Siouxsie Banshee spoke up for herself. “You’re trying to catch a killer. If I help, I deserve this.”
Sinatra liked the idea that Chief would be unhappy with letting this woman into the Ritz-Carlton. “What else can you tell me about Nole Hazard?”
Siouxsie said what she knew. “After we were dropped off at the staging area, I was talking to him as I do, talking a lot, and he wasn’t paying attention, which is no special surprise. Welcome to the world of Siouxsie Banshee and Sonia Pryce. A naked Driftette came out of the crowd, following him. One of the Bottle-Bang Shamblerinas. She took his hand. He knew her.”
“And she just walked up to him out of the crowd?”
“Like I said, she knew him.”
“And Nole Hazard, what did Nole Hazard do?”
“He tried to get away from her but she stayed with him. I was talking to him but he was trying so hard to get away that he was running, and she kept up with him. That was the last I saw of him.”
“What did she look like?”
“Matted and tangled black hair below her shoulders. Five four, hungry, like a lot of people at the fringes, you could see her ribs. Two skinned knees, barefoot, legs cut up. I didn’t see her eyes, don’t know the color.”
“Was he trying to get away from you or from her?”
“What does that mean?”
“Were you talking this much to Nole Hazard and was he trying to get away from you?”
“I don’t talk too much. It’s everybody else who doesn’t talk enough. The world is more than welcome to interrupt me when it tells me something interesting.”
“You spent time with him in the Burn Zone. What was he like there?”
“That’s what I mean by interesting, that question. Yes. He didn’t talk much but he was listening to me. He stayed closer to me than any of the others. And he was looking around more, paying attention to where we were. Most Drifters just look for the food or look where you point them. Nole Hazard looked where he wanted to look.”
“And then he disappeared,” said 18 Tee. “Don’t forget that part.”
“Disappeared where?” asked Sinatra.
“We called for him and he wasn’t there. But Siouxsie saw him,” 18 Tee said.
“We were finishing up at a house and he went into the backyard, all the way back and climbed over the back wall into the yard of the other house, and stood there, looking at the house.”
“Do you know what street?”
Martin Rome answered. “No. We were just cruising up and down, looking for houses that matched the guidelines.”
“Stupid guidelines,” said Siouxsie.
Sinatra knew that they were at the end of their knowledge.
“Martin Rome, were you surprised that Nole Hazard didn’t show up today?”
“I have bigger things to be surprised by than whether a Drifter keeps to his assignments.”
Siouxsie offered a quiet thought. “You look unhappy about this.”
“Why did he line up for work? He could have gotten away without working.”
“It’s obvious to me,” said Siouxsie. “He wanted to see the Burn Zone and didn’t want anyone to know he was here.”
Redwings approved of this. “Very logical thinking, Frank. She has me convinced.”
“So did I help you?” she asked. “What’s the value of what I gave you today?”
“Siouxsie Banshee,” he said, with a sincerity he seldom felt, “I’m sorry about your verification problems. I wish there was something we could do about that, but there’s not. If you’re interested, I can use you, even if I can’t bring you into Center Camp.”
“Use me how? Take off my clothes and make me dance in the street? Should I find some plastic chopsticks and an empty bottle of Tanqueray?”
“You’d never let anyone do that to you.”
“I’ve thought of joining those circles. For the attention. You get desperate enough sometimes, when you’re out here.”
“Redwings?”
“Yes, brother?”
“Tell the Ritz-Carlton that I say to give her a room.”
“For the night?”
“No, tell them to give her a room with a view, full time. That’s a fair trade. She has a good eye for detail and Redwings . . .”
“Yes, Frank?”
“Can’t Security use someone with a good eye for detail?”
“Every day, brother.”
Siouxsie hugged the fearsome head of the Security Committee. Sinatra stopped Redwings, his loyal protector, from pulling her away until she broke the hug herself.
“And I’ll know where you are,” said Frank. And with that, he walked away with Redwings.
“Boss, what are you thinking?”
“Nothing yet.”
Chief, Pippi
Pippi heard Chief’s side of the conversation with Frank Sinatra: “Do you have his name? Nole Hazard, no, I’ve never heard it . . . With what crew . . . And who’s the woman . . . She’s not verified . . . Yes . . . If she helped you . . . Get her a room there, fine. I don’t care. Tell them I said so. Yes, she can come to the roof, but you’re responsible for her, and you have a lot to worry about tonight . . . No, that’s true: I’ve never seen you worry. I’ll be down in an hour.”
Frank Sinatra, AutoZone
AutoZone spoke to Sinatra.
“I saw the body. That’s Tesla. He worked with me.”
“You know that even without his face?”
“It was Tesla. I know his tattoos.”
“Were you friends?”
“Not hardly.”
“Did he have any enemies?”
“Who has enemies?”
“Why was he downtown instead of at the garage?”
“He asked if he could go.”
“Did you know he was a Bottle Banger?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t like that, did you?”
“How can you tell?”
“You’re not sorry he’s dead.”
