Midnight Lamp

by Gwyneth Jones

  ‘I urgently need more briefing,’ muttered Fiorinda. ‘I don’t know anything.’

  ‘We’ll get by. Smoke and mirrors. Besides, we have Sage.’

  Sage was their secret weapon. He’d been in Hollywood before. He claimed (probably truthfully) to remember very little about the Heads’ US tour, back when Aoxomoxa and the band had been flirting with record company slavery: but he had a separate reputation, as the inventor of immersion code, which was apparently important to virtual movie makers—

  ‘As long as we don’t meet anyone from Maverick.’

  ‘Or the Bible Belt. D’you know he’s still banned in fourteen states?’

  Fiorinda was accosted by a sparkly lady with a stunning decolletage, a British expat who wanted to explain that she didn’t like the Counterculture, but she loved Yellow Girl. Ax moved off, not to get in the way of this, and met a barrel-shaped character, ugly as a toad, who told him the sun was still shining.

  ‘So you’re Ax Preston? Say, does BOAC still fly into LAX?’

  ‘We don’t have a national airline at the moment,’ said Ax.

  ‘Oh, right. One of those. Too bad. Whaddya do these days? Swim?’

  ‘We drove up from Mexico.’

  ‘That’s what I’d do myself. Whaddaya drive, Ax?’

  ‘A Toyota Rugrat.’

  ‘Aaah!’ sighed the drunk, fuddled eyes brightening, ‘You got a rat! Way to go. You got companionship, service, and a fuckin’ hot set of wheels, all in one package. I love that. I have an AI car myself,’ he confided, ‘but the rat’s kinda sporty for me. I’m Lou Branco, pleased to meet you.’

  Thank you Fred, thought Ax, shaking the hand of one of the great Hollywood money men. You’re a wise and devious fellow; and so now I’m a slaveowner. Ah well, at least we own an A-list member of the new underclass.

  ‘We got to meet,’ confided Lou. ‘We got to get going on this thing, Harry’s movie. Fred’s talked to me, he has a high regard for you. How about lunch-?’

  Ax agreed, escaped, and rediscovered Fiorinda. They spotted Sage by the vast buffet table, talking to the tall woman with the crisp semi-Afro who’d made the Hendrix request when they were playing guitar. She wore a big white shirt over narrow black trousers: a stylish, fuck-you option among the glitz and the jelly bean party frocks. Fiorinda, wearing a jelly bean party frock that she’d let Harry provide, felt inferior.

  ‘I wonder who that is. She looks like a fashion editor.’

  ‘Someone he met when he was here before?’

  ‘I must get myself some clothes. We have to make an impression…’

  Ax fielded an anxious flash across the crowd, and signalled back: she’s good, everything’s in hand. We can do this, he thought (while that shot of blue sent a tingle to his bones). Don’t know about pacifist propaganda, but surely we can promote a movie: piece of piss. It thrilled him to think Fiorinda’s soul needed only the balm of party frocks and treats, to bring it safe home. He stayed close as they worked the crowd, always watchful, trying not to look like it. When she lets me brush her hair, then I’ll know she’s going to be okay.

  Sage had let Janelle leave him, unsure how he wanted to deal with that old aquaintance. He lurked around the food, pharmacologically starved, ready to go home (that is, back to the other hotel), but too proud to go and find Ax and Fee, and whine that he was tired. Shit, how do people endure this kind of thing sober? It was an energy crash. Sugar, I need sugar… He dosed himself with party dessert and felt the impact immediately. That’s an idea. I can use food as drugs, uppers and downers-

  ‘Hi!’

  A young girl popped up, a plump kid with blonde hair, half-dressed in a cherry-red number that grazed her tits and didn’t reach far below her crotch.

  ‘Hi to you.’

  ‘My name’s Billy. I wanted to say, I’m not into techno, but I love your stage act. With the skull mask, and the stunt dives, the fantastic body, and everything.’

  Sage was trying to be polite with people who wanted to talk to Aoxomoxoa, but finding it a trial. ‘Oh really? And which gig did you most enjoy? You must have been about three years old when the Heads were in California.’

  ‘Okay, I love your videos. I heard you’re fabulous in bed, would you do it with me?’

