Part 20 (1/2)

But Claudia was one of those people thought everything south of D.C. was all just the same, or maybe she just pretended to to tease him.

But at night it smelled like salt and magnolia and swamp, and they'd drive around in that Lincoln with the windows down and listen to the radio. When it got dark you could watch the lights on s.h.i.+ps, and on the big bulk-lifters that went 165.

drumming past like the world's slowest UFOs. They'd maybe get in a little listless boogy in the back seat, sometimes, but Claudia said it just got you too sweaty in Florida and Rydell tended to agree. It was just they were both down there and alone and there wasn't much else to do.

One night they were listening to a country station out of Georgia and 'Me And Jesus'll Whup Your Heathen a.s.s' came on, this hardsh.e.l.l Pentecostal Metal thing about abortion and ayatollahs and all the rest of it. Claudia hadn't ever heard that one before and she about wet her pants, laughing.

She just couldn't believe that song. When she'd gotten hold of herself and wiped the tears out of her eyes, she'd asked Rydell why he wanted to be a policeman anyway? And he'd felt kind of uncomfortable about that, because it was like she thought his going to the Academy was funny, too, as funny as she thought that dumb-a.s.s song was. But also because it wasn't actually something he'd thought about, much.

The truth was, it probably had a lot to do with how he and his father had always watched Cops in Trouble together, because that show seriously did teach you respect. You got to see what kind of problems the police were flat up against. Not just tooled-up slimeb.a.l.l.s high on s.h.i.+t, either, but the slimeb.a.l.l.s' lawyers and the d.a.m.n courts and everything. But if he told her it was because of a tv show, he knew she'd just laugh at that, too. So he thought about it a while and told her it was because he liked the idea of being in a position to help out people when they were really in trouble. When he'd said that, she just looked at him.

'Berry,' she said, 'you really mean that, don't you?'

'Sure,' he said, 'guess I do.'

'But Berry, when you're a cop, people are just going to lie to you. People will think of you as the enemy. The only time they'll want to talk to you is when they're in trouble.'

Driving, he glanced sideways at her. 'How come you know SO much about it, then?'

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'Because that's what my father does,' she said, end of :onversation, and she never did bring it up again~ But he'd thought about that, driving Gunhead for IntenSecure, because that was like being a top except it wasn't. The people you were there to help didn't even give enough of a s.h.i.+t to lie to you, mostly, because they were the ones paying the bill.

And here he was, out on this bridge, craw~ing out from under a fruitstand to follow this girl that ~Varbaby and Freddie-who Rydell was coming to decide lie didn't trust worth a rat's a.s.s-claimed had butchered that German or whatever he was up in that hotel. And stolen these gla.s.ses Rydell was supposed to get back, ones like Wa:baby's. But if she'd stolen them before, how come she'd gone back to kill the guy later? But the real question was, what did that have to do with anything, or even with watching Cops in Trouble all those times with his father? And the answer, he guessed, was that he, like anybody else in his position, was just trying to make a living.

Solid streams of rain were coming down cut of various points in all that jackstraw stuff upstairs, sphs.h.i.+ng on the deck. There was a pink flash, like lightning, off down the bridge. He thought he saw her fling something t the side, but if he stopped to check it out he might lose her. She was moving now, avoiding the waterfalls.

Street-surveillance technique wasn't something you got much training in, at the Academy, not unless yu looked like such good detective material that they streamlined you right into the Advanced CI courses. But Rydell bad gone and bought the textbook anyway. Trouble was, because of that he knew you pretty well needed at least one partnei to do it with, and that was a.s.suming you had a radio link anc some citizens going about their business to give you a little uver. I)oing it this way, how he had to do it now, about the best you could hope for was just to sneak along behind her.

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He knew it was her because of that crazy hair, that ponytail ;tuck up in the back like one of those fat j.a.panese wrestlers. The wasn't fat, though. Her legs, sticking out of a big old biker jacket that might've been hanging in a barn for a couple of years, looked like she must work out a lot. They were covered with some tight s.h.i.+ny black stuff, like Kevin's micropore outfits from Just

Blow Me, and they went down into some kind of dark boots or high-top shoes.

