Ambient (16 page)

Placing it was pie-easy. I stuck up the plasticine-enough to
take that half of the room, to be sure-set the timer for one P.M.,
when Mister Dryden told me the Old Man would be in there
alone, pressed in the wires and it was done. The timer would
survive the blast; on its surface I'd scratched the insignia of Nou veaux Maroon, the Haitian group-Barney, Biff, and Scooter were
all former Maroons, led into the Dryden web with the standard
bait. As house guards, Mister Dryden suspected they'd be perfect
scapes.

Before I left the study-it hadn't taken five minutes-I looked
at those file cabinets. They, too, were made to survive; whatever
they held would rest fast so well. Afterward, I thought, I could
at last discover what the Old Man hid there, and how by it he
traced his dancer's steps. I had inklings, knew that on the day the
markets crashed the Old Man was in Washington with the president. Hours later, attempting to escape, the president was pulled
from his copter and lynched. Whatever they'd discussed, only
the Old Man knew. I had learned from Mister Dryden that in
those cabinets were papers he'd secured while all was fluxed;
papers he'd never since let stray far from reach. There'd be time
aplenty to overlook those, I thought, and so I let them be. Pulling
the door tight, I stepped into the hall, heard the lock click shut
behind me.

Dawn neared now; morningshade lightened the hall at the apex
of the stairs. As I passed Avalon's room I noticed that the door
was open; I looked in. She lay on her bed, on her stomach, her
legs covered by the sheet, her buttocks rising high. For a moment
I felt stricken; I'd seen her naked limitless times, but knowing
that soon she'd be with me, and coming upon her so unexpectedly, set my heart to bursting. I neared the bed after entering her
room; I knelt beside, vizzing her lying there, hearing her breathe,
watching her shift gently as she dreamed. Her choppers sat in a
glass by the bed, fixed and grinning. Slowly, more carefully than
if I were attempting to defuse a blaster, I reached out my hand;
my fingers shook as they approached the small of her back and
the deep valley below. But I could not touch her, not yet; not as
she slept, so absolutely unaware and so seemingly helpless. It
would have seemed too akin to rape; I lifted my hand, knowing that at this time the next morning, in Leningrad, I could safely
place myself against her. Standing, I stepped away, slipping once
more through her door, silently returning to my room.

Resetting the clock's alarm for ten-standard rising hour at the
estate-I went back to sleep, dreaming no more. When ten came
I rearose and headed downstairs to breakfast. As I came into the
dining room I saw that Avalon, the Old Man, and Mister Dryden
were already there.

"Thought you'd need rest," Mister Dryden muttered to me as
I placed myself beside him. I smiled. Breakfast was always an
intimate affair; including the tasters, and Stella, and the four house
guards, there were only eleven of us.

The Old Man was looking over various maps and graphs, spilling jelly on them as he ate his eggs and toast.

"Check this out now," he said, flipping a drawing with attached printout over to Mister Dryden. "You'll have a new city
apartment in a place like this."

Mister Dryden picked up the sketch, stared at it for a few moments. It showed a U-shaped, six-story apartment building, with
a garden court guarded by two stone lions, tails erect. The stained
glass windows along the ground floor nicely offset the bright yellow brick.

"Where I am suits," said Mister Dryden.

"Won't when water starts pourin' through the windows."

"On Fifth I'm thirty floors above. At the Towers-"

"Look at that place, will you? Architect says it's exactly like
it was in 1928."

"Including satellite dish?" asked Mister Dryden; it was red
with white trim.

"If there'd been dishes in 1928 I'm sure they'da been just like
that. "

"Easy entrance frontways," said Mister Dryden. "Risks inhere to city life, but-"

"Between the hollyhocks and the zinnias," said the Old Man, gesturing toward the garden's flowerbeds, "the mines."

"Tell the gardener."

"Apartments like this'll be built and rebuilt all up and down
the Concourse," said the Old Man. I suspected that Mister Dryden's might be the only one equipped with rocket launchers. "The
new Fifth Avenue. Streetcars'll run down the center median. Buses
along the side. IA lane down the middle, as always. Stores'll
rent out south of 161st. Bloomies, Saks-Mart. Only the best."

"What's a streetcar?" asked Stella; her purple eyeshadow
matched the bandanna she wore tied round her waist like a chain
for the smashing.

