Midnight Lamp (20 page)

Mr Eiffrich took the envelope. ‘The possibility of a connection between Rufus O’Niall and the hostage-taking was investigated. It’s an obvious issue.’

‘Yeah, but humour me. Ax was taken hostage, supposedly by a bunch of amateurs, coincidentally leaving England open to attack. The ringleader, the Brazilian João, is still at large, and
you
may have a problem with so-called black magic. I don’t know, but it’s suggestive. I thought your private network in the enforcement agencies might check this out, if it’s still possible.’

‘Ax wants me to pursue this?’

I killed the bastard who tortured my Fiorinda, thought Sage. I’d like a few minutes alone with the bastard who did the same to my beautiful guitar-man. No, no, perish the thought (also I’d probably get stuffed). This is not revenge.

‘Ax doesn’t know. Ax thinks the kidnapping was his own stupid fault, and that he’s to blame for what happened in England when he didn’t come home. I’d like to be able to tell him he didn’t fall, he was pushed.’

Mr Eiffrich gave Sage a hard, wondering look. He stood, went to an antique library desk, and locked the envelope away. ‘Leave it with me.’ He came back to the fire, and announced, sternly. ‘We’re completely private in here.’

‘If you say so, Mr President.’

‘However,’ The president cleared his throat, passed a hand through his rusty, thinning hair and continued at speed, ‘The Bellevue estate is fully surveilled, and I’m informed at once of anomalies.’ He touched the earpiece of his glasses, ‘By an AI. So that’s fine, that’s okay. No human agency. But I can’t
guarantee
no one will walk around the trees. I consider Ax Preston a personal friend of mine. I’m not saying anything against a very brave young lady, but I thought your affair with your friend’s wife was a thing of the past.’

Sage put his hands in his pockets.

‘I know this is not my business,’ exclaimed Mr Eiffrich. ‘European
mores
are different, the heart has its reasons, I understand, but
it is
vital
that you, Ax, and Fiorinda present a united front. Call it hypocrisy, naiveté, but that’s what the American people will expect. I’m not passing a moral judgement, I’m not threatening to tell tales. But could you for God’s sake be more discreet?’

‘Thank you, Mr Eiffrich. I’ll take that as a friendly warning.’

‘Good.’ Mr Eiffrich took his seat, and ran a hand through his hair again, only succeeding in tousling it further. ‘Sage, I’m sorry I had to… We really should talk. We have a lot to say to each other, and I’m glad—’

‘No worries. Thanks fer your time. Got to go now.’

The younger crowd had gathered in the billiards room, drinking champagne and chattering, around a closely contested game. Fiorinda kept to the edge of the group, knocking back champagne (which helped her temper) and listening carefully to these inner circle juveniles. They knew the buzzwords: Crisis Europe, fusion consciousness, mind/matter revolution, but they would, wouldn’t they? She couldn’t spot anything out of place. Kathryn was sitting by Harry, where she could laugh at his jokes: Fiorinda had caught her gazing secretly, whenever the dandy young producer was looking the other way.

Oh dear, poor Lurch. I hope that’s not too deep, because it looks painful.

Lurch was Kathryn’s online handle. Fiorinda was debating, irrisistibly, if there was any way she could safely
tweak
things for her friend, when the gilded youths close to her fell silent. Sage came stalking up, graceful and intimidating. She’d seen the tiger and the wolf prowling together, earlier, and wondered if she should tell them they were scaring people: but it would only have made them worse.

‘Hi, Sage,’ piped up one bold gilded youthette.

‘Hi,’ said Sage, destroying the girl with a glance.

He looked dangerous. ‘How are you?’ asked Fiorinda, cautiously.

‘Pharmacologically starved. You had enough?’

‘Yes. Let’s find Ax and tell him we’re leaving’

‘Ax is fine, he has his meeting, let’s you and me just go.’

On their way out they crossed paths with Lou Branco: who pretended not to see them, and said to the woman with him. ‘Fred ought to get himself a better party organiser. Someone who knows you don’t have to invite the whole town.’

They had to wait to get the Rugrat out of bond, in a stark hangar where they were doubtless getting scanned again, and militarised flunkies stood at present arms. Sage drove without being asked, they swept down from the hills in a dazzling twilight. Neither of them said a word until they hit the LA grid, and the unacceptable face of car culture reasserted itself.

‘What shall we do?’ asked Sage, restlessly, as they crawled, nose to tail, nose to tail, nose to tail as far as the eye could fucking see. ‘Back to the house?’

