a cracked Nissan County thermos-mug taped to the faded dashboard. Yamazaki, who was not wealthy, shouldered his bag, turned, and walked toward the bridge. As ever, it stirred his heart to see it there, morning light aslant through all the intricacy of its secondary construction.

The integrity of its span was rigorous as the modern program itself, yet around this had grown another reality, intent upon its own agenda. This had occurred piecemeal, to no set plan, employing every imaginable technique and material. The result was something amorphous, startlingly organic. At night, illuminated by Christmas bulbs, by recycled neon, by torchlight, it possessed a queer medieval energy. By day, seen from a distance, it reminded him of the ruin of England's Brighton Pier, as though viewed through some cracked kaleidoscope of vernacular style.

Its steel bones, its stranded tendons, were lost within an accretion of dreams: tattoo parlors, gaming arcades, dimly lit stalls stacked with decaying magazines, sellers of fireworks, of cut bait, betting shops, sushi bars, unlicensed pawnbrokers, herbalists, barbers, bars. Dreams of commerce, their locations generally corresponding with the decks that had once carried vehicular traffic; while above them, rising to the very peaks of

 

 

 

 

6 The bridge

the cable towers, lifted the intrica:ely suspended barrio, with its unnumbered population and its zones of more private fantasy.

He'd first seen it by night, three weeks before. He'd stood in fog, amid sellers of fruit and ve:~etables, their goods spread out on blankets. He'd stared back into the cavern-mouth, heart pounding. Steam was rising from the pots of soup-vendors, beneath a jagged arc of ;cavenged neon. Everything ran together, blurring, melting in the fog. Telepresence had only hinted at the magic and singularity of the thing, and he'd walked slowly forward, into tha neon maw and all that patchwork carnival of scavenged surfaces, in perfect awe. Fairyland. ъain-silvered plywood, broken marble from the walls of forgotten banks, corrugated plastic, polished brass, sequins, painted canvas, mirrors, chrome gone dull and peeling in the salt air. So many things, too much for his reeling eye, and he'd known that his journey had not been in vain.

In all the world, surely, there was no more magnificent a Thomasson.

He entered it now, Tuesday morning, amid a now-familiar stir-the carts of ice and fish, t~e clatter of a machine that made tortillas-and found his ~ay to a coffee shop whose interior had the texture of an ancient ferry, dark dented varnish over plain heavy wood, as if someone had sawn it, entire, from some tired public vessel. Which was entirely possible, he thought, seating himself at the long counter; toward Oakland, past the haunted island, the wingless carcass of a 747 housed the kitchens of nine Thai restaurants.

The young woman behind the counter wore tattooed bracelets in the form of stylized indigo lizards. He asked for coffee. It arrived in thick heavy porcelain. No two cups here were alike. He took his notebook from his bag, flicked it on, and jotted down a brief descriptiDn of the cup, of the minute pattern of cracks iii its glazed surface, like a white tile mosaic in miniature. Sipping his coffee, he scrolled hack to the previous day's notes. The man Skinner's mind was remarkably like the bridge. Things had accumulated there, around some armature of original purpose, until a point of crisis had been attained and a new program had emerged. But what was that program?

He had asked Skinner to explain the mode of accretion resulting in the current state of the secondary structure. What were the motivations of a given builder, an individual builder? His notebook had recorded the man's rambling, oblique response, transcribing and translating it.

There was this man, fishing. Snagged his tackle. Hauled up a bicycle. All covered in barnacles. Everybody laughed. Took that bike and he built a place to eat. Clam broth, cold cooked mussels, Mexican beer. Hung that bike over the counter. Just three stools in there and he slung his box out about eight feet, used Super Glue and shackles. Covered the walls inside with postcards. Like shingles. Nights, he'd curl up behind the counter. Just gone, one morning. Broken shackle, some splinters still stuck to the wall of a barber shop. You could look down, see the water between your toes. See, he slung it out too far.

 

 

Yamazaki watched steam rise from his coffee, imagining a bicycle covered in barnacles, itself a Thomasson of considerable potency. Skinner had seemed curious about the term, and the notebook had recorded Yamazaki's attempt to explain its origin and the meaning of its current usage.

Thomasson was an American baseball player, very handsome, very powerful. He went to the Yomiyuri Giants in 1981, for a large sum of money. Then it was discovered that he could not hit the ball. The writer and artisan Gempei Akasegawa appropriated his liame to describe certain useless and inexplicable monuments, pointless yet curiously art-like features of the urban landscape. But the term has subsequently taken on other shades of meaning. If you wish, I can access and translate today's definitions in our Gendai Yogo Kisochishiki, that is, The Basic Knowledge of Modern Terms.

