“Whatever you want me to say.”
“Toby Tyler?”
“Best to move everyone to Bakersfield and expand the farming, but that would mean leaving the Fence. And that would put an end to our way of life. I want to protect our way of life.”
Vayler asked if he could speak.
“Only to clarify what you’re supposed to say and do. Not to give us any advice.”
“I understand. I still want to help. I want to be of service, as we used to say.”
Chief slammed the table. “We don’t talk about what we used to say.”
“Then I’ll do what you tell me.”
“The Unverified Second Wave is worried about food? They’re scaring the Drifters? Prepare a feast like they’ve never had on Figueroa. Show them surplus. You, personally, making sure the food trucks are stocked, with everything you can. Bring out the best wines. Bring out the oldest whiskey. You have costumes in storage?”
“From the movie studios, yes.”
“Hand them out. Put all the Drifters in costume.”
“Yes, Chief. When?”
“Tomorrow night. That’s what I want you to do. That’s all I want you to do.”
“You’re a good Chief, a kind Chief. I’ll feed the people myself. I’ll show them we have more than enough food.”
“I’m not done, Vayler. Inventory and Verification have all the buses, right, ElderGoth?”
“We do.”
“And Frank, Security provides protection for the buses that are used when we leave the Drifters to themselves in the desert.”
“We’re in charge of that, yes, Chief.”
“Get enough buses for two thousand Drifters, if we have that many on Figueroa, and park them a block away from the food trucks. Get the Inventory trucks there, too. Feed the Drifters, get them drunk, and get them on the buses. Drive them to the desert and let them go. Systems?”
Toby Tyler raised her hand. “What can we do?”
“After we finish with what I’m talking about, we may not have enough Drifters for the next Burn. Can you manage without that?”
“Make the Burns smaller. The Burns were better when they were smaller. This last one pushed us too hard.”
“You’re right. June?”
“Yes, Chief.”
“What would the Founders say about this?”
“A trip to the desert calls for radical self-reliance.”
In the bedroom, Hopper ran his hands over the quilt. The pillowcase was soft, and the fabric was thin where his wife had rested her head.
He pressed the side of his face into the pillow and saw a few long strands of bright-red hair. He wrapped one long hair five times around the tip of his forefinger, then buried his face in the pillow and breathed deeply, searching for her scent. He licked the hair on his finger. Something of Robin was there. He smelled the back of his hand, to see if he could find the difference between Robin and himself and it was there. He fell asleep with her red hair around his finger.
The gun barrel stuck into his cheek woke him up two hours later. Go Bruins stood over him, with Chief beside him.
Chief said, “Who are you?”
The note of caution in Chief’s tone surprised Go Bruins, who expected rage.
“I fell asleep.”
Go Bruins moved the gun barrel along Hopper’s jaw. “We know you fell asleep. That’s why we could wake you up, because you fell asleep. That’s how it works.”
Frank asked, “Who are you?”
“I’m Kraft Serviss. With Inventory.”
“I’ve never seen you before,” said Chief.
“I was assigned to the hospital. You can ask Dr. Kaplan.”
“The doctor who disappeared?”
“I’m the one who found him and brought him back to the hospital. I found him in the hills. I hurt myself and Dr. Piperno fixed me.” He showed the bandage over his scar.
Chief looked to Sinatra to ask the next question, but Sinatra saw in Chief’s concerns the same fear he’d seen after the Bottle Banger was thrown off the balcony. “Who told you to go in this room and lie down in this bed?”
“I was tired. I’m sorry. I’ll go back to work now.”
“Are you alone?”
“Alone. Yes.”
“Frank, get Dr. Kaplan up here again, with Piperno.”
Seth held to the simple story. “Serviss found me wandering and he brought me back to the hospital. I’d heard there were shortages and I wanted to help Center Camp prepare, so I sent him up here to take inventory.”
