted contents out. The sleeping bag, when he unfurled it, was very light, very thin, stretchy, and of that same iridescence, purplish-black. He unzipped it and spread it on the bed. He picked up the bottle of water and carried it to the desk, where he retrieved his bag from the floor, putting it beside the bottle. Taking Bigend’s chair, he sat down, opened the bag, and pulled out his crumpled cotton jacket. He looked down at the tweed lapels of his new one, surprised to see them. The shirt cuffs were too strange, but then, you couldn’t see them under a jacket. Laying his old jacket aside, he brought out the Mac Air, its power cord and U.K. adaptor plug, and Hollis’s red dongle.

British electricity was some brutal other breed, their plugs three-pronged, massive, wall sockets often equipped with their own little switches, a particularly ominous belt-and-suspenders touch. “Faggot above a load,” he said, plugging the power unit into the socket nearest the desk and flipping the socket switch.

He Googled “Tanky amp; Tojo,” shortly discovering that Jun, Junya Marukawa, had his own shop in Tokyo, that Tanky amp; Tojo were getting lots of web coverage, and that a SoHo branch would be opening next year on Lafayette. There was no mention of Hubertus Bigend at all. Jun’s style, evidently, was one Japanese take on something at least one writer called “transgressive trad.”

Then he went to Twitter, logged in, saw that there was nothing new from Winnie, and started composing his message to her in his head while he got rid of the three strange girls with numbers instead of surnames, the ones who wanted to follow him.