i68 ) 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 space 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 Japanese 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 glasses and a little pink mouth, thinning sandy hair comhed straight back and shining with something more than the damp in the rooni. ‘What?’ Rydell said. 169 ‘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 glasses. ‘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 Japanese 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. ‘Hey. Credit.’ The drone again. ‘Got prohlems? Maybe I 70 just wanna see what they’ve got on you? Anybody else, you got the right numbers-‘ ‘Hey,’ Rydell said, ‘wait up. That woman up there?’ The pink glasses tilted. ‘Who is that?’ Rydell asked. ‘That’s a hologram,’ the man said, in a completely different voice, and walked away. ‘Damn,’ said the bartender, behind him. ‘You just set a record for blowing off Eddie the Shit. Earned yourself a beer, my man.’ The bartender was a black guy with copper beads in his hair. He was grinning at Rydell. ‘Call him Eddie the Shit cause he ain’t worth one, don’t give another. Hook your phone up to some box doesn’t have a battery, push a few buttons, pass a dead chicken over it, take your money. That’s Eddie.’ He uncapped a beer and put it down beside the other one. Rydell looked back at the Japanese woman. She hadn’t moved. ‘I just came in out of the rain,’ he said, all he could think to say. ‘Good night for it,’ the bartender said. ‘Say,’ Rydell said, ‘that lady up there-‘ ‘That’s Josie’s dancer,’ the bartender said. ‘You watch. She’ll dance her in a minute, soon as there’s a song she likes.’ ‘Josie?’ The bartender pointed. Rydell looked where he was pointing. Saw a very fat woman in a wheelchair, her hair the color and texture of coarse steel wool. She wore brand-new blue denim bib overalls and an XXL white sweatshirt, and both her hands were hidden inside something that sat on her lap like a snоooth gray plastic muff. Her eyes were closed, face expressionless. He couldn’t have said for sure that she wasn’t asleep. ‘Hologram?’ The Japanese woman hadn’t moved at all. Rydell was remembering what he’d seen, that night. l’he