Messi@ (47 page)

Hermes enjoyed watching Zack suffer. He was sure that in the end he would win over the angel. But something odd possessed the creature just as Hermes attempted to approach again.

Zack was lifted up into the stratosphere by twin sprays of earth perfume, spritzed into the musky air by the two will-o'-the-wisp girls below. Just as abruptly he was hurled down and began a vertiginous descent toward a glowing object that turned out to be a mane of red hair. Zack closed his light-breathing pores and plunged all the way into the darkness of the body below.

Sylvia was washing a glass when she felt that a large moth had landed on her head. A searing pain parted her skull and traveled quickly downward. She felt her cells overfill. Round, spiky, oblong, and octagonal shapes danced behind her eyes. A huge feathery tickle seized her front and back as Zack entered her.

“Shit,” swore Hermes. “Now what will become of me?”

Chapter Thirty-one

Wherein Ben Redman, searching for Andrea, regains his city

Ben Redman began his search for Andrea in the music clubs. Los Babies del Merengue and the Soul Rebels Brass Band were playing at the Dream Palace. Outside, some kids were hanging out smoking ganja.

“I'm looking for this girl,” he began awkwardly, “skinny, has green eyes, is wearing a blue shirt, big jeans. Oh, she's from Spain.”

They had a laugh over this, and one of them said:

“That's the one, she be the one I be lookin' for too, for a long time, me.”

That broke them up again, and another one admitted that he too had been dreaming of a bony-kneed, long-legged, green-eyed girl from Spain.

“Matter of fack, I eben wrote a song 'bout this girl.” He broke into an air-guitar riff and sang:

She be mah green-eyed girl from Spain.

Her name be love an' ecstasy.

Found her, lost her, she mah main

Liberation fantasy!

Tee-hee, tee-hee, laughed the air, all lavender and bubbly.

Ben crossed the street to Café Brasil, owned by his old friend Adé, but Adé wasn't there—he was spending the New Year in Rio, where two million Brazilians dressed in white threw flowers into the sea. A Latino couple was leaning on Adé's 1963 Cadillac convertible, parked permanently at the curb upfront, discussing world politics and love. Two French Quarter anarchists rode up on bicycles. Tied to their handlebars were baskets full of flyers calling on Quarterites to resist the throngs of religious madmen who had invaded the city.

“They say they got the nukes, man,” argued the Latino boy, “but it's just to calm the public! How many they kill? Three hundred? They got ten thousand nukes, man. Those pictures, they are dummy nukes, man. I can buy six like that at Toys 'R' Us!”

He was referring, Ben supposed, to that morning's headline, which he had glimpsed in passing:
INTERPOL STORMS NUKE BLACKMAILER HIDEOUT, CAPTURES ROGUE WEAPONS. ARE SOME STILL OUT THERE
? That was good news, and Ben had given it no more thought. The world was being held hostage every few days now. The miracle was that it was still here.

“Maybe they never had nukes in the first place,” teased the girl. She took some pink gum out of her mouth and stuck it on Adé's windshield wiper. There was a chain tattooed around her upper right arm, and on her left arm she wore ten gold barbed-wire bracelets. A hole in her T-shirt flashed an upturned breast with a red raspberry on top.

“Never had nukes, man? You crazy?
Everybody
got nukes now. Me and you, baby, are the only people in the world that don't have nukes! We got something better!” Her boyfriend moved his hips seductively and put an arm around the girl, who laughed and jingled her jewelry.

“I can't believe the fascist police moving in and killing hundreds of people!” The bicycle anarchist shook his head. “They've been doing that shit ever since Waco!”

Ben interrupted the discussion to ask if they'd seen Andrea, whom he described as a skinny auburn-haired polyglot. He loved using words like that on the street.

“What kind of tattoos she got?” asked the chain girl.

“I don't think she has any.”

“She don't belong to anybody in these streets, then,” confirmed the girl. “That's how you know people now, alive or dead, by their pictures. No names, no lineup, no ten most wanted, if you get my drift. Only fuckin' honkies got no pictures.”

One of the anarchists looked Ben up and down. “Are you one of the religious invaders, Rabbi? We could skin you right here.” He handed Ben a flyer.

“Leave him alone,” said the girlfriend. “Can't you see he's in love?”

Ben walked on, reading the anarchist flyer.

WORKERS OF THE QUARTER
!

