Instead, he was dragging a mute bottle-banged Shamblerina through downtown and along dark side streets. They stopped at the river, near the bushes where he hid his bicycle.
He led Madeinusa into a stand of trees. He would have to wait until it was night again to return to the house. He promised his Silent Voice: “I will stay here with her until the sun goes down, and then I’ll leave her here. I promise.”
“We’ll see,” said his Silent Voice.
Frank Sinatra, Redwings, Chief
Frank was certain he had never been a friendly man. Suspicion came easily to him, and with an early rehab, more of his personality remained than it did in most people. He guessed at what he had been from imagining his responsibilities around the UCLA campus: with so many things to steal, so many books and chairs, and cash machines, and all of the equipment in the hospital, and all of the cars in the garages, the man in charge of security for a place that large needed to be strong and impartial.
He went back to his house and didn’t stay for the orgy after Chief presented Shannon. A return to West Covina on the Audi hunt was out of the question. He was curious about Pippi’s silence and wanted to watch her. Pippi almost never joined Chief in a crowded bed.
He had just settled into sleep when Redwings knocked on his door.
“Frank, there was a murder downtown. No ID yet for the perp or the victim. The Burn is tonight and Chief wants to talk to you about this thing.”
“How did Chief hear about it before me?”
“That’s why he’s Chief.”
“And why do we know it’s a killing?”
“Hotel staff called Security and officer on duty is Gunny Sea Ray. I trust Gunny.”
“A good man, a very good man,” said Sinatra. Redwings nodded in agreement.
“Yes,” said Redwings. “And Gunny Sea Ray goes through the hotel to ascertain if that’s the word what room is likeliest for the fellow to have fallen from and comes to a room with bloody sheets, a murder weapon probably, and evidence of a very considerable fight. Plus, Chief says you have to go because you haven’t seen it yet.”
“Chief went to the scene?”
“Chief doesn’t have to go to the scene. Chief knows, Frank. What else does a brother have to say to be understood?”
“Redwings, don’t you think Chief should look at the scene himself before pronouncing his opinion, speaking of opinion as we were?”
Frank dressed without showering and was at Chief’s house in ten minutes. Chief was in his command center with Toby Tyler and Vayler Monokeefe, listening to the competing voices on the dozen walkie-talkies Tyler used to stay in contact with her crews.
Frank asked Chief: “Why are you so involved in something this small?”
“A murder isn’t small when the killer is a Drifter. It’s not in them to care enough to kill. It might be contagious, might be a new symptom of the old disease. Look into this.”
“Chief, we’re burning a fifth of Los Angeles tonight. Vayler, didn’t Chief tell you to get the Drifters out of downtown? You’re supposed to be moving the Inventory from the storage depots into warehouses downtown.”
“Chief, I know I said I’d do that but there was more treasure in the Burn Zone than anyone expected. If there’s no Inventory, why have Security?”
Frank persisted. “What about the Drifters panicking?”
“I hate to let the past turn to ash without saving what we can,” said Chief.
Vayler thanked him. “You see, Frank, either we put up with some disturbance among the Drifters, or we lose our precious history. Someday people will call us gods for saving what we took from the Burn Zone.”
Sinatra saw little choice but to cooperate. “Let me deal with the murder tomorrow, after the Burn. Security still needs everyone on the committee for Drifter crowd control.”
“Deal with the murder, too,” said Chief. “Don’t worry about crowd control. We will have it under control.”
“How?”
“That’s not your business today. There’s a murder: find the killer. He got through. You missed him.”
“The bicycle rider?”
“Find him.”
On their way downtown, Sinatra interrogated Redwings. “Redwings, why is Chief the Chief?”
“Brother, that’s an excellent question, it is, but allow me a piercing inward search for an answer that can be held as fact and not opinion. All right, sir. Chief is Chief because he’s a wise man. Chief is Chief because who else is more like a Chief than Chief? He says go here to find something and we find it. He says look here for the good wine and behold, there’s the good wine. Other people do have Strong Feelings but brother—nobody has stronger Strong Feelings than Chief. You can say that the feeling his feelings has, has feelings. So if he has a Strong Feeling about a murder or Shannon Squier, then all I can advise is to watch out.”
“Watch out for what, Redwings?”
“That’s my sentiment precisely. He has angles within angles but he’s never wrong, is he? Consider the wreckage of those pitiful Drifters. He provides for them.”
“But that’s radical inclusion, Redwings. That’s an order from the Founders.”
“And asking me without June Moulton to overhear us, or rather you’re not asking me but I’m giving you the gift of my opinion, no exchange of value, don’t you find that radical self-reliance and radical inclusion butt heads? There’s only so many people can climb the great statues on the Playa at one time.”
“You’re not a stupid man, Redwings.”
“I take that as a compliment, sir.”
Chief, The Man, The Woman, Erin
Chief ordered everyone away from the Playa and stood between The Man and The Woman. He was sorry to approach them so close to the dawn, because at night they gleamed in the star light. He had no time to wait for a better effect.
“So he’s here. It wasn’t the singer you told me about. It was him. That was the message, wasn’t it? He’s come for Pippi.”