But Skinner-gray, unshaven, the whites of his blue eyes yellowed, blotched with broken veins, had merely shrugged. Three of the residents who had previously agreed to be interviewed had cited Skinner as an original, one of the first on the bridge.

The location of his room indicated a certain status as well, though Yamazaki wondered how many would have welcomed a chance to build atop one of the cable towers. Before the electric lift had been installed, the climb would have been daunting for anyone. Today, with his bad hip, the old man was in effect an invalid, relying on his neighbors and the girl. They brought him food, water, kept his chemical toilet in operation. The girl, Yamazaki assumed, received shelter in return, though the relationship struck him as deeper somehow, more complex.

But if Skinner was difficult to read because of age, personality, or both, the girl who shared his room was opaque in that ordinary, sullen way Yamazaki associated with young Americans. Though perhaps that was only because he, Yamazaki, was a stranger, Japanese, and one who asked too many questions.

He looked down the counter, taking in the early-morning profiles of the other customers. Americans. The fact that he was actually here, drinking coffee beside these people, still struck a chord of wonder. How extraordinary. He wrote in his notebook, the pen ticking against the screen.

 

 

The apartment is in a tall Victorian house, built of wood and very elaborately painted, in a district where the names of streets honor nineteenth-century American politicians: Clay, Scott, Pierce, Jackson. This morning, Tuesday, leaving the apartment, I noticed, on the side of the topmost newel, indications of a vanished hinge. I suspect that this must once have supported an infant-gate. Going along Scott in search of a cab, I came upon a sodden postcard, face up on the sidewalk. The narrow features of the martyr Shapely, the AIDS saint, blistered with rain. Very melancholy.

'They shouldn't oughta said that. About Godzilla, I mean.'

Yamazaki found himself blinking up at the earnest face of the girl behind the counter.

'I'm sorry?'

'They shouldn't oughta said that. About Godzilla. They shouldn't oughta laughed. We had our earthquakes here, you didn't laugh at us.'

 

 

 

 

 

7 See you do okay

Hernandez followed ъydell into the kitchen of the house in Mar Vista. He wore a sleeveless powder-blue jumpsuit and a pair of those creepy German shower-sandals, the kind with about a thousand little nubs to massage the soles of your feet. ъydell had never seen him out of uniform before and it was kind of a shock. He had these big old tattoos on his upper arms; roman numerals; gang stuff. His feet were brown and compact and sort of bearlike.

It was Tuesday morning. There was nobody else in the house. Kevin was at Just Blow Me, and the others were out doing whatever it was they did. Monica might've been in her place in the garage, but you never saw too much of her anyway.

ъydell got his bag of cornflakes out of the cupboard and carefully unrolled it. About enough for a bowl. He opened the fridge and took out a plastic, snap-top, liter container with a strip of masking-tape across the side. He'd written MILK EXPEъIMENT on the masking-tape with a heavy marker.

'What's that?' Hernandez asked.

'Milk.'

'Why's it say "experiment"?'

'So nobody'll drink it. I figured it out in the dorm at the Academy.' He dumped the cornflakes in a bowl, covered them with milk, found a spoon, and carried his breakfast to the kitchen table. The table had a trick leg, so you had to eat without putting your elbows down.

'How's the arm?'

'Fine.' ъydell forgot about not putting his elbow down. Milk and cornflakes slopped across the scarred white plastic of the tabletop.

'Here.' Hernandez went to the counter and tore off a fat wad of beige paper towels.

'Those are whatsisname's,' ъydell said, 'and he seriously doesn't like us to use them.'

'Towel experiment,' Hernandez said, tossing ъydell the wad.

ъydell blotted up the milk and most of the flakes. He couldn't imagine what Hernandez was doing here, but then he'd never have imagined that Hernandez drove a white Daihatsu Sneaker with an animated hologram of a waterfall on the hood.

'That's a nice car out there,' ъydell said, nodding in the direction of the carport and spooning cornflakes into his mouth.

'My daughter. ъosa's car. Been in the shop, man.'

ъydell chewed, swallowed. 'Brakes or something?'

'The fucking waterfall. Supposed to be these little animals, they come out of the bushes and sort of look at it, the waterfall, you know?' Hernandez leaned back against the counter, flexing his toes into the nubby sandals. 'Some kind of, like, Costa ъican animals, you know? Ecology theme. She's real green. Made us take out what was left of the lawn, put in all these ground-cover things look like gray spiders. But the shop can't get those fucking animals to show, man. We got a warranty and everything, but it's, you know, been a pain in the ass.' He shook his head.

