There is a large window between the two elevators, draped ceiling to floor in nubby ocher fabric. Beside this is an upright glass cooler stocked with champagne, mineral water, what must be several exceptionally well-chilled bottles of burgundy, and much Pepsi. Waiting for the elevator, Cayce edges the ocher nubbiness aside and sees ancient-looking apartment buildings, white spires, and one amazing crenellated orange-and-turquoise bell tower. In the deeper distance, golden onion domes.
This, she decides, is the direction she's going now.
No one at all in the vast main lobby, not even a girl in green boots.
She finds her way out, past the security cave with its wide boys in
Kevlar, and tries to walk around the block, so that she'll be headed in the direction of those onion domes.
And is lost, almost immediately. But doesn't mind, as she's only out here to walk off an excess of nerves. And at some point, she reminds herself, to phone Parkaboy.
But why is she hesitating to do that? The reason, she admits, is that she knows she'll have to tell him about Bigend, and Boone, and the rest of it, and she's afraid to, afraid of what he might say. But if she doesn't, their friendship, which she values deeply, will start to cease to feel genuine.
She stops, staring at the streetscape of this old residential neighborhood, and is acutely aware of her mind doing the but-really-it's-like thing it does when presented with serious cultural novelty: but really it's like Vienna, except it isn't, and really it's like Stockholm, but it's not, really…
She wanders on, feeling like a child anxiously playing hooky, occasionally glancing up in case she finds the golden onions, until her phone starts to ring.
Feeling guilty, she answers. "Yes?"
"Everything. Now."
"I was just going to call you."
"Have you met him?"
"No."
"Are you going to?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"This evening, five o'clock, in either a restaurant or a coffee bar, I'm not sure."
"You can't meet him in Starbucks."
"It's not a Starbucks. I'm not sure they even have Starbucks."
"They will."
"Parkaboy?" It feels strange, to say his name. His handle, really. Suddenly it feels stranger still to remember that she doesn't know his name.
"Yes?"
"I have to tell you something."
A pause, on his end. "You're carrying our child."
"This is serious—"
"I'll say. It's probably an Internet first."
"No. I'm working for somebody."
"I thought you were working for that lethally pomo ad agency."
"I'm working for someone who has an interest in finding the maker. Someone who's backing me. That was how I could afford to go to Tokyo, and meet with Taki."
"So? Who?"
"Do you know who Hubertus Bigend is?"
"Spelled 'big,' and 'end'?"
"Yes."
"Founder and owner of said agency?"
"Yes."
"'Bullshit baffles brains' taken to new levels in the celebrity interview?"
"That's the one. And I'm working for him. Or, he says, with him. But it's gotten me here. It gave me the money I needed to get the address that got me here."
Silence.
"I've been afraid you'd hate me," she tells him.
"Don't be ridiculous. You're still having our child, aren't you?"
"I feel like a shit for not having told you."
"If you're about to meet the maker, and you're still talking to me, I really don't care what manner or number of goats you've had to blow to get there. And anyone you've had to kill in the process, I'll help get rid of the bodies."
"You're not just saying that?"
"I'm saying it, aren't I? What else do you want? Should I be carving it into my arm with a broken acrylic nail?" He falls silent. Then: "But what does your Mr. Bigend want with our maker?"
"He says he doesn't know. He says that the footage is the cleverest example of marketing the century's seen so far. He says he wants to know more. I think he might even be telling the truth."
"Stranger things have happened, I suppose. Least of my worries, right now."
"What are your worries, then?"
"How I'm going to get there. Whether my passport, when I find it, if I can find it, is still valid. Whether I can swing a deal for a quick ticket that won't require a mortgage."
"Are you serious?"
"What do you think?"
A blond, entirely Californian-looking nanny passes Cayce, leading a small, dark-haired Russian boy with a red balloon. She glances at Cayce and hurries the child along.
Cayce remembers Sylvie Jeppson, the two of them leaving the Russian Consulate. "You'll need a visa," she tells Parkaboy, "and you can get one fast if you pay extra, but you won't need a ticket. There's a woman named Sylvie Jeppson, at Blue Ant in London. I'm going to call her and give her your number. She'll find the quickest flight and have your ticket waiting at O'Hare. And I know this seems completely insane, but I need your name. I don't actually know it."
"Thornton Vaseltarp."
"Sorry?"
"Gilbert."
"Gilbert?"
"Peter Gilbert. Parkaboy. You'll get used to it. What's the bottom line on this flight to Moscow?"
"There isn't any. I'm covered for expenses. You
"Thank you."