Paying that much attention to her, and trying to stay out of sight in case she turned around, he managed to walk right under one of those waterfalls. Right down the back of his neck. Just then he heard somebody call to her, 'Chev, that you?' and he went down on one knee in a puddle, behind this stack of salvaged lumber, two-by-fours with soggy plaster sticking to them. ID positive.

The waterfall behind him was making too much noise for him to hear what was said then, but he could see them: a young guy with a black leather jacket, a lot newer than hers, and somebody else in something black, with a hood pulled up. They were sitting up on a cooler or something, and the guy with the leather was dragging on a cigarette. Had his hair combed up in sort of a crest; good trick, in that rain. The cigarette arced out and winked off in the wet, and the guy got down from there and seemed to be talking to the girl. The one with the black hood got down, too, moving like a spider. It was a sweats.h.i.+rt, Rydell saw, with sleeves that hung down six inches past his hands.

He looked like a floppy shadow from some old movie Rydell had seen once, where shadows got separated from people and you had to catch them and sew them back on. Probably Sublett could tell him what that was called.

He worked hard on not moving, kneeling there in that puddle, and then they were moving, the two of them on either side of her and the shadow glancing hack to check behind them. He caught a fraction of white face and a pair of hard, careful eyes.

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He counted: one, two, three. Then he got up and followed them.

He couldn't say how far they'd gone before he saw them drop, it looked like, straight out of sight. He wiped rain from his eyes and tried to figure it, but then he saw that they'd gone down a flight of stairs, this one cut into the lower deck, which was the first time he'd seen that. He could hear music as he came up on it, and see this bluish glow. Which proved to be from this skinny little neon sign that said, in blue capital letters: COGNITIVE DISSIDENTS.

He stood there for a second, hearing water sizzle off the sign's transformer, and then he just took those stairs.

They were plywood, stapled with that sandpapery no-slip stuff, but he almost slipped anyway. By the time he'd gotten halfway to the bottom, he knew it was a bar, because he could smell beer and a couple of different kinds of smoke.

And it was warm, down there. It was like walking into a steam bath. And crowded. Somebody threw a towel at him. It was soaking wet and hit him in the chest, but he grabbed it and rubbed at his hair and face with it, tossed it back in the direction it had come from. Somebody else, a woman by the sound, laughed. He went over to the bar and found an empty s.p.a.ce at the end. Fished in his soggy pockets for a couple of fives and clicked them down on the counter. 'Beer,' he said, and didn't look up when somebody put one down in front of him and swept the coins out of sight. It was one of those brewed-in-America j.a.panese brands that people in places like Tampa didn't drink much.

He closed his eyes and drank about half of it at a go. As he opened his eyes and put it down, somebody beside him said 'Tumble?'

He looked over and saw this jawless character with little pink gla.s.ses and a little pink mouth, thinning sandy hair comhed straight back and s.h.i.+ning with something more than the damp in the rooni.

'What?' Rydell said.

'I said ”tumble.”'

'I heard you,' Rydell said.

'So? Need the service?'

'Uh, look,' Rydell said, 'all I need right now's this beer, okay?'

'Your phone,' the pink-mouthed man said. 'Or fax. Guaranteed tumble, one month. Thirty days or your next thirty free. Unlimited long, domestic. You need overseas, we can talk overseas. But three hundred for the basic tumble.' All of this coming out in a buzz that reminded Rydell of the kind of voice-chip you got in the cheapest possible type of kid's toy.

'Wait a sec,' Rydell said.

The man blinked a couple of times, behind his pink gla.s.ses.

'You talking about doing that thing to a pocket phone, right? Where you don't have to pay the company?'

The man just looked at him.

'Well, thanks,' Rydell said, quickly. 'I appreciate it, but I just don't have any phone on me. If I did, I'd be happy to take you up on it.'

Still looking at him. 'Thought I saw you before ...' Doubt.

'Naw,' Rydell said. 'I'm from Knoxville. Just come in out of the rain.' He decided it was time to risk turning around and checking the place out, because the mirrors behind the bar were steamed up solid and running with drops. He swung his shoulder around and saw that j.a.panese woman, the one he'd seen that time up in the hills over Hollywood, when he'd been cruising with Sublett. She was standing up on a little stage, naked, her long curly hair falling around her to her waist. Rydell heard himself grunt.

'Hey,' the man was saying, 'hey...'

Rydell shook himself, a weird automatic thing, like a wet dog, hut she was still there.