Zero history

58. DOUCHE BAGGAGE

Voytek was very angry about something, probably whatever had been the cause of him receiving his mottled, yellowish, not-quite-black eye. He seemed most angry with Shombo, the sullen young man Milgrim had seen at Biroshak amp; Son, though Milgrim found it hard to imagine Shombo striking anyone. He’d looked to Milgrim as though just getting out of bed would have posed an unwelcome challenge.

Milgrim would have liked to be up-front with Fiona, in the passenger seat, but she’d insisted that he sit back here with Voytek, on the floor of this tiny Subaru van, an area slightly less than the footprint of a washer and dryer, and cluttered now with large, black, cartoonishly sturdy-looking plastic cases he assumed were Voytek’s. Each of these had PELICAN molded on the lid, clearly a logo rather than any indicator of contents. Voytek was wearing gray sweatpants with B.U.M. EQUIPMENT screened in very large capitals across his ass, evidence of what Milgrim took to be kitchen mishaps down the front, thick gray socks, those same gray felt clogs, and a pale blue, very old, very grimy insulated jacket with that Amstrad logo on the back, its letters cracked and peeling.

The Subaru had actual drapes, gray ones, everywhere except the windshield and the front side windows. All drawn now. Which was just as well, Milgrim supposed, as it really had a great deal of glass, as well as a moonroof that was in effect the whole top of the vehicle, through which Milgrim, looking up, saw the upper windows of buildings passing. He had no idea where they were now, no idea which direction they’d taken from Tanky amp; Tojo, and none where they were going. To meet Bigend again, he assumed. Like urine samples but more frequent, meeting Bigend punctuated his existence.

“I did not come to this country for the terror from paramilitary,” declared Voytek, hoarsely. “I did not come to this country for motherfucker. But motherfucker is waiting. Always. Is carceral state, surveillance state. Orwell. You have read Orwell?”

Milgrim, trying for his best neutral expression, nodded, the knees of his new whipcord trousers in front of his face. He hoped this wasn’t stretching them.

“Orwell’s boot in face forever,” said Voytek, with great formal bitterness.

“Why does he want you to sweep it?” asked Fiona, as if inquiring about some routine office chore, her left hand busily working the shift lever.

“Devil’s workshop,” said Voytek, disgusted. “He wants mine occupied. While he fattens on the blood of the proletariat.” This last phrase having for Milgrim a deep nostalgic charm, so that he was moved, unthinking, to repeat it in Russian, seeing for an instant the classroom in Columbia where he’d first heard it.

“Russian,” said Voytek, narrowing his eyes, the way someone might say “syphilis.”

“Sorry,” said Milgrim, reflexively.

Voytek fell silent, visibly seething. They were on a straight stretch now, and when Milgrim looked up, there were no buildings. A bridge, he guessed. Slowing, turning. Into buildings, lower, more ragged. The Subaru bumped over something, up, then stopped. Fiona shut off the engine and got out. Milgrim, flicking the drapes aside, glimpsed Benny’s cycle yard. Benny himself approaching. Fiona opened the rear door and grabbed one of Voytek’s Pelican cases.

“Caution,” said Voytek, “extreme care.”

“I know,” Fiona said, passing the case to Benny.

Benny leaned in, looked at Voytek. “Disagreement at the local, was it?”

Voytek glared at Milgrim. “The blood,” he said. “Sucking it.”

“Mental cunt,” observed Benny, taking another case and walking away.

Voytek scooted across the carpeted cargo area on his B.U.M. EQUIPMENT signage and climbed out, taking the two remaining cases and walking away.

Milgrim got out, his knees stiff, and glanced around. There was nobody in sight. “Seems quieter,” he said.

“Tea time,” said Fiona. She looked at him. “That’s from the shop.”

“Yes,” said Milgrim.

“It’s not bad on you,” she said approvingly, if surprised. “You cut most of the douche baggage.”

“I do?”

“You wouldn’t wear one of those little leashes on your wallet,” she said. “And you wouldn’t wear one of his hats.”

“The douche baggage?”

“The fuckery,” said Fiona, closing the van’s rear door. “We need your stuff,” she said, walking around and opening the side door. She handed Milgrim his bag, and a Tanky amp; Tojo bag containing the clothes he’d been wearing before (minus the Sonny jacket) and the restuffed Mont-Bell sausage. She pulled out the retaped sleeping foam and a black garbage bag. “These are your things from the Holiday Inn.”

He followed her into the littered garage.

As they were nearing the entrance to Bigend’s Vegas cube, Benny emerged. Fiona handed him the keys to the van. “Carbs on the bike are sound,” she told him. “Thank Saad.”

“Ta,” said Benny, pocketing the keys without pausing.

Milgrim followed her in. Two of Voytek’s cases were on the table, open. The other two, still closed, were on the floor. He wore a pair of large black-and-silver headphones and was assembling something that looked to Milgrim like a black unstrung squash racket.

“Leave me,” said Voytek flatly, not bothering to make eye contact. “I sweep.”

“Let’s go,” Fiona said to Milgrim, putting down the foam and the black bag containing Milgrim’s things from the hotel. “He can do it faster alone.” Milgrim dropped the sausage beside the foam, but kept his bag. As he left the room, Milgrim saw Voytek step forward, toward one wall, raising the racket two-handed, with a sort of ecclesiastic deliberation.

“What’s he doing?” he asked Fiona, who was looking down at a motorcycle whose engine lay in pieces on the littered floor.

“Sweeping for bugs.”

“Has he found them before?”

“Not here. But this place is still a secret, as far as I know. They turn up at Blue Ant weekly. Bigend has a toffee box full of them. Keeps saying he’ll make me a necklace.”

“Who puts them there?”

“Strategic business intelligence types, I suppose. The kind of people he generally refuses to hire.”

“Are they able to learn things, doing that?”

“Once,” she said, and touched the broken edge of the bike’s cowling with a fingertip, in a way he envied, “he sent me across town with a Taser.”

“That shocks people?”

“Yes.”

“He sent you to shock someone?”

“There was a LAN cable bodged into it. I pretended to be there for a job interview. When I had the chance, I plugged it, unobserved, into the first available LAN socket. Any one would do. The Taser was in my purse. Gave it a click. Just the one.”

“What happened?”

“It punched out their entire system. All of it. Erased everything. Even the parts in other buildings. Then I wiped it for prints, binned it, and left.”

“That was because they’d taken something?”

She shrugged. “He called it a lobotomy.”

“Clean,” announced Voytek glumly, carrying out two of his cases. They weren’t heavy at all, Milgrim now knew, because he’d seen that they mainly contained black foam padding. Voytek set them down and returned for the other two.

“When is he coming?” asked Milgrim.

“Not expecting him,” she said. “He just wants you in a safe place.”

“He’s not coming?”

“We’re just killing time,” she said, and smiled. She wasn’t someone who smiled often, but when she did, he found, it seemed as though it meant something. “I’ll teach you how to work the balloons. I’m getting really good.”