ъydell finished his cornflakes.

'You ever been to Costa ъica, ъydell?'

'No.'

'It's fucking beautiful, mali. Like Switzerland.'

'Never been there.'

'No, I mean wh2t they do with data. Like the Swiss, what they did with money.'

'You mean the kvens?'

'You got it. Tho~e people smart. No army, navy, air force, just neutral. And they take care of everybody's data.'

'ъegardless whatit is.'

'Hey, fucking "A" Smart people. And spend that money on ecology, man.'

ъydell carried the bowl, the spoon, the damp wad of towels, to the sini. He rinsed the bowl and spoon, wiped them with the towels, then stuck the towels as far down as possible behind th rest of the garbage in the bag under the sink. Straightening up, he looked at Hernandez. 'Something I can do for you, sup~r?'

'Other way arou~d.' Hernandez smiled. Somehow it wasn't reassuring. 'I been thinking about you. Your situation. Not good. Not good, nan. You never get to be a cop now. Now you resign, I can't even hire you back on IntenSecure to work gated residential. l4aybe you get on with a regular square-badge outfit, sit it that little pillbox in a liquor store. You wanna do that?'

'No.'

'That's good, 'cause you get your ass killed, doing that. Somebody come inthere, take your little pilibox out, man.'

'ъight now I'm l)oking at something in retail sales.'

'No shit? Sales? 'What you sell?'

'Bedsteads made out of cast-iron jockey-boys. These pictures made out of hundred-year-old human hair.'

Hernandez narrwed his eyes and shoved off the counter, headed for the hung room. ъydell thought he might be leaving, hut he wa~ only starting to pace. ъydell had seen him do this a couple ol times in his office at IntenSecure. Now he turned, just as he was about to enter the living room, and paced hack to ъydill.

'You got this had-assed attitude sometimes, man, I dunno.

You oughta stop and think maybe I'm trying to help you a little, right?' Back toward the living room again.

'Just tell me what you want, okay?'

Hernandez stopped, turned, sighed. 'Never been up to NoCal, right? San Francisco? Anybody know you up there?'

'No.'

'IntenSecure's licensed in NoCal, too, right? Different state, different laws, whole different attitude, they might as well be a different fucking country, but we've got our shit up there. More office buildings, lot of hotels. Gated residential's not so big up there, not 'til you get out to the edge-cities. Concord, Hacienda Business Center, like that. We got a good piece of that, too.'

'But it's the same company. They won't hire me here, they won't hire me there.'

'Fucking "A." Nobody talking about hiring you. What this is, there's maybe something there for you with a guy. Works freelance. Company has certain kinds of problems, sometime they bring in somebody. But the guy, he's not IntenSecure. Freelance.

Office up there, they got that kind of situation now.'

'Wait a second. What are we talking about here? We're talking about freelance armed-response?'

'Guy's a skip-tracer. You know what that is?'

'Finds people when they try to get out from under debt, blow off the rent, like that?'

'Or take off with your kid in a custody case, whatever. But, you know, those kinds of skips, they can mostly be handled through the net, these days. Just keep plugging their stats into DatAmerica, eventually you gonna find 'em. Or even,' he shrugged, you can go to the cops.'

'So what a skip-tracer mostly does-' ъydell suggested, remembering one particular episode of Cops in Trouble he'd seen with his father.

'Is keep you from having to go to the cops.'

'Or to a licensed private detective agency.'

'You got it.' Hernandez was watching him.

ъydell walked past him, into the living room, hearing the German shower-sandals come squishing after him across the kitchen's dull tile floor. Someone had been smoking tobacco in there the night before. He could smell it. It was in violation of the lease. The landlord would give them hell about it. The landlord was a Serb immigrant who drove a fifteen-year-old BMW, wore these weird furry Tyrolean hats, and insisted on being called Wally. Because Wally knew that ъydehl worked for IntenSecure, he'd wanted to show him the flashlight he kept clipped under the dash in his BMW. It was about a foot long and had a button that triggered a big shot of capsicum gas. He'd asked ъydell if ъydell thought it was 'enough.'

ъydell had lied. Had told him that people who did, for instance, a whole lot of dancer, they actually liked a blast or two of good capsicum. Like it cleared their sinuses. Got their juices flowing. They got off on it.