  Of course, and well done Harry. No rockstar party would be complete without the amateur sex workers. Sage had a lot of time for party girls, brave little adventurers. There’d been years of his life when he wouldn’t have any other kind of sex. Sure, it’s corrupt and awful, but you can live in the belly of the beast, and still have fun. Been there, done that. ‘Hahaha. Billy, tell the truth, I look a lot better with my clothes on, these days.’

  ‘You don’t have to undress,’ she explained, naively. ‘I have a room in the hotel. I know you don’t have a girlfriend with you tonight, I do most things, and I’m a virgin, well partly a virgin. You won’t be sorry.’

  ‘Thanks, but no sale.’

  ‘Okay, later okay, and you’ll wear the mask?’

  He went looking for his lovers, but before he found them was forced to head for the roof-garden, under the imperious command of a bout of nausea; cutting his way with dazzling smiles (an entirely unconscious reflex). What’s happened to this town? You’d think you could rely on the desserts at a Hollywood party to be fat-free. The roof garden was not a refuge. It was low lights and conversations, arbours for coupled bodies. The air was not fresh, it was tepid and harsh in his throat. He tumbled down on the steps of a fountain, water hissing over him.

  ‘Hey, uh, Sage? Are you okay?’

  It was Billy the party girl.

  ‘Oh, shit, you look awful, you got some bad gear, should I call an ambulance?’

  ‘Just leave me alone, Billy, like a good kid.’

  She wouldn’t leave, this kindly child. She sat beside him and patted his hand, prattling about her own bad drug experiences, telling him no need to worry. I have my phone, I’ll call someone, breathe deep. Sage could have killed her, I need to concentrate or I will throw up, but he was touched, and there was nothing he could do anyway, past the brink, ah, fuck, so much for the suave, sophisticated new Sage. When he’d finished spewing his guts into the fountain it was Janelle Firdous beside him, with her beautiful, sombre dark eyes, and a crooked little reminiscent grin.

  ‘Hi again, you.’ She handed him a tissue, and a bottle of water.

  ‘Where’s Billy?’

  ‘Your little bunny scooted. Jesus, Sage. Isn’t bunny-fucking in public and throwing up over the décor undignified for your present role? Do you want me to fetch Ax and Fiorinda, or should it be Harry?’

  ‘Ah, God… No, no, don’t fetch anyone. I’ll be fine.’

  ‘Sure you will. C’mon, baby. You’ve had enough. Let me see you home.’

  Fiorinda had fallen asleep on a lilac leather couch, in the master bedroom of their suite. Janelle, the fashion-editor friend who’d called them had discreetly departed: they’d run a First Aid check, and his LFTs gave no cause for concern. He’d just eaten something stupid… But fear for him was so ingrained, she’d been too scared to go to her own room. She’d been dreaming of fashion editors, huddled in her jelly-bean frock under a quilt: she woke to the chiming, chiming, Intensive Care Unit alarm. Sage is dead! It was the landline phone beside her. She groped for it. A female voice, saying could I speak to Mr Preston? The video screen flashed, but she didn’t know how to turn the picture on.

  ‘Who is this? How did you get this number?’

  ‘I’ve got it, Fio,’ said Ax’s voice, from the big bed.

  He took over, while Fiorinda fought with a burst of kaleidoscope horrors. She had better get dressed. Sage is dead, Ax didn’t come home, I must get dressed.

  When she returned, in sensible clothes, Ax was looking mystified.

  ‘That was the FBI. We’re to visit a crime scene. They’re sending a limo.’

  Sage stirred and sat up. ‘A crime scene? What the fuck time is this?’

  ‘Just after seven. Hey, do
n’t look at me, I haven’t a clue. I wanted Harry in the conversation, but the woman said no, not appropriate. I’m calling him now.’

  Ax called Harry. Ominously he did not sound surprised. He apologised profusely, said he would sort this out. Shortly, he called back. Everything was fine. They should go downstairs and get in the limo, sorry for the inconvenience.

  ‘What’s going on, Mr Loman?’

  ‘I, er, I’ll talk to you in the car.’

  ‘I’m coming with you,’ said Sage. ‘No argument, I’m fine.

  The limo waited with its doors open. Harry was in the back. The doors shut themselves, the car zoomed off. ‘Good of you to come along,’ said Ax, icily. ‘What crime scene is this? What does it have to do with us?’

