He asked, “Where are you going?”
“Heading out to UCPD.”
“And how are you on the Santos thing again?”
“Similar m.o. as on Hackley. Identical, really.”
“So what?”
“So, maybe it’s the same doer.”
“I thought that was the boyfriend.”
“I don’t know that we ever landed on that,” she said, hoping she was as good a bullshitter as he was always giving her credit for. A gaggle of children squealed behind him at the same moment Babylon exploded in laughter from the front seat. She heard Zack grunt to express skepticism tempered with indifference, which was what she’d counted on.
“That asshole Babs in the car with you?”
“Yep.”
“Tell him … scratch that. Don’t tell him anything.”
“Tell him yourself,” she said a little too loudly.
From the front seat, Babs bellowed, “Yo, is that my man Zendejas?”
“God, I hate that fucking guy,” Zack said, his VT mouthing the words blank faced, like a man-sized ventriloquist dummy. The minivan banked right and a patch of sun lit his VT’s face, seen from three-quarter view, so that the right eye momentarily turned a bright, translucent amber and his seated image seemed jarringly real. Babs said, “Put him on! My man!”
“Do not put me on with that walking hard-on.”
“He says he has to go. He’s at his kid’s birthday party.” Babs laughed, and she realized he thought she was joking.
Zack said, “Don’t get raped.”
“Wow. Bye.” His VT winked out of existence.
Babylon did air punches, yelling, “Karate killa!” as Terri closed her eyes and gently rubbed small circles into each temple, already sick of his presence.
The minivan raced down the other side of the mountain, and she thought back to her phone call with Bhangoo. Neither had mentioned the incident from yesterday. Thinking about it soberly now, she realized she’d heard much worse horror stories of the walking wounded. The city was full of them, refugees unwilling to stumble into the emergency room on the mistaken belief that they’d be summarily deported to Colorado, whisked off to a government camp that, in their eyes, could be worse than anything cooked up by the Spanish Inquisition. One more invisible barrier in a city full of invisible barriers.
Babs said, “Here it comes.” He started a countdown, which seemed besides the point. In her shades, she could see it coming: the edge of the Wall. Actually, the edge was itself a wall, the slightly terrifying plane of translucent pink she’d avoided in the Basement, a physical manifestation of the limit of civic law enforcement. Babs belted out his countdown like it was New Year’s Eve.
“Five, four, three …”
She held her breath for the hiccup. For one long moment, PanOpt blinked, swapped jurisdictions, and then the rounded pentagon logo of the Phoenix Wall appeared to her far west and high overhead, like a second sun, troubling in its lack of subtlety. Even though the PHX Wall extended 450 miles, all the way down to Tucson, it only sheltered six million people, less than a quarter the population of LA County. It wasn’t a system known for thoroughness. The hypothetical danger to any LA cop outside their own Wall—something remarkably easy to tune out—had a jarring reminder any time she looked up.
The car picked up speed, whipping by all the vertical trappings of inland autonomy: rooftop generators, private wind turbines, lofty arrays of gold-and-white solar balloons. Many of the older residents and business owners out here remained haunted by shock poverty, by the bad old days when they’d found themselves stranded on the edge of a metropolis. The freeway passed vast cacti gardens of reclaimed mall parking lots, and she tried to mentally superimpose this concept on the city they were leaving, calling up an image of Farrukh lying face up and serene among the dusty succulents and sagebrush.
Somewhere past Redlands, an enterprising vandal had hand-painted SAVE YOUR TEARS FOR HELL on the long concrete wall of a shuttered strip mall. Locals prided themselves on their caustic independence, even as they sopped up the economic run over from the business corridor next door. In the distance, massive wind turbines stood like crucifixes over Calvary. She’d heard of vagrants living inside turbines, squatting in the nacelles—a word she only knew from the program Squatting In The Nacelles—occasionally getting themselves killed and roasting in the heat for days or months, the stench making even the most hardened cleanup crews balk.
