Crooked Little Vein (15 page)

“Yeah.” Zack giggled. He liked this bit. “In fact, there was a bit of a scandal. U.S. troops were racking up insane phone bills calling home. There were charity initiatives to get prepaid cell phones to troops. So I created phones-forourboys.org. I’m paying for a lot of their phones. And every soldier in Iraq who turns on a cell phone? They get a text message from me. A text and a configurator, which is a program sent over the air to their phone that installs itself. Now, for one thing, you’ve got to love the idea that porn is buying cell phones for soldiers, right? But that’s not the bit that makes me fucking Einstein. The configurator is the bit that makes me fucking Einstein. Because it ties the phone to my system.”

I just smoked and waited, as he grinned. I didn’t need to prod him to keep talking. He was too into it, and I got the strong impression he didn’t meet too many new people, especially not people prepared to listen to him talk.

“Okay, okay, I’ll tell you.” He laughed. “If you take a picture or shoot some video on a cell phone, it gives you the option to send it to someone, right? On a phone I’ve configured, it gives you an extra option: send it to me. Send it to me, and it goes to one of the servers, the big computers, that I keep in other countries. Because I don’t need that shit on a computer in the U.S., you know? The content goes to me, and then my program sanitizes your phone. Deletes the content, the log of you sending it, everything. Did you catch the news this morning?”

“Five minutes in the airport at Vegas. Something about another clusterfuck in Iraq.”

“Lousy video quality, right?”

“Right. Yes. No. Hold on. You’re saying…”

“Yeah.”

“That was you? You got that footage out?”

“Yeah. Some grunt on the ground didn’t like the way things were going that day and grabbed thirty seconds on his phone. And sent it to me. Not that he knew it was me, of course. No names, no pack drill. Fronts and cover companies, like a CIA operation, dude. Heh.”

Zack jabbed out his cigarette in the pizza. There was a smell like plastic cooking over an uncleaned toilet. “You want a beer? Robbie, get us a couple of beers. Get beers for everybody. The cooler’s full, right? So I co-locate this stuff all over the world. So when the Russian cops come for the front company in Moscow, the pictures of Mafiya paying off Duma members that have been captured by ordinary people on the street aren’t on the servers in Moscow, you with me? They’re in Tuvalu or South Africa or some fucking place. And this here”—Zack gestured broadly at his Mission Control—“this tells me where all my information is, all over the world. Cell phones and Internet-connected computers, dude. It’s incredibly fucking simple. A support system for citizen journalism. News with no filters. And when we get something good, out it goes into the world. PyrE, see? I’ve given people all over the world the ability to fight power.”

Beer came. I hoisted my cold dewed bottle to Zack Pickles, mad scientist and the first genuinely decent guy I’d met in what seemed like forever.

T
he
clock ticked around a couple of hours, and I figured it was time to call it a day. Or at least lunch. My mood was much improved. I had no idea how to get back to the place, but, with the little information I had, Zack did some Internet wizardry and got a printer to spit out a map with
X
marking the spot. He gave me back my phone—“my email, phone number, a few other bits, gimme a call, this was fun”—and had Robbie drive me back to the house.

There was a big, black, shiny car in the driveway. The door was unlocked. As I pushed it open, I heard the unmistakable sound of Trix having an orgasm.

And, a few seconds later, the new sound of a complete stranger, quite definitely male, having his own orgasm.

I
decided to stay outside for a little while, and have a cigarette and concentrate hard on not killing anyone. I think I finished the first one in two minutes, just dragging the life out of it, the last minute of which I spent watching a black limousine creeping down the street toward me. As it pulled up outside the house, I dug my hands into my pockets and waited. The sleek dark curve of the car opened up like a boiled mussel, and the chief of staff slid out, blinking in the sun.

