Midnight Lamp (10 page)

‘I love you, Puusi. You’re so real.’

Puusi kissed her cheek.‘You’re lovely. Harry? Is that Harry Lopez? I don’t know him, he’s a geeky techie. Take me to him.’ Her gaze returned, swift and sure, to the locus of desire. The way she can
direct
those eyes is stunning. You have to soften the effect in the virtual studio or it would look overdone: cartoon animation. ‘Just think,’ she breathed, awed, ‘Europe has been isolated for seven years! He may even not have heard of me.’

‘She.’

‘Huh?’

‘It’s Fiorinda you wanted to meet.’

‘Oh, yes. You know, they should have a house on the beach. Near to me.’

She deposited Puusi on the arm of the chair where Harry was sitting, and hissed into his ear.
Here’s Puusi, and she wants to meet your Fiorinda, who loves you baby?
The star, fully intended to hear this aside, dimpled delightedly. Janelle left them discussing real-estate, and went to look for the object of her own fascination. She felt relaxed now, she felt steady. She could deal with the ghost of a young man she had once met, at a hotel party after a rock gig, a long time ago.

‘Hi, Sage. Remember me?’

Ax and Fiorinda took a break from mingling, and stood looking through a wall of glass into the night, where bright galaxies streamed away, endless in every direction; phalanxes of towers shooting up like fountains of interstellar gas. It was an astonishingly beautiful sight.

‘It’s a time warp,’ said Fiorinda, ‘A Titanic that didn’t sink.’

Ax had done his Lennonisms, Fiorinda had done her cut-crystal accent. They’d been graceful with the tactless, modest with the gracious. Anyone actively interested in contemporary rock music, and there were one or two, presented a challenge: but Harry had briefed them enough to gloss over their blanks. Fiorinda had been nervous, but she needn’t have worried. She hadn’t forgotten how to do this. You switch on the old routine and let it run.

They turned from the view, to admire the crowd.

‘That’s a whole lot of bears,’ murmured Fiorinda.

‘Yeah, but we can tame them.’

Proofed against gene-theft, expensively dressed, he seemed to have shed ten years since they arrived in Hollywood. He was reminding Fiorinda of the Ax Preston she’d known at the beginning: that quiet guitar man with the reckless gleam in his eye, and the insane notion he was destined to save the world. A fine example of body-modification went by: a twitching spotted tail, slyly emerging from the backside folds of glittering harem-pants. Then a famous couple, honed to unreal perfection, lighting up their smiles for the ex-dictator and his girl.

‘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, don’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.’