Near the outskirts of Banning-Cabazon, another switch occurred, this one far more profound than the edge of the Wall. The desert swelled with sprawl, a sea of red-roofed, neo-Spanish colonial apartment blocks and glass-walled condos stretching to the horizon on both sides. This was the long-delayed nanotech corridor, the dominant economic engine of the Southland—and, soon, the rest of the planet—a region flush with so much startup cash that LA County’s GDP got a bump just on the overflow. Rumor had it that much of the upper echelon of the urban Chinese nanoengineering elite had discreetly resettled out here months before the shit hit the fan, housed in posh underground quarters, complete with their own private mini-malls and subterranean parks.
She hadn’t been out here in years, and the growth was staggering. How could so many people die and yet humanity only lose a decade or two of progress? A wonder set in, vertiginous and breathtaking. Somewhere, out in the blur of fresh development, were the most powerful minds on the planet. Among her generation, there existed a clear sense that many of the traps and indignities of old age would have simply ceased to exist by the time she made it to retirement.
Not that they were affordable yet. The fruits of this new economy—hawked in fluttering cloth banners for augmentation labs and limb clinics, the precursor for the swell of ads in civilian Overlay layers—were terribly expensive. They all heard stories, more and more frequently every year. Jose Minty had three fingers shot off during a foiled robbery in Tarzana. At a clinic somewhere out here, he had three replacements grown and attached, and it’d taken a second mortgage to cover the co-pay. Minty still complained of phantom pains, only half-joking that he could still feel his old fingers out there, somewhere, crawling around in the underbrush, describing the sensation to amused late-night Uganda drunks, wriggling his fingers in the air like a scoutmaster telling ghost stories.
Terri chuckled, realizing she’d been making the same gesture now, occasionally lifting and poking the air in front of her to make herself look occupied and unavailable for banter.
University of California Palm Desert could afford to deck out its campus entry with a lavish display of water-hogging shrubbery and fruit trees. She understood the campus-as-oasis metaphor, but it seemed like a crummy message to send any prospective parents, conveying supreme squander before anyone even entered the premises. As the most successful unit in the not-fully-revived UC system, Palm Desert wasn’t a cheap school. UCPD: she pictured a bumbling small-town police department.
As they pulled into the central roundabout, Babs said, “This still winter break?” Ruben shrugged. They stepped out into the warm desert air and a seemingly deserted campus, the only sound a mechanical, arrhythmic clink-clank. It took her a moment to figure out she was hearing two flagpoles, state and nation, each hung at half mast and furiously clanking against their poles, sounding out the university’s grief for its fallen student celebrity.
She called up a directory and found the main campus layer. The space surrounding them erupted in Overlay memorials, so many that as she followed Babylon on his walk to Stacy Santos’s dorm, the crossing felt like a jaunt through an especially morbid amusement park. They passed crying teddy bears next to candles that twinkled and guttered without need for oxygen. In one spot, an endless rain of rose pedals floated down from Heaven, not far from a hovering forty-ounce bottle of malt liquor eternally pouring itself onto the pavement. She recognized many of the ready-made templates—ribbons, crosses, bobbling wreaths, origami cranes rotating with turntable precision—although she’d never visited any crime scene wi
th such variety and volume, all that hard-earned cash represented by these endless virtual tributes. Perhaps someone in the memorial business had a motive to bump off Stacy Santos.
They traversed a wide commons, offering an expanse of airspace claimed by larger, far more expensive tributes. One house-sized balloon slowly changed from a candle into a valentine’s heart and back again, flickering with an eerie energy. Below this, a huge eye cried smaller, tear-shaped balloons that dribbled off into the sky. Farther away, a hot-air balloon shaped like a giant human heart revolved serenely. She wondered how the school allocated airspace in this layer, if it was first come, first serve, or if they charged for the use of even non-surfaces on campus.
