40. The Business

When nobody did anything to help Maryalice, Chia got up from the bed, squeezed past the Russian and into the bathroom, triggering the ambient bird track. The black cabinet was open, its light on, and there were Day-Glo penis-things scattered across the black and white tile floor. She took a black towel and a black washcloth from a heated chrome rack, wet the washcloth at the black and chrome basin, and went back to Maryalice. She folded the towel, put it down over the vomit on the white carpet, and handed Maryalice the washcloth.

Nobody said anything, or tried to stop her. Masahiko had sat back down on the carpet, with his computer between his feet. The scarred man, who seemed to take up as much space as anything in the room, had lowered his axe. He held it down, along a thigh wider than Chia’s hips, with the spike jutting from beside his knee.

Maryalice, who’d managed to sit up now, wiped her mouth with the cloth, taking most of her lipstick with it. When Chia straightened up, a whiff of the Russian’s cologne made her stomach heave.

“You’re a developer, you say?” Rez still held the nanotech unit.

“You are asking many questions,” the Russian said. Eddie groaned, then, and the Russian kicked him. “Basis,” the Russian said.

“A public works project?” Rez raised his eyebrow. “A water filtration plant, something like that?”

The Russian kept his eye on the big man’s axe. “In Tallin,” he said, “we soon are building exclusive mega-mall, affluent gated suburbs, plus world-class pharmaceutical manufakura. We are unfairly denied most advanced means of production, but we are desiring one hundred percent modern operation.”

“Rez,” the man with the axe said, “give it up. This goon and his mates need that thing to build themselves an Estonian drug factory. Time I took you back to the hotel.”

“But wouldn’t they be more interested in… Tokyo real estate?”

The big man’s eyes bulged, the scars on his forehead reddening. One of the upper arms of the micropore X had come loose, revealing a deep scratch. “What bullshit is that? You don’t haveany real estate here!”

“Famous Aspect,” Rez said. “Rei’s management company. They invest for her.”

“You are discussing nanotech exchanged for Tokyo real estate?” The Russian was looking at Rez.

“Exactly,” Rez said.

“What kindreal estate?”

“Undeveloped landfill in the Bay. An island. One of two. Off one of the old ‘Toxic Necklace’ sites, but that’s been cleaned up since the quake.”

“Wait a minute,” Maryalice said, from the floor. “I know you. You were in that band, the one with the skinny Chinese, the guitar player, wore the hats. I know you. You were huge.”

Rez stared at her.

“I think is not good, here to discuss the business,” the Russian said, rubbing his birthmark. “But I am Starkov, Yevgeni.” He extended his hand, and Chia noticed the laser-scars again. Rez shook it.

Chia thought she heard the big man groan.

“I used to watch him in Dayton,” Maryalice said, as if that proved something.

The big man took a small phone from his pocket with his free hand, squinted at the call-display, and put it to his left ear. Which Chia saw was missing. He listened. “Ta,” he said, and lowered the phone. He moved to the window, the one Chia had found behind the wallscreen, and stood looking out. “Better have a look at this, Rozzer,” he said.

Rez joined him. She saw Rez touch the monocle. “What are they doing, Keithy? What is it?”

“It’s your funeral,” the big man said.

41. Candlelight and Tears

Office windows flickered past, very close, beyond the earthquake-bandaged uprights of the expressway. Taller buildings gave way to a lower sprawl, then something bright in the middle distance: HOTEL KING MIDAS. The dashboard map began to bleep.

“Third exit right,” Laney said, watching the cursor. He felt her accelerate and heard the speed-limit warning kick in. Another glittering sign: FREEDOM SHOWER BANFF.

“Laney-san,” Yamazaki asked, around the headrest. “Did you apprehend any suggestion of Rez’s death or other misfortune?”

“No, but I wouldn’t, not unless there was a degree of intentionality that would emerge from the data. Accidents, actions by anyone who isn’t represented…” The clanging stopped as she slowed, approaching the exit indicated on the map. “But I saw their data as streams, merging, and whatever it was merging aroundseemed to be where we’re going.”

Arleigh made the exit. They were on the off-ramp now, swinging through a curve, and Laney saw three young girls, their shoes clumped with mud, descending a sharp slope planted with some kind of pale rough grass. One of them seemed to be wearing a school uniform: kneesocks and a short plaid skirt. They looked unreal, in the harsh sodium light of the intersection, but then Arleigh stopped the van and Laney turned to see the road in front of them completely blocked by a silent, unmoving crowd.

“Jesus,” Arleigh said. “The fans.” If there were boys in the crowd, Laney didn’t see them. It was a level sea of glossy black hair, every girl facing the white building that rose there, with its white, brilliantly illuminated sign framed by something meant to represent a coronet: HOTEL DI. Arleigh powered down her window and Laney heard the distant wail of a siren.

“We’ll never get through,” Laney said. Most of the girls held a single candle, and the combined glow danced among the tear-streaked faces. They were so young, these girls: children. Kathy Torrance had particularly loathed that about Lo/Rez, the way their fan-base had refreshed itself over the years with a constant stream of pubescent recruits, girls who fell in love with Rez in the endless present of the net, where he could still be the twenty-year-old of his earliest hits.

“Pass me that black case,” Arleigh said, and Laney heard Yamazaki scrabbling through the bubble-pack. A flat rectangular carrying case appeared between the seats. Laney took it. “Open it,” she said. Laney undid the zip, exposing something flat and gray. The Lo/Rez logo on an oblong sticker. Arleigh pulled it from its case, put it on the dashboard, and ran her finger around its edge, looking for a switch. LO/REZ, mirror-reversed in large, luminous green letters, appeared on the windshield. **TOUR SUPPORT VEHICLE**. The asterisks began to flash.

Arleigh let the van roll forward a few inches. The girls directly in front turned, saw the windshield, and stepped aside. Silently, gradually, a few feet at a time, the crowd parted for the van.

Laney looked out across the black, center-parted heads of the grieving fans and saw the Russian, the one from the Western World, still in his white leather evening jacket, struggling through the crowd. The girls’ heads came barely to his waist, and he looked as though he were wading through black hair and candle-glow. The expression on his face was one of confusion, almost of terror, but when he saw Laney at the window of the green van, he grimaced and changed course, heading straight for them.