“California’s not fit for humans,” he said, squinting at the bright sky. “Whole goddamn state should be sawed off the mainland and floated out into the Pacific. We’ll get to that, mark my words. Except for Disneyland. I like Disneyland. We’ll keep Disneyland. Staple it onto the end of Arizona or something. I always thought Disneyland should be its own state. Disneyland, the fifty-first state of America. Has a ring to it. California? Point the whole state toward Japan and kick it in the ass, that’s what I say.”

I felt like needling the old bastard. “What, the state that gave Ronald Reagan to politics?”

“Ronnie Reagan was no goddamned good to anyone,” he snapped, surprising me. “Everyone knew he had Alzheimer’s while he was president. He was only ever useful as a patsy. ‘Ever met Ollie North, Mr. President?’ ‘I have no recollection of that because my brain is turning into a pile of scabs, Your Honor.’ All he was ever good for. Everybody knows. Those episodes of
The West Wing
where the president has multiple sclerosis brain-farts? What do you think he was alluding to?”

I laughed. “So you did watch that show.”

He found a pair of black shades in his jacket and fumbled them on. “CIA’s been running Aaron Sorkin for years. He leaks this stuff out under cover of fiction to test the waters. Every time he gets too cute we plant crack on him in airports. Or make him write
Studio 60.”

“You’re full of shit.”

He gave that creepy split-skull grin. “Want to know how much we paid Jim Nabors to shoot Reagan with a sniper rifle? Nothing. It was all done for the love of Rock Hudson.”

“Can you do anything but lie? I mean, seriously?”

“I’m a politician, boy. I haven’t told the truth since I was seven.”

“What did you do when you were seven?”

“Chopped down a cherry tree. She betrayed you, didn’t she?”

“What?”

“The girl. She’s in there with some lawyer pounding her like he’s drilling for oil off the California coast, right now. I bet he’s already bust a nut once and is still digging away to prove what an incredibly California buffed-and-tanned physical specimen he is.”

“What the hell has that got to do with you?”

“I warned you. I told you about her. I said she would betray you. You cannot trust women.”

“I can’t trust you.”

“No. No, you can’t. That’s very good, Michael. But you can trust money. Money cannot lie. It is a means. It is a tool. And a bad workman cannot blame his tool. What have you done with the tools I gave you, Michael?”

I didn’t say anything. He clacked his teeth together.

“You saved her life. That was good work. I bet she told you she loved you, after that. I bet she did. I bet she said nice things. But she lied, didn’t she?”

“I don’t think so. She just doesn’t see it the same way. The, you know, the words. It means something a little different to her, that’s all.”

“We’re in America, Michael. Telling someone you love them means only one thing, doesn’t it? That you’re not going to make the beast with two backs with the next warm body that falls in front of you. That’s the American way. Or is that what you want? An America where love means nothing?”

“Are those the choices?”

“Hell, yes, those are the choices. How many do you want? We are fighting many wars, Michael, on many fronts. And this is the war at home. The war of meanings. The war of cultures. And right here, right now, you’re on the line, Michael. I may be a professional politician with opiate lesions all over the front of my brain, but my money doesn’t lie. She may be a sweet girl who’s nice to you, but she’s upstairs right now making a lawyer fill her with his little suits. Taking my side means only that honest American love will win the day.”

“With this book? This thing, this reset button of yours?”

The shades made his eyes look like empty sockets. “A return to our roots. The mission would be easier if the book’s effects transmitted over TV or the Net, but it naturally leads us to a grass-roots politics from the times of Washington and Lincoln. Town hall meetings. Stadiums. We can devise a million different events where the book is brought into play in front of crowds from all cultural and subcultural areas. We’ve been breeding pop stars in L.A. for exactly this kind of thing. Take some piece of greedy cracker trash with symmetrical features, vacuum the Cheetos dust off it, train it in a Disney pod, stick boobs on it and have its videos made by porn directors, and everyone under sixteen is yours. Also, the gay people. I never understood that. You could retrain fifty thousand of them at a time, putting the book in front of them at a stadium concert. Instill proper morals in them. Erase the sicknesses in their heads and make of them proper Americans who know what love means.”

