Zero history

67. A CRUSHED MOUSE

Ajay, looking pained but stoic, was seated on what Milgrim said was a Biedermeier vanity stool, in the bright tile cave of Number Four’s vast bathroom, towels spread beneath him, while Chandra went carefully at his waterfall with a pair of scissors. Milgrim was in there with them, “moving around” as instructed, while Ajay, when he remembered to, studied him. Chandra too would periodically pause, observe Milgrim, then start clipping again. Hollis found herself waiting for dialog.

“What is this?” Milgrim asked, apparently noticing the shower for the first time.

“The shower,” Hollis said.

“Keep moving,” ordered Ajay.

Milgrim put his hands in the pockets of his peculiar new pants.

“But would you do that?” asked Ajay.

“Quit moving,” ordered Chandra, who’d stopped clipping.

“Me?” asked Milgrim.

“Ajay,” said Chandra, brushing a wet black bit of stray waterfall from her black tunic. Her black lips looked particularly dramatic, in this light.

Hollis glanced back at Fiona, who was sitting at the foot of the bed, listening intently to Garreth, asking occasional questions, taking notes in a sticker-covered Moleskine.

Garreth had just had to break off, taking a call from the man who was building Pep’s electric bicycle. This had resulted in Pep losing his curly-stays frame, as it would have to be “cold-bent,” to accommodate the engine hubs, something both the builder and Garreth clearly regarded as sacrilege. Garreth had opted for carbon fiber instead, but had then had to phone Pep and tell him, which had resulted in an agreement to go with dual engines.

Hollis was reminded of watching a director prep for a music video, something the Curfew had been largely able to avoid. She’d seen it later, though, via Inchmale and the various bands he’d produced, and she’d invariably found it far more interesting, more entertaining, than any final product.

In this case, she still had very little idea of what Garreth intended to shoot.

“You go out now,” she heard Chandra say, “and close the door. This is smelly.” She turned and saw Milgrim headed in her direction, Chandra starting to shake an aerosol can of product. “Keep your eyes closed,” Chandra said to Ajay.

Milgrim closed the door behind him.

“Are you okay?” Hollis asked. “Where have you been?”

“Southwark. With Fiona.” He sounded, she thought, like someone describing a spa weekend. An unaccustomed little smile.

“I’m sorry about Heidi,” she said.

He winced. “Is something wrong?”

“She’s fine. I meant I’m sorry that she hurt Foley, made more trouble for you.”

“I’m glad,” he said. “Otherwise, they would have gotten us. Gotten me, anyway.” And suddenly he was weirdly and entirely present, a single entity, the sharp looker-around-corners merged seamlessly with his spacey, dissociated self. “I wouldn’t have gotten to go to Southwark.” For those few seconds, he was someone she hadn’t met. But then he was Milgrim again. “That’s a scary shower,” he said.

“I like it.”

“I’ve never seen anything decorated this way.” He looked around at the contents of Number Four.

“Me neither.”

“Is it all real?”

“Yes, though there are some period reproductions. There’s a catalog for each room.”

“May I see that?”

Her iPhone rang. “Yes?”

“Meredith. I’m in the lobby. I need to see you.”

“I have guests-”

“Alone,” said Meredith. “Bring a jacket. She wants to meet you.”

“I-”

“Not my idea,” interrupted Meredith. “Hers. When I told her what you said.”

Hollis looked at Garreth, who was deep into it with Fiona.

The bathroom door opened. Ajay stood there, the sides of his head sparsely covered with some kind of synthetic nonhair, randomly directional. “Not very good, is it?”

“It’s like the pubic hair of some huge, anatomically correct toy animal,” said Garreth, delighted.

“It’s the wrong texture, but I have another that should do,” said Chandra. “And I’ll do a better job of application, next time.”

“I’ll be down in a minute,” said Hollis, to the iPhone. “Meredith,” she said to Garreth. “I’m going down to see her.”

“Don’t leave the hotel,” Garreth said, and went back to whatever he was explaining to Fiona.

Hollis opened her mouth, shut it, found Number Four’s leather-bound curiosity catalog for Milgrim, then collected the Hounds jacket, her purse, and left, closing the door behind her.

Avoiding the watercolors, she made her way through the green maze, and found the lift waiting, clicking softly to itself. As it descended the black cage, she tried to make sense of what Meredith had said. The logical “she” was the Hounds designer, but if that was the case, had Meredith been lying to her, yesterday?

Passing the ferret, she emerged into the sound of the lounge, evidently in full route now, that bounced so effectively down the marble stairs. Meredith was waiting near the door, where Robert ordinarily stood, though he was nowhere in sight. She wore a translucently ancient waxed cotton jacket over the tweed Hollis remembered from yesterday, more holes than fabric, the platonic opposite of Inchmale’s Japanese Gore-Tex.

“You told me you didn’t know how to contact her,” Hollis said. “And you certainly didn’t indicate that she was in London.”

“I didn’t know, either one,” Meredith said. “Inchmale. Clammy was giving me the gears, at the studio, because you’d promised to get him fresh kit if he helped you find her.”

Hollis had forgotten about that. “I did,” she said.

“Inchmale was working on one of those charts he makes, the ones around the bottom of a paper coffee cup, for each song. Is that simply more of his rubbish, or is it real?”

“Real.”

“And of course he was concentrating, or pretending to. And suddenly he said, ‘I know her husband.’ Said he was another producer, very good, based in Chicago. He’d worked with him. Said a name.”

“What name?”

Meredith looked her even more firmly in the eye. “I’d have to let her tell you that.”

“What else did Reg say?”

“Nothing. Not a word. Went back to his colored felts and his paper cup. But as soon as I got my hands on a computer, I Googled the name. There he was. Image search, three pages in, there she was, with him. That was only a few hours after I saw you, here.”

“That turned into quite an evening,” said Hollis.

“Did you quit?”

“I didn’t get a chance, but my position on quitting remains the same. Stronger, if anything. I’m right off Bigend, if you could say I was ever on him. A lot’s happened.”

“I’ve mostly been on the phone, myself. Trying to reach her, through her husband. Couldn’t reach him. Threw myself on Inchmale’s mercy. Had George put it to him, actually.”

“And?”

“She called me. She’s here. She’s been here for a few weeks. East Midlands, Northampton, looking at shoe factories. Doing a boot,” and suddenly Meredith was smiling, then not. “On her way back now.”

Hollis was about to ask where to, but didn’t.

“I can take you to her now,” Meredith said. “That’s what she wants.”

“Why would-”

“Better she tells you. Are you coming or not? She’s leaving tomorrow.”

“Is it far?”