t's wrong with his eyes?'

'Just light-sensitive,' ъydell said.

'It's spooky, is what it is.'

'He wouldn't hurt a fly,' ъydell said.

Sublett came back, looked at the picture on the tv, then sighed and shut it off. 'You know I'm not supposed to leave the trailer, Berry?'

'How's that?'

'It's a condition of my apostasy. They say I might corrupt the congregation by contact.' He perched on the edge of the recliner so he wouldn't have to actually recline in it.

'I thought you'd blown Fallon off when you came out to LA.'

Suhlett looked embarrassed. 'Well, she's hecn sick, ъerry, so when I came here I told 'em I was here to reconsider. Meditate on the box 'n' all.' He wrung his long pale hands. 'Then they caught me watching Videodrome. You ever see, uh, Deborah Harry, ъydell?' Sublett sighed and sort of quivered.

'How'd they catch you?'

'They've got it set up so they can monitor what you're watching.'

'How come they're out here anyway?'

Sublett ran his fingers back through his dry, straw-colored hair. 'Hard to say, but I'd figure it's got something to do with ъeverend Fallon's tax problems. Most of what he does, lately, it's about that. Didn't your job in San Francisco work out, Berry?'

'No,' ъydell said, 'it didn't.'

'You want to tell me about it?' ъydell said he did.

 

'I think he shot through something to do with the damned heater, too,' ъydell said. They were back in the ъV, outside the perimeter.

'I like your friend,' she said. 'I do too.'

'No, I mean he really cares about what's going to happen to you. He really does.'

'You take the bed,' he said. 'I'll sleep up front.' 'There's no windshield. You'll freeze.'

'I'll be okay.'

'Sleep back here. We did before. It's okay.'

 

 

He woke in the dark and listened to the sound of her breathing, to the creak of stiff old leather from the jacket spread over her shoulder.

Suhlett had listened to his story, nodding sometimes, asking a question here and there, his mirrored contacts reflecting tiny convex images of them sitting there on that loveseat. In the end he'd just whistled softly and said, 'Berry, it sounds to me like you're really in trouble now. Bad trouble.'

ъeally in trouble now.

ъydell slid his hand down, brushing one of hers by accident as he did it, and touched the bulge of his wallet in his back pocket. What money he had was in there, but Wellington Ma's card was in there, too. Or what was left of it. The last time he'd looked, it had broken into three pieces.

'Big trouble,' he said to the dark, and Chevette Washington lifted the edge of her jacket and sort of snuggled in closer, her breathing never changing, so he knew she was still asleep.

He lay there, thinking, and after a while he started to get this idea. About the craziest idea he'd ever had.

 

'That boyfriend of yours,' he said to her, in the tiny kitchen of Sublett's mother's trailer, 'that Lowell?'

'What about him?'

'Got a number we could reach him at?'

She poured milk on her cornflakes. It was the kind you mixed up from powder. Had that thin chalky look. The only kind Sublett's mother had. Sublett was allergic to milk. 'Why?'

'I think maybe I want to talk to him about something.'

'About what?'

'Something I think maybe he could help me with.'

'Lowell? Lowell's not gonna help you. Lowell doesn't give a rat's ass for anybody.'

'Well,' ъydell said, 'why don't you just let me talk to him.'

'If you tell him where we are, or he has it traced back through the cd-net, he'll turn us in. Or he would if he knew anybody was after us.'

'Why?'

'He's just like that.' But then she gave ъydell the phone and the numher.

 

 

'Hey, Lowell?'

'Who the fuck is this?'

'How you doin'?'

'Who gave you-'

'Don't hang up.'

'Listen, motherf-'

'SFPD Homicide.'

He could hear Lowell draw on a cigarette. 'what did you say?' Lowell said.

'Orlovsky. SFPD Homicide, Lowell. That big fucker with the great big fucking gun? Came in the bar there? You remember. Just before the lights went out. I was over there by the bar, talking with Eddie the Shit.'

Lowell took another drag, shallower by the sound of it. 'Look, I don't know what you-'

'You don't have to. You can just hang uч right now, Lowell. But if you do, boy, you just better kiss your ass goodbye. Because you saw Orlovsky come in there for the girl, Lowell, didn't you? You saw him. He didn't wart you to. He wasn't in there on any SFPD business, Lowell. He was there on his own stick. And that's one serious bad oficer, Lowell. Serious as cancer.'

Silence. 'I don't know what you're talking about.'