I looked at him. I had no idea what I was seeing. “You think this comes down to the nature of love in our time? Is that what you’re selling?”

“I dunno. Are you buying it?”

“You are an evil old bastard.”

“I am the chief of staff. You know how H.R. Haldeman described the job when he was chief of staff to Nixon? ‘I’m the president’s son of a bitch.’”

“Fuck me, I think you said something honest just then. I feel faint.”

“These are hard times. I’m not going to be a child about the hard decisions. We’re fighting what must be World War Six outside the country, and what is very probably Civil War Three within the country. You’re going to help us bring that one to a conclusion. You’ll save lives, I think. You’ll certainly be saving a country and a way of life. Buck up, Michael. You’re close to the end now. I can feel it in my bones. It’ll all be over soon. And just in time, eh? You’ve got no money left, you’re adrift in a state that should be hacked off the end of the continent like a tumor, and your girlfriend’s upstairs fornicating with a
lawyer
. If that was my girl, well, I’d rather she were fucking a dog, wouldn’t you? Or a donkey. I’ve seen those shows, down in Tijuana. Horrifying, really. Yet strangely hypnotic.”

“Does it bother you at all that you make people’s flesh crawl off their bones just by speaking out loud?”

“I run your country, son. It is only right and proper that the ordinary people should experience religious fear in my presence. I am the closest thing to God most folk will ever meet. And you, Michael: you are my personal Jesus. You are my intellectual child and the savior of that which I have created. I’m proud of you, boy. It’s been a terrible journey for you, from your Manhattan Galilee to this, your California Calvary. But it’s almost over now. I can feel it in my bone marrow.”

“I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Well, don’t do it near me,” he spat, scuttling backward. “These are new shoes. It’s time for me to go. Go inside, now, Michael. Go and see your freak queen and her cockmonkey. Give ’em hell, boy. It’s time to finish the job.”

I
sat down in the guy’s football field of a living room, put on the TV, turned it up good and loud, and waited. I wasted five minutes fiddling with my handheld and my cell phone, copying over Zack’s email address to the computer and poking around in the logs and settings for a little bit.

“Hello. I’m Brom,” came a voice from behind me.

He was taller than me, with the soft features, heavy brow, and thick hair of an eighties male model. The white T-shirt and black jogging pants were crisp enough to have been sold to him an hour earlier. I got up and we shook hands like men.

“Trix will be down in just a second,” he said, searching my eyes for a reaction.

“Whatever.” I smiled. “I don’t keep my employees on a clock. Do you have time to talk for a few minutes?”

He waved me to the sofa and took the big, high-backed armchair for himself. I suppressed a smile. Sitting down, I asked him if Trix had told him anything about the case.

He wriggled a bit. “We haven’t had a chance to talk properly beyond, you know, catching up and stuff.”

I let that hang just a little too long, to see him wriggle a bit more. “Well, okay. I’ve been hired by an individual in Washington, D.C., to track down a stolen item. The trail’s led me here, to a law firm in Los Angeles. I was wondering if you could tell me anything about the firm in question.”

This worked better for him. I needed something from him. Anyone could see from the way his posture shifted that he liked it when people needed something from him. I decided that I could get to hate this guy pretty quickly.

“Shoot,” Brom said. “Anything I can do, really.”

“For a friend of Trix?”

“Right.” He coughed.

“Islip, Sinclair, and Collis. Ring any bells?”

He stiffened. “There’s no way in hell Frank Islip is trafficking in stolen goods.”

“Not saying it’s him, or any of the partners. But someone is at the very least using the firm’s identity in connection with this item.”

“Islip, Sinclair is an incredibly important player in the L.A. legal community. No one—”

“I’m betting that no one in Las Vegas has even heard of them.”

Brom smiled and relaxed. “—ah. Yes, well, that’d make sense.”

“Could you possibly get me an introduction? I realize it’s imposing.”

“Well, yes, it is, a bit.”