Piperno supported Kaplan. “It’s all I hear these days: inventory this, inventory that, and all sorts of shortages. We want to protect people before they get hurt or sick. Don’t we, Dr. Kaplan? He was hurt. We sewed him up.”
Seth agreed with him. Piperno added, “I’m not familiar with the man who found Dr. Kaplan but he’s a hero for bringing him back. And the sooner he can finish the Center Camp med supplies inventory, the sooner I, as chief of Medicine, a position I still say deserves to be included as a separate committee of which I should be the head, can get back to the work of medicine.”
Chief asked Hopper if he was finished in the house.
“Yes, I am,” said Hopper.
Frank waited to be alone again with Chief. “We’re really running out of food. Don’t be worried about a man who fell asleep in a comfortable bed.”
Frank asked Go Bruins to find a camera.
“There’s a few in the house, what kind?”
“The one that’s closest.”
Pippi, oranges chief
Pippi could put another five oranges into the basket without any falling out, but no one recorded the weight and she wasn’t being paid, so she climbed back down the ladder, her chain rattling on the metal steps. She unloaded the basket in the big wagon behind the tractor, which carried the oranges to the storage sheds.
In the morning before work, the chief of the people, who wasn’t called Chief, assembled all the workers in the white cinder-block church. Everyone joined a line leading to where he stood beneath the man nailed to the cross, a circle of thorns sticking into his head, a bleeding knife wound on his side, cloth tied around his waist, his mouth open, probably crying in pain, and looking up to the sky, maybe not to be embarrassed in front of any friends if they were on the ground looking up at him. One by one the people waited their turn to stand in front of their chief, where they opened their mouths and stuck out their tongues at him. Drawing from a can of Garlic Seafood–flavored Pringles, he put one—just one—of those Pringles on each extended tongue. Then he waved his hand in front of their faces a few times, and then they pointed a finger at themselves, tapping their chests four times in a diamond pattern.
Pippi wasn’t sure she was pointing at herself in the right places, but no one showed her how to do it any other way.
The chief was the only one who spoke to her in words she could understand. She was certain that a few times, when no one knew she was nearby, they spoke the way she spoke, but when they saw her, they talked that other way. And they used that other way of talking even when showing her how to do the work they assigned her.
She was locked in her trailer at the end of the day and someone brought food to her. They had a lot of vodka, tequila, and wine, and they gave her enough to pass out. There were two magazines called People, but she didn’t know any of the people in them. There was a pack of cigarettes under the bed.
AutoZone, Mrs. AutoZone
Eckmann’s ambition, Eckmann’s reason for living, the source of his charisma, the intensity of his devotion: if Mrs. AutoZone could talk to Eckmann now, she would have told him—nothing. Mrs. AutoZone would never tell anything to anyone but AutoZone himself, but not because she might say anything to unmask her. There was nothing more to know about her now except her name. The only thing in life that she
was sure of was that AutoZone loved her because she was everyone he had forgotten. He could see the ghosts of the forgotten in her attention to him, her concern for order in the hidden corners of the garage. They liked to get on the floor and pick up trash together. Until the Driftette—Shamblerina—returned from wherever it is she went, no one had ever worried about the elements of AutoZone’s life that distracted him from his own capacity for happiness. As AutoZone made love to her when she came back to the motor pool after the Burn, he worried that she was just acting as the toy of some fuckhead Bottle Banger who had used her and abandoned her, that she was doing what was expected of her instead of what she wanted and could give by choice. But she seemed to like what he did to her and like what she did to him. There was nothing awkward or clumsy about her. She didn’t come like a Driftette, that tiny shudder.
He said to her, “Inside of you, you’re verified.”
Siouxsie Banshee, Frank Sinatra
Frank drove downtown again to show Siouxsie the picture of Kraft Serviss.
“That’s him,” she said. “Nole Hazard.”
“No question?”
“He’s the one Chief has been waiting for.”