‘No.’

‘Want to look for an immix theatre an’ do some research?’

‘I don’t want to
think
about movies.’

‘Okay, got an idea. Let’s find the Steel Door, and see how Chip and Ver make out with the local heroes. But first
I want a drink.’

The Steel Door was a hot club where Chip and Ver, in their techno-duo identity as the Adjuvants, were guesting tonight.

‘Fine,’ said Fiorinda, recognising a lost cause. ‘Beer, not vodka.’

‘Deal.’

‘But not more than three per cent?’

Mysteriously, this was a terrible thing to say. It earned her a truly
savage
look, like the living skull of old breaking through the veil of flesh.

‘
Fuck
that.’

She hadn’t realised how much she missed the mask…

‘Okay, just don’t blame me when you throw up. Let’s see if we can get the Rugrat to find us a nice bar.’

The Rugrat adamantly refused to find them a nice bar, unless they answered a multiple-choice questionnaire designed to prove you were sober now and wouldn’t dream of driving after taking liquor; not even on automatic. Ax and Sage had omitted to disable this wrinkle back in Mexico (they hadn’t been thinking about alcohol). Once they’d started trying to answer the stupid questions the Rat would not let them switch it off… In the end they parked on the street, vaguely in the region of the Steel Door. Unlike Ax, they weren’t trying to grasp the geography. The City of the Plain was just
there
, in varying states, when you left the freeways. They found a bar that was quiet, froze out the friendly waitress, and drank Sam Adams.

‘Are they supposed to be doing the Steel Door gig, or is it samizdat?’

‘Dunno. I’ve lost track.’

Harry’s radical rockstars weren’t supposed to take gigs without his approval, but they did: which paniced the golden boy. Sage stared gloomily, Fiorinda chugged her frosty beer, and it was good.

‘Cheer up. It could be worse. We could
really
be trying to get into the movies, like the futile post-career rockstars that we are, and still fucking it up.’

‘Hahaha.’ He stopped glowering and grinned: a tingling warmth ran through her. What, is this life returning? ‘I love you, Fiorinda, because you are so wise.’

‘What happened at the party? Did something bad happen?’

‘Something and nothing. I had a couple of things I wanted to say to President Eiffrich.’

‘The cocaine?’

‘Yeah, and something else, something I thought of: which I didn’t get round to,’ He lifted his glass, and she saw that his left hand was bare, a pale band where the braided gold should be.

‘
Sage,
what happened to your ring?’

‘Oh, it’s okay, it’s in my pocket.’

Fiorinda trembled. ‘W-why did you take it off? Is it something to do with me?’

‘Hey, hey, stupid brat, come back. Look, here it is.’ Sage produced the ring, and put it on. ‘See. Ring is on finger… I took it off because,’ He twisted the braided gold, his beautiful mouth downturned, childishly wounded. ‘I was chatting with the President, an’ he told me his cameras had spotted me kissing the boss’s girl. He said could I for God’s sake be more discreet.’

‘But why did you
take off your ring
? Why didn’t you
explain
!’

‘Didn’t feel like it. If he’s the only person in California who hasn’t heard about the intriguing fucking ménage à trois by now—’

The waitress came over with refills. ‘I took it off because he’d accused me of cheating on Ax,’ said Sage, when she’d gone again. ‘An’ it’s true, I did.’

‘Yeah, so did I. I still think there was wrong on both sides, too. Get over it Sage. What do you want? A medal for being sorry that we screwed around?’

‘Vicious brat. You’re always so good to me when I’m in trouble.’

‘You’re
not
in trouble. Well, not with Ax… Only with a huge Hollywood money man, and oh, the leader of the free world, and the golden boy, and of course the monster that’s stalking Hollywood.’

He shook his head, sank half the refill, and signalled for another. ‘I can’t talk to him,’ he said miserably, twisting the ring, eyes down. ‘He…he doesn’t want me. He thinks I’m not human any more, that I’m not his big cat. I didn’t realise, I thought it was because we were both so screwed up, fucked over, destroyed, exhausted, but now I do… Shit, I shouldn’t be talking to you like this. Forget it.’

‘Hohoho,’ said Fiorinda, ‘Aoxomoxoa, this uncertainty is so ridiculous, so unwarranted, I think you must be in love.’

Colour burned across his cheekbones, which looked
enchanting
. ‘Fuck off.’

