But Hillary's purple features weren't actually Jen's fault. The Hoi Aristoi party had been planned for months. Jen wasn't a bad-luck charm making all this stuff happen; she was more like a compass, unerringly guiding me toward the weird. Or something like that.

I decided to work it out later. "Like Jen said, we were working undercover. Mandy disappeared yesterday, and we've been trying to find her."

"Mandy?" Hillary lifted a Bloody Mary from the table beside her lounge chair and emptied it. Hair of the dog. Even dyed purple, Hillary was looking a little green around the gills, probably the result of too much Noble Savage, "what's this got to do with her?"

"We're not quite sure," I said. "In fact, we're completely not sure."

Hillary rolled her eyes. "Gee, Hunter. I'm so thrilled you guys are on the case."

"Like I said, it's complicated. But we think we can track down the people behind Poo-Sham. We just need some information from you."

"But you didn't even…" She blinked, and for a moment I thought she was going to cry. I looked away, past exotic plants and potted trees, across the park to the jagged Midtown skyline, looking like broken teeth rising out of a forest.

Hillary sobbed once. "You just walked away from me, Hunter. You must have known it was dye."

"Well, yeah, I guess. But I really didn't have any idea what was going on. I mean, all those flashing lights were freaking me out—"

"Let me ask you one question, Hillary," Jen said. "When you stepped out of the shower and saw yourself, did you immediately sit down and call all your friends to warn them?"

"I—," she started, but her words dissolved into purple bemusement. "Maybe not right away. But that was this morning. Hunter knew there was something up last night at the party."

"And your point is…?"

She waved away Jen's question as though it were an annoying mosquito. "You wouldn't think this was so funny if you were purple."

"I don't think it's…," Jen started, then spread her hands. "Well, aspects of it are funny."

Hillary groaned. "This has been fun, Hunter. But I think you two are leaving." She stabbed at a wireless intercom next to the empty Bloody Mary glass, and a distant buzzer sounded from within the apartment.

"Listen," I said, "I'm sorry I didn't warn you about the dye, Hillary. But we can find the people who did this to you."

She glared at me. "Too late to help."

"But if we find these guys," Jen said, "we might find the antidote."

The servant returned, hovering at the door to the garden while Hillary's narrowed eyes tried to burn a hole through Jen.

"Antidote?"

Jen shrugged. "Maybe there's a way to wash it off."

"Another Bloody," Hillary commanded, shaking the ice in the empty glass, her gaze still locked on Jen. The servant evaporated.

After a moment of purple calculation she said, "What do you need?"

"To learn the names of everyone who paid for the Hoi Aristoi subscriber list," I said.

"The mailing list? Okay, I'll make some calls." She leaned forward, removing the straw from her empty drink and pointing it at me threateningly. "But this time around you better keep me in the loop, Hunter. Or you're going to wake up with something worse than a purple head."

Chapter 28

WE WAITED FOR THE CALL DOWNTOWN, BACK AT OUR FAVORITE

coffee shop, sitting on our musty couch, shoulders touching. It should have felt wonderful.

"What's bumming you out?"

I looked down at my purple hands. "Hillary being right. I should have told someone about the shampoo last night after I found out it was dye. The whole party was a trap, and we just let everybody walk into it."

Jen leaned her weight into me comfortingly. "Come on. We were too busy not getting caught. And I mean really caught, not dyed purple or photographed behaving badly. Didn't you have to run for your life?"

"Yeah, twice in one day. But I still wish I'd said something to Hillary."

"You feel guilty about Hillary's purple head? News update, Hunter: She'll live. We went to that party to investigate a kidnapping, not rescue a bunch of spoiled rich kids."

I pulled away to get a better look at the smirk just visible on Jen's lips. "You like these guys, don't you?" I said. "The anti-client."

"Well, I wouldn't say I like them." She leaned back into the musty couch and sighed. "I think they're probably dangerous, and I'm worried about Mandy. And I definitely don't want to get caught by them."

"But…?"

"But I do like their style," she said, then smiled. "Don't you?"

I opened my mouth, then closed it. It was true: the anti-client did have style. They were cool, and they were using cool in a strange new way. I'd spent years studying how Innovators changed the world, and the process was always indirect, suggestive, filtered through cool hunters and Trendsetters and ultimately giant companies while the Innovators remained invisible. As in an epidemic, Patient Zero was always the hardest guy to find. So there was something fascinating about an Innovator taking direct action. The anti-client was shooting advertisements, taking over launch parties, creating their own weird marketing campaign.

I wanted to see what they would do next.

"Maybe," I admitted. "But what do you think they want?"

"In the long run?" Jen sipped some coffee. "I think you were right about the cobblestones."

"The anti-client wants to throw rocks?"

"No. Well, maybe a few, now and then. But I think mostly they want to loosen the mortar, the glue that holds the street down."

I frowned; this line of thinking was bringing on a paka-paka headache. "Could you maybe unmix this metaphor a little?"

Jen took my hand. "You know what glue I mean. The stuff that controls how everyone thinks, how they see the world."

"Advertising?"

"Not just advertising, but the whole system: marketing categories, tribal boundaries, all the formations that people get trapped in. Or locked out of."

I shook my head. "I don't know. Issue zero of Hoi Aristoi takes on a pretty easy target. And I mean, what are they saying? Rich, spoiled kids are laughable? Not exactly a revolutionary concept."

"So you're going to tell Hillary Hyphen about what you saw at Movable Hype? With her connections, she could probably stop the whole thing before it ever hits a printing press."

I laughed. "Hell, no."

"Exactly. Because you want to see it get mailed out. You want to see what happens. Everyone who gets their hands on a copy will devour every page, even the unlucky people in those pictures. Because it's information from outside the system. And we're all starving for it."

"But what good does it do?" I asked.

"Like I said, it loosens the mortar that holds the cobblestones down."

"So they can throw more rocks?"

"No, Hunter. Don't you get it? The anti-client doesn't just want to throw rocks. They want the whole street to come up. They want to make it so everyone starts throwing rocks."

A few minutes later a horn sounded outside; a stretch limo waited on the street in the lengthening shadows of early evening. As we approached, a darkened rear window opened a few inches and a purple hand reached out, clutching a single sheet of paper. I felt the cold breath of the car's air-conditioning and glimpsed an even colder stare: a young and purple hoi aristoi glaring out at me from the backseat.

He disappeared as the window slid closed. Jen scanned the paper as I watched the car easing into traffic, taking its occupant back to the well-guarded precincts of the Upper East Side.

"Well, this is a no-brainer," Jen announced, handing over our prize.

The short list was on Hoi Aristoi stationery, apple-green paper embossed with gold, printed in rich purple ink. It included all the usual suspects: a certain maker of overpriced handbags, a bank in a certain tropical country known for its absence of tax laws, the national committee of a certain political party. But one stood out from among the rest, as inconspicuous as a black widow spider on a piece of Wonder Bread.