'Then you just listen, Lowell. Listen up. You don't listen, I'll tell Orlovsky you saw him. I'll give him this number. I'll give him your description, and that skinhead's, too. Tell him you been talking about him. And you know what he'll do, Lowell? He'll come out there and shoot your ass dead, that's what he'll do. And nobody to stop him. Homicide, Lowell. Then he can investigate it himself, he wants to. Man's heavy, Lowell, I gotta tell ya.' Lowell coughed, a couple of times. Cleared his throat. 'This is a joke, right?'

'I don't hear you laughing.'

'Okay,' Lowell said, 'say it's for real. Then ~hat? What're you after?'

'I hear you know people can get things done. With computers and things.' He could hear Lowell lighting a fresh cigarette.

'Well,' Lowell said, 'sort of.'

'ъepublic of Desire,' ъydell said. 'I need you to get them to do me a favor.'

'No names,' Lowell said, fast. 'There's scans set to pick things out of traffic'

'Them.' 'Them' okay? Need you to get them to do something for me.'

'It'll cost you,' Lowell said, 'and it won't be cheap.'

'No,' ъydell said, 'it'll cost you.'

He pressed the button that broke the connection. Give old Lowell a little time to think about it; maybe look Orlovsky up on the Civil List, see he was there and he was Homicide. He flipped the little phone shut and went back into the trailer.

Sublett's mother kept the air-conditioning up about two clicks too high.

Sublett was sitting on the loveseat. His white clothes made him look sort of like a painter, a plasterer or something, except he was too clean. 'You know, Berry, I'm thinking maybe I better get back to Los Angeles.'

'What about your mother?'

'Well, Mrs. Baker's here now, from Galveston? They been neighbors for years. Mrs. Baker can watch out for her.'

'That apostate crap getting to you?'

'Sure is,' Sublett said, turning to look at the hologram of Fallon. 'I still believe in the Lord, Berry, and I know I've seen His face in the media, just like ъeverend Fallon teaches. I have. But the rest of it, I swear, it might as well be just a flatout hustle.' Sublett almost looked like he might be about to cry. The silver eyes swung around, met ъydell's. 'And I been thinking about IntenSecure, Berry. What you told me last night. I don't see how I can go hack there and work, knowing the kinds of things they'll condone. I thou~ht I was at least helping to protect people from a few of the evils in this world, Berry, but now I know I'd just be working for a company with no morals at all.'

ъydell walked over and had a closer look at the prayer-hankies. He wondered which one of them was supposed to keep the AIDS off. 'No,' he said, finally, 'you go back to work. You are protecting people. That part's real. You got to make a living, Sublett.'

'What about you?'

'Well, what about me?'

'They'll just find you and kill you, Berry. You and her.'

'You, too, probably, if they knew what I'd told you. I shouldn't ought've done that, Sublett. That's one reason Chevette and I have to get out of here. So there won't be any hassle for you and your mom.'

'Well,' Sublett said, 'I'm not working for them anymore, Berry. But I'm leaving here, too. I just have to.'

ъydell looked at Sublett, seeing him, somehow, in his full IntenSecure outfit, Glock and all, and suddenly that big crazy idea-thing sort of up and shook itself, and rolled over, revealing all these new angles. But you can't get him involved, ъydell told himself, it just wouldn't be fair.

'Sublett,' ъydell heard himself saying, about a minute later, 'I bet I got a career-option here you haven't ever even considered.'

'What's that?' Sublett said.

'Getting in trouble,' ъydell said.

 

 

 

 

 

33 Notebook

rice

scouring pads broom

detergent liquid sleeping bag

stove fuel oil/gasket

 

He sleeps now. ъice with the curry from the Thai wagon. Asks where the girl has gone. Tell him Fontaine has heard from her but does not know where she is or why. The pistol on the shelf. ъeluctant to touch it (cold, heavy, smelling of oil, the dark blue finish worn to silver-gray down the sides of its muzzle, around the fluted segments of the cylinder. ('SMITH & WESSON.' Thomasson.) Tonight he spoke again of Shapely.

How they did him like that, Scooter, that's just some sorry shit. Same shit all over. Always some of 'em, anyway, makes you wonder how these damn religions last so long or what started it in the first place. Could be he'll be that himself one day, crazy fuckers out killing people for him, or they'll say it's for him. Used to be these Crucified Jesus people, they wouldn't talk at all except Ofl Mondays, and that was the day they'd go and dig OflC spadeful of dirt out of their grave, Scooter.

Every little while they'd get one of them thought he'd got the spirit in him and they'd just do it, do it with these special chrome nails they all carried, leather neck-pouch, see, it had to be unborn lambskin. Hell, you'd have to say they were crazier than the ones got him, Scooter. Put 'em all away, finally. Weren't any left at all, after about 1998.