“Who misses the dead?” He missed Hey You, and wondered if by missing her, it meant she wasn’t dead.
AutoZone was on his way back to the motor pool when Chief called him. They’d only spoken a few times.
“AutoZone, I need your help.”
Eckmann, Franz, Spig Wead, Consuelo
Eckmann sent Consuelo on a search through the terminals to find pilot uniforms to fit Franz and Spig Wead. “It would be nice to find something from Singapore Airlines, but what’s really important is for Franz and Spig Wead to see the epaulets on each other’s shoulders. Each needs to believe that he’s with another pilot.”
She returned with three jackets from a closet in the forward bulkhead of a LAN Airbus at the International Arrivals terminal. One was too small for either of them, the other two had probably belonged to the same pilot, and they were the same size and too big for both Franz and Spig Wead. Eckmann said it didn’t matter.
“Even if it’s a bit large, this looks good on you,” said Consuelo.
Franz looked at himself in the plane’s bathroom mirror.
“I remember him.”
“He’s handsome,” said Consuelo, putting a hand on his shoulder. He pushed her away.
She protested. “I said something nice about you.”
Eckmann, though, was delighted, really for the first time since Franz’s arrival at the hangar. “No, no, did you see? You covered his stripes. He doesn’t like you touching the jacket. This is what we wanted.”
Eckmann guided Franz back into his seat, and then the two pilots continued going through the preflight checklist.
Chief, Pippi
Chief found Pippi in her dressing room, dotting her cheeks with red freckles. He came up behind her and kissed the top of her head.
“I need another five mi
nutes,” she said.
He spoke quietly. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go to Figueroa, Pippi. The Drifters may riot like they did for the last Burn. You’ll have Go Bruins and Royce Hall for protection, not that you’ll be in any danger. It’s just a precaution.” He didn’t often call her by her new name. He preferred Heidi.
She knew there was nothing to negotiate. Chief was Chief, but even so, she had to say something. “If the Drifters riot, it’s because their mythology isn’t working. When you’re verified, you have a story about yourself. The story that June Moulton pushes on the Drifters doesn’t have any power over them. Do they really believe that once upon a time there were Founders who built all of this for us? That food was left for them as a gift? Do they really believe that life inside the Fence is a world of nothing but hard work, and they wouldn’t like it?”
“What should we say instead, Pippi?” Her concern about Fence politics surprised him. He thought she didn’t care.
“Maybe nothing makes any difference.”
“That’s something I’d expect to hear myself saying. I don’t expect that from you.”
“I watch. I’m quiet. I listen.”
“What do you see? What do you hear? About the committee heads.”
“You need Sinatra but he doesn’t know himself, doesn’t know what he really wants. You need ElderGoth in Verification, because she just wants to do a good job and you appointed her and she’s jealous of anyone getting close. So as long as you favor her, she’ll do what you want.”
“And Vayler Monokeefe?”
“He knows what’s out there, and how much of it is left. He keeps his own books. Did you know that he found a Costco in Reseda that he hasn’t told anyone about? Not even Sinatra knows this.”
“How do you know about it?”
“Three Inventory tabulators have disappeared. He said they’re drunk on Figueroa. Maybe it’s true. Maybe not. Nobody pays attention.”
She expected Chief to ask more about this, but instead he asked about Toby Tyler. “What do you think of the way Toby Tyler runs Systems?”
“Couldn’t be better at her job and she’ll do the best for anyone in charge, and she’s not replaceable right now because she won’t train anyone to know as much as she knows. Give her a few more years to get her crews to learn from her, and then she could be replaced, but now, no.”
“Why haven’t we talked like this before?”
“I didn’t want to, Chief.”
“Why don’t I like to hear you call me that? Why do I not want to be your Chief?”
“Tell me your old name.”
“That’s the only name I have.”
“Are you really going to stop me from going downtown and joining all my friends on the roof of the Ritz-Carlton to watch the Burn?”
“I don’t want you caught up in a disaster.”
“What are you scared of, Chief? What’s making you so scared today? The Burn? Shannon Squier?”
“I have to be extra careful with you, because I don’t want to lose you.”
“Why does it sound like you’re telling me the truth, but about something else?”
“But this is why I love you.”
“Because I don’t have the thing you say you have, so that I can love you the way you say you love me?”
“You have to be alive to love me the way I love you.”
This made her tired. She didn’t know what to think now. She wanted to go to the Playa and send one of those messages by slingshot over the Fence. Darling . . . she didn’t know how to finish the sentence. She could ask The Man and The Woman for help, but if she did, The Woman might tell Chief about Pippi’s secret messages.
“I’m going downtown now. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
After he left, the two guards joined her on the deck.
“Nice telescopes,” said Royce Hall. “You can see everything from up here.”
“We’ll see the fire,” said Pippi.
“He wants you inside.”
At this insistence, Pippi knew what to tell The Man and The Woman, either or both of them. She wrote it on a piece of paper and folded it inside one of her cigarette boxes, and when the time was right, she would approach the two mute guardians of the Playa, climb into The Man’s chest and whisper the message, or maybe just think it loudly. And then she would scale the outside of The Woman and show The Woman what she told The Man: “I have a secret. It’s the only thing I have. And I don’t know what it is.”
