Rez stared at her.
“I think is not good, here to discuss the business,” the Russian said, rubbing his birthmark. “But I am Starkov, Yevgeni.” He extended his hand, and Chia noticed the laser-scars again. Rez shook it.
Chia thought she heard the big man groan.
“1 used to watch him in Dayton,” Maryalice said, as if that proved something.
The big man took a small phone from his pocket with his free hand, squinted at the call-display, and put it to his left ear. Which Chia now saw was missing. I-Ic listened. “Ta,” lie said, and lowered the phone. He moved to the window, the one (ha had found behind 204 WiIIi~im Gibson the waliscreen, and stood looking out. “Better have a look at this, Rozzer,” he said.
Rez joined him. She saw Rez touch the monocle. “What are they doing, Keithy? What is it?”
“It’s your funeral,” the big man said.
205 41. Candlelight and Tears Office windows flickered past, very close, beyond the earthquake-bandaged uprights of the expressway. Taller buildings gave way to a lower sprawl, then something bright in the middle distance: HOTEL KING MIDAS. The dashboard map began to bleep.
“Third exit right,” Laney said, watching the cursor. He felt her
accelerate and heard the speed-limit warning kick in. Another glittering sign: FREEDOM SHOWER BANFF.
“Laney-san,” Yamazaki asked, around the headrest. “Did you apprehend any suggestion of Rez’s death or other misfortune?”
“No, but I wouldn’t, not unless there was a degree of intentionality that would emerge from the data. Accidents, actions by anyone who isn’t represented. . .” The clanging stopped as she slowed, approaching the exit indicated on the map. “But I saw their data as streams, merging, and whatever it was merging around seemed to be where we’re going.”
Arleigh made the exit. They were on the off-ramp now, swinging through a curve, and Laney saw three young girls, their shoes clumped with mud, descending a sharp slope planted with some kind of pale rough grass. One of them seemed to be wearing a school uniform: kneesocks and a short plaid skirt. They looked unreal, in the harsh sodium light of the intersection, but then Arleigh stopped the van and Laney turned to see the road in front of them completely blocked by a silent, unmoving crowd. “Jesus,” Arleigh said. “The fans.” 267 If there were boys in the crowd, Laney didn’t see them. It was a level sea of glossy black hair, every girl facing the white building that rose there, with its white, brilliantly illuminated sign framed by something meant to represent a coronet: HOTEL DI. Arleigh powered down her window and Laney heard the distant wail of a siren.
“We’ll never get through,” Laney said. Most of the girls held a single candle, and the combined glow danced among the tear-streaked faces. They were so young, these girls: children. Kathy Torrance had particularly loathed that about Lo/Rez, the way their fan-base had refreshed itself over the years with a constant stream of pubescent recruits, girls who fell in love with Rez in the endless present of the net, where he could still be the twenty-year-old of his earliest hits.
“Pass me that black case,” Arleigh said, and Laney heard Yamazaki scrabbling through the bubble-pack. A flat rectangular carrying case appeared between the seats. Laney took it. “Open it,” she said. Laney undid the zip, exposing something flat and gray. The Lo/Rez logo on an oblong sticker. Arleigh pulled it from its case, put it on the dashboard, and ran her finger around its edge, looking for a switch. LO/REZ, mirror-reversed in large, luminous green letters, appeared on the windshield. **TOuR SUPPORT VEHICLE**. The asterisks began to flash.
Arleigh let the van roll forward a few inches. The girls directly in front turned, saw the windshield, and stepped aside. Silently, gradually, a few feet at a time, the crowd parted for the van.
Laney looked out across the black, center-parted heads of the grieving fans and saw the Russian, the one from the Western World, still in his white leather evening jacket, struggling through the crowd. The girls’ heads came barely to his waist, and he looked as though he were wading through black hair and candle-glow. The expression on his face was OflC Of confusion, almost of terror, but when he saw Laney at the window of the green van, he grima’ed and changed course, heading straight for them. 268 WillIam Gibson Chia looked out and saw that the rain had stopped. Beyond the chainlink fence, the parking lot was full of small, unmoving figures holding candles. A few of them were standing on the tops of the trucks parked there, and there seemed to be more on the roof of the low building behind. Girls. Japanese girls. All of them seemed to be staring at the Hotel Di.