The tributes grew both more personal and more anguished as they approached the dorm’s quad. Walls featured gaudy spray-paint murals and poignant tributes in fluorescent chalk. The central fountain had been covered in an elaborate wrap-around animated photomosaic of Stacy, presumably made entirely from pictures and videos found online. On any free surface, thousands of strangers had inserted their own charcoal drawings, watercolors, and oil paintings, in all the infinite permutations of projected grief. In public spaces too abnormal for graphics—the curb, bench slats—words took the place of graphics: PEACE 4FER, ALWAYS, LOVE. One floating memorial offered a manifesto, far too much text to take in, although Terri caught the words my sexual love for the deceased as she passed. She was surprised that no one had caught this yet, then remembered they were outside LA County and its resources.
She paused in front of the steps to the dorm, turning to take it all in, her eyes smarting from the dazzle and clutter of it all. There were no memorials for Farrukh. He’d passed through the world and left nothing. If she were to go back to the Swap Meet lot, there wouldn’t even be a stain.
This entire trip to Stacy’s campus had been intended as nothing more than an exploratory ride along. Terri hadn’t expected any major surprises. And yet, when Babs pressed the keypad to Stacy’s suite and bid them entry, one mystery did indeed resolve itself. Reading through the initial case files the day before, Terri had found herself wondering why a college senior would still live on campus. Stacy had been gearing up to apply for a master’s program in Guadalajara. Why would she want to deal with the stresses of roommates, or the noise from on-campus partying? Terri’s own dorm experiences had been an endurance test, although she made a point of refraining from discussing college around other cops, lest she offend those whose schooling ended at eighteen.
Standing in the dorm’s living room, she had her answer. The suite was a modernist duplex, with one two-story glass wall facing due west, over hilly scrubland the university must’ve purchased and kept vacant just for the view. She had to remove her shades to confirm that the distant mountains really were real. It was hard to imagine how spectacular the setting sun would look through this window.
Stacy’s room was upstairs, also facing west. There wasn’t much to go on: unmade single bed, empty hamper, work desk with nothing more than a Lakers pencil caddy. Her father had told Ruben that Stacy hadn’t been romantically involved with anyone for over a year, and there was nothing to contradict that here. Turning from the window, she saw that the entire smooth wall adjacent to the door had been decorated with only a newsprint school events calendar and an inspirational meadow scene reading BATHE IN BLESSINGS. The attached single bathroom looked unused. Maybe something to that detail, she thought, remembering again that she was here to figure out what had made Stacy kill, not who killed her.
There was one interesting quirk in the closet. Santos had collected novelty key chains, hundreds of them. They hung on an orderly grid of hooks she must’ve installed herself. There didn’t seem to be much rhyme or reason to the collection. Some were probably mementos from past trips, but others advertised sports teams, or long-ago cartoon characters, or hardware stores. Perhaps it’d reminded her of childhood, although when Terri turned off the closet light and stepped back out, the darkened collection seemed vaguely creepy, like the souvenirs of a serial killer. Maybe something to that as well.
She exited into the landing hall, then stepped out onto a second-story exterior walkway that connected dorm suites. Inside, the men wrapped up a thorough look-through, mapping each room and then stacking this map against one made four days earlier, by campus police. She was still marveling at the carnival atmosphere of all the Overlay memorials when she heard Babs make a dismissive whinny, turning to see him examining the door’s light-up thumb pad. Appearing to speak to the door itself, he said, “Yeah, they’re all light ups. Bet my damn thumb unlocks each one now, too. Some bullshit. Where’d you get with that voice coach?”
“You talking to me?”
“Uh-huh,” he said, facing her but seeing someone else. “Yeah, yeah. That’s it. Don’t back down. To her, or her skinny-ass sister.”
A college boy exited from the next suite over, eyeing her and Babylon with visible unease. The kid was pale and bug-eyed, wearing a turtleneck and bolo like every other pencil-neck poser back in Boyle Heights. He didn’t view them through any EyePhones, but it must’ve been obvious who they were. The young man turned and speed-walked for the far stairs, making it halfway before Babs called out, “Heyo! Hold up! Hold up! Let me get with you, chief!”
The kid turned and froze.
