Finally she’d put it back in her bag, hearing him coming up the stairs from the kitchen. Which was where it was now, along with her Sandbenders, under her arm, as they entered the station. Which was probably not smart but she just didn’t know.
She used Kelsey’s cashcard to buy them both tickets. 126 William Gibson There was a fax ftom Rydell waiting for Laney when Blackwell dropped him at the hotel. It had been printed on expensive-looking gray letterhead that contrasted drastically with the body of the fax itself, which had been sent from a Lucky Dragon twenty-four-hour convenience store on Sunset. The smiling Lucky Dragon, blowing smoke from its nostrils, was centered just below the hotel’s silver-embossed logo, something Laney thought of as the Droopy Evil Elf Hat. Whatever it was supposed to be, the hotel’s decorators were very fond of it. It formed a repeating motif in the lobby, and Laney was glad that it didn’t seem to have reached the guest rooms yet.
Rydell had hand-printed his fax with a medium-width fiber-pen in scrupulously neat block capitals. Laney read it in the elevator.
It was addressed to C. LANEY, GUESt
I THINK THEY KNOW WHERE YOU ARE. SHE AND THE
DAY MANAGER HAD COFFEE IN THE LOBBY AND HE
KEPT LOOKING AT ME. HE COULD’VE CHECKED THE
PHONE LOG EASY. WISH I HADN’T CALLED YOU THERE.
SORRY. ANYWAY, THEN SHE AND THE OTHERS CHECKED
OUT FAST, LEFT THE TECHS TO PACK UP. A TECH
TOLD GHENGIS IN THE GARAGE THAT SOME OF THEM
WERE ON THEIR WAY TO JAPAN AND HE WAS GLAD HE
WASN’T, WATCH OUT, OKAY? RYDELL
0 2 127 19. Arleigh “Okay,” Laney said, and remembered how he’d walked to the Lucky Dragon one night, against Rydell’s advice, because he couldn’t sleep. There were scary-looking bionic hookers posted every block or so, but otherwise it hadn’t felt too dangerous. Someone had painted a memorial mural toJ. D. Shapely on one side of the Lucky Dragon, and the management had had the good sense to leave it there, culturally integrating their score into the actual twenty-four-hour life of the Strip. You could buy a burrito there, a lottery ticket, batteries, tests for various diseases. You could do voice-mail, e-mail, send faxes. It had occurred to Laney that this was probably the only store for miles that sold anything that anyone ever really needed; the others all sold things that he couldn’t even imagine wanting.
He re-read the fax, walking down the corridor, and used the cardkey to open his door.
There was a shallow wicker basket on the bed, spread with white tissue and unfamiliar objects. On closer inspection, these proved to be his socks and underwear, freshly laundered and arranged in little paper holders embossed with the Elf Hat. He opened the narrow, mirrored closet door, activating a built-in light, and discovered his shirts arranged on hangers, including the blue button-downs Kathy Torrance had made fun of. They looked brand new. He touched one of the lightly starched cuffs. “Stitch count,” he said. He looked down at Rydell’s folded fax. He imagined Kathy Torrance headed straight for him, on an SST from Los Angeles. He discovered that he couldn’t imagine her sleeping. He’d never seen her asleep and somehow it didn’t seem like something she’d willingly do. In the weird vibrationless quiet of supersonic flight, she’d be staring at the gray blank of the window, or at the screen of her computer.
Thinking of him.
The screen behind him came on with a soft chime and he jumped, four inches, straight up. He turned and saw the BBC logo. Yarnazaki’s second video.
. . a 128 %Niflia.n Gibson He was a third of the way through it when the door chimed. Ret was strolling along a narrow trail in the jungle somewhere, wearing sun-bleached khakis and rope-soled sandals. He was singing something as he went, a wordless little melody, over and over, trying different tones and stresses. His bare chest shone with sweat, and when the open shirt swung aside you’d catch a corner of his I Ching tattoo. He had a length of bamboo, and swung it as he walked, swatting at dangling vines. Laney had a sneaking suspicion that the wordless melody had subsequently turned into some global billion-seller, but he couldn’t place it yet. The door chimed again.