In voices no one could hear, but not Silent Voices, The Man said yes. The Woman said no.
“So it’s the singer?” he asked The Woman. “Both?”
The Woman told him, in a voice no one else could hear, but not a Silent Voice, not a voice that he carried inside him, a voice that spoke on the Playa only: “Radical self-reliance, radical expression. You’re afraid of the Drifters. Trust the Bottle Bangers for once.”
“To do what?”
“What they do.”
Chief went back to Center Camp and woke up Erin. “I need Shannon. I need her to keep the attention of the Drifters. I have ordered a stage from the motor pool. She is going to perform tonight and you will show her what to do. Otherwise the Drifters will panic.”
Erin said, “I don’t understand.”
“Do what I tell you.”
He called Vayler and said the same thing.
Eckmann, Marci, Seth, Franz, Spig Wead
Eckmann, standing where it was safe to on the wing, looked down at the men and women who had waited so long for this moment. Seth, Marci, Spig Wead, and Franz watched him from the forward door.
“The Burn Brigades are leaving the Burn Zone. We’ll fill up with fuel and leave during the Burn. We’ll have enough fuel to cross the country twice, or fly nonstop to Moscow. Or if we go in the other direction, we can get to Hong Kong, but we’re not crossing water. Our route will take us over Albuquerque, Dallas, New Orleans, and Florida and then back as far north as Chicago or Seattle. We have enough fuel to be over Orlando at sunrise, and we’ll see if it’s safe to land there. I don’t remember anything about these cities any more than you do. I’ve read the travel magazines, but I don’t think it matters to us now that Santa Fe’s best chefs are reinventing the food of Native Americans, or that Chicago is a special place in October. We’re probably better off going to a small or isolated city, but the
plane was built in Seattle and there might be spare parts. But we can’t assume there’s jet fuel. What I’m trying to say is: thank you all for helping each other, thank you Dr. Kaplan for fixing up our pilot and thank you Franz for staying alive. Tomorrow is going to be a long day if we make it, and our last day if we don’t.”
Frank Sinatra, Gunny Sea Ray, Redwings
Gunny Sea Ray got his name from the three small gothic characters—GSR—tattooed in black ink on his left wrist. He was Verified Second Wave, an LA cop, and assigned directly to Sinatra’s immediate circle. He was a good shot and it was believed he’d been in the military. He was waiting beside Tesla’s naked body, still in the street, still uncovered, when Sinatra arrived with Redwings. Sinatra gave a quick look at the corpse, but there was little that this exploded sack of meat and bones could tell him. The body had landed facedown.
“No ID in the room,” said Gunny Sea Ray. “And the face is too broke up to be matched to any database.”
“Because there is no face,” said Redwings.
“Tesla.” It was the night-shift Cecilia, standing nearby. Gunny Sea Ray brought her to Frank and Redwings.
Sinatra asked everyone to step back. “Talk to me.”
“Bottle Banger. Papa BangBang. Drifter in Room 2627 and a woman. Bottle Banger.”
“He was with them?” asked Frank.
“With them. Room number.”
“You gave him the room number. What was the guest’s name?”
“Inventory.”
“Most everyone down here is Inventory,” said Redwings.
She waved her hand to make the gesture of someone writing with a pen.
Gunny Sea Ray ran to the desk for the registry. He opened it for her. She found the name. “Nole Hazard.”
“Can you describe him?” This was generally a useless question.
She tried to answer. “Two eyes, nose, mouth, ears, hair.”
“Got that,” said Redwings, writing it down. “Nole Hazard. Inventory. Two eyes.”
After Sinatra gave the order to take the body away, Gunny Sea Ray brought him and Redwings to the hotel room.
Sinatra showed Gunny and Redwings the cord that was still tied around the base of the headboard. “It was cut, but not untied, and why is it here at all?”
Neither of the men could answer the question.
“The mystery man, this missing Drifter, let’s get the Inventory crew he was with,” said Frank.
“Needle in a haystack,” said Redwings.
“Redwings, what’s a haystack?”
“Now you go and ask me a question and I don’t have the answer in my quiver.”
“What’s a quiver?”
“I can look it up, if you want, brother.”
“Keep a dictionary close by when you’re reading your magazines and circle the words you don’t understand. It’s a good and noble thing you’re doing, learning a specific vocabulary that isn’t related to work but to the history of character. I applaud this.”
“Thank you kindly.”
“And call AutoZone at the motor pool. I want to speak to him.”
Frank Sinatra, Siouxsie Banshee,
Martin Rome, 18 Tee
Inventory Central put out the call over the radio and in an hour, Sinatra and Redwings were at an Inventory dump in Highland Park, three miles away, where Martin Rome and his crew were stacking empty glass bottles into trash cans and loading them onto trucks.
Sinatra didn’t want to appear ignorant of something that had the look of organization, and asked Redwings to ask someone to explain what was being accomplished by putting glass bottles back into trash cans and find out which team was Martin Rome’s.
“I can ask and they can answer,” said Redwings. As he walked away, Sinatra called to him: “Get yourself a new dress, Redwings. This one is ready for the fire.”