“That’s that shit! You’re in it now!” Babs laughed, walking forward with one arm outstretched. She watched this unfolding scene with mild amusement, the poor student looking like a prey animal. She thought about calling up the kid’s byline, taking a peek at his back story, then thinking, Who cares? Babs caught up with him and held one palm against the young man’s chest, even as he looked away, still lost in the heat of his call.
“Naw, man, fuck that! You wait a month? For what? So she can get another interest-free loan from your dumb ass?”
They stood like this for a minute. The college kid made eye contact with Terri and she shrugged apologetically. To the wall, Babylon said, “I hear that. But, you know, I’m gonna wanna hear that the next time we talk.” He chuckled, turning to the kid and saying, “Let me ask you something, chief. How come none of you kids use keys?”
The college boy paused and said, “Are you talking to me?”
“Who the hell else would I be talking to?” Babs said, glancing about theatrically, his open palm still on the boy’s chest.
“Okay … what?”
“How come none of you kids use keys? You know what a key is? A house key.”
“Um. Yes.”
“Okay, then. I couldn’t but help notice that every single door on this campus is a thumb pad. You aren’t worried about how you’ll get back in your room if the power goes out?”
“But … why would the power go out?” the kid asked as if it were a trick question. Babs sighed and let his head droop in mock frustration.
“And let me guess. You never even bothered to get your driver’s license, right?”
The college boy glanced back at Terri again, and for a second looked like he might cry.
She shrugged again, saying, “Well?”
“I have my identification back in my room. If you’ll just let me get it …”
An hour later, she and Babs and Ruben sat at a metal bench under a fluttering cloth umbrella, not far from where they’d disembarked, three trays of paper-boxed lamb curry and potatoes between them. Out of a hundred tables, only one other held people. But the cafeteria had been open for business, at least to service the cafeteria staff.
“What was the final deal?” she asked. “Is it still vacation? Or did they clear the campus just because someone got killed?”
“Sunday,” Babs said. “Maybe everybody’s at church.”
Over the double doors they’d emerged from, she read JANUS CAPITAL DINING HALL. It’d taken her a little too long to figure out all the buildings had sponsors. She didn’t like feeling unobservant. When she looked back at her traveling companions, she caught them glancing over her shoulder with delight, twisting
to see the turtleneck boy scurrying off. Babs said, “Do you realize a freshman in college today wasn’t even born when the shit hit the fan?”
She laughed. “They get the key chains but no keys.”
“God damn! Yes! That was messed up, right? Reminded me of, um, what’s that guy?” He looked to Ruben. “I don’t remember his name, but this guy? Nice house, adobe, in one of the canyons. I don’t even remember what got us out there, but we go in? In his living room, he’s got hundreds of gas station rest room key holders. Remember those? Keys attached to all kinds of stuff so people wouldn’t steal them. Metal kitchen spoons, broken wrenches, lug nuts, bookends. Decades of this crap, hanging all over two walls in the guy’s living room. So we get him out on his lawn, seated, cuffed, and we start talking really loud about what a break this is, how we’re going to charge him with felony possession for each and every one. He thought he was facing, like, nine hundred years. So he twists around and goes, ‘The guns are in the cooler! The guns are in the cooler!’ I said, ‘Man, I wasn’t even looking for guns!’”
Ruben smiled at this moment with pride, as if recalling his wedding night.
She sipped her coffee. A real-life tumbleweed rolled across the edge of the parking lot, thought better of it, and zipped back toward the scrubland. As she watched its progression, her gaze rested on a colorful assortment of boxes and tubes by the edge of the seating area. She’d seen this as she’d exited the cafeteria, and had assumed it’d been just one more memorial to Stacy.
Examining the collection of odd sculptures now, she realized it was a miniature shantytown. A torn banner reading SEGREGATION NATION shuddered in the wind. Five feet away, a colossal cardboard tube at least seven feet long—packing material for some monstrously large piece of machinery—had been planted upright and painted in gray, with amateurish black boxes for windows. She saw the little paper-mache kufi cap on top and realized it was meant to represent the West Fifth Street skyscraper.
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