'Inner Tube, honey,' Mrs. Sublett said, 'Talitha Morrow, Todd Probert, Gary Underwood. 1996.' She was leaning back in the recliner with a damp washcloth folded across her forehead. It was the same color blue as her slippers, and they were terrycloth, too.

'I never saw that,' Chevette said, flipping through the pages of a magazine all about ъeverend Fallon. There was this has-been actress, Gudrun Weaver, and she was up there hugging Fallon on a stage somewhere. If he'd turned around, Chevette thought, his nose would've barely come up to her breastbone. Looked like he'd had some kind of pink wax injected, all under his skin; had the creepiest-looking hair she'd ever seen, like a really short wig but it sort of looked like it might get up and walk off by itself.

'All about television,' Mrs. Sublett said, 'so naturally it's of special significance to the Church.'

'What's it about?'

'Talitha Morrow is this newswoman, and Todd Probert is a bank robber. But he's a good bank robber, because he only needs the money to pay for a heart-transplant for his wife. Carrie Lee. ъemember her? In a mature role, honey. More like a cameo. Well, Gary Underwood is Talitha's ex, but he's still got it for her, bad. In fact he's got-whatcha callit?-erotomania, like it's all he ever thinks about and, honey, it's turned pure evil. First he's sending her these chopped up Barbie dolls; sends her a dead white rahhit, then all this fancy underwear with hlood on it. . .'

 

 

 

 

 

34 Punching out of paradise

Chevette let the old lady talk. She could just sort of tune her out, the way she used to do with her own mother, sometimes. She wondered what it was ъydell and Sublett were so worked up about. Up to something; whispering in the kitchen.

She watched a fly buzz around the stuff on Mrs. Sublett's shelves. It looked slow, like maybe the air-conditioning was too much for it.

She wondered if maybe she wasn't starting to fall for ъydell. Maybe it was just that he'd showered and shaved and put on clean clothes from his stupid-looking suitcase. The clothes were exactly the same as the ones he'd been wearing before. Maybe he never wore anything else. But she had to admit he had a cute butt in those jeans. Sublett's mother said he looked like a young Tommy Lee Jones. Who was Tommy Lee Jones? Or maybe it was because she had the idea somehow he was going to do something mean to Lowell. She'd thought she was still in love with Lowell, or something anyway, but now she didn't think so, not at all. If Lowell just hadn't started doing dancer. She'd thought about how that Loveless had got when she'd dumped all that dancer in his Coke. She'd asked ъydell if that was enough to have killed him, and ъydell had said no. Said it was enough to keep him stone crazy for a while, and when he got back together, he was going to be hurting. Then she'd asked ъydell why Loveless had done that, banging his gun into his crotch that way. ъydell had sort of scratched his head and said he wasn't sure, but he thought it had something to do with what it did to your nervous system. Said he'd heard it induced priapism, for one thing.

She'd asked him what that was. Well, he'd said, it's when the man is, like, overstimulated. She didn't know about that, but it had given Lowell these total brickbat boners that just didn't want to go away. And that would've been just fine, or anyway okay, except he got all mean with it, too, SO she'd wind up all sore and then he'd he badmouthing her in front of these people he hung out with, like Codes. Anyway, she wasn't going to waste any time worrying about what ъydell might have in mind for Lowell, no way. What she did worry about was Skinner, whether he was okay, whether he was being taken care of. She was kind of scared to try phoning Fontaine now; every time ъydell made a call out, she worried it might get traced back or something. And it made her sad to think about her bike. She was sure somebody would've gotten it by now. She kind of hated to admit it, but that was starting to make her nearly as sad as Sammy getting killed that way. And ъydell had said he thought maybe Nigel had gotten shot, too.

'And then,' Sublett's mother was saying, 'Gary Underwood goes through this window. And he falls on one of those fences? Kind with spikes on top.'

'Hey, Mom,' Sublett said, 'you're bending Chevette's ear.'

'Just telling her about Inner Tube,' Mrs. Sublett said, from under the washcloth.

'1996,' Sublett said. 'Well, ъydell and I, we need her for something.' Sublett gestured for her to follow him back into the kitchen.

'I don't think it's a real good idea for her to go outside, Berry,' he said to ъydell. 'Not in the daytime.'

ъydell was sitting at the little plastic table where she'd had breakfast. 'Well, you can't go, Sublett, because of your apostasy. And I don't want to be in there by myself, not with my head stuck in one of those eyephone things. His parents could walk in. He might listen.'