“Seth Kaplan was lying about how he met Hazard. Why? The dead body in the rail yard, Tesla’s fall from the hotel balcony, maybe Pippi’s disappearance, all that connects to Nole Hazard. But if he was here to attack Chief, why did he go to sleep in that bedroom? Why was he taking inventory up and down Center Camp? Chief didn’t recognize him. Chief didn’t recognize Reuven Abarbanel, the dead lawyer from Silver Lake, either. I wanted to arrest this man but Chief said no. Why wouldn’t Chief arrest this man? Even as a precaution. What do you think Chief is accomplishing by not arresting him? Help me, Siouxsie.”
“Because it’s over for him. He failed to protect the Fence.”
Frank was quiet. “I’m head of Security. That’s my job, more than Chief’s.”
“Look at what we really are. What can we really do?”
“I want to save your life.”
“Well that’s a comfort. From who or what?”
“Stay in the hotel tomorrow night. Don’t go out on Figueroa. I’m not supposed to tell you this, but Chief is sending all the Drifters out to the desert.”
“All of them?”
“As many as he can. We can’t feed them anymore.”
“When they’re gone will there be enough food?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do me a favor, Frank.”
“If I can.”
“Fuck me.”
Hopper, Seth, Piperno
Back at the hospital, Piperno told Seth, “Don’t do anything on your own again. Ask me first.” He looked at the requisition lists on Hopper’s clipboard. “This is useless, all of it. These aren’t good lists. We’ll send someone else. Stay away from Center Camp.”
After Piperno left for wherever he was going, Hopper said good-bye to Seth. “I have to follow Chief.”
“You can’t follow Chief. He’s Chief. He’s in charge. He has people around him all the time.”
“He knows where Robin is. That’s why her room hasn’t changed. I have to follow him until she comes back.”
“She’s with Chief. She won’t want to be with you.”
“She’s my wife and she wants to be with me.”
“I wanted Marci to be with me. She’s not.”
“She wasn’t your wife.”
“Chief doesn’t want to see you in Center Camp again.”
“I know how to hide.”
“Really? If you knew how to hide you’d still be in Chief’s house.”
Hopper’s Silent Voice made a new sound, a long howl of malicious delight. “Haaa! He’s right, he’s right!”
“What?” asked Seth. “You’re listening to it again. I can tell.”
Hopper understood that something was over. He said to his Silent Voice: “You’re not going to help me anymore.”
“No. You found her.”
“Not yet. I haven’t seen her.”
“I can’t get you any closer.”
Shannon, Erin, the Stripers
On the day of the Feast, as the buses were parked off Figueroa and the food trucks lined up on either side of the street, Shannon, Erin, and the Stripers left Center Camp dressed for the Playa: in motorcycle goggles, long silk scarves, top hats, fingerless gloves, sequin vests, and platform boots laced to the knee. They carried the usual black leather backpacks for food and water. Chief saw them from his window—Shannon no different than the others—and thought of this as a sign that Shannon’s charm had faded and she now had no more than an equal share of whatever it was that made the Stripers interesting.
At the Playa, the group climbed into The Woman’s lower chamber.
“We’ll wait until the sun goes down,” said Shannon, tilting an ear upward and scanning the air for the advent of new sounds. “The crowds have their ideas tonight.”
“The crowds aren’t here,” said Jobe.
“I can hear them,” said the singer. “It’s in the air, the way they’re going to align with my music.”
Helary taped the microphone to Shannon’s cheek and tested the connection to the Playa sound system, the speakers hidden in The Man and The Woman. They plugged in the karaoke machine with Shannon’s songs, and with the volume low, Shannon sang a verse. The system worked. Jobe offered Shannon a bottle of Grey Goose and Shannon pushed it away.
“I don’t need it now. What I need now is for all of you to be quiet. Nobody look at me. Leave me alone. Don’t talk to me. Let me do what I’m going to do. Erin, get the music ready.”
“It’s ready.” As she said this, she gave Shannon a new chisel.
“Don’t hit Play until you know it’s time.”