“It fits me, brother, but when the word comes from you, I expect I always listen.”
Sinatra watched the biker in the nurse costume talk to one of the Inventory supervisors. He returned quickly with the answer. “They’ve been told, on order of Vayler Monokeefe, which I don’t doubt is on order of Chief himself, to bag the bottles in the trash cans that you see and then make sure they’re distributed along Figueroa, all right away, before sunset. They don’t know more than this, and I believe him when he confesses such to me.”
“And Martin Rome?”
“The man we seek is the man we shall find. He’s over there at the edge of this strange scene and, admit this, Frank Sinatra, a million empty bottles packed for something mysterious is a mystery, and mysteries are strange.”
“A million?”
“Could be. We can count them.”
“Or not.”
Most of the team leaders recognized Sinatra, and no one could be happy with a visit from him without warning. The chimes of the bottles as they were set carefully in the bags, not to break, gave Frank one of those pleasant waves of good feeling that he knew brought him close to the old world. Against his inclination to approach Martin Rome in a way to keep the man nervous, instead he was smiling. He held out a hand: “I’m Frank Sinatra.”
“Have we done something wrong?” asked Rome, taking Frank’s hand and holding it.
“I just need information.”
Siouxsie, standing near them, interrupted him. “I’ve got information for you. I shouldn’t be here. I should be verified. There’s been a mistake.”
“There’s been a lot of mistakes,” said Sinatra. “We all have to pay for them one way or another. A Drifter went with you to the Burn Zone. He called himself Nole Hazard. Do you remember him?”
Martin Rome shook his head. “I ask them their names, but I can’t match names with faces, usually. Tee, do you remember him?”
“No.”
“I remember Nole,” said Siouxsie Banshee.
“You shouldn’t be listening to us,” said Martin Rome, who turned to Sinatra and apologized. “She’s good at her work but she’s difficult.”
Siouxsie growled in frustration. “Maybe I am difficult, but it’s my job to remember similarities and differences in classical home furnishings of the postwar era, with a special emphasis on California design as it was influenced before the war by the German avant-garde, with an emphasis on the Bauhaus, of course. This training of mine has blessed or cursed me with the ability to recall the faces of people I meet, which proves that I was one of the earliest people in rehab, doesn’t it?”
“What did he look like?”
“Can I trade you that description for a privilege?”
Redwings moved closer to her. “You don’t bargain with Security, little lady.”
To a frustrated museum curator, a trained connoisseur, the promise of danger from a bearded and tattooed outlaw biker in a slut nurse costume has a certain ambiguous glow. She tugged lightly on his beard. “You can push the Drifters and the Unverified Second Wavers around because they don’t know they have nothing to lose. That’s why they’re pliable. But never argue with someone who has nothing to lose and knows it.”
Sinatra didn’t want Redwings to suffer a public embarrassment that could diminish his authority, so even as Siouxsie Banshee’s disdain impressed him he grabbed her arm and squeezed until she whimpered. “But you do have something to lose. You have your life. And you know it. And if you did have a thorough rehab, then they restored the old genetic instinct that tells you not to give your life up lightly.”
“Well, what do you know? Finally I’m talking to a reasonable man.”
“What did Nole look like?”
“Let go of my arm and let’s trade.”
Sinatra pulled her hair with his other hand, twisting her neck until she was looking up at the sky. “What did he look like?”
“You think I don’t like this?” she said, smiling. “I know from some o
f my reading that museum curators were often sexual masochists. It was the fetish of art strapped to the fetish of wealth, and that kind of humiliation creates a kinky tension that is cured, for a short time, only by the theater of shame. Rinse and repeat. So pull harder, Frank Sinatra. If I can’t get privileges, I can still have fun.”
“If you tell me something useful, I’ll return the favor, but I decide if it helps. So I set the value. And if you’re such an inventory specialist, you know what I mean by value, don’t you? Do you understand me?” He pulled harder and she liked it.
“I do.”
“So, tell me, my annoying ambassador from the lost high culture, what did Nole Hazard look like?”
She said it quickly. “Long black hair, brown skin lighter than yours, with what I’d say was a recent sunburn, likely a Hispanic or a Native American. Or he had a bit of that Aztec grandeur that comes through some mestizo faces. Six feet. A hundred and eighty pounds, maybe less. Strong.”
“How do you know?”
“It was an Inventory trip. He lifted things that were heavy. And though you haven’t asked, he was more alert than a typical Drifter.”
“What did he say?”
“Almost nothing.”
“So how do you know so much about his mind?” He pulled her hair again.
“Pay me.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“Listen to me. Who else gave you a description of him that you can use? What’s the value on that? Just give me something that I couldn’t have without your help. Please. Do something for me.”
“I can get you into the Ritz-Carlton with a good view of the Burn. There’s a party on the roof, with a buffet from Center Camp.”
Martin Rome heard this and rang a small alarm. “Chief won’t like that, will he? The Ritz-Carlton is First Wave only.”
Redwings nodded. “Brother Rome is right, probably.”
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