  ‘It’s not my gig,’ said Harry. ‘I’m very, very sorry. It’s better if we just get there.’

  They’d seen their A&R man in his glory last night. This morning he was a crushed, resentful errand boy, radiating indignation; and fear. They sat in silence. The English waited for Harry to speak to the driver, realised there was nobody in front, behind the opaque screen, and felt as if they’d just arrived from the rainforest. The limo sped for miles, into the city of the plain. Sage leaned back with his eyes closed in bruised pits of shadow, Fiorinda stared at the floor. Ax checked off roadsigns, trying to keep track. He hated not knowing where he was.

  At last they left the freeway grid. The limo stopped beside a call point pillar, in a sector of the streaming galaxies which, in daylight and close up, resembled spaced-out, shabby English inner city: a children’s playground with faded murals, a flat-roofed, municipal-looking building; maybe a community centre. Little kids were running and playing. It might have been Brixton or Birmingham, except there was no city in England where you would look up and see such an expanse of sky. They’d been cocooned in aircon limos, hotel rooms, private shopping trips: they were about to step onto the surface of the alien planet.

  A fit young white woman, in very clean jeans and a button-down shirt, opened the door before it could open itself. ‘Hi!’ she said, with the friendly ease of a certain kind of American functionary, which does not mean they are on your side. ‘I’m Agent Phillips. Thank you for your co-operation, Mr Preston, sir; Mr Pender, Ms Slater. I hope you had a smooth journey.’ She showed them her badge. ‘Hi Harry,’ she added, as to a colleague for whom she didn’t have a great deal of respect. ‘Phil’s down there. Sorry we had to drag you out of bed, after the big party and all.’

  It was warm outdoors, warmer than was seasonable at this hour even in southern California. LA was having a spring heatwave. Agent Phillips led the way through a gap between the playground and another building (the children gathering to stare), along a path behind some warehouses in mid-conversion, and onto waste ground that stretched to the horizon: invaded by desert scrub, wrecked cars and dumped freezers. In the midst of the waste stood two long white vans, and unmarked cars that were not wrecks. A small crowd hovered at a police taped perimeter; otherwise the scene was strangely empty. No sign of the Scene of the Crime team, no familiar peripherals of disaster.

  But they knew what they were going to see. Oh, we have been here before.

  ‘You guys are the experts from England, right?’ said their guide, conversationally.

  Harry glared at her.

  ‘I’m not sure how to answer that,’ said Ax.

  ‘How d’you like LA? I love the accent. That’s great, the way you can travel again now. It must be tough, living over there in all that civil unrest.’

  ‘England’s not too bad,’ said Ax, mildly. ‘Compared to some places.’

  They reached the perimeter. The towers of downtown stood in the distance, like a spaceport in the haze; like a toy. The crowd surged, a single animal, towards this new event. Agent Phillips lifted a loop of tape from one of the plastic supports, and stood aside to let them through. ‘It’s the tape that attracts them,’ she remarked. ‘Do you get that in England? Shootings, murder, rape, no one sees a thing. The tape appears and the assholes gather.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Fiorinda. ‘We get that too.’

  She could already smell the blood. Been here, done this, oh yes. What made me think it would stop? She was going to look guilty, because she was NOT going to be able to look surprised. A fat man in a Redsox teeshirt stared avidly. If you have no reason to be here, she thought, then get the fuck away. Or may something happen to teach you a lesson, shit for brains…

  She had blessed, but never cursed anyone before. It felt surprisingly good.

  Beside the long vans a broadly built, bearded black man was waiting. ‘I’m honoured to meet you,’ he said, ‘Mr Preston, Mr Pender, Ms Slater… Harry, thanks for your promptness. Philemon Roche.’

  He showed his badge, and surveyed the three with gravitas slightly tempered by the satisfaction of someone meeting celebrities. He had a marked Jamaican accent, which put them off balance.

  Ax nodded, dismissing the badge. ‘Are you going to tell us why we’re here?’

  ‘I don’t know what Harry told you-’

  ‘I haven’t told them anything,’ snapped Harry. ‘But I want to say, for the record, I don’t like the way this was done, I think this is insupportable.’

