Cayce looks down at the Rickson's, sees the tape peeling where Dorotea burned it. She pulls the Rickson's off and hands it to the boy now fastening the strap of the blue helmet. Noticing a missing finger joint there against a flaming-eye decal. The boy puts the Rickson's on, zips it up, and hops on the scooter behind his partner, who's wearing Boone's helmet and parka. This one snaps the mirrored visor down, returns Boone's thumbs-up, and then they are gone.
"You've got blood on your forehead," Boone tells her.
"It's not mine," she says, touching it, feeling stickiness smear beneath her fingertips. Then: "I think I'm concussed. I might throw up. Or faint."
"It's okay. I'm here."
"Where did they go, with the bike?" The metal column of a traffic light, across the alley, furred with weird municipal techno-kipple, twins itself, dances, then comes together again.
"Back to see where those two are."
"They look like us."
"That's the idea."
"What if those men catch them?" '
"The idea was that they might wish they hadn't. But after what you did to them, they might not be up to much."
"Boone>"
"Yes?"
"What are you doing here'"
"Watching them watch you."
"Who are they?"
"I don't know yet. I think they're Italian. Did you get the number? Is it in the laptop?"
She doesn't answer.
- /
She holds a chilled can of vending-machine tonic water against the bump. Most of a pack of Kleenex-analog, splashed with tonic, has been used to sponge her forehead.
The cab negotiates a narrow lane. The back of a concrete apartment building, bristling unevenly with dozens of air conditioners. Motorcycles shrouded under gray fabric.
Boone Chu saying something in Japanese, but not to the driver. Speaking to his cellular headset. He looks back, through the cab's rear window. More Japanese.
"Have they found them?" she asks.
No.
"Where did Taki go?"
"Up the street, walking fast. Hung a left. He was the guy with the number?"
She resists the urge to check the palm of the hand holding the sweating can. What if the ink is running? "When did you get here?" Meaning Japan.
"Right behind you. I was in coach."
"Why?"
"We were followed, when we left the restaurant in Camden Town."
She looks at him.
"Young guy, brown hair, black jacket. Followed us to the canal. Watched us from up on the locks. With either a camera or a small pair of binoculars. Then he walked us back to the tube and stuck with me. Lost him in Covent Garden. He didn't make the lift."
This makes her think of the first time she'd read Sherlock Holmes. A one-legged Lascar seaman.
"Then you followed me?"
He says something in Japanese, into his headset. "I thought it would be a good idea to establish some kind of baseline in terms of what we've got here. Start from scratch. We're working for Bigend. Are the people following us working for Bigend? If not… ?"
"And?"
"No idea, so far. I coasted past our two here, last night, and they were speaking Italian. That was when you were on your way to the pink zone."
"What were they saying?"
"I don't speak Italian."
She lowers the tonic water. "Where are we going now?"
"The bike is following us, to make sure nobody else is. When we're positive of that, we'll go to a friend's apartment."
"They didn't find those men?"
"No. The one you head-butted is probably in a clinic now, getting his nose taped back into shape." He creases his forehead. "You didn't learn that studying marketing, did you?"
No.
"They might be Blue Ant, for all we know. You might have just broken the nose of a junior creative director."
"The next junior creative director who tries to mug you, you might break his nose too. But Italians who work in Tokyo ad agencies don't wear Albanian Prada knockoffs."
The cab is on some kind of metropolitan freeway now, curving past woods and ancient walls: the Palace. She remembers the paths she'd imagined, that morning, looking down from her room. She turns and looks back, trying to see the scooter, and discovers that her neck is painfully stiff. The walls and trees are beautiful but blank, concealing a mystery.
"They were trying to get your bag? The laptop from Blue Ant?"
"My purse is in there, my phone."
As if on cue, the Blue Ant phone starts to ring. She digs it out. "Hello?"
"Parkaboy. Remember me?"
"Things got complicated."
She hears him sigh, in Chicago. "It's okay. I live for fatigue poisons."
"We did meet," she tells him, wondering if Boone Chu can hear his side of the conversation. She's left the volume cranked, against Tokyo street noise, and regrets it.
"No doubt about that. He hasn't even waited to get back home. Straight into an Internet cafe and pouring out his heart to Keiko."
"I want to talk, but it has to be later. I'm sorry."
"He told Keiko he'd given it to you, so I wasn't too worried. E-mail me." Click.
"Friend?" Boone Chu takes the tonic water and helps himself to a sip.
"Footagehead. Chicago. He and his friend found Taki."
"You did get the number?"