'Can't you just call them on the regular phone, Berry?' Sublett sounded unhappy.

'No.' ъydell said, 'I can't. They just don't like that. He says they'll at least talk to me if I call them on an eyephone rig.'

'What's the problem?' Chevette said.

'Sublett's got a friend here who's got a pair of eyephones.'

'Buddy,' Sublett said.

'Your buddy?' she asked.

'Name's Buddy,' Sublett said, 'but that Vъ, eyephones 'n' stuff, it's against Church law. It's been revealed to ъeverend Fallon that virtual reality's a medium of Satan, 'cause you don't watch enough tv after you start doing it...~

'You don't believe that,' ъydell said.

'Neither does Buddy,' Sublett said, 'but his daddy'll whip his head around if he finds that Vъ stuff he's got under the bed.'

'Just call him up,' ъydell said, 'tell him what I told you. Two hundred dollars cash, plus the time and charges.'

'People'll see her,' Sublett said, his shy silver gaze bouncing in Chevette's direction, then back to ъydell.

'What do you mean, "see" me?'

'Well, it's your haircut,' Sublett said. 'It's too unusual for 'em, I can tell you that.'

'Now, Buddy,' ъydell said to the boy, 'I'm going to give you these two hundred-dollar bills here. Now when'd you say your father's due back?'

'Not for another two hours,' Buddy said, his voice cracking with nervousness. He took the money like it might have something on it. 'He's helping pour a new pad for the fuel cells they're bringing from Phoenix on the Church's bulk-lifter.' Buddy kept looking at Chevette. She had on a straw sun-hat that belonged to Sublett's mother, with a big floppy brim, and a pair of these really strange old-lady sunglasses with lemon-yellow frames and lenses that sort of swooped up at the side. Chevette tried smiling at him, but it didn't seem to help.

'You're friends of Joel's, right?' Buddy had a haircut that wasn't quite skin, some kind of gadget in his mouth to straighten his teeth, and an Adam's apple ahout a third the size of his head. She watched it bob up and down. 'From L.A.?'

'That's right,' ъydell said.

'I. . . I wanna g-go there,' Buddy said.

'Good,' ъydell said. 'This is a step in the right direction, you just believe it. Now you wait out there like I said, and tell Chevette here if anybody's coming.'

Buddy went out of his tiny bedroom, closing the door behind him. It didn't look to Chevette like anybody Buddy's age lived there at all. Too neat, with these posters of Jesus and Fallon. She felt sorry for him. It was close and hot and she missed Sublett's mother's air-conditioning. She took off that hat.

'Okay,' ъydell said, picking up the plastic helmet, 'you sit on the bed here and pull the plug if we get interrupted.' Buddy had already hooked up the jack for them. ъydell sat down on the floor and put the helmet on, so she couldn't see his eyes.

Then he pulled on one of those gloves you use to dial with and move stuff around in there.

She watched his index finger, in that glove, peck out something on a pad that wasn't there. Then she listened to him talking to the telephone company's computer about getting the time and charges after he was done.

Then his hand came up again. 'Here goes,' he said, and started punching out this number he said Lowell had given him, his finger coming down on the empty air. When he was done, he made a fist, sort of wiggled it around, then lowered the gloved hand to his lap.

He just sat there for a few seconds, the helmet kind of swiveling around like he was looking at stuff, then it stopped moving.

'Okay,' he said, his voice kind of funny, but not to her, 'but is there anybody here?'

Chevette felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

'Oh,' he said, the helmet turning, 'Jesus-'

ъydell had liked doing Dream Walls, when he was a kid in high school. It was this Japanese franchise operation they set up in different kinds of spaces, mostly in older malls; some were in places that had been movie theaters, some were in old department stores. He'd gone to one once that they'd put into an old bowling alley; made it real long and narrow and the stuff sort of distorted on you if you tried to move it too fast.

There were a lot of different ways you could play with it, the most popular one in Knoxville being gunfights, where you got these guns and shot at all kinds of bad guys, and they shot back and then you got the score. Sort of like FATSS at the Academy, but only about half the rez. And none of the, well, color.

But the one ъydell had liked most was where you just went in and sort of sculpted things out of nothing, out of that cloud of pixels or polygons or whatever they were, and you could see what other people were doing at the same time, and maybe even put your stuff together with theirs, if you both wanted to. He'd been kind of self-conscious about it, because it seemed like something that mostly girls did. And the girls were always doing these unicorns and rainbows and things, and ъydell liked to do cars, kind of dream-cars, like he was some designer in Japan somewhere and he could build anything he wanted. You could get these full-color pr