Siouxsie Banshee, Redwings
Siouxsie Banshee’s small room at the Ritz-Carlton looked east from the fifteenth floor, a dull view to a Drifter dormitory. It was the best that her patron could negotiate for her in a hotel meant for the exclusive use of the First Wave, but the Sony played sex movies on a closed circuit, the whiskey on the shelf was Johnnie Walker Black, the towels in the bathroom were clean, and the Pellegrino water in glass bottles still had some fizz. Sipping bubbles from the deleted past was as close as she could imagine to a religious experience. Until then she had nothing more important to do than the nothing she was doing. Naked, she lay back on the bed, pleased with the novelty of her friendship with Sinatra and grateful for the result. This was the kind of luxury that Sonia Pryce deserved.
Redwings knocked on the door and announced himself. She opened the door, without covering herself, because she’d heard about the parties inside the Fence and knew that among themselves, First Wavers didn’t hide behind clothing. Redwings, in a starched nurse uniform, not a slut costume, introduced himself, as he always did.
“Redwings with news from Frank. First, are you happy with your facilities here?”
“Thank you, Redwings, yes, the room is fine.”
“Regretfully we can’t get you a view toward the ocean. Now I have to tell you this: the Security command post is the top of this very building and you’re invited to join us if you’ll just be careful and let us go about our business as it commences. There’s a fine chow line and plenty of things to drink.”
“Good, because I’m hungry and thirsty.”
“What do you have to wear?” asked Redwings. “It gets a bit windy up top.”
“The only clothing I have is what I wore for Inventory today.”
“There’s a conference room on the second floor of the hotel where the ladies of the First Wave get their clothing when they stay downtown. I’ve gotten some of mine there, as you see.”
“Redwings, can I ask you a question?”
“You just did. So you can ask another.”
“Does Frank have a woman?”
“I’m not with him all the time, if you know what I mean. But the demands on Frank Sinatra are a remarkable thing to see. He has the safety of our lives in his keeping.”
“You look like you can take care of yourself.”
“Apparently I spent time in prison but we don’t know for what. You can see from this tattoo,” he said, pulling up his skirt to show her his thick thigh and the portrait, drawn in fine small lines like the picture on a dollar bill. But instead of George Washington it was Jesus strapped to a lethal injection gurney. “I was probably a violent man. Now, I’m a strong man, but not much of a fighter, to tell the truth. Also, to be warned fairly, Frank is busy but he knows you’re there. The man has many eyes. Show starts after sundown.”
Shannon, Erin, Jobe, Helary, Toffe
On Chief’s orders, Inventory and Systems assembled a stage on top of a bus made for rock-and-roll tours. AutoZone was driving and Carrera was along for the ride. The bus had a bedroom suite in the back with a shower, another room with couches that could be used as beds, and a kitchen and dining room behind the driver. Above the dining room table, the workers cut a hole three feet across so Erin could stand on the table and give directions to Shannon on the stage, which was the length of the bus and five feet wider, braced and bolted in pla
ce. Transport Service workers, diligent as always, hung large flat-screen Sonys and Samsungs, side by side, to the bottom of the stage and connected them on the bus’s Wi-Fi to a laptop in Helary’s hands.
Chief told Erin not to explain too much to Shannon, but Erin didn’t know how to explain what Chief wanted Shannon to do without telling her the stage was for her to dance on as the bus moved down Figueroa, distracting the Drifters. A concert on a normal stage that stayed in one place and was the focus of a crowd—that made sense. But Chief said the Drifters were dispersed and needed a traveling distraction. Erin told him: “Driving slowly down Figueroa is an invitation to catastrophe, and I’m afraid that even though this isn’t my idea, I’ll take the blame for failure.”
Chief didn’t offer comfort. “You’re right. You will be blamed.”
AutoZone could see that Erin was miserable. “Don’t worry about the hole in the roof or the platform on top. We have about thirty of these motor coaches in the parking lot at Paramount studios and we keep them in working order.”
Erin didn’t care if this had been the only bus, irreplaceable, precious as whatever it is that AutoZone cared about most.
“You understand what we’re doing?” she asked him.
“Carrying that girl down the street while she puts on a show.” He hated Erin’s type, the Center Camp First Wave Sparkle Pony princess who looks down on the people who do the real work, which made him think of Hey You and her clunky Driftette dancing, the way she seemed to live only to help improve the days of the men who made fun of her and didn’t notice or care that they were cruel. He wanted her to come back. He’d give her a better name, like Jeep or Lincoln, a name for a good dependable American car. Nothing Japanese and nothing Korean, of course. He was glad Tesla was dead. He couldn’t make fun of Hey You anymore.
Now he had this job driving the bus because people close to Chief trusted him to do it the right way, and he wouldn’t waste his words trying to get Erin to respect him. All he’d been told was that Chief would tell Erin when it was time to move and she would tell AutoZone.
NK3 Page 16