  ‘Good, that’s good.’ said Roche. ‘Something happened here last night,’ he said to the English experts, ‘that you may be able to help us with. The police have taken a break. Your visit is off the record, I assure you there will be no publicity.’ He addressed Fiorinda. ‘Ms Slater, we’re about to view human remains. They died violently. I’d like to leave my partner here, to keep a h’eye on those idle citizens, but would you prefer to have a woman with you?’

  ‘I’ll be all right.’

  ‘Very well, please follow me. Keep to the tracking. I know you’ve had experience, I’m sure I don’t have to remind you: touch nothing.’

  They followed Roche, Harry trailing behind like a sullen teenager, along a quaking plastic walkway and into a hollow in the wasteland; into the butcher’s shop smell. ‘There’s a regl’r population,’ remarked Agent Roche, the familiar cadence of his speech weirdly at odds with his manner, and with this alien place. ‘Winos, junkies, crazies, long term homeless. Ferals. One of the ladies from the Daycare Centre at the street was doing a soup run yesterday. She says she walked right past this dell around six pm and saw no’t’in. The bodies were reported by an anonymous call just about dawn this morning, and I was alerted at once. Be careful of this last section, h’it’s unsteady. In here.’

  They passed between tall white screens. On a slab of waste concrete two bodies, male and female, had been hung from a frame of metal rods, the woman by her wrists, the man by his heels. Their injuries were extreme. They had been young, and brightly dressed, from the tatters of clothing that remained. Body jewellry still glinted: earrings, a nose stud. A flag of blonde hair, a close cropped head dyed cobalt blue. Blood had pooled under them: still viscous, looking like melted chocolate ice cream. The rods were copper plumbing pipes. A sheet of canvas had been stretched behind the corpses: there were English words scrawled on it. Flies buzzed, on the bodies and the blood.

  ‘Well-?’

  Agent Roche looked at them expectantly. The woman’s face and torso had been flayed, the skin peeled back meticulously from around her staring eyeballs. Her liver dangled, deliberately on display.

  ‘You have Aztecs?’ said Ax. ‘Commiserations. We get loonies too.’

  ‘Hm… See that?’ Agent Roche, seeming disappointed, pointed to a shallow pit in the ground, to the left of the altar and ringed in stones, natural water-worn stones that didn’t belong to the wasteland. It held newly flensed bones. ‘Those aren’t human, they are the leg bones of a horse and a hound,’ said the FBI man. ‘There are other details I t’ink you would recognise, if you look close?’

  ‘So you have Celtic Nazi wannabes,’ said Fiorinda, cutting the crap. ‘I do apologise, on behalf of the four nations, but I still don’t get it. Why are we here?’

 
Agent Roche looked at Harry, Harry looked at the ground. ‘Well, ma’am,’ said Roche, ‘The fact is, human sacrifice as a h’act of public worship is not a common pastime in LA. We get ritual murder. We get snuff, faked and genuine. We have folks who are convinced they are vampires or werewolves and behave accordingly. We have all kinds. The first of these dates from a year and a half ago. It became a federal investigation after what we now t’ink was number four: this is number eight, far as we know. All of them in LA County. Always in empty places, desert wastes, always the pair, nubile young male and female. No sexual element, far as can be determined after the way they’re killed. Always the blood-letting, though the method varies, and the bodies left on display. And the fresh animal bones, horse or hound, ritually placed at the scene.

  ‘But you know what keeps me awake at night? We’ll question the ferals. We may hear there was a party here last night. We’ll examine the ground. Forensics will tell us between thirty an’ forty people attended the rites, they’ll promise us DNA profiles, they’ll promise us shoe-sizes—’

  Harry gave a sharp, impatient sigh. Roche ignored him, and continued.

  ‘And it will go nowhere. Statements will vanish, and the witnesses will never be found again. There’ll be no forensic evidence worth a shit. If there is any lead to follow, that might identify a single one of the congregation, it will close up, it will fold down, it will slip t’rou our hands, and there will be not’in we can do.’

  He watched their faces. The English experts looked politely blank.

  ‘Well, that’s it. Far as the LAPD is concerned, we cleared the site and called you in because this is a copy-cat crime, a replication of a ritual murder MO known in England, h’in the green-nazi occupation. You should know, Harry and I are working for the same boss. I called you because I hoped you could break the spell, an’ tell me somethin’ real while the scene is fresh.’