"It's like a-" The Old Man paused, his descriptive powers
for the moment lost. "They used to have 'em in San Francisco.
Before the quake." Stella, obviously unenlightened, let it drop.

"Pass the bacon," said Avalon, stretching out her arm to receive.

"Choose other," said Mister Dryden, who kept clear of fried
food.

"Pass the fucking bacon," Avalon said; I did.

"You had to blow up Lope yesterday?" the Old Man asked,
with that wonderful shift in direction that kept dinner conversation so unpredictable here. Mister Dryden seemed uninterested;
his coffee broke in waves within his cup as he held it.

"Our help was unforthcoming," he said. "He prepped to Mar-
ielize. Tragic but essential."

"Marielize what? Atlantic City? What'd he have to say about
it?"

"They shove four Boardwalk casinos now. Fronted clear, no
trails to or fro. They put the knee in another four."

"Now how do they do that?"

"Standard. Blasts, kneecaps, kidsteals, wifekills. Two weeks
ago they rambled the night manager at Caesar's and stumped him
handsaw style."

"They're uncivilized, all right," said the Old Man. "That's why we signed the truce with the bastards. They're too fuckin'
wired to deal with. What'd Lope propose to do that you disagreed
with?"

"To fund them steady. To steal baby and bath."

"So?" said the Old Man. "Let 'em."

"We need our hand there."

"Boardwalk's underwater at high tide now."

"Prop, Dad. The Green's all prop. Dark and black. Property
doesn't negate."

"Does when it's at the bottom of the fuckin' ocean."

"The line's bottomed," said Mister Dryden. "You know their
weeklies. As stands we sit and give. Mariel takes. We get nada."

"Don't need it."

"Nada funds that could keep you Bronxing. "

"Don't need to sink money in new aquariums. There's plenty
yet to cash in."

"Not overlong," said Mister Dryden. "We can't Bronx it much
longer. "

"The fuck we can't."

"But Atlantic City is-"

"Shit. If Lope's boys want it, if Mariel has it, it doesn't mean
horseshit to me."

"Mow or be mown, Dad. Money them now and we'll spend
later. "

"Will we?"

"I say gut it and I say rollaway."

"You don't dig, son. We'll be Bronxing long after we're both
gone. There's buildings up there you couldn't build now even
with my money. A brand new city-"

Mister Dryden rested his head in his hands; by his pallor I
could guess that he would need refreshers, soon.

"Trees along every street, son," continued the Old Man. "Give
Bronx forty years. There'll be more money comin' in than a thou sand accountants could steal. It's a big dream, sure, but a solid
one-"

"An insane one," said Mister Dryden.

The Old Man stroked Stella's legs, sat on his pillow, and stared
at his son. "And I suppose you'd say the dream's crazy as the
dreamer?"

Mister Dryden said nothing.

"I'd hate to hear accusations 'bout my sanity comin' from a
hophead like you."

"Errored!" Mister Dryden's knuckles whitened as he gripped
the pillows on which he lay.

"Lately all you been doin's sittin' around replacin' the land's
fat with your own. If you weren't shittin' your pants all the time
about somebody gettin' something we don't want for prices we
won't pay you might get something done sometime. But no, you
just sit on your ass, doin' reckers, fuckin' around--

"Trying to keep the company at peak roll-"

"I don't know about that, son. Just don't know at all."

"Know what?"

"Don't know how much longer I can keep a hophead runnin'
everything," said the Old Man. "I just might have to start gettin'
more involved with workin' that day-to-day shit again. I'm startin' to think all of this might be havin' a bad effect on you."

"You're speaking both sides now-"

"Yeah, I might just have to realign things. Set it up so you
won't have so much pressure on you. Make it so you won't have
to do anything more complicated than takin' a shit. You think
you can handle that?"

"Fucking old-"

"Probably not. Well, I think I can handle everything else. Been
years but an old dog doesn't forget his tricks-"

"Tricks he never knew."

"How's that, son?"

"Mother'd do the tricks," said Mister Dryden, "And you'd
beg the scraps-"

They each looked ready to go at one another; I readied myself
to move. Neither had weapons more sharp than forks or butter
knives in reach, but those could be enough if aimed properly.