Have you recently walked out of your house and stumbled over a crucified man? Have you been accosted on your front steps by a man eating hot coals? Has a naked Hindu floated into your bathroom through an open window? Has a woman with a cobra in her vagina begged you for food? Has a preacher tried to nail you with a 50-pound neon Bible? If these things happened to you, you're not alone! Who are these pigs and what do they want from us? Why are they in the Vieux Carré? Let's meet Sunday at 1025 Chartres and
DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE TIDAL WAVE OF DEMENTED FANATICS
!
BRING REVOLVERS, MACHINE GUNS, BOWS, HAMMERS, AND PEPPER SPRAY
!

Le Carré aux Carrois! See you there!

There were hundreds of places in New Orleans where musicians plied their trade. After Café Brasil and the Dream Palace, Ben went to Snug Harbor, and the Rubyfruit Jungle on Frenchmen Street, then backtracked to Decatur, stopped at Checkpoint Charlie's, Café Siam, the Abbey, and the tourist joints by the French Market. He checked into the Toulouse Cabaret on Toulouse Street, then walked the length of Bourbon Street, stopping in briefly at Big Daddy's, the best strip joint in town. A heartbreakingly beautiful girl was hanging upside down from a revolving wheel. She looked at him and mouthed the word “mandala.” I'm getting tired, Ben thought, but he was convinced that she had indeed said, “Mandala.” He then walked to Ramparts Street and checked into the Funky Butt and Dotty's. The longer he walked the more confused his descriptions of Andrea became. For some he made her green eyed and petite, just like Felicity; for others he conjured a fiery, dark woman. Invariably, the description matched some inner picture of those he talked to: anyone looking at him could see his longing. The street telegraph broadcast the word that a young rabbi in love was looking for a lost girl. Suppose I'm mad, Ben thought. Maybe there isn't any Andrea, and I conjured her out of the Hebrew letter representing the Shekinah, the female principle.

Felicity could certainly help him. Even before Felicity had officially decided to become a PI, she had loved solving mysteries. They had once pretended that she was a detective and he was a smuggler. She had caught him, handcuffed him, and molested him. Was that two years ago? A year and a half? Now she
was
a detective and he
was
a smuggler, but he couldn't reach her. He called from pay phones several times, but there was no answer.

Van Gogh's Ear and Dyslexic Cadillacs were playing at the Last Call. The establishment employed two male bouncers wearing only G-strings, who carefully winnowed the mob waiting to get in. Three prostitutes in red tights and leotards stood at the curb across the street from the club, hawking their wares. A white-hatted pimp sat elegantly with crossed legs on a crate behind them. The creases of his trousers were razor sharp.

Ben walked up to him to ask if he had seen Andrea, but a hammy arm wrapped itself around his throat.

“Not so fast, Preacher. You wanna talk to da man?”

Ben made choking noises that went unheard by the crowd across the street clamoring for election by the beefy nudes. Just as suddenly as it had coiled around him, the beefy arm let go. The white-hatted pimp dismissed his bodyguard and gestured for Ben to approach.

“I saved your life. Now, how are you going to repay me?” The flesh purveyor's diction was clear and inflected by the Caribbean.

“I imagine I'll think of something,” coughed Ben.

“You imagine, you imagine. Everybody be imaginin'. But who
controls
them imaginins?”

“God, that's who,” said Ben grumpily, “and the electric company, the bank, Intel Corporation, and the police.”

“Yes.” The pimp grinned. “That's how it useta be. Now it's not like that. Now everyone, man, be controllin' whatever they be imaginin'. I control this corner. And I may, I say I
may
be imaginin' I be controllin' you. You be standin' on my imaginins.”

“That's reasonable,” said Ben, drawn into the argument despite himself. “It is one of my contentions that at this point in history anybody with an imagination can control as much of the world as they are capable of imagining. It pleases God to watch the effort.”

“Man. Who you belong to? You sharp.” The pimp half rose and extended two diamond-ringed fingers to Ben, who shook them limply. “Wanna run some chicks, man? I give you the fat one, over there …”

“What, do I look like I buy and sell humans beings?” Ben said and looked over where the fat one swung her hips lazily as if she knew she was being talked about.

The man didn't take offense. “My name is Jonah. I protect them girls. I swallowed them, you know.”

“Have you seen a girl about seventeen, skinny, wearing loose men's clothes?” Ben tried to remember more but couldn't.

“Hmmm. Light-skinned girl, you say, about five seven, red hair?”

Ben confirmed the description.