Now ъydell looked down and saw for the first time that the living room carpet in the house in Mar Vista was exactly the same stuff he'd crawled across in Turvey's girlfriend's apartment in Knoxville. Maybe a little cleaner, but the same stuff. He'd never noticed that before.

'Listen, ъydell, you don't want to take this, fine. My day off, I drive over here, you appreciate that? You get tweaked by some hackers, you fall for it, you push the response too hard, I can understand. But it happened, man, it's on your file, and this is the best I can do. But listen up. You do right by the company, maybe that gets back to Singapore.'

'Hernandez. ..'

'My day off...'

'Man, I don't know anything about finding people-'

'You can drive. All they want. Just drive. You drive the tracer, see? He's got his leg hassled, he can't drive. And this is, like, delicate, this thing. ъequires some smarts. I told them I thought you could do it, man. I did that. I told them.'

Monica's copy of People was on the couch, open to a story about Gudrun Weaver, this actress in her forties who'd just found the Lord, courtesy of the ъeverend Wayne Fallon, in time to get her picture in People. There was a full-page picture of her on a couch in her living room, gazing raptly at a bank of monitors, each one showing the same old movie.

ъydell saw himself on the futon from Futon Mouth, staring up at those big stick-on flowers and bumper-stickers. 'Is it legal?'

Hernandez slapped his powder-blue thigh. It sounded like a pistol shot. 'Legal? We are talking IntenSecure Corporation here. We are talking major shit. I am trying to help you, man. You think I would ask you to do something fucking illegal?'

'But what's the deal, Hernandez? I just go up there and drive?'

'Fucking "A"! Drive! Mr. Warbaby say drive, you drive.'

'Who?'

'Warbaby. This Lucius Warbaby.'

ъydell picked up Monica's copy of People and found a picture of Gudrun Weaver and the ъeverend Wayne Fallon. Gudrun Weaver looked like an actress in her forties. Fallon looked like a possum with hair-implants and a ten-thousand-dollar tuxedo.

'This Warbaby, Berry, he's right on top of this shit. He's a fucking star, man. Otherwise why they hire him? You do this, you learn shit. You still young, man. You can learn shit.'

ъydell tossed the People back onto the couch. 'Who they trying to find?'

'Hotel theft. Somebody took something. We got the security there. Singapore, man, they're in some kind of serious twist about it. All I know.'

 

ъydell stood in the warm shade of the carport, gazing down into the shimmering depths of the animated waterfall on the hood of Flernandez's daughter's Sneaker, mist rising through green boughs of rain forest. He'd once seen a Harley done up so that everything that wasn't triple-chromed was crawling, fast forward, with life-sized bugs. Scorpions, centipedes, you name it.

'See,' Hernandez said, 'see there, where it blurs? That's supposed to be some kind of fucking sloth, man. Some lemur, you know? Factory warranty.'

'When do they want me to go?'

'I give you this number.' Hernandez handed ъydell a torn scrap of yellow paper. 'Call them.'

'Thanks.'

'Hey,' Hernandez said, 'I like to see you do okay. I do. I like that.' He touched the Sneaker's hood. 'Look at this shit. Factory fucking warranty.'

Chevette dreamed she was riding Folsom, a stiff sidewind threatening to push her into oncoming. Took a left on Sixth, caught that wind at her back, ran a red at Howard and Mission, a stale green at Market, bopped the brakes and bunnied both sets of tracks.

Coming down in a hard lean, she headed up Nob on Taylor.

'Make it this time,' she said.

Legs pumping, the wind a strong hand in the small of her back, sky clear and beckoning at the top of the hill, she thumbed her chain up onto some huge-ass custom ring, too big for her derailleur, too big to fit any frame at all, and felt the shining teeth catch, her hammering slowing to a steady spin-but then she was losing it.

She stood up and started pounding, screaming, lactic acid slamming through her veins. She was at the crest, lifting off- Colored light slanted into Skinner's room through the tinted pie-wedge panes of the round window. Tuesday morning.

Two of the smaller sections of glass had fallen out; the gaps were stuffed with pieces of rag, throwing shadows on the tattered yellow wall of National Geographics. Skinner was sitting up in bed, wearing an old plaid shirt, blankets and sleeping-bag pulled high up his chest. His bed was an eightpanel oak door up on four rusty Volkswagen hubs, with a slab of foam on top of that. Chevette slept on the floor, on a narrower piece of foam she rolled up every morning and stuck

 

 

 

 

8 Morning after

behind a long wooden crate full of greasy hand