“How will I know it’s time?”
“I’ll tell you.”
“What’s the signal?”
“Erin, are you stupid or scared? I’ll count down from ten. Now, all of you, go.”
Shannon kissed the chisel.
The official Shannon Squier autobiography, published two months before the first American case of NK3, listed all the concerts she’d given on her last tour, by date, city, venue, size of audience. There were 151 concerts in arenas and stadiums. Every seat was sold at every concert. She wrote, “My tour netted $142,580,400. More than any woman has made on a single tour. The stage is as much my home as the ocean is home to the dolphins, and please my beauties, if you have to eat something that was alive, only eat line-caught tuna, because our friends the dolphins are trapped and killed in big fishing nets.” She understood her own importance as a simple fact, not an opinion. She was more important than Chief, more important than June Moulton or Frank Sinatra or anyone else who might bring fear to the Drifters. She knew this. “Erin!”
“Ready?”
“Not yet. Why did I sing?”
“Because there was nothing else for you.”
“How do you know?”
“It’s in your book.”
Jobe said, “Maybe you sang for money.”
“No, money is a simplification. I sang for something, a thing, something money can buy.”
Erin said, “You sang because there was nothing else for you. You sang because you loved the people who loved you, people like me. That’s what you wrote.”
Quiet Toffe spoke up. “Erin is right. You sang for love.”
Shannon was about to tell Helary to turn on the music but stopped herself. “I’m going to start without the music. Turn it on only when I signal you, Helary.”
Helary asked, “Shannon, how will I know the signal?”
“I’ll point to you and nod. Will that work? Until then, let me do this my way.” Shannon put a finger to her lips for everyone to be quiet and climbed the narrow ladder through The Woman’s torso until she rea
ched the head. She sat cross-legged, looking at the Playa through The Woman’s eyes. The Man, her stiff companion, looked forward and backward, but at nothing in particular.
Pippi
She sat in the orchard while the family picked oranges from trees four rows away. She could hear them, but they spoke that other language. One of the women brought her lunch.
She could have told them that their precautions didn’t fit the situation. But she didn’t know how to explain that situation to herself, so how could she describe it to anyone else? Chief wanted her safely out of Center Camp and here she was. And for now she had to trust Chief’s choice for her, or pretend to trust it.
Or not. She had the cigarette pack under the bed, small stones were everywhere, and she could ask for a pen and paper, but what would she write and where would she throw it? She was on the other side of the Fence, and so, she understood, was he, whoever he was.
She couldn’t look for him if she couldn’t walk and even if she could walk, she didn’t have the key to the padlock that kept her chained to the orange tree.
Siouxsie Banshee, Frank Sinatra
Sinatra stayed downtown with Siouxsie Banshee. There was nothing for him to do now except stand on the hotel roof with her and watch as the buses were parked a block from the lines of food trucks on Figueroa. They watched Inventory workers push racks of costumes onto sidewalks. The Drifters put them on: aliens, cowboys, firemen, zombies, baseball players, football players, doctors, nurses, hippies, punks, soldiers of a dozen different armies, Arab terrorists in suicide belts, nuns, priests, Klansmen, slaves. “I wouldn’t have met you if everything wasn’t so strange,” she said.
“Did you study why there are two kinds of Jesus?” he asked her.
“Religious art? I don’t think so. What are you thinking about?”
“There’s two kinds of crosses. A cross with Jesus and a cross without. What scared Jesus off the cross? Or did the empty cross mean that there were two versions of the story? In one version—and I can’t call it the first version because I don’t know if one story is older than the other—the cross is empty because Jesus knows the only way to stay on the cross is if his hands are nailed to the cross beam. So is the empty cross the cross of expectation of torture, or the cross of escape? But on the empty crosses, there’s no trace of the hardware, the nails through the palms, no streaks of red to show he was bleeding. In the other version, where Jesus gets nailed to the cross, is that the church for people who like to watch him die?”
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