Zero history

63. CURLY STAYS, SLOW FOOD

With Garreth and Pep, the Catalan car thief, deep in electric hub motors for bicycles, she’d been glad of Inchmale’s call. She barely knew what hub motors were, but Pep wanted two, for extra speed, while Garreth insisted that two were too many. If one of them were to go out, Garreth argued, the extra weight, plus the generator drag, would negate the advantage of the first one. But if there was only one, and it failed, Pep could peddle as best he could, while not expending energy on the extra weight. The clarity with which she retained this, while having no knowledge of what any of it was really about, surprised her.

Pep looked as though someone had made an apple doll out of Gerard Depardieu, soaking the apple in salted lemon juice and baking it, then leaving it in a cool, dark place to harden, hoping it wouldn’t mold. He’d avoided molding, by the look of him, but had gotten much smaller. Impossible to judge his age. From certain angles, the world’s most weathered teenager; from others, shockingly old. There was a dragon tattooed on the back of his right hand, bat-winged and suggestively phallic, that looked less like a tattoo than a medieval woodcut. His fingernails, which were almost perfectly square, were freshly manicured, polished to a high sheen. Garreth seemed glad to see him, but he made her uncomfortable.

Inchmale had phoned from the sitting room, where she could hear, in the background, the early phases of the evening’s drinking. “Are you pregnant?” he’d asked.

“Are you mad?”

“The doorman referred to you as ‘they.’ I noted the sudden plurality.”

“I’ll be down. In the singular.”

She’d left Garreth chiding Pep for having ordered something, called a Hetchins frame, for a bike that might have to be tossed in the Thames after a few hours’ use. Pep’s position, as she was closing the door behind her, was that it might not have to be tossed at all, and that “curly stays” were in any case a lovely thing. She saw Pep look at his fingernails, that gesture she associated with manicured men.

She found Heidi and Inchmale established beneath the narwhale tusks. Inchmale was pouring tea from one of the vintage Bunnykins services that were a Cabinet trademark.

“Good evening,” he said. “We’re discussing the recent shit, a variety of possible fans, your place in same, plus the possibility of your having found a viable and ongoing relationship.”

“What would one of those constitute, for me, in your opinion?” she asked, taking a seat.

“Having someone to have one with, to begin with,” said Inchmale, putting down the teapot. “But you know I thought he was a good chap before.”

“That was what you said about Phil Spector.”

“Allowance for age,” said Inchmale, “misfortune. Genius. Lemon?” He proffered a wedge of cut lemon in an ornate silver squeezer.

“No lemon. What are ‘curly stays’?”

“Corsetry.”

“I just heard a Catalan car thief use the phrase.”

“Did he speak English? Perhaps he was trying to describe a permanent wave.”

“No. Part of a bicycle.”

“My money’s on corsetry. Do you know that Heidi’s stuck a man with a Rhenish dart?”

“Rhenium,” corrected Heidi.

“Rhennish is the hock, yes, and I might well ask for some, shortly. But you,” he said to Hollis, “you appear to have signed on to a firm in transition.”

“And on whose recommendation?”

“Am I prescient? Have you known me to be prescient?” He tried his tea. Returned his cup to the saucer. Added a second lump. “Angelina tells me that the London PR community are behaving like dogs before an earthquake, and somehow everyone knows, without knowing how, that it’s about Bigend.”

“There’s something going on in Blue Ant,” Hollis said carefully, “but I couldn’t tell you exactly what. I mean, I don’t know exactly what. But Hubertus doesn’t seem to be taking it that seriously.”

“Whatever that was in the City last night, he doesn’t take that that seriously?”

“I don’t think that’s the same thing, exactly. But I can’t talk about it.”

“Of course not. That oath you swore, when you joined the agency. The ritual with Geronimo’s skull. But the tonality Angelina’s picking up isn’t that he’s in trouble, or that Blue Ant is trouble. It’s that he’s about to become exponentially bigger. PR people know these things.”

“Bigger?”