“I like you, Preacher. Check out Desire, Limited. On Decatur. They got some new girls there. Now, about that Franklin.”

Ben handed him a Jackson instead.

A fire swallower juggled a flaming torch past his ear. A ship floated above him headed around the elbow of the Mississippi. A beaded costume on a dress dummy sparkled in the window of a shop. It's the city herself, thought Ben. He took the corner on Decatur.

Chapter Thirty-two

Wherein Andrea is with Felicity, and Felicity with Andrea

“You two go home now,” Sylvia told Felicity and Andrea. “We're gonna close this place tonight.” The city was still celebrating the new millennium, but the crowds in the Quarter had thinned considerably.

“Must be fuckin' resolutions.” Sylvia grinned. “Married men resolutin' to stay away from pussy!”

“Yeah,” agreed a bored dancer, “even the pussy biz has to clam up sometime.”

Dressed in skirts and T-shirts plucked from a clothes pile in the dressing room, Felicity and Andrea hailed a cab.

Felicity retrieved the spare key she'd hidden behind a loose brick to the right of the door. It pleased her to remember again; it was as if her memory, having returned, was powerfully rested and giddy to function. In fact, she remembered every hiding place of every key of every apartment she had ever lived in, a string of keys to her past. Everything she had carried the day she had been abducted was in some locker at SMD, but they hadn't been able to keep her memory.

Felicity opened her door, dreading what might greet her there. But her office and bedroom were serenely undisturbed. As Felicity showed Andrea her tiny living quarters, she grew more and more amazed by the extraordinary neatness of everything. Felicity never was much for housekeeping, yet every single thing in her rooms was shiny and clean. Her Mexican vase had
fresh
flowers in it! Fresh! But the vase itself was newer than she remembered, different.

Felicity pulled open the drawer of her desk. Her gun was still there. She sniffed the barrel, and the smell of steel and gunpowder fortified her. Felicity examined her things one by one and saw that some were hers and some were replacements. There were no messages on her answering machine, but the tape had been carefully wound to the beginning. She called the major's number, but there was no answer. Whoever had gone to the pain of cleaning her apartment had done a good job. Most important, her laptop was in its place on the bed.

Felicity flopped down on her belly and invited Andrea to lie next to her. She told Andrea about her favorite cybersite.

“What is cyber?” Andrea had never heard the word.

“Cyberspace. You go there through your computer.”

“There? Where is there?”

“Nobody really knows, but about twenty years ago people all over the world started migrating to this place. Some people stay there sixteen hours a day. There are cities there, and fantasy worlds, and pictures, songs, food recipes, cemeteries, weddings, history. They call this place ‘virtual,' but most people think it's real. They prefer cyberspace to what they call ‘meat space.' I only go there to make love with people from history.”

“Let's both make love with people from history!” Andrea said, grasping only the “make love” part, still not sure what “cyber” was.

“Do you know who Ovid was? He's the coolest.”

“The Roman poet? I read him in school.” Andrea had even translated the first lines from the second book of the
Tristia
, from the Latin:

Quid mihi vobiscum est, infelix cura, libelli,

ingenio perii qui miser ipse meo?

What have I to do with you, books, my burden and my worry,

when I, unworthy as I am, am dying because of my gifts?

Ovid was prompt. He sat on the edge of a water well, with a cup to his lips. Behind him the Black Sea moved in a gentle breeze. Flowering vines twined themselves about a colonnaded villa to his right. It was summer in Thrace.

Felicity's avatar—a sandal-clad girl with an amphora—approached the poet by the water well.

“Hello, Scheherazade, good afternoon to you in your world. The inconceivable has happened: the empire is freeing her slaves and recalling her exiles. Nor is this just a Roman phenomenon, though Rome considers herself as the world. I have received the word from Rome that I may return home. A wave of generosity has seized the rulers of the world. Persia and the barbarians are also releasing slaves and calling back their citizens. Accustomed as I am to looking for political motives, I must admit that I am astounded. No such motives seem to me present, though the political consequences will not be long in coming. The freed slaves of Rome will return to their homelands with new skills and ideas, but also bitterness toward Romans. I am told that a great festivity in my honor is being prepared in the Forum. But I will tell you, girl from the future, that I have no wish to return. I have become accustomed to my suffering. I draw the living elixir of my verse from deprivation and pain—I have no need for reconciliation or even happiness. The exile loves his estrangement and his alienation. I have no taste for the Roman olive branch. What do you say to that?”