“But, then again, you have just fucked my assistant. And I’ll be leaving her here once I’m done with interviewing at that firm, so you two can catch up at your leisure.”

“Mike?” Trix had come down the stairs.

“Hi, Trix. Just tying up the loose ends here. So could you get me an introduction? The sooner the better, obviously.”

Brom didn’t speak. The silence turned venomous. Trix came and sat next to me. I moved over a space and watched Brom.

Eventually, he said, slowly, “I’m actually attending a private party at their offices tonight. I’ll speak to someone there and get you in tomorrow morning. You can stay here tonight, obviously.”

“Thank you, Brom. Much obliged.”

He stood, a sharp movement. “My ticket’s a plus-one, Trix. I’d love it if you came with me. No dress code. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I brought some work home with me. Make yourselves at home, and I’ll be back in a few hours.”

He padded quickly out of the living room.

“That was a prickish thing to do, Mike,” Trix hissed.

“So?”

“What do you mean, so? What’s wrong with you? No, forget I said that. I know exactly what’s wrong with you.”

“No shit, Sherlock.”

She tried a smile. “I thought you were Sherlock and I was Watson.”

I couldn’t hold it in anymore. “You
fucked
him?”

“Goddamnit, Mike, we talked about this. He’s an old friend. An old lover, okay? He’s a very sweet man and he’s good in bed and we haven’t seen each other in years and it felt really nice
especially
after having had a fight with you and we didn’t hurt anybody except maybe some willfully dumb guy who refuses to listen to a word I say. And I don’t think it even hurt you, not really. It
offended
you. You think because we sleep together you own my sexuality, and you really don’t.”

I didn’t have an answer to that, but it didn’t seem to slow Trix down.

“You know what the worst thing is? I told you I love you—”

“You never said any such goddamn thing.”

“—told you I
could
love you and you went white as a sheet and stiff as a goddamn board. And not in the good way. You act like you own a piece of me and you don’t even love me. You like being the white knight and you like, excuse my arrogance but fuckit I know who I am, a hot girl taking pleasure from you, but you won’t let a damn thing get under your skin or disturb the shallowness you cultivate to get through the fucking day, Mike.”

“Shallowness. This is going back to the goddamn book, isn’t it?”

She laughed without mirth. “I guess you’re hellbent on getting that thing and handing it over now. Get the likes of me reprogrammed. I’m gonna look hot in an apron, barefoot in the kitchen, right?”

“You can hide out here with Brom. I won’t tell.”

“You know? I might. He’s at least aware of the world outside and trying to change it for the better. I don’t know what you’re doing anymore, Mike. This isn’t fun anymore.”

“Guess what. Not everything is fun. We deal anyway.” My cell phone went off. “Excuse me.”

I walked out of the living room, put the front door on the latch, and sat down on the porch outside.

“It’s Zack. The creepiest thing just happened, dude.”

“What?”

“Two isweartogod Men in Black just left, with an old guy in tow. They asked me about you.”

“Oh, Jesus.”

“What was that about? It wasn’t a raid. Hell, the old guy asked if we did any medical-fetish porno and I gave him a DVD.”

“That, Zack, was my client.”

“Damn, Mike. I’ve met some weird people in this town, politicians and lawyers, but I never had anything like this.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry. I have no idea how that happened. If it helps, they’re in no position to drop the boom on you. You’re cool.”

“If you say so, dude. But
damn
that was weird.”

“Listen…You’ve dealt with lawyers?”

“Oh, they’re the worst. I have to chase them out of here with a broom. Sick stuff, lemme tell ya.”

“Do you know an outfit called Islip Sinclair Collis?”

“What the fuck are you into, Mike?”

“Zack, please.”

“I won’t deal with ’em. Life’s too short. And those parties of theirs, Jesus.”

I pulled a cigarette. “Tell me about the parties, Zack.”

“First I’m going to send a configurator to your phone. You carrying any other Internet-enabled devices I should know about?”