“Whole orders of magnitude. Things are shifting, in anticipation. Things are getting ready to jump on the Bigend boat.”

“Things?”

“The ones that go bump, darling. Like tectonic plates, colliding, in this city of ancient night.” He sighed. Tried his tea again. Smiled.

“How’s with the Bollards?”

His smile vanished. “I’m thinking of taking them to Tucson.”

“Whew,” said Heidi, “lateral fucking move.”

“I’m entirely serious,” said Inchmale, and sipped his tea.

“We know,” said Hollis. “Have you told them?”

“I’ve told George. He took it remarkably well. The novelty of working with exceptional intelligence. Clammy, of course, is pissy.”

“Then change his name,” said Heidi, squeezing a lemon wedge above her tea with the filigreed instrument Inchmale had used before.

“What happened after you left with Milgrim last night?” Hollis asked her.

“They followed us. Probably picked up by the other car, the one that faked us into the alley. Figured out which way we were heading, got ahead of us, dropped the guy with the bandaged head, and another one. They waited for us, got behind us, followed us. Clueless. I stopped and bought some clothes, pretended we were changing our look.”

“There was something open?”

“Street clothes. For their benefit. Then we headed for the subway. When I saw that they didn’t intend for us to get on the subway…” She shrugged.

“Heidi-”

“In the head,” said Heidi, tapping the roots of her bangs with a forefinger, in an inadvertent little salute. “It’s bone. His head was probably sore already…”

“Milgrim’s in trouble for that. They’re blaming him, apparently.”

“Your boyfriend’s hired Ajay. What’s that about?”

“Milgrim. It’s complicated.”

“It’s got Ajay over the moon. Gave notice at his bouncing job.”

“Bouncing?”

“Security at some pervy club.” She looked around at the evening crowd. “Now he’s gone all Secret Squirrel on me. So have you.”

“Come to Tucson with us,” said Inchmale to Hollis, suddenly appearing, in his way, from behind what she thought of as his exterior asshole. “Get some sun. Mexican food. You can help in the studio. George likes you. Clammy, amazingly, doesn’t hate you. I don’t like the weather around Bigend now. It’s all on the label. You can have associate producer credit. Let Bigend reach whatever critical mass he’s headed for. Be elsewhere. You can bring your boyfriend, of course.”

“I can’t,” said Hollis, reaching across the hassock and the tray with the Bunnykins service, to give his bony knee a squeeze, “but thanks.”

“Why not?”

“Garreth’s trying to straighten out the trouble with Milgrim for Bigend. They have an agreement, and it involves me. I’m with Garreth now. It’ll be okay.”

“As a middle-aged human of reasonably sound faculties,” said Inchmale, “I must inform you that it may well not be ‘okay.’ ”

“I know that, Reg.”

Inchmale sighed. “Come and stay with us in Hampstead.”

“You’re going to Tucson.”

“I’m the decider,” said Inchmale. “Haven’t decided when to go yet. And there’s the business of convincing Clammy and the others.”

“Is Meredith around?”

“Yes,” said Inchmale, as if not entirely pleased by the fact. “She distracts George, and is entirely concerned with her own agenda.”

“I’d hate to run into anyone like that,” said Heidi, looking at Inchmale. “I don’t think I could handle it.”

Hollis’s iPhone rang, in the left pocket of her Hounds jacket. “Hello?”

“Are you in the bar?” Garreth asked.

“Yes. What are ‘curly stays’?”

“What?”

“ ‘Curly stays.’ Pep said.”

“Forks. Front and rear. On a Hetchins frame, they’re recurved.”

“Okay.”

“Can you go out front for me and watch for a van? It says ‘Slow Foods’ on the side.”

“ ‘Slow Foods’?”

“Yes. Just have a look at it for me.”

“For what?”

“If you think it looks right.”

“What’s right?”

“If it’s reasonable-looking. Whether or not you’d notice it, remember it.”

“I think I might remember what it says.”

“I don’t mind that, actually,” said Garreth. “It’s the plain white ones people imagine are watching them.”