"Can I go shopping?"Avalon asked suddenly, interrupting,
wiping egg yolk from the corners of her mouth. "I'd love to hang
around and watch you two go at it all day but-"

"Course you can, darlin'," said the Old Man. "We always
work out our disagreements better in private anyhow. Don't we,
son?"

Mister Dryden's eyes flickered toward me, and then to Avalon
again. "You'll need guarding. O'Malley. Shield."

I nodded, and stood. Breakfast broke up; the white panel lowered to the kitchen below. Avalon went upstairs to change. As I
stood in the front hall waiting for her return, Mister Dryden came
up.

"Are you all right?" I asked.

"See my meaning?" he asked, shaking his head. "Batbrained.
Absolute. "

I agreed, thinking it safest to so do.

"We'll continue in the study," he said. "I'll exit pronto, sure,
beforehand."

"Good. "

"All set?" he asked.

"AO."

"Know the spot?" I nodded. "Six weeks hence," he said,
clapping his hand on my shoulder. "Fun it up."

Avalon descended the stairs, all vision and delight. She was
wigless, and wore a chartreuse sweater, over-the-knee brown boots
with flat heels, and buttock-tight Pretty Poison jeans. She clutched
her large shoulder bag against her right side.

"I got my money," she said, patting her hip; that she could
have fit anything into her pockets was surprising. "Ready?"

"Set."

We strolled out as if setting forth on a spring cruise-we were,
after all. Butch waited outside, standing next to one of the older
cars, a dark blue Plymouth that I believed Mister Dryden learned
to ride in. We climbed into the back, pulling the doors shut. As
we drove down the drive Avalon pressed the button that raised
the shield separating our compartment from the front.

"Why isn't Jimmy driving us?" she asked.

"I told you Mister Dryden doesn't trust him," I said. "I think
he wants to keep him in sight."

"What's Butch know?"

"Nothing, I gather. He'll drop us off in time to be called back
up here. "

Avalon smiled, resting her hand on my knee. I stroked her long
fingers.

"What about luggage?"

"There're suitcases for us on the plane." We were to take a
Dryco jet from the Aeroflot terminal at Newark, nonstop to Leningrad.

"Where are we staying once we get there?"

"One of Gorky-Detroit's reps keeps a dacha twenty miles out
of town. I'm told it's very nice."

"We won't be in the city?" she asked. "I get enough of the
fuckin' country over here. We should go to London."

"Too many riots," I said. "You'll be able to shop, don't
worry. "

Butch eyed us through the rearview; I surreptitiously moved
her hand away from my knee. She, as subtly, replaced it. For a
moment, I wondered our compartment was tapped; it seemed unlikely. None of the older cars had bugs as standard equipment
and I didn't think that either Dryden would have bothered to have
Jimmy install one.

"You'll keep warm," I said.

"You'll keep me warm," she said, inching her hand higher up my leg. We turned down the road leading to the Saw Mill. Not
until our feet trod Russian ground would I feel absolutely certain,
or absolutely safe; still, I was with Avalon, now and hereafter,
and all that I'd had to do was kill someone against whom I had
nothing personally, someone who might have done something to
someone sometime. I put my arm around her waist and moved
closer, forcing my mind to stray to where it should.

"Have any trouble this morning?" she asked, her voice lower.
Butch had turned on the radio, and it was hard to hear her over
what, at first listen, seemed to be static, but after prolonged exposure revealed itself as one of those songs writ by chip and
program.

"No."

"Why didn't you get into bed with me?" she asked.

"When?"

"This morning," she said. "I guess it wouldn't have been so
safe, but still-"

"You were awake?"

"Of course. Cold as Pops keeps that tomb you think I usually
sleep without covers? I wanted to attract your attention-"

"You did. When'd you wake up?"

"When you went downstairs. Why'd you just look at me?"

"I was-" Her eyes fixed me again; snake for the bird, as Enid
would say. "Seemed safer to wait."

"I suppose. I'd have had to stay quiet. I hate that," she said,
frowning. "You set the timer correctly?"

"Of course."

She smiled; slyness washed her features. She stroked my chin
with her fingers.

"Didn't shave," she said. "Nice."

Had the panel separating our compartments been opaque I should
have taken her down to the floor just then.