Around the Steel Door there were street barricades, broken roadways and not much lighting apart from oil-drum fires. Nevertheless a crowd of swanky autos were being taken away by armed flunkies, and a crush of people in designer evening dress at the plate-metal doors. They handed over the Rat, joined the line, and all went well until they hit the door police.

‘Excuse me, mizz, would you mind telling me how old you are?’

‘I’m twenty three.’

‘Can you prove that?’

‘What-?’

‘Do you have hard-copied photo ID?’

She did not. Photo-ID had not been required at Camp Bellevue. ‘Oh, come on. I do not look under eighteen! I wish I did.’

‘I’m sorry, mizz. No can do.’

‘I can’t believe this. I’m twenty three. Look, I have my driving, I mean, driver’s licence, with a photo, here on my phone, see?’

Sage stood back. He didn’t care if they got in or not, and he was very sure
step aside little lady, I’ll handle this
, would get him his head in his hands.

The door policeman grinned all over his fat face. ‘Sorry, lady. You have to be twenty-one to get in here, and if I question your age, you have the correct photo ID, hard copy, in your hand, or I can’t let you by. Sorry Fiorinda. Sorry big blond dude, we hate to spoil your evening. Please move to one side.’

Ah, fuck it. Leave gracefully
. She was moving, as directed, when she realised what the bloke had said. ‘Wait a minute. You called me Fiorinda. You
know who I am
, and you’re carding me? How does that work?’

‘It works in America. Don’t matter who you are. No ID, no get in.’

She should have let it go, or at least said nothing out loud.

‘Okay,
fine
. I’m leaving
,
and I wish you all the harm that’s good for you, sunshine. And I hope it’s plenty.’

Fiorinda heard a sharp intake of breath, and knew she was busted, but Sage didn’t say a word. Not a word, until they’d recovered the Rat, tipped the car-minder flunky heavily (despite his bastard colleague), and let the Rugrat take them, quickest route, back to the freeways.

‘What a wanker.’

‘Mm.’

‘Why are people such jerks? We should have said we were with the band.’

Sage offered no comment.

‘You’d better stop.’

He pulled off onto the shoulder, luckily there wasn’t much traffic in his way. Fiorinda tumbled out, fell on her hands and knees, and threw up. Sage took a water bottle, got down and waited until she was finished.

He handed her the bottle. ‘How long have you been doing that?’

Fiorinda crawled away from her vomit, and huddled under an Adopt A Highway sign, in the scrub and rubbish at the foot of the steep verge. ‘Drinking too much? Quite a while, I’m afraid. Since I was about ten.’

‘Cursing people.’

‘I didn’t do him any harm!’

‘I know.’ He took out a pack of greymarket Maryjanes and lit one. ‘I heard the ingenious form of words. I asked you how long?’

‘I don’t know. A while. Since we came to Hollywood.’

‘Oh, Fiorinda—’

‘Please don’t
oh Fiorinda
me. Look, I’m not doing anything bad, or dangerous, give me credit. No changing the world, nothing happens that couldn’t happen, only tweaked a bit. It makes me feel better,
I need this
.’

‘Hm. You’ve discovered methadone.’ He sighed, and watched the Maryjane smoke rise. ‘Don’t bother, sweetheart. It just prolongs the agony.’

Fiorinda stared at him, in the cold, roadside light. ‘I am NOT addicted to magic, for God’s sake. I hate it. You always have to have been there, done that, don’t you? Why are you so fucking
mean
to me, whenever I’m in trouble?’

‘Hopefully, so you won’t have to visit the same abysmally stupid places I did. Did you curse the surveillance team?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered, hanging her head.

‘I should have known. And whoever had set them up?’

‘I… I may have done.’ She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. ‘Oh, shit, okay, you’re right. I screwed up, I have to stop, I’ll try, I will try—’

‘C’me here.’

‘Smelling of sick?’

‘Tuh. You’ve seen me face down in it often enough.’

He hugged her close, and the warmth of her skinny, resistant, reckless little body flooded him with painful joy. He loved the grown up Fiorinda, protector of the poor (sometimes known as Ax’s Fiorinda), but this was his wild child, soul mate, that he’d never hoped to hold again. ‘
Stupid brat,
’ he whispered, rocking her, ‘
stupid brat, it will be all right’.
But oh fuck, oh fuck… Fiorinda tugged his dinner jacket around her shoulders, and burrowed against his side.

‘It’s my fault if the movie’s dead.’

‘Don’t see that. It was Ax an’ me insisted on pissing around. If we’d jammed the signal